Sines of the Times

SINES OF THE TIMES TOM & CHRISTINE SINE

Imaginative Faith in Uncertain Times Ever since we raced into the 21st century it seems the rate of change has dramatically accelerated while the future has become increasingly uncertain. The first seven years of the new millennium have been characterized by terrorism/ war, natural disasters, and a growing volatility in our new global economy.

Change brings both challenges and opportunities, and it is helpful to be able to anticipate impending change, identify the new challenges, and imagine new ways to respond.

We have enjoyed being a part of the PRISM family. For our final column we would like to focus on some of those signs of change ahead, highlighting a trio of both trends and creative responses drawn from our most recent collaboration, The New Conspirators: Creating the Future One Mustard Seed at a Time, scheduled to be released by InterVarsity Press in February.

Time erosion/restoration Most churches and Christian organizations do long-range or strategic planning. The irony—and the tragedy—is that too many leaders approach planning as if the future will simply be an extension of the past.

For example, most churches we work with tend to operate with the assumption that people have the same amount of discretionary time today that they did in the ’80s and ’90s. But the reality is that our new global economy has made a cardinal virtue of efficiency, and consequently Americans are under a growing pressure to work harder and longer than ever before.The average employee is

working 10 hours more a week than 15 years ago, and this trend is likely to worsen. The creation of the 24/7 work week means that many of us functionally never leave work.

Add to this the global mall, which encourages us to spend more time online and on screen, plugged in and captivated by moving images and constant sound.

With the advent of YouTube and other self-promotional tools, many of us now spend increasing amounts of time not only consuming media but producing it.

All this results in a steady decline in the amount of time “left over” for the things we claim matter most—family, friends, church, and spiritual practices like witness and service.

In light of this growing pressure on people’s time, congregational leaders need to give serious attention to helping people imagine new ways to balance all the competing demands. We ask, “Has it ever occurred to you that God has a better way of life for you that is less stressed, more celebratory, and where you actually have time for the things that matter most?”

We propose that churches invite small groups to find God’s best for their lives.

This is done, first, by discerning God’s call on their lives through scripture, prayer, the needs of others, and their own giftedness/brokenness and then articulating and committing to writing their own “calling statement.” Second, over a period of weeks and with guidance from church leaders, participants can begin to reinvent their time-styles and lifestyles to match the nature of their calling and slowly begin to take back their lives, freeing up time for the things their statements reveal matter most to them.

As a consequence, many students expect to start off economically where their parents left off, but the reality is that they are entering a new global economy that is far different from that of their parents’ or grandparents’ generation. In actuality, they will spend a much larger percentage of their income on higher education, housing, and healthcare than previous generations and will thus have less time and fewer resources to invest in the work of God’s kingdom.

Those of us who work with college and career-age young people have a responsibility to put them in touch with a broad range of nontraditional alternatives to deal with these new challenges.

Let me offer one example: Brent and Melinda, a Christian couple in Boulder, Colo., came up with an imaginative way both to reduce their housing costs and to create community to support their ministry with college students. Instead of renting a small, two-bedroom apartment that they could afford out of town and commuting, Brent and Melinda rented a large, six-bedroom house in Boulder, near their church and the University of Colorado. They share the house with three students and a young man who is employed in Boulder. Their community shares meals, offers hospitality to others, and divides up household responsibilities, which frees up time for spiritual practices such as lectio divino and getting involved in social justice issues both local and international.

Currently, they are working with university students as part of Justice for Children International, advocating for children caught in sex trafficking.

The changing face of church

Two simultaneous trends are taking place in Western spirituality. On the one hand, Life after college Most Christian colleges and campus min- traditional expressions of faith—includistries talk about training students “to ing most traditional Christian denomiserve the future,” but rarely are students nations—are declining. On the other hand, given a realistic picture of the challenges interest in spirituality is on the rise, parthat likely await them after graduation. ticularly among the younger generations.

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In his book The ForgottenWays (Brazos Press, 2006), Alan Hirsch reports on what has become a predominant concern for contemporary leaders: “It is getting much harder for their communities to negotiate the increasing complexities in which they find themselves.

As a result, the church is on a massive, long-trended decline in the West.”

In spite of the proportions of this trend, many older Christians seem unaware of the decline. Nor are they aware of the growing interest in spirituality among those outside the church.

Thankfully a number of younger leaders are not only aware of these trends but are also imagining and creating new expressions of church that are engaging the new generation of seekers.

For example, Ian Mobsby in London, England, has created a new expression of Anglican faith called Moot. Describing themselves as “a developing community of spiritual travelers who are seeking to be honest to God and honest to now,” they use both ancient symbols and

popular culture to engage those who are searching for truth. Recently friends from Moot sponsored a booth at a large London gathering on spirituality, and they were the only Christians represented. They reported having a number of lively and profound conversations with spiritual seekers.

In Seattle, Wash., Karen Ward has launched a new expression of the church called the Fremont Abbey, a nonprofit community arts center that provides a variety of arts and cultural experiences, events, workshops, and more. Located in an old Lutheran church, the Abbey has become a “third space” where young people from the Fremont community can come and explore issues of life, faith, and culture.

Camden House is a small group of Christians who share housing in innercity Camden, N.J., where they moved in order to be an expression of the community of God for kids in that neighborhood. Several of the residents teach urban farming at a local Catholic school

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and do advocacy work to reduce serious pollution in the city.

God is conspiring through a new generation to create not only new expressions of church but also new ways to make a difference in the world.We need both to encourage these new conspirators and to learn from them.

Given the rate at which the world is changing, we can no longer get by with a business-as-usual approach to life and faith. We need to become much more disciplined in anticipating the new challenges and much more imaginative in creating new responses that reflect something of the good news of God’s new order. ■ Tom and Christine Sine have coauthored “Sines of the Times” since 2002. It is with deep gratitude for their substantial contribution to PRISM that we say goodbye to them with this, their closing column. To stay in touch with their writing and work, visit their Mustard Seed Associates website at msainfo.org.

SINES OF THE TIMES TOM SINE

The Times They Are A-Changin’ On June 4, 2007, CNN aired an event sponsored by Sojourners/Call to Renewal that the Washington Post called an “unprecedented forum.” In this forum, “the three leading Democratic candidates described how faith influences both their politics and their personal lives.” The Chicago Tribune stated that the forum “was intended to provide voters a greater insight into the values that inform presidential candidates.”

I remember way back in 1984, when I was on the board of Evangelicals for Social Action, we attempted to start a conversation with those in the Democratic party about the importance of building bridges to both the church and specifically the evangelical segment of the American church. I contacted the campaign manager for the Mondale/ Ferraro campaign and set up a time for Ron Sider, Tony Campolo, and the rest of the ESA board to meet with him and explain how to reach out to the community we represented.Regrettably, he never made it to the appointment— I suspect because there was little awareness in the Democratic party back in the ’80s of the importance of bridging to faith constituents. Thankfully times have changed.

Today not only have the Democrats “gotten religion” but the evangelical community is changing as well in ways I hadn’t formerly dreamed possible.

Back in the late ’80s and early ’90s I was impressed at how successfully the leaders on the religious right had gotten virtually the entire evangelical community in the United States “on message.” As I traveled around the U.S. in those days, I heard exactly the same political and religious mantras everywhere I went.These

mantras blended together the messages of the religious right and the political right into a seamless garment that many viewed as the gospel.

For example, out of the strong antigovernment rhetoric of the political right, I heard evangelical Christians echoing, “We know better what to do with our tax money than the federal government does.” Consequently, many American evangelicals joined the political right in supporting cutbacks in funding to help the poor. When I asked some of these Christians why they supported the cutbacks, they told me they were convinced that people who benefited from the tax cuts would turn around and give the money they got back to faith-based groups working with the poor—a conviction I find very difficult to share.

One of the major coups of the religious right in the ’90s was their ability to single-handedly define the evangelical agenda for social responsibility. For instance, James Dobson was remarkably successful in influencing evangelical Christians to buy into the proposition that there was only one pro-life issue: abortion. When I would speak on Christian radio in those days and suggest that 25,000 kids a day dying from starvation and malnutrition was a prolife issue, too, many evangelicals would call in and go ballistic because I dared to question that proposition.

Remember that the presidential election in 2004 was largely decided by “value issues” essential for many American evangelicals, such as abortion and homosexuality. As you know, for most evangelicals, compassion for the hungry and poor was not included on that list of values issues.

One of the major issues of the election was, of course, the Bush administration’s call for continued support for the war in Iraq. A Gallup poll in 2003 showed that those who identified themselves with the religious right provided the strongest support for the pre-emptive war in Iraq.

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Those who called themselves evangelical were also more likely to support the war than the general public.

Just before the 2004 presidential election, I wrote an article for Sojourners called “Divided by a Common Faith,” in which I pointed out that, in contrast to American evangelicals, evangelical Christians in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand were at the forefront of those opposing the war in Iraq. In fact, to this day I haven’t found anything comparable to the religious right in any of the countries where I have traveled.

Most American evangelicals not only voted for continued support for the war, but they also categorically rejected the other candidate. The reason for their rejection, I believe, is that conservative leaders have become very skilled at placing “liberal” candidates beyond the realm of any possible consideration. The way the religious right has done this over the years is to so vilify those on the left that voting for them becomes unthinkable, even though you may not be entirely happy with George W. Bush.

I explained this process of demonization in Cease Fire: Searching for Sanity in America’s Culture War (Eerdmans, 1995), where I showed how those who follow the leaders of the religious right begin not with what they think or even what they believe but rather what they fear.

Fear has been an essential element in creating a highly polarized worldview in which one could never consider voting for those outside of one’s customary political party.

“Mass movements can rise and spread without a belief in God, but never without a belief in a devil,” observes Eric Hoffer in his book The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (first published in 1951). “Usually the strength of a mass movement is proportionate to the vividness and tangibility of its devil.” Over the years the leaders of the religious right have made the devils on the left both tangible and vivid. As a

consequence, many sincere American evangelicals have succumbed to a very black-and-white worldview in which those on the other end of the spectrum are seen as in league with the forces of darkness. But thankfully that approach is beginning to give way to a more thoughtful biblical approach to Christian social responsibility.

Immediately before the 2004 presidential election, Ron Sider, Rick Warren, and a number of other evangelical leaders signed an NAE document called “For the Health of the Nation: An Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility.”

The strong support for this statement by evangelical leaders was one of the first indicators that times are indeed changing.

The preamble reads, in part:“Evangelicals may not always agree about policy, but we realize that we have many callings and commitments in common: commitments to the protection and well-being of families and children, of the poor, the sick, the disabled, and the unborn, of the persecuted and oppressed, and the rest of the created order.”

In 2005 Jim Wallis’ book, God’s Politics, started a national discussion about faith, values, and politics that got everyone’s attention—including those in the Democratic Party who had largely ignored the topic.Wallis also argued for a broader, less polarized view of Christian social responsibility.

As I mentioned in my last column,

Christian Churches Together (launched February 2007) has created a new coalition of evangelicals, Pentecostals, mainline Protestants, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox churches that also are pursuing a broader agenda for public policy advocacy.

Recently, the NAE signed “An Evangelical Declaration Against Torture” (see James Skillen’s May 11, 2007, commentary “Torture” at cpjustice.org/ capitalcom/), which is yet another blow to the unquestioned support of the leaders of the religious right for the policies of the Republican White House and their conduct of the war.

Finally, Christine and I work with InterVarsity students as well as those involved in the emerging church and the new monasticism movement. Frankly, we find very few evangelicals under 40 who aren’t deeply concerned about issues of social justice, creation care, and racial reconciliation. Like the evangelicals we work with in Britain, Australia, and New Zealand, they are interested in a political advocacy that transcends right and left and that is done in the reconciling Spirit of Jesus Christ. The times they are indeed changing. ■ Tom and Christine Sine share this column.

Visit their Mustard Seed Associates website at msainfo.org for great resources and to network with other Christians committed to decoding the culture and conveying the Kingdom of God.

The Scandal of Evangelical Politics: Toward a Biblical Agenda MARCH 28-30, 2008, IN PHILADELPHIA

Stay tuned for more information about this upcoming conference —for all who strive to be faithful to the gospel in the public square— sponsored by Palmer Seminary’s Sider Center on Ministry and Public Policy and Evangelicals for Social Action. www.esa-online.org

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SINES OF THE TIMES TOM SINE

Celebrating the Demise of America’s Culture Wars “The tide is turning,” observed Jim Wallis over dinner with us last September. He was describing the slow demise of America’s culture war, and he had just shared this same good news—from his new book: God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It—with an engaged audience at First Baptist Church in Seattle. During a book/speaking tour that had taken him all over the United States, he had discovered significant numbers of Christians of all stripes who are a part of a growing consensus that God’s kingdom transcends the agendas of the political right and left.

Over 10 years ago, when I published Cease Fire: Searching for Sanity in America’s Cultural War (Eerdmans, 1996), I couldn’t imagine that the culture war would ever end. Over the last five years, however, Christine and I have had the opportunity to meet young people—those working with the urban poor, advocating for creation care, and planting new emerging churches—who have no interest in the narrow political agendas of the religious right.The broadening Christian worldview of these young people is further evidence that Wallis is correct and the tide is indeed turning.

At the National Association of Evangelicals, Rich Cizik has become a terrifically strong advocate for creation care. Although his forthright statements of concern regarding global warming have gotten him into trouble with prominent leaders on the religious right (see Ron Sider’s column on p. 40), Cizik has

held his ground. Growing numbers of megachurch pastors are also expressing views of social policies that transcend ideological agendas of left and right.

Remarkably, Democrats are even beginning to rediscover that faith matters, while Republicans are beginning to rediscover that concern for the environment matters.

We also find that increasing numbers of Christian organizations are moving beyond the polarized viewpoints of America’s culture wars. For example, Call to Renewal borrows from the insights of conservative Christians by promoting family integrity because of the significant economic difference it makes for poor families. But they also borrow a page from progressive Christians by lobbying for a living wage in order to improve the lot of those same poor families.

The most historic news of late, though, is the creation of a remarkable new ecumenical forum called Christian Churches Together (christianchurchestogether.org). This represents the single most compelling evidence that the days of America’s polarizing culture war are in decline. CCT is a consortium of evangelical, Pentecostal, mainline Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, African American, Latino, and Asian churches representing over 100 million Americans. It also includes a number of Christian organizations: Bread for the World, World Vision, Sojourners/Call to Renewal, and Evangelicals for Social Action.

CCT seeks to share a common witness to Jesus Christ in the world through: “Celebrating a common confession of faith in the Triune God; seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit through biblical, spiritual, and theological reflection; engaging in common prayer; speaking in society with a common voice; and promoting the common good of society.”

“CCT is good news for American Christians,” said the Very Reverend Leonid Kishkovsky of the Orthodox

Church in America. “Our gathering of the wider spectrum of U.S. Christian churches is succeeding in building trust and overcoming stereotypes. Our common hope and expectation is that CCT will enable our churches to offer a strong united Christian moral voice and vision in the public square.”

As soon as I learned about this remarkable consortium, I called Wesley Grandberg-Michaelson, the executive secretary of the Reformed Church in America. As the chair of the CTT Steering Committee, he told me that the conversation that started the six-year journey towards birthing CCT had taken place just a few days before September 11, 2001. At the inauguration of CCT in Pasadena, Calif., on February 9, 2007, Grandberg-Michaelson stated, “We have said from the beginning that our purpose is to grow closer together in Christ in order to strengthen our Christian witness in the world.”

CCT is going to offer a new voice in the public arena that transcends the divisive agendas of the right and left.

CCT will speak out on both concern for life and concern for social justice.

Dr. William Shaw of the National Baptist Convention, USA declared poverty in the United States to be a “scandal.” The focus of the gathering of Christian Churches United in 2008 in Washington, D.C., will be on how to address the urgent issue of poverty in America.

You might remember that the last presidential election was fought on the grounds of “moral values.” However, concern for the poor was not one of those moral values. That could change in the 2008 presidential election. CCT plans to challenge both political parties to put addressing the urgent needs of the American poor at the top of their platforms for action.

Now, I don’t think the lobbying groups on the religious right and progressive left are suddenly going to go

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away. They will be as active as ever during the upcoming presidential election.

But what is different is that growing numbers of American Christians are turning away from the polarizing ideologies of America’s culture wars.

I urge all those who join me in celebrating the creation of Christian Churches Together—and its potential

witness to a gospel that transcends the agendas of the polarized extremes—to contact CCT today and tell them of your prayers and support. In fact, why don’t you join me in emailing CCT to ask how we can support this remarkable coalition of American Christians that has the potential to speed the end of the polarization of both the church

Not to Be Forgotten continued from page 3.

ing post at North Kingstown and often served as peacemaker between the Indians and neighboring colonies. He served as governor of the colony between 1654 and 1658. Sadly he saw almost all of Providence burned during King Phillip’s War (1675-1676) but lived long enough to see it rebuilt and to see the colony thrive. Until his death in 1683, he con-

Narragansett Bay,” which incorporated Providence, Newport, and Portsmouth.

During his sea voyage, he produced an authoritative volume on American Indians, Key into the Languages of America.

Williams established an Indian trad-

and society? You’ll find complete contact information at www.christian churchestogether.org. ■ Tom and Christine Sine share this column.

Visit their Mustard Seed Associates website at msainfo.org for great resources and to network with other Christians committed to decoding the culture and conveying the Kingdom of God.

tinued to preach and remained intensely involved in community affairs. He is now known as the “Father of Religious Liberty” in America. ■ Leslie Hammond is PRISM’s copy editor and has also edited works as diverse as a prison diary, a stock market textbook, and books on character education.

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SINES OF THE TIMES CHRISTINE SINE

Hope in the Midst of Difficult Places This last year has been one of the most difficult of my life. Just a year ago my stepson Clint died. Though Clint had been ill for some time, his death was sudden and unexpected.Tom and I were devastated and struggled to understand where God was in the midst of our grief.

A month later I visited my parents in Australia. In many ways it was just as painful. My mother is 82 and my father 87.They still live in the house I grew up in, but it now looks a little like a refugee camp in the middle of one of Sydney’s wealthiest suburbs. As my father has aged he has become more eccentric, irrational, and violent. Because of his violence my mother lives unquestioningly with the irrationality. Half the house has no electricity. Most of the time there is no water because in his irrational state the only solution to a leaky faucet over the kitchen sink is to turn off the water except for an hour a day. He also refused to turn on the heat—even though one morning it was 45 degrees inside.

Following both of these painful episodes, friends rallied round, offering support and comfort. Many struggled with their own losses and the grief buried deep inside. They shared stories of loved ones who had died prematurely in accidents or from addictions and illnesses. Some shared the anguish of alienation from family members who rejected them because of simple misunderstandings that grew into major conflicts. Others carried the burden of their own debilitating illnesses or addictions or struggled with unfulfilled hopes and expectations due to lost jobs or failure.

Many had bottled up their grief for years,

afraid or ashamed to share their pain with people they felt only wanted to hear about the good parts of life.

Following Clint’s death I appreciated people just hanging around.They didn’t need to speak. They allowed us to cry on their shoulders and gave us space to acknowledge the incredible depth of our loss.Their support was a tremendous help through those first few terrible weeks.

Surprisingly, these tragedies resurfaced memories of past tragedies. My father’s violence during my childhood, images of starving children dying in my arms in Thai refugee camps, the horrors of recent terrorist attacks surfaced. In the midst of this new agony, I realized that healing is a lifelong process. We slowly peel away the layers of pain and find new levels of God’s freedom and wholeness.

None of us ever fully recovers from the loss of loved ones or from the grief of other tragedies we experience. At times we are all overwhelmed by loss and can spiral down into depression and despair. We are engulfed by anger and confused by a God who allows bad things to happen to good people. By the grace of God, as we struggle with these issues we do find much healing and in the process learn more about our God and hopefully about our faith. The risen Christ still bore the scars of his crucifixion. In fact, they were part of what enabled his disciples to identify him.

Pain and grief are an integral part of life, an ever present reminder of the brokenness of humanity and our constant need for Christ’s healing power to transform us. Unfortunately, we don’t deal well with pain and loss. In a culture that has no place for grief, we alleviate physical pain with a couple of aspirin and mask our emotional struggles with a smiling face and a prescription for antidepressants.

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the spiritual resources needed to draw closer to God through these encounters.

But ignoring grief only makes it fester and grow. Only when we expose our pain and anguish to God and to others can we experience healing. In the process grief can be transformed into joy.

So how can we process our own grief and help others come to terms with theirs?

First, we need to talk about our grief, our anger, and even our sense of God’s abandonment. The Christian faith leaves no room for pretending that we are strong and independent. For those who have friends who are bereaved, it is important just to be there to listen and allow people to be vulnerable. Providing a comforting hug is invaluable to a grieving friend.

Lectio divina is one particularly useful practice for those struggling with grief. It helps move the Word of God off the page and into our hearts so that it becomes living and active in our lives.

We read the Scripture (lectio), not just in a cursory way, but over and over in an atmosphere of prayer for insight.

This challenges us to memorize passages until they resonate in our spirits.

In the days following my stepson’s death, I was drawn to those psalms in which David spoke of his anguish in the midst of the many tragedies of his life.

Lamentations also came to life as I read about how often these great men cried out their grief and pain before God. I found it particularly helpful to read the Scriptures aloud and then journal my thoughts and ideas.The words resounded deep in my being as they stimulated not just my sight but also my hearing and my muscles, moving the words quickly from my head to my heart, from my heart to the pen in my hand.

The second step in lectio divina is meditation (meditatio). This moves us beyond the information shared in Scripture to the inspiration of our imagination through which God’s spirit can

speak. As Richard Foster says,“Christian meditation leads us to the inner wholeness necessary to give ourselves to God freely.”

After Clint’s death I meditated frequently on Lamentations 3: 31, 32— “For the Lord will not reject forever.

Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love.” The comfort of these words brought me close to God in a way that nothing else seemed to and led me naturally to the third step in lectio divina, which is prayer (oratio). In this part of the discipline we literally converse with God about the Scripture.

We listen to God, gain direction, guidance, and comfort. Sometimes we are convicted of sin and seek forgiveness.

Through this kind of prayer our lives can be transformed. This has certainly been the case for me. Though I still struggle greatly with the whys and wherefores, this kind of prayer brings a nearness to God that has transformed

my grief into peace.

The last step in lectio divina is contemplation, which moves beyond a passive response to the Scripture to an active one. Contemplation encourages us to direct our thoughts outward so that we become Jesus’ hands, eyes, feet, and heart. My own grief has produced a growing sensitivity to the pain and suffering of others. I am aware of how inadequately in the past I responded to the pain of my friends and neighbors.

I want to more ably extend to them the comfort God has extended to me.

In the aftermath of Clint’s death, the reality of the resurrection has become a more certain and longed-for reality for me. For the memorial service I wrote a liturgy that included the lines “Into the cycle of living and dying and rising again we lay Clint down.” I return frequently to those words, reciting them over and over again. The hope they bring of that longed-for future that the early Christians glimpsed in Christ and

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modeled in their new way of life is incredible. Life is a constant cycle of living and dying and rising again. Out of our broken dreams and grief can come the hope and joy of a whole new life.

This was graphically brought home to me on Christmas morning, when Ricci and Eliacin Rosario, who live in our basement apartment, gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. The miracle of new birth is the most incredible and joyful event imaginable, yet it does not come without pain. I am reminded once more that for there to be life there must first be death, and for there to be resurrection there must first be crucifixion.

There comes a time in the midst of death and loss when we enter once again into the miracle of the new life of God’s redemption and healing. Grief remains, but as a new foundation for wholeness, not just for us but for others as well. ■ Visit Christine and Tom Sine’s Mustard Seed Associates website at www.msainfo.org.

SINES OF THE TIMES CHRISTINE SINE

The Challenge of Suffering I have always struggled to understand the reasons for pain and suffering. As a young doctor practicing in New Zealand, I attended a Pentecostal church that focused only on Christ’s power to heal.

There was little thought of the suffering Christ endured to make this possible. In fact, quite the reverse! People didn’t seem to know how to cope with sickness, and those with chronic illnesses were often ignored or even ostracized.The possibility that God might expect us to share the suffering and pain of others was a totally foreign idea that made us extremely uncomfortable. Our celebration of Easter reflected this: Good Friday services could easily have been confused with an Easter Sunday celebration.

In my medical practice, I often had to pick up the pieces when someone was prayed for but not healed. I struggled as I watched patients weighed down by guilt when prayer did not provide relief from their illnesses. Some had thrown away heart medicine or insulin injections.

One woman came to me in agony because of severe arthritis and back pain. She was afraid to take pain killers because she thought it reflected a lack of faith.Another was accused of harboring bitterness and anger that caused her pain, and yet another felt condemned because she was told her sickness remained because she just didn’t pray enough.

I struggle, too, because of the friends I have watched who prayed desperately for healing yet died or suffered in agony and terrible pain from their diseases.

My friend Liz died in 2000 from an aggressive malignant melanoma that resisted all chemotherapy and surgical intervention. It devastated her body and caused agonizing pain and paralysis before her

death. Another friend, Kate, who was once a vivacious and talented Christian speaker, is dying, inch by inch, of multiple sclerosis. Her once vital body and mind are slowly succumbing to this terrible disease.

Tragically, believers can add to the anguish that people with chronic illnesses experience by accusing them of not having enough faith or of harboring hidden sin. So often, for people like these and their loved ones, the love of God and the redemptive and healing power of the Cross are obscured by the pointing fingers of Christian brothers and sisters who heap guilt and condemnation on their backs.

All of us, no matter how strong our faith, will at some point in our life journey suffer pain and death. As much as we prefer to run from suffering, we are all called eventually to go through our own Good Friday experience. Don’t get me wrong: I don’t believe God wants us to suffer, but suffering is one of the ongoing consequences of sin. What I do believe is that, because Christ died for our sins, our loving God is able to use the suffering we endure to further God’s purposes in our lives and in our world.

First, God uses suffering to bring us to a recognition of our own brokenness.

We can’t find true health and wholeness unless we suffer pain and admit we need the healing and redemption Christ offers. Listen to the apostle Paul: “We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance character, and character hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us” (Rom. 5:3-5).

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not why we are sick but rather what the illness can teach us about our lives, our relationships, and even our faith.

Sometimes God uses illness to chastise us or to redirect our lives into a better path. “In a real sense, an illness is an event with a voice,” writes Fountain. “It is a teacher. Seeking healing and recovery is normal and very important.

Seeking wisdom is even better.”

Second, in the early church the expectation of health and wholeness was closely linked to an acceptance of suffering as a way to identify with the sufferings of Christ. Physical illness was understood to be part of a larger paradigm in which God’s grace works through human weakness. Christ calls us not only to identify with his suffering on the cross but also to voluntarily enter into that suffering and into his experience of crucifixion as we “carry each other’s burdens” (Gal. 6:2a) and come alongside those who suffer from illness, from hunger, from injustice, or from any other anguish. “In this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. 6:2b).

According to Henri Nouwen, Donald McNeill, and Douglas Morrison, in their wonderful book, Compassion: A Reflection on the Christian Life (Image Books Doubleday, 1966), compassion comes from two Latin words which together mean “to suffer with.” They explain, “Compassion asks us to go where it hurts, to enter into places of pain, to share in brokenness, fear, confusion, and anguish.

Compassion challenges us to cry out with those in misery, to mourn with those who are lonely, to weep with those in tears. Compassion requires us to be weak with the weak, vulnerable with the vulnerable, and powerless with the powerless. Compassion means full immersion in the condition of being human.”

No wonder Paul encourages us to enter into the sufferings of others. “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like

him in his death and so somehow to attain to the resurrection from the dead” (Phil. 3:10,11). By sharing in the suffering of others we also share in Christ’s suffering and move through crucifixion towards the healing balm of resurrection. As Francis McNutt, a Catholic authority on healing, explains, “Through the power of the resurrection, God’s life is breaking into our wounded world, and he gives us the

power to cooperate with him by healing and reconciling man and all of creation” (in Healing, Ave Maria Press, 1974).

I still struggle with the problem of suffering and find that all our explanations are inadequate to explain the extent of misery we see in the world around us. However, just as God was able to transform the horror of Christ’s crucifixion and death into the glory of res-

urrection, so God is still at work transforming the horror of suffering and pain into healing and wholeness. How can we refuse to enter into the suffering of life when we know that by so doing we actually cooperate with God in healing our broken world? ■

Not to Be Forgotten continued from page 3.

applause from her fellow “soldiers.”

Two years later, the frail activist received word that a resolution had been passed by the American Equal Rights Association paying tribute to “its venerable early leader and friend, Lucretia Mott, whose life in its rounded perfections as wife, mother, preacher, and reformer is the prophecy of the future

of woman.” Lucretia died in her sleep on November 11, 1880, just days after receiving word of this homage. ■

ceded most of her leadership role to younger women, but she was able to walk unaided into the 30th anniversary convention of the Meeting at Seneca Falls.

Greeted from the platform by Frederick Douglass, the 85-year-old received warm

Faithful Citizenship continued from page 6.

Offender Program (STOP) as a means of providing treatment for men in the county jail system. They spend their incarceration time in a special facility that provides them with drug and alcohol treatment, from psychologists and counselors who deal with their situations to drug educators and other professionals who help them develop the coping skills needed to live a life of abstinence after their release. Through partnerships with halfway houses, the Veterans’ Administration, and other organizations, they develop aftercare systems for support upon release. Several churches, including Dayton’s Omega Baptist, provide pastoral and worship services, and even a 12-step Bible study using the Life Recovery Bible.

But STOP doesn’t begin to address the vast numbers of incarcerated persons who need treatment. And it won’t as

long as the county reflects the national consensus in favor of punishment. In 2004 voters had an opportunity to pass an initiative that would broaden the availability of treatment for offenders with substance abuse problems. They soundly rejected the initiative. According to one of the church volunteers, “They just determined that these people were criminals and belonged in jail.They don’t understand addiction.” Nor will they have to as long as the national consensus— including people of faith—is that punitive treatment is preferable to healing treatment.

It is particularly regrettable that the church’s attitude is not recognizably different from the rest of society’s.

Researchers like Baylor University’s Byron Johnson have demonstrated the strong correlation between faith and sobriety. The faith component of treatment both reflects the hard work of volunteers and forms the foundation of 12-step recovery. The founders of PRISM 2007

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Visit Christine and Tom Sine’s Mustard Seed Associates website at www.msainfo.org.

Leslie Hammond is PRISM’s copy editor and has also edited works as diverse as a prison diary, a stock market textbook, and books on character education.

Alcoholics Anonymous affirmed the alcoholic’s inability to change without the assistance of God (generically referred to as “higher power” in an effort to spread recovery beyond religious communities) and the necessity of self-examination (referred to in AA as a personal inventory) and accountability (people in recovery are told to “get a sponsor” who serves as a mentor through the recovery process).

The power of God, self-examination, and accountability—sounds a lot like what Christ calls us to. Treatment programs require this from those desiring to live sober lives. Surely sober-thinking citizens should support such opportunities for incarcerated men and women who will one day soon be our neighbors again. ■ Harold Dean Trulear is a pastor, associate professor of applied theology at Howard University School of Divinity, and a fellow at the Center for Public Justice inWashington, D.C.

SINES OF THE TIMES CHRISTINE SINE

God Wills Healing I no longer practice medicine, but I am still passionate about health, particularly for the poor. One of my yearly tasks is to download the latest World Health and United Nations Human Development reports.When I first started reading these reports in the mid-1980s, I felt optimistic.

Life expectancy was increasing rapidly, child mortality was plummeting, and infectious diseases such as smallpox and measles were being brought under control. Over the last few years, however, many of these trends have reversed, and I have found the statistics discouraging.

The greatest health challenge for millions of children worldwide is still whether or not they will survive to their fifth birthday. Children in developing countries already lack proper nutrition and may also lack access to affordable measles vaccinations and simple interventions for diarrheal diseases. Children are also most likely to die from malaria.

Overall, 35 percent of Africa’s children are at higher risk of death today than they were 10 years ago. Every hour 500 African women lose a small child. And life expectancy for adults is shrinking— in some countries by as much as 20 years.

Tragically the causes of many of these deaths could easily be controlled with simple vaccines or antibiotics. Six deadly infections—pneumonia, tuberculosis, diarrheal diseases, malaria, measles, and, more recently, HIV/AIDS—account for half of all premature deaths, killing mostly children and young adults. And, while not major killers, a number of other diseases, often neglected by researchers because they have little impact on health in wealthier countries, cause chronic disability and stigma for millions of men, women, and children. Unfortunately those who are most vulnerable often lack access to essential medicines. WHO estimates

that 15 percent of the world’s population consumes 91 percent of the world’s pharmaceuticals.

Many of these challenges overwhelm me.“Does God care about physical health, particularly for the most vulnerable in our world?” I wonder. I often struggled with this question as I worked in poor communities in Africa and Asia.

God does care. From the time the children of Israel came out of Egypt, God showed concern for their physical as well as their spiritual well-being. However, God’s prescription for health was always very different from that of the surrounding cultures. During Moses’ life, the Papyrus Ebers, written about 1552 B.C., provided many of the standard treatments for disease.

Drugs included “lizards’ blood, swines’ teeth, putrid meat, stinking fat, moisture from pigs’ ears, goose grease, asses’ hoofs, excreta from animals, including human beings, donkeys, antelopes, dogs, cats, and even flies.” Not quite our idea of good medicine and not God’s either.

Central to God’s model of health and wholeness is reconciliation to God. Healing depended primarily on obedience to God’s Word and commandments. Many of the laws of Leviticus are good preventative health directives that we still use today.These regulations include nutrition, environmental laws, and behavior—the three primary factors that influence the health of any community. Others are guidelines for how the most vulnerable in society are to be cared for.

Interestingly, the Greek word sozo, most commonly translated as “save” in the New Testament, can also be translated as “heal.” It means to preserve or make whole. Healing from a Christian perspective is the process of moving towards wholeness in body, soul, and spirit. The purpose of medicine is to support and encourage human wholeness in every respect.

Nothing speaks more highly of God’s desire for healing than the incredible systems of protection and repair within PRISM 2007

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our own bodies. The immune system cures most of the illnesses that attack us.

Wounds heal, bones knit together, and tissue repairs itself in miraculous ways that we rarely think about unless something goes wrong. At best, doctors and nurses assist God’s healing work, yet we rarely thank God for these miracles.

Unfortunately, in our imperfect world corrupted by sin and disease, these systems don’t always work, but God provided other elements to assist the healing process.

Most modern medicines originate from medicinal plants and herbs that are a part of God’s wonderful creation.

The Cross is probably the most powerful symbol of and power for healing in the world. Its redeeming and transforming power brings healing to body, soul, and spirit—and beyond that it brings healing to communities and eventually will bring healing to our entire broken world.

Communion is another powerful symbol of healing. In many churches healing services are Eucharistic, deliberately linking our need for healing to confession, repentance, and forgiveness (1 Cor. 11:2734). Baptism, too, because it infuses a person with new life, the life of Christ, can drive out before it all the powers of sickness and death (Rom. 6: 1-14).

James 5:13-16 lists other important symbols of healing to which we should pay heed. Praying for the sick (often associated with the laying on of hands), anointing with oil, singing psalms and hymns, confession, and forgiveness are all practices that can encourage the healing process.

A holistic approach to health that embraces the need for both spiritual and physical transformation is an extremely effective way to eradicate infectious diseases. LifeWind International ( lifewind. org; formerly Medical Ambassadors International) works to improve the total health and well-being of children, women, and men in communities worldwide by addressing the root causes of poverty, disease, and hopelessness. LifeWind’s

Community Health Evangelism (CHE) is an integrated holistic strategy that equips and empowers communities to discover and implement effective and lasting solutions to their problems through the combination of disease prevention, economic enterprise, and social and spiritual renewal. People from over 150 organizations are using CHE training and materials to serve the poor around the world.

God does will healing, not just for us but also for all humankind. Incredibly, we are asked to become participants in the process and to bring God’s healing and wholeness to others.The statistics are overwhelming, but fortunately God calls us not to change statistics but to trans-

form lives. Even providing a cup of clean water can make a difference. And as Matthew 10:42 reminds us, “if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.” ■ (Note: God wills healing, but pain and suffering play an important role in our redemption process, a subject I will deal with in the next issue).

Christine and Tom Sine share this column.

Visit their Mustard Seed Associates website at www.msainfo.org.

ried out the orders, arresting both Trocmé and his colleague Edouard Theis.

While in prison Trocmé and Theis Chambonnaise children. conducted Bible studies for fellow detainIn that same summer of 1942 the ees, most of them French communists who Vichy government officials informed had been rounded up by the thousands.

Trocmé that they knew what was going Ordered to sign a loyalty oath to the on in the village.The Nazis arrived two Vichy government, the ministers refused. weeks later with buses to take the Jews Amazingly the government yielded to away, but Trocmé had warned everyone public outcry and released them after just who was hiding them, and the soldiers a few weeks, but the danger increased found the entire village packed into the once they were back in Le Chambon. church and no Jews to be found. These The men received warnings that they were raids happened again and again, and each marked for death by the Gestapo, and time the buses went away empty. One they went into hiding for the duration of villager recalled that the townspeople the war.Trocmé’s cousin Daniel was arrestwould go into the forest and sing a cer- ed along with the children he had been tain song after the soldiers left, and the hiding and taken to the Majdanek conJews would emerge, “knowing it was safe centration camp. He was gassed and to come home.” incinerated in 1944.

In February 1943 Trocmé was visited After the liberation of France, André by two French policemen acting on behalf Trocmé emerged from hiding and resumed of the Nazis.Their orders were to arrest his pastorate in Le Chambon. His pacifist the minister for his activities in hiding work continued as well. He died in Jews and take him away. Ever the pacifist, 1971, and the following year his widow Trocmé invited the arresting officers to attended a ceremony in Israel where share the evening meal with him and his her husband was awarded the Medal of family, and as they dined villagers began Righteousness by a grateful people. ■ arriving with items their pastor might need in prison. The police are said to Leslie Hammond is PRISM’s copy editor. have been moved to tears, but they carNot to Be Forgotten continued from page 3.

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SINES OF THE TIMES TOM SINE

Note from Tom Sine: Part of our mission at Mustard Seed Associates is to help launch a new generation of leaders. I would like to introduce Eliacín Rosario-Cruz, one of these emerging leaders, to PRISM readers. A native of Puerto Rico, he and his wife, Ricci, work with us here at Mustard Seed in Seattle. His insights regarding the changes currently taking place in Latin America are astute, and his viewpoint as a Puerto Rican is one that I, as an American Christian, find extremely helpful.We are grateful to God for Eliacín, and I ask readers to give him feedback on his first published article. I know he would value hearing from you.

Good News from the South

BY ELIACÍN ROSARIO-CRUZ

I am a young Puerto Rican father who is passing along to his daughter the traditions of my beloved island. One of her favorites among the many stories, rituals, and festivals is the Three Kings Day celebration every sixth of January.

Known to us as the “Three Magic Kings,” Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar have been bringing happiness to children all through America Latina since long before the invasion of Santa Claus.

This year on Three Kings Day, my family decided to surprise me by turning my world upside down—and I mean that almost literally. Dragging something behind her back, my daughter brought to our breakfast table a giftwrapped plastic tube. With a big smile and lots of excitement, she gave me my special gift. Inside was what is commonly known as an “upside-down map.”

Imagine looking at a classic Mercator projection map, but instead of having

the United States of America positioned just left and above the center, you now have Brazil, Bolivia, Venezuela, Chile, Argentina, and the rest of America Latina leaping up, like a proud flame, just right and above the center. You no longer look down to find Latin America, but up. You no longer look up to find the United States and Canada, but down.

The depiction of the world is no less accurate, it is simply viewed from a different perspective.

“It seems the south is the new north,” someone told me after I had proudly shown him my new definition of the world. Or as Uruguayan essayist Eduardo Galeano once wrote, “If the world is upside-down the way it is now, wouldn’t we have to turn it over to get it to stand up straight?”

Like the upside-down map, the recent changes in the political and cultural configuration in Latin America have challenged traditional concepts of north and south and all the associated metaphors and cultural baggage they entail.

In a mid-1980s song entitled “Buscando America” [“Searching for America”], salsa singer Ruben Blades, who is now Panama’s minister of tourism, made a plea to awaken a new Latin American identity: I am looking for you, America / And I fear not to find you / Your tracks are lost in the dark / I am calling to you, America. / But you do not respond to me / Those who fear the truth have made you disappear.

But now, two decades later, Blades does not have to look far to find that identity emerging. Recent years have provided fertile ground for the rebirth of the Pan-American dream of Simon Bolívar. Bolívar’s dream was the unification of all South American, Central American, and Caribbean countries.

At the inauguration of the new president of Chile, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez gave an example of the radical new changes taking place in

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America del Sur: “South America has changed,” he said. “A worker is president of Brazil...; an Indian is president of Bolivia; a woman is president of Chile; and in Venezuela, a revolutionary soldier, which is what I am.”

Unlike the past liberation movements in which the cultural and political theories of liberation were foreign, we now have a new breed of homegrown leaders with ideals and values rooted in the experience of their homeland.

In 2005 President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil and President Néstor Krichner of Argentina paid off their countries’ debt to the IMF in full—a brave and necessary decision to free themselves from economic ties to the North.

In Chile, President Michelle Bachelet, a former prisoner under the Pinochet regime, anounced her ministry cabinet of 10 men and 10 women, a remarkable example of gender inclusivity.

Recently in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, the government transferred $1 billion to community planning councils. These councils are formed by concerned citizens who carry out smallscale community development projects.

These groups are another example of participatory democracy in the South where the people form, execute, control, and evaluate public policies—a power they never had in the past.

While in the past it was leftist intellectuals who promoted the changes, the poor and the marginalized are now the first to understand and embrace the need for societal transformation. In Bolivia, it was the campesinos and the native communities who started the changes that brought Juan Evo Morales Ayma to the presidency. The new government of Bolivia now embarks on the process of creating a constituent assembly in which to give full participation to its indigenous people.

In countries likeVenezuela and Bolivia, entire barrios and rural communities are

taking the right steps toward claiming their dignity and rights. Through trial and error, these communities are playing a crucial role in creating a new America Latina. Clinics, educational centers, and agricultural cooperatives are just a few of the organically grown services blooming all over.

This expression of life in America Latina is, for the first time since the Spanish Conquest, giving real voice and participation to the indigenous people of the South. As a Latin American Christian I am filled with anticipation by what I

see happening in this “upside-down” version of the world. Looking at it, I am reminded of the values of justice and freedom in God’s Kingdom.

To the question, “Is it possible [to build] the Kingdom of God on Earth?” the former Nicaraguan Minister of Culture, poet Ernesto Cardenal, answered, “How come a Christian cannot believe in that, when it is the unique thing that Jesus came to preach? A liberation theologian has said that when Jesus used the words God’s kingdom it was equal to the word revolution. It was something com-

pletely subversive.”

I pray that we as believers and agents of that Kingdom will be wise and pay attention to the prophetic voices coming from the South. To ignore them would only perpetuate and promote the myth that in order to find direction we only need to look north. ■

Introducing Christian ideas into such an atmosphere often seemed impossible, but the couple pressed on.

Paton learned the Aniwa language and reduced it to written form, then trained native teachers and sent them to outlying villages to preach the Word of God. His wife organized classes of women and girls and taught them Christian hymns as well as how to read and sew.

Together the couple ministered to the sick and dying, held worship services, and instructed the natives in the use of tools. Tribal members continued to launch plots against the missionaries, but the Patons lived to see the entire population won for Christ.

Six of the Patons’ 10 children were born on Aniwa, but sadly four of them died in infancy or early childhood. The missionary couple stayed on the island until 1881 and then began making frequent pilgrimages to Australia, Great Britain, Canada, and the United States to promote interest in New Hebrides missions. Paton was an incredibly successful fundraiser, particularly after his

autobiography was published in 1889, but he always insisted on frugal use of the moneys raised. Paton also wielded his influence to get British and American authorities to crack down on local traffic in firearms and alcohol and was vociferous in fighting a proposed annexation of the islands by the French.

In 1899 he saw his Aniwa translation of the New Testament printed and the establishment of missionaries on 25 of the 30 islands of the New Hebrides.

Attending the Ecumenical Missions Conference in New York City in 1900, he was hailed as a great missionary hero.

Mrs. Paton died in Melbourne in 1905.

Although quite frail by now, John Gibson Paton continued to preach the cause of missions in churches across Australia until his death in 1907. ■

Eliacín Rosario-Cruz works as the adult formation associate at Saint Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle, Wash., and is part of the staff at Mustard Seed Associates. Contact him at eliacin@gmail.com.

Not to Be Forgotten continued from page 3. behalf of missions to the New Hebrides.

His eloquence and rather startling experience gained him a rapt audience and much-needed financial support. From there he went back to Scotland to recruit missionaries for each of the islands and to raise money for the construction of a sailing vessel to help them in their evangelical work.

Arriving back in the New Hebrides in August, 1866, Paton brought with him a new wife, Margaret (“Maggie”) Whitecross Paton. Together they established a mission station on Aniwa, the nearest island to Tanna, living in a native hut until they built a home for themselves as well as two houses for orphan children. On Aniwa they found the natives to be very similar to those on Tanna—practicing cannibalism, widow sacrifice, infanticide, and ancestor and idol worship. Chiefs were deified and had great influence for evil.

“Their whole worship was one of slavish fear,” Paton wrote. “And so far as ever I could learn, they had no idea of a God of mercy or grace.”

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Leslie Hammond is PRISM’s copy editor and has also edited works as diverse as a prison diary, a stock market textbook, and books on character education.

SINES OF THE TIMES TOM SINE

Preparing for Katrina II Like the horrific September 11th terrorist attack four years earlier, the enormous catastrophe of Hurricane Katrina brought an immediate response of prayers and empathy from all over the world. In our own country, churches were among the first responders and received some of the highest marks for their compassion and effective help.

As we look back, however, this crisis also raised serious questions about the apparent deep divide between America’s poor and the middle class. It is past time for those of us who live in the United States to take a much more serious look at those among us who live on the edge of economic crisis every single day.

Join me as we travel back in time and place ourselves alongside the nearly 1 million Americans trying to flee the terror of Katrina. Most of the middle-class residents were able to escape the devastating flood in their cars, SUVs, and RVs, but many of the poorer residents didn’t have the means to get out of harm’s way and were the ones who suffered the greatest loss.

The Pew Research Center offers the following statistics on how the disaster was viewed by blacks and whites: Seven-in-ten blacks [71%] say the disaster shows that racial inequality remains a major problem in the country; a majority of whites [56%] say this was not a particularly important lesson of the disaster. Most striking, there is widespread agreement among blacks that the government’s response to the crisis would have been faster if most of the storms victims would have been white; fully two-thirds of African Americans express that view.

Whites, by even a wider margin

[77%-17%], feel this would not have made a difference in the government’s response.* There are reasons for this very different perception of the government’s response to Katrina.The top 20 percent earn over 50 percent of the income in America, and their share of the pie is growing while the poverty rate in the U.S. has risen for the fourth consecutive year to 12.7 percent. That means that 37 million of our neighbors now live in poverty, which is defined as a family of four trying to get by on $19,000 or less a year. African Americans had the lowest median income. Regionally the South had the lowest median income.

This data helps to explain part of the reason that many African Americans responded so strongly to the Pew survey about racial factors in the Katrina response.

Conservative commentator David Brooks, reflecting on Katrina in his September 4, 2005, New York Times column, “The Bursting Point,” was deeply distressed at the way the poor and the black were left behind: “The first rule of the social fabric—that in times of crisis you protect the vulnerable—was trampled. Leaving the poor in New Orleans was the equivalent of leaving the injured on the battlefield. No wonder confidence in civic institutions is plummeting.”

Images of the abandoned reminded some of us of the images in the film Hotel Rwanda, where the white and privileged where transported out while and the poor and black were left to fend for themselves.

I believe that one of the reasons for the different perception between American blacks and whites is that many middle-class, white Christians are in denial that there is “real” poverty in America. They ask, “How can there possibly be poverty in America when the so-called poor people have color PRISM 2006

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TVs and drive nice cars?” What many of those in the middle class don’t seem to realize is that a couple of flashy consumer items are all that many of these people have.

Remember that many of the poor lost everything—including their loved ones, their meager possessions, their minimum-wage jobs, and their homes —to the devastation of Katrina. Unlike many middle-class people most of these folks have no insurance and absolutely no resources to begin their lives over again.

The last presidential election was determined in part by “values” issues about which American evangelicals feel strongly. Compassion for the poor was not one of those that made the list, and concern for the poor was not a value most evangelicals even voiced. Surveys reflect that evangelicals were much more concerned about supporting tax cuts for the very wealthy.

All of us who are followers of Jesus have been given the final exam question ahead of time. Listen to the words of the “righteous” as they express their confusion at the final judgment: “...

‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick and in prison and go to visit you?’” (Matt. 25:37-39). Do you remember Jesus’ reply? “Truly I tell you,” he said, “just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me” (Matt. 25: 40).

Of course, there are many Christians who were motivated to respond generously to those in need. While the government response to Katrina was inept, informal networks of churches sprang into action and made a huge difference for thousands. Jackson, Miss., became one of the major receiving areas in the Gulf with its population doubling to 1.2 million overnight. A network of Southern Baptists, Pentecostals, and

Catholics immediately collaborated to reach out to the displaced and homeless.

Parkway Pentecostal Church sent their two Sunday school buses to the New Orleans Superdome to pick up 100 of those who were left behind and bring them back to Jackson. This was a step of faith since they realized they didn’t have resources to provide for the folks they were bringing back. But by the time this group of exhausted and hungry people arrived in Jackson, another church, Broadmoor Baptist, had sent more than enough cots, clothes, and food for the entire group. In fact, they served them a hot meal as soon as they got off the bus at Parkway Pentecostal.

Churches were rated as some of the best first-responders—even though they weren’t prepared! Imagine how much more effective they could have been if they had trained their people ahead in disaster preparedness. In the state of Washington, North Seattle Friends Church is doing disaster preparedness, not for hurricanes but for earthquakes. I have also learned that a number of Presbyterian

churches located in the hurricane regions of the South have done extensive preparation for the 2006 season.

If you would like to see your church prepare for disasters that may occur in your region so that they can more effectively model the compassion of Christ, here are some resources to get hold of and share with those in leadership.

First, the Alban Institute has a very good article and helpful action list in the Alban Weekly, October 3, 2005, entitled “Disaster Preparation Response for Clergy and Congregations” (www. alban.org/weekly/2005/051003_ DisasterPrep.asp).

Church World Service has developed some extremely helpful resources, which you can find at www.cwerp.org.

The three I would suggest are: • A brochure titled Hope, Help, Heal • A booklet titled Why, What, How: Cooperative Faith-Based Disaster Recovery in Your Community • A manual titled Managing and Operating the Faith-Based Disaster Response Recovery Organization PRISM 2006

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Imagine the difference it would make if the primary value that evangelicals in America were known for was the value of compassion for the poor by: 1. Supporting public policies and candidates that favor the poor in our communities instead of the wealthy.

2. Our preparedness to respond to any disaster that impacts our communities in the name of Jesus Christ.

It is just possible this dual response would persuade others of the authenticity of our faith and even cause them to consider a Christ who repeatedly called us to look out for our poorest neighbors. ■ Tom and Christine Sine, authors of Living on Purpose; Finding God’s Best for Your Life (Baker, 2001), share this column.

Visit their Mustard Seed Associates website at msainfo.org. *Two-In-Three Critical of Bush’s Relief Efforts: Huge Racial Divide Over Katrina and Its Consequences,” The Pew Research Center For the People and the Press, September 8, 2005, http:// people-press.org.

SINES OF THE TIMES CHRISTINE SINE

Learning from the World I have always been intrigued by biological design. As a medical student I was amazed to learn about the complex biochemical pathways that shunt oxygen across cell membranes and provide energy for every human activity. As a gardener I am fascinated by the intricate design in the flowers, leaves, and insects that inhabit my garden. As a Christian I am delighted by the incredible reflections of God’s presence in the world around me. All of creation is truly “fearfully and wonderfully made,” and God’s glory shines through every created organism.

My delight in the natural world was stimulated recently when I discovered the existence of a new science called biomimicry. This intriguing scientific discipline studies models found in the natural world and imitates or takes inspiration from these designs and processes to help us solve problems that humankind encounters in our world.

The core idea of biomimicry is that for millions of years nature has grappled with the same problems we face and has come up with solutions that not only work but that are also sustainable for the long term. According to the proponents of this new science, we can learn how to harness energy in the same way that a leaf does, how to grow food based on the intricate ecosystems of a prairie, and how to create shatterproof ceramics from the study of an abalone shell.

One natural wonder that is being extensively researched is the spider’s web.

This fragile-looking silk fiber is totally waterproof and is ounce-for-ounce five times stronger than steel.Yet it is manufactured without artificial chemicals, high heat, or costly petroleum products. The

spider takes in flies and crickets at one end and produces this remarkable miracle material at the other. Who knows what innovative inventions we may see in the next few years as a result of this research? Velcro is probably one of the best known technologies that grew out of this new way of looking at the natural world. It began with an observation that some weeds can stick to other surfaces through little barbs.

John Todd researched wetland filtration after asking the question,“How does nature clean water?” This inspired the development of a wastewater treatment system that employs bioreactors with communities of organisms that use the waste input as nutrients, digesting them and in the process purifying the water.The water released is often cleaner than city water.

One example that really intrigues me is the discovery that peacock feathers contain only one pigment: the brown pigment melanin. The incredible array of “colors” we see is entirely structural.

Directional layering of the feathers’ keratin protein combines with the melanin background, causing light to refract in such a way that we see color. Inspired by this design, a Japanese company has created reusable display signs whose surface is structurally altered through exposure to UV light. These signs can be continually reused and imprinted with new images, eliminating the need to manufacture new signs or produce toxic waste.

According to Janine Benyus, author of Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature (Harper Perennial, 2002), biomimicry is a new way of viewing and valuing nature that could possibly introduce an era based not on what we can extract from the natural world but on what we can learn from it. She writes,“The conscious emulation of life’s genius is a survival strategy for the human race, a path to a sustainable future. The more our world looks and functions like the natural world, the more likely we are to endure on this

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home that is ours, but not ours alone.”

This learning from nature is not new, nor is it restricted to biomimicry.

Leonardo da Vinci constantly looked to nature for advice on the design of his numerous inventions. Contemporary environmental sculptor Andy Goldsworthy explores natural materials such as leaves, rocks, ice, and wood to create incredible artistic structures that often reinforce the relationship between humanity and nature.

Biomimicry is not usually associated with a Christian worldview, and in fact many of the believers in this movement feel that biomimicry propounds principles that are the antithesis of Christianity.

After I wrote an article for our MSA Seed Sampler on biomimicry last year, I became involved in a long and very stimulating discussion with a reader, Frank, who held this viewpoint. Frank shared with me his own disillusionment with Christianity, which began when he realized how many followers of Christ abused rather than cared for creation. Calling ourselves stewards of creation seemed ironic to him.

“Creation did a pretty good job of stewarding itself for millions of years,” he told me. “Then humankind came along and started destroying it.” Frank went on to say that our view of humans as stewards seemed very arrogant to him because it dismissed the greater part of nature as inferior to humankind. He was also concerned because this viewpoint often showed little respect for creation and played out more as domination than stewardship. Biomimicry opened up a whole new way of looking at the world that provided Frank with a worldview that cared for rather than destroyed creation, with no need for a belief in God at all.

The science of biomimicry and its intriguing view of creation opened up new doors for me, too, but they were doors that drew me closer to God rather than distancing me from God. Exploring

the intricate makeup of a leaf, a spider web, and a peacock feather inspires me with wonder and awe for a God who “made all things well.” Studying the unimagined complexity of the earth’s ecosystems unveils a glimpse into the unfathomable complexity of our God and makes us aware of how little we really understand of God’s character.

Tragically many Christians dismiss biomimicry and other disciplines like it because they are aware that in its practice many, like Frank, find a reason to turn away from God: Instead of worshipping the Creator they come to idolize the creation itself. Unfortunately, in our dismissal of them and their worldview, we often don’t realize that their rejection is more due to those of us who call ourselves Christians than it is to Christianity and God.

Many environmentalists I speak to are angry because of what they see as our flouting of God’s mandate to all humankind to care for and sustain creation.

One environmentalist candidly told me that he believed evangelical Christians were the key to the success of the environmental movement. He said, “Until Christians embrace a concern for creation as central to their theology, the earth really doesn’t have a prayer.” I have never forgotten his words and wonder if—in regards to creation—maybe we need to be evangelized rather than doing the evangelism.

Early Christians felt privileged to live in a non-Christian society because they believed it was through their interactions with those outside the faith from other cultures and with other viewpoints that they learned more about God and God’s

ways. I think this is still true today. Not only does our polluted, denuded earth cry out, waiting for Christians to repent and embrace God’s role as responsible stewards, but many of our non-Christian neighbors also cry out with the same plea. In order to have an impact on the lives of those who care for creation it is imperative that we open our eyes to see what they see and unstop our ears to hear what they hear. My prayer is that we will be open to the messengers God sends to us and listen to their messages that can bring hope and healing to our hurting world. ■ Christine and Tom Sine, authors of Living on Purpose; Finding God’s Best for Your Life (Baker, 2001), share this column.

Visit their Mustard Seed Associates website at msainfo.org.

Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity

BY RONALD J. SIDER (W Publishing Group)

“One of the Top 100 Religious Books of the Century.”

Christianity Today

More than 400,000 copies in print.

PRISM 2006

5

SINES OF THE TIMES CHRISTINE SINE

Gardening with God Gardening is an important part of the rhythm of my life. I have always loved creation and the natural world, but it is only in the last 10 years, since I settled in Seattle, that I have become an avid gardener. At this time of the year our front porch bulges with seedlings ready to be planted, and our side garden is already providing a feast of broccoli, cauliflower, and salad greens. Over the summer we hope to harvest a feast of over 150 pounds of red, yellow, and orange tomatoes and an endless supply of squash and zucchini, which always taxes my ingenuity in the kitchen!

Part of our commitment to simplicity and self-sustainability is our effort to grow as much of our own fruit and vegetables as possible on our urban lot, and fortunately the climate in the Pacific Northwest is ideal for this venture. We start the year with spinach, mustard greens, lettuce, and snap peas and then progress to cauliflowers, cabbage, and a profusion of broccoli.

Onions, garlic, Swiss chard, beets, and carrots thrive throughout the summer as do the squash, tomatoes, and beans. I have even managed to grow eggplants and hot peppers in what is considered to be a marginal climate for these hot weather species.

I know of no more satisfying experience than to eat produce freshly harvested from the garden.

When I am irritable or disgruntled, an hour in the garden transforms me: Tom says that my face glows when I come back inside. Celebrating God’s presence in the garden is one way I absorb the soothing rhythms intrinsic to the seasons of the year. I was delighted to discover that the early Egyptian monks recognized gardening as part of God’s mandate to care for

the earth.Throughout the Middle Ages, too, gardens were dearly loved by monastic communities and were considered an essential part of the rhythm of life.

Gardening also enabled them to recreate the paradise man and woman once shared with God. Gardening not only brings renewal and refreshment to my life, it has also taught me important lessons about the God who created and cares for us. God is revealed through so many aspects of the created world. Harvest time in particular speaks to me of God’s overflowing generosity. When we diligently work the earth—sow the seed in its season, then fertilize, water, and nurture the crop—the harvest is often overwhelmingly abundant.

It is so abundant, in fact, that we have no choice but to share our bounty with others if we don’t want any to go to waste.

Gardening also reminds me that we are co-creators with the living God.We plant the seed and water the soil, but it is God who germinates and grows the plant.

Even during the dark, cold days of winter God is still at work putting down roots, enriching the soil, and preparing the plant for growth.

Similarly, God gives life to all our efforts.We plant the seed of God’s Word.

Sometimes we have the privilege of seeing it burst into bloom, but it is God who breathes life into our efforts.Through the

Steve Erspamer, Religious Clip Art for the Liturgical Year (ltp.org)

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power of the Holy Spirit working in us and in those around us, God still grows mighty plants out of tiny mustard seeds.

Gardening has also taught me to pay attention to the beauty, diversity, and creativity of God’s world. As I watch the days and the seasons follow in their expected patterns, I am reminded of the faithfulness of a God who comes to us in all seasons of our lives. I am also reminded that our God—who poured out his great love in the complexity, beauty, and diversity of creation—still cares for us and for all creation and will never abandon what he has made.

Perhaps you don’t enjoy gardening as I do, but as we move into the summer and the rich abundant harvest of God’s provision you may enjoy spending time thinking about how God reveals himself to you through creation. In particular, think about and pray for those who earn their living through interaction with God’s creation. Farmers, forestry workers, landscape gardeners, and conservationists represent but a few of the professions that labor in God’s good creation, and they need our prayers. We all reap the benefits of their efforts as we eat their produce, admire their landscapes, and walk through the parks they preserve.

If it is possible, spend a day working on a local farm picking apples or raspberries. Plan a harvest celebration and feast that include the produce you have picked. Make sure that the feast is composed completely of food that is in season.

You may even consider sending a note of thanks to national park workers or local family farmers as a sign of appreciation for the efforts they put into preserving God’s creation and in providing you with the abundance of food for your table.An even more radical possibility is to visit migrant farm workers and share your feast with them. Their backbreaking work—often for very low pay and little thanks—keeps us provided with a rich array of inexpensive produce.

If you are an urban dweller who does not have the opportunity to get out of the city, make an effort to get outside into God’s creation during your lunch hour over the next week.Whether it is sunny or rainy, sit in a local park and reflect on God’s glory shining through the plants and animals around you. Visit a local farmer’s market; buy the foods that are in season and plan a feast with friends;

spend time praying for farmers around the world whose livelihood is in jeopardy because of environmental degradation or unjust trade agreements.

Early Celtic Christians believed that creation was translucent and that the glory of God shone through it. They also believed that all of life reflected God’s creative presence and sustaining love. The wonder and glory of God are all around

us. May we all open our eyes to see and to experience God in new ways over this summer season. ■

Reflections continued from page 2.

care for a parent or child, those blessings that so beautify and frame the tapestry of our lives? And where is my gratitude for the food I am blessed enough to cook or the clothes I have to wash, for the relationships I enjoy that require sacrifice and humility, or the forgiveness I have through Christ?

But when, by grace, I see myself in proper relationship to God and his creation and recognize the larger story in which I play only a small (albeit beloved) part, even the most repetitive of daily tasks suddenly crack open to reveal a promise of joy. Life is indeed relentless —relentlessly good, because its Creator is relentlessly loving and eternally with us. When we are most overwhelmed or most bored, we are most blind.

As G.K. Chesterton explains it,“A child

kicks its legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say,‘Do it again’; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough... It is possible that God says every morning, ‘Do it again,’ to the sun; and every evening, ‘Do it again,’ to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike: It may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.” ■

on the subject of prison conditions. She also took up other causes: setting up District Visiting Societies to help the of her recommendations. Unfortunately, poor, libraries for the Coast Guard, and Peel’s reforms did not apply to debtors’ a nurse’s training school whose graduprisons or local jails, and Fry and her ates accompanied Florence Nightingale brother Joseph Gurney toured through- to the Crimea. She campaigned for the out the British Isles, gathering evidence London homeless, sought better treatto bring about further reform legislation. ment for patients in mental hospitals, By the 1820s Fry was a well-known and promoted the reform of workpersonality whose advice was often sought houses and hospitals.

The young Queen Victoria was a great admirer of Fry, writing in her journal that she considered her a “very superior person.” Fry continued her work until October 1845, when she succumbed to a brief illness. Over 1,000 people stood in silent respect as the “Angel of Newgate” was laid to rest in the Society of Friends graveyard at Barking. ■

veterans have observed, nearly once every day the Divine struggle for justice should make us laugh—for the juxtaposition of the grandness and glory of the calling with the quality of his recruits is sure evidence of a comic heart within the Sovereign.

Harvest, fellowship, beauty, truth, joy, laughter, justice: these are just a few of God’s gifts that we celebrate in this issue.

And this brings me back to the beginning of this reflection, which finds me whining about life’s relentlessness. It happens whenever I place myself on center stage —suddenly my privileges look strangely like burdens. But is it not an honor to

Not to Be Forgotten continued from page 3.

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Christine and Tom Sine share this column.

Christine’s latest book is Sacred Rhythms: Finding a Peaceful Pace in a Hectic World (Baker Books, 2003).Visit their Mustard Seed Associates website at msainfo.org and join the discussion.

Leslie Hammond

SINES OF THE TIMES CHRISTINE SINE

Restoring the Rhythms of Life The season of Lent is upon us once more, and by now you are probably well aware of the fact that the rhythm of my life revolves, in increasing measure, around the seasons of the church year. Much to my delight it seems I am being joined by a growing number of Christians who are reconnecting to the liturgical roots of their faith.

For some this reconnection revolves around worship. Liturgical denominations such as Episcopal, Lutheran, Catholic, and Orthodox are attracting a new generation of worshipers who seek to connect with ancient traditions. Evangelical churches are “blending” liturgical elements into worship for the first time.

Stations of the Cross at Easter, Taizé services, the use of candles and incense are appearing in evangelical and charismatic churches that would never have considered such expressions of faith 10 years ago. Many of the emerging churches are reinventing ancient liturgical forms, incorporating their own prayers and chants that connect to the events of today’s world.They find that the under35 demographic responds with enthusiasm to the countercultural and experiential nature of these ancient forms.

For many Christians, like myself, this reconnection goes far beyond a redesign of Sunday worship. It has resulted in the reinvention of their lives’ patterns and the recognition that we need to reconnect to God’s rhythms not just on Sunday but throughout the year.

The secular culture provides many rhythms that distract us from our faith and our connection to the biblical story.

A growing number of Christians realize this is not the way God intends it to be. The 24/7 work week suggests that

every day is meant to look like every other day.We are constantly bombarded with messages that try to persuade us that the liturgy of shopping, sports, or work are meant to set the rhythm for our lives.We no longer fast during Lent but become obsessed with spring diet fads instead.

Part of what makes us different from the secular community should be a rhythm of life governed by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, not by the civil and national holidays of our country or by the dictates of the consumer culture in which we live. By connecting to the seasons of the church year, we learn to focus every day and every season very intentionally on the One who gives life its meaning and purpose. There is nothing that provides a greater foundation of strength and stability in our rapidly changing world than this kind of connection.

Part of the attraction of liturgical expression is that it transforms us from spectators to participants. Connecting to the joy and despair of the biblical story through a rhythm of feasts and fasts can help us to find meaning in our own pain and suffering. It also enables us to connect our joys and our sorrows to the biblical story and so renews and rejuvenates our spirits.We don’t just read about Christ walking towards Jerusalem and the Cross, we enter into the entire experience with him. In the process we become more aware of how Christ walks with us through every step of our own life journey. He is no longer a disconnected observer of our lives but the close companion who assures us we are never alone.

Historically Christianity was always a faith with a yearly rhythm of joyous celebration and enthusiastic worship punctuated by periods of fasting and serious reflection. This rhythm of feasting and fasting deliberately reminded the entire community on a daily basis of the biblical events that shaped their beliefs. Donna PRISM 2006

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Fletcher Crow, in Seasons of Prayer: Rediscovering Classic PrayersThrough the Christian Calendar (Beacon Hill Press, 2000), suggests that the church calendar provides a whole different way of keeping track of time and enables us to live in the gospel story on a daily basis:“To observe the passage of each year by remembering and walking through Christ’s ministry on earth is in a small way to live our days here as he lived them.” To live throughout the year with a rhythm that connects us to Christ’s life and ministry is a remarkable, but often unconsidered, opportunity.

From my perspective as a medical doctor, there is another advantage to living life by the rhythm of the liturgical calendar.As Gertrud Mueller Nelson expresses it in To Dance with God (Paulist Press, 1986), “By celebrating through the structures of the Church we actually are given the forms we need to become whole and we are given the formulas to make whole every human experience.”

To be made whole, to find health and healing for our minds, bodies, and souls, and even our communities, is what we all crave.

The amazing thing is that such healing is possible—not through repeated trips to the doctor or a handful of pills.

Healing comes as we walk with Christ through the joy and pain of his life, death, and resurrection and connect these events to our own joy and suffering.

Bringing Christ into our daily experiences often gives new meaning to inexplicable events like the death of loved ones or the suffering of children around the world. Joining with Christ, we open our lives to transformation and experience wholeness that no other way of life can provide. And as we are transformed, we become God’s instruments of healing and wholeness for others and for his creation.

The church year also provides the predictability and regularity we crave, especially in those significant passages

of life when changes seem overwhelming. The ritual practices of the church year can help us encounter the mystery of God without being lost in it.

Encountering God through the rituals associated with the liturgical calendar provides a safety net for our souls and helps us to make sense and order out of what otherwise feels disordered and out of control.

Now, to those who did not grow up within a liturgical tradition, the idea that living by the rhythm of the church calendar can bring health and wholeness may sound farfetched or even confusing. However, it is usually through the events of the church calendar—Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter—that we connect to religious rituals and symbols for the inner healing Christ gives. The rituals of confession and repentance, foot washing and baptism, laying on hands and anointing with oil, and the Eucharist give physical expression to our suffering and healing and in so doing bridge the gap between our personal experiences and the meaning of the gospel story.

Even the simple act of eating with others or praying together can be a concrete event that cements the healing of reconciliation for people who were estranged because of misunderstanding, prejudice, or violence.

Each year has two Christ-centered cycles—Christmas and Easter—that begin with a season of reflection and preparation followed by a time of celebration and rejoicing. Advent prepares us for the joy of Christmas and Epiphany, and Lent ushers in the wonders of Easter and Pentecost.

The remaining six months of the year are usually called ordinary time, not because they are mundane or boring but because there are no major festivals during this season. I prefer the more inspiring term Kingdomtide which expresses the kingdom focus of the season.

This is the time when we are meant to focus on the life of the church and its

mission. This is a great season to create our own celebrations that revolve around God’s mission purposes for us and so to share the joy of resurrection life with those around us. This is the time of the year when we are very deliberately meant to get our hands dirty with the work of building God’s kingdom.

To become a follower of Jesus is an invitation to live life with a different rhythm. During this Lenten season get away on a prayer retreat with a friend or your spouse. Examine what sets the direction of your life and how you prioritize your time. Explore the liturgical calendar and discuss how you could more intentionally connect your life to the events of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. Discover God’s purposes for yourself and learn the joy and satisfaction of a life call that is reflected in all you do and say. Invite God to open a doorway to a more festive, less stressed way of life that is fulfilling and not exhausting. ■ Christine and Tom Sine share this column.

Christine’s latest book is Sacred Rhythms: Finding a Peaceful Pace in a Hectic World (Baker Books, 2003). Please visit their Mustard Seed Associates website at msainfo.org and join the discussion.

Hear Ron Sider speak: March 28 at Samford University’s Focus on Hunger and Homelessness Week (Birmingham, Ala.) March 31-April 2 at Friendly Hills Church (Greensboro, N.C.) April 7-9 at “Conversations in Christ and Culture” lecture series (Buffalo, N.Y.) April 21 at Brethren in Christ Canadian Conference (Sauble Beach, Ont.) April 26-27 at the International Prayer for Peace: “Religions and Cultures: the Courage of Dialogue” (Washington, D.C.) Apr 28-29 at “Christianity in a Consumer Culture,” sponsored by The MacLaurin Institute at the University of Minnesota and by Mission: Think (Minneapolis, Minn.)

May 5-7 at Laurelville Mennonite Church Center on living biblically faithful alternative lifestyles (Mt. Pleasant, Pa.) For more information, contact Naomi at: nmiller2@eastern.edu.

Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity

BY RONALD J. SIDER (W Publishing Group)

“One of the Top 100 Religious Books of the Century.” Christianity Today

More than 400,000 copies in print.

PRISM 2006

5

SINES OF THE TIMES CHRISTINE SINE

Give Me Shelter The past year made all of us aware that we live in a very uncertain world in which the financial resources and material possessions we depend on for our security can be swept away in an instant.

The tsunami, hurricanes, mudslides, and earthquakes have left millions of people homeless on several continents, highlighting the sharp contrast between those who have an abundance and those who have little. They also brought the plight of homeless people to our attention as never before.

I have never been homeless, but I still remember vividly a period in my life when I experienced some of the disorientation and destabilization that many homeless people live with on an ongoing basis. When someone accidentally opened the sprinkler system in my cabin on Mercy Ships’ M/V Anastasis and its entire contents were flooded in black sludge, most of my clothes were ruined and the stench made the cabin uninhabitable.

I felt helpless in the face of this disaster. For six months I moved from cabin to cabin while the carpenters slowly renovated it. At the same time Mercy Ships’ home office moved from California to Texas, leaving me with no permanent place to stay during my frequent visits. I never knew where I would be sleeping until I arrived. At one stage I even slept on my office floor for a few nights because no other place was available. Having a moving object in the middle of the sea as my only stable point was hard enough at the best of times, but now I felt like a homeless refugee.

My stress levels rose, and I became increasingly irritable and depressed.

Fortunately I was able to purchase a home near the Texas office, and I immediately felt better and started to relax.

Homelessness is difficult to cope with even for those of us who have the resources to rapidly rebuild our lives.

Imagine what it is like for those who lack the financial and emotional resources to change their situation. Irritability, anger, and self-centeredness are not uncommon among people who have been displaced and lost everything. In their attempt to regain some control over their lives, refugees and displaced people often lash out at the very people who are trying to help them. Unfortunately this can create a vicious cycle of misunderstanding, resentment, and withdrawal.

Homelessness, or houselessness as it is now often being called, is a huge and complex challenge throughout our world.

The 2005 report from UN-HABITAT, the United Nations’ Human Settlements Programme (www.unhabitat.org), indicates that over 1 billion of the world’s 6 billion residents live in inadequate housing, mostly in the sprawling slums and squatter settlements in developing countries. They estimate that by the year 2050 this figure could rise to over 3 billion.

In the United States an estimated 4 to 5 million people go homeless each year, and the numbers were on the increase even before Katrina and Rita hit. The fastest growing segment of the homeless population is young women with children. Millions of others live without a safety net and constantly struggle with the knowledge that loss of a job or serious illness could quickly push them onto the streets.

People are homeless for a variety of reasons.The lack of adequate and affordable housing is only part of a dynamic problem faced by urban slums in the Third World. Social, political, and economic forces within an entire region of the globe can cause slums to form at an overwhelming rate, requiring regional and national development policy. In 2003 approximately 10.5 million people were classified as refugees, and an additional 10 million were displaced within their own PRISM 2006

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countries as a result of natural disaster, environmental degradation, and political unrest. Unlike the victims of Katrina, many of these refugees go unnoticed by the worldwide community. Some of them sit in refugee camps for years before they are relocated. Others, particularly children, die because their basic needs for food and shelter are unmet.

In the U.S., as in most developed countries, hunger and homelessness are due to a number of factors, many of them interrelated. The greatest contributing factors are unemployment, low-paying jobs, high housing costs, high medical and health costs, high utility costs, reduced public benefits, substance abuse, and high childcare costs (from the U.S. Conference of Mayors’ Hunger and Homelessness Survey 2004). However, the lack of affordable housing is the main contributing factor with 5 million low-income households experiencing serious housing problems due to high housing costs and substandard housing conditions.

As I contemplate the plight of the millions in our world who are without a home, I am reminded that Jesus and his family also knew the uncertainty of homelessness. When he was a child they fled as refugees into Egypt. As an adult he had no place to lay his head (Luke 9:58). No wonder he was so sympathetic towards those who were displaced within his society. When he looked at the beggar sitting by the city gate, perhaps he was reminded of his own uncertain childhood. Perhaps as he reached out to embrace the leper and the outcast he was reminded of the times that he, too, was rejected by society.

If we can see Jesus in the pained faces and broken lives of those who are despised and rejected by our society, then through God’s grace we, too, can reach out and be enfolded in his love. When we love those who are deemed unlovely, we experience the wonder of Christ’s compassionate embrace.

Try to put yourself in the place of

people who are homeless. Sit for a few moments and look around your house.

Focus on the things you value most— your family photos, the tablecloth lovingly embroidered by your grandmother, the gifts from your mother and father.

How would you feel if these were suddenly lost? Even worse, how would you feel if everything else was stripped away, too—your job, your life savings, your standing in the community?

Now imagine that you and your family have been forced to travel hundreds of miles to find safety. You are crowded into a makeshift refugee camp with thousands of others. During the trip your passport and money were stolen.

Now you have heard rumors that there is only enough food and water for a small portion of the people in the camp.

How would you feel? How would you react? How would you want others to react to you?

The problems of homelessness may appear daunting, but they are not insurmountable. The provision of affordable housing, the upgrading of existing facilities, the creation of jobs that pay a livable wage, and the addressing of issues that cause displacement of millions of people from their homes can together work to overcome this tremendous problem. The outpouring of compassion and offers of help from across the world that followed the tsunami, the hurricanes,

the mudslides, and the earthquake made us aware that even our small and seemingly insignificant contributions can make a difference.

Bill Horn is a Lutheran pastor in Hawkeye, a tiny town on the prairies of Iowa. Following the devastation of New Orleans, he mobilized others in his church and the local community to offer help for victims of Katrina. The community has offered to house a family rent-free until they are on their feet. Bill’s church is covering utilities and working to help them find jobs in the area.Their community is but one of many who have reached out in this way. How about yours?

In his inaugural address in 1937, Franklin D. Roosevelt said, “The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” His words still ring true today. Until we commit to “make poverty history” and see the needs of those at the bottom of the economic ladder as a priority we cannot claim to have made any kind of progress in our world. ■ Tom and Christine Sine share this column.

Their latest book is Living on Purpose: Finding God’s Best for Your Life (Baker, 2001). Visit their Mustard Seed Associates website at www.msainfo.org.

Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger: Moving from Affluence to Generosity

BY RONALD J. SIDER (W Publishing Group)

“One of the Top 100 Religious Books of the Century.” Christianity Today

More than 400,000 copies in print.

PRISM 2006

5

SINES OF THE TIMES TOM SINE

The Scandal of the Evangelical Worldview In the last two articles I have taken a mock-contrarian position to Ron Sider’s recent Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience (Baker), playfully questioning his concerns that American Christians are being seduced by materialism and self-interested lifestyles. In this article I will stop playing devil’s advocate and not only agree with Ron but also argue that we are facing nothing less than a “worldview crisis” among many American evangelicals.

Barna reports in his most recent newsletter that “only 5 percent of American adults possess a biblical worldview...” I will explain why I believe that many sincere believers have allowed the economic values of modern society to define the foundation of their worldview instead of anything that came from Scripture.

The question I would like you to explore with me is “What seems to be the purpose at the very center of our world that, if we embrace it, will create a better future for all people?”There are two very different responses to this question among American evangelicals. One answer comes from modern culture, the other from ancient faith.

The first response claims that the way the world will be made better is for everyone to pursue self-interest in a free and open marketplace. First, we need to ask whether this claim is empirically true.

If we each pursue our own self-interest in a free market, will it automatically and universally raise all boats and achieve the public good? Second, we need to ask if God wired our world in such a way that the best path to making it a better

place for all our neighbors is to pursue our own economic self-interest.

This belief about how the world works and how the common good is achieved is the foundation stone of the worldview held by a surprising number of United States evangelicals we’ve worked with. They don’t seem to recognize that this fundamental assumption is born of an Enlightenment worldview and is deeply invested in a very optimistic view of history.

Essentially this worldview contends that, if we cooperate with the laws on which this universe is based, society can expect to progress not only economically and technologically but also politically and socially. In other words, we can expect the world to improve if we play by the rules. Stop and think. Can you remember anything in the biblical narrative that would support this optimistic view of how the world works?

In other days, those on the political and economic left also had an optimistic view of history—convinced that if they played by the rules it would result in the achievement of their own political vision of the common good. Those on the right correctly critiqued this worldview as social engineering by the left to achieve an unrealistic political utopia. Christians particularly pointed out that their reading of Scripture found no basis for this kind of optimism regarding our human destiny. Is it possible that those Christians who have bought into the conservative economic worldview have succumbed to an economic utopianism just as our friends on the left did?

I freely admit that free market economics works better than any other system I know of, but I am persuaded the reason it works so well is that we live in a fallen world in which the pursuit of self-interest, greed, and covetousness are alive and well and keep the

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economy cooking.

My greatest concern about the view that the world is made better by the pursuit of self-interest is that it seems to be diametrically opposed to the teachings of Jesus. One of the central paradoxes that he presents is that only as we lose our lives in service to God and others do we have any possibility of discovering the true meaning of life. Jesus teaches that only as the grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies will it ever bear fruit.

Listen to our Teacher: “Therefore, I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you shall eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear....For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt. 6:25, 33).

The entire New Testament narrative persuasively argues that we are called as followers of Jesus to set aside our selfinterested lives to join with others in devoting our lives to the pursuit of the purposes of God’s kingdom. Those purposes are always focused outwardly on the needs of others, particularly the poor and most vulnerable in our society. As David Bosch says in his book Transforming Mission (Orbis, 1991), “To become a disciple means a decisive and irrevocable turning to both God and neighbor.”

As followers of Jesus, we have to ask whether our worldview is defined by the assumption that the common good is achieved by the individual pursuit of more or by Jesus’ call to lose our lives in service to God and others. I find that those who choose the first option are largely unaware of the extent to which the direction and character of their lives are being shaped by the aspirations and values powering our global free market economy. Typically their lives are consumed by their careers and the upscale

expectations of the communities in which they live.They are usually sincere believers who find that they have very little time for things of the Spirit and even less time to invest in service to others. I find these people seldom even wonder aloud whether their enthusiastic consumerism is serving the common good or not.

Those who choose the second option, of seeking first the kingdom, don’t find their lives easy either in this very demanding world. But they typically attempt to focus their lives both inwardly and outwardly, taking time both to nourish their relationship to God and to explore how they can use their mustard seeds to

make a difference in the world. Instead of being preoccupied with the symbols of status, prestige, and wealth creation, they are constantly seeking to imagine new ways to steward their time and resources so that they can free up more of both to invest in the work of God’s kingdom.They are convinced that their small efforts make a difference in working for the common good of their neighbors near and far.

The question on the cover of The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience is “Why are Christians living just like the rest of the world?” The answer is this: While many American evangelicals have com-

mitted their lives to Christ, they have not allowed the call to give their lives in service to God and others to be the foundation of their Christian worldview.

This is a critical failing, and I predict that it will seriously undermine the vitality and commitment of the American church in the coming decade. ■

city of Peking. When he was finally allowed to enter the capital in January, 1601, he befriended the emperor,Wan-Li, by repairing two small clocks for him.

This and his mapmaking skills impressed the emperor so much that he opened doors for him, and Ricci was allowed to stay in the capital for the next 10 years while he carried on his apostolate.

Although now accepted by the Chinese and their government, Ricci drew fire from the Catholic hierarchy in his later years. Wanting to honor local traditions, he allowed his converts to carry on their tradition of burning incense in honor of their dead, concluding that it was not really ancestor “worship” but rather a way of showing respect for family members who had gone before. Ricci was criticized for this, especially by other orders that had not enjoyed his success. The affair became known as the “Chinese Rites Controversy,” and Rome took the side of the other orders and tried to cur-

tail Ricci’s work. Peking, however, sided with the Jesuit priest, now known to them as “Li-Ma-Teu,” and he continued his work with government protection until his death in 1610.

During his 27 years in China, Ricci wrote many books and tracts that were widely used in the mission field, but the most influential was his T’ien-chu-she-i (The True Doctrine of God). Reprinted four times before its author’s death, it led countless numbers of Chinese to Christ, and the perusal of it led a later emperor, K’ang-hi, to issue his edict of 1692 granting liberty to preach the gospel. In 2000, Pope John Paul II paid tribute to Ricci with these words: “The authentic way of the Church is man: a way intertwined with profound and respectful intercultural dialogue, as Father Matteo Ricci taught us with wisdom and skill.” ■

Tom and Christine Sine share this column.

Their latest book is Living on Purpose: Finding God’s Best for Your Life (Baker, 2001). Visit their Mustard Seed Associates website at www.msainfo.org.

Not to Be Forgotten, continued from page 3. distributed, along with a catechism in which the rudiments of Christian doctrine were explained in a dialogue between a pagan and a European priest.

Father Ruggieri was called back to Europe in 1588, and Ricci carried on with only the assistance of a young cleric. He experienced a setback the next year, when a Chinese official took over his house and expelled him from Chao-k’ing, but he soon set up residence in Shao-chow, where he dismissed his interpreters and began wearing the dress of the educated Chinese. After a failed attempt to enter Nan-King, he went instead to Nan-ch’ang, a city famous for its great number of learned men. There he established a Christian church and gained a hearing among the intellectuals by the deep knowledge of Confucianism that he had acquired along the way.

For the next decade, Ricci worked steadily toward his goal of gaining a hearing for Christianity in the capital

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Leslie Hammond

SINES OF THE TIMES TOM SINE

Individual Pursuit of Self-Interest Is As American As Apple Pie! Last month I questioned some of the very unkind things that Ron Sider had to say about materialism in his new book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience, but in many ways I am even more troubled by his indictment of Christians for their individual pursuit of self-interest: “Material abundance and self-fulfillment through more and more things became the highest values [for American Christians],” he complains.

I realize that Ron has the best intentions in the world, but let’s be realistic.

Look at what the pursuit of material abundance has done for the American economy. The Dow Jones Industrial Average has risen to 10500 as I write, and the global economy is zipping along, too. Our individual, passionate pursuit of more has been the major force in creating this robust economy. It has put people to work, including those at the margins. Money is available not only to send our kids to college but also to share with them a generous portion of “material abundance.”

Ron disapproves of today’s kids, but what in the world would they have to live for if they weren’t constantly preoccupied with image, style, and brand?

How else could they possibly find a sense of identity and meaning if we didn’t raise them to pursue individual economic success as the primary purpose of their lives?

I particularly commend those parents that raise their young in very privileged communities of affluence and give them the

opportunity to learn early the symbols of truly successful living. And how about the couple I know who are in their 70s but have delayed retirement so they can enable their 40-something son and daughter to continue the luxurious lifestyles they were raised to expect?

Ron Sider seems to have trouble not only with materialism and the pursuit of self-interest but also with the advertising industry. “Desiring ever-growing sales to produce ever-greater profits,” he complains, “businesses have discovered the power of seductive advertising.” But where in the world would our economy be today if these wizards of marketing and manipulation didn’t constantly motivate us to be chronically discontented with our lives and create new appetites for things we didn’t even know we needed? It is through their inspired work, often using our own religious symbols, that we get our insatiable appetite for the newest, the latest, and the most expensive. Not only does their influential work grow our economy but it also leaves us with more old stuff to hand down to those in need.

Speaking of advertising, I recently came across some particularly good news for parents. Beyond being unpaid billboards for products like Nike, Old Navy, and Abercrombie & Fitch, your kids can also (if they are extreme cool) get in on the ground floor of the advertising industry. Advertising firms are increasingly hiring “influential kids” to become word of mouth advertisers, paying them to review a not-yet-released CD or film and start the buzz.According to a recent article in the Christian Science Monitor, advertisers say that this unscripted, wordof-mouth advertising is “inherently authentic.” How could the anti-consumer crowd possibly be opposed to that?

There are a few downsides for those of us who climb on the escalator to the land of evermore. American consumers owed $2.1 trillion in debt at the end of 2004, twice as much as 10 years ago.We PRISM 2005

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are running the highest levels of personal debt ever and some of the lowest saving rates. Critics like Sider insist that bingeing on our savings and other people’s money simply isn’t sustainable. But don’t you agree that we can always count on lending institutions to stretch their policies a bit to loan us all we need to keep the ball rolling and the economy growing? So what’s to worry? If huge and growing amounts of debt are good for the American economy, shouldn’t debt be good for individual Americans?

And don’t worry about our financial institutions or credit card companies.

Remember that Congress recently passed new legislation to make it much more difficult for those that get in way over their heads to file for bankruptcy.

Family counselors often complain that one of the major causes of family breakups is a serious level of financial debt.

As Christians we should, of course, be concerned, but wouldn’t it be a serious mistake to kill the golden goose of our growing economy when so many of us are enjoying trophy houses, second homes, classy vehicles, and super-sized consumer lifestyles?

Like Ron Sider and Tony Campolo, I have for years embraced the notion that Doug Meeks espouses in his book God the Economist (Augsburg Fortress, 1989)—that scripture needs to inform all areas of life, including our lifestyles and our economic views. For years I have strongly opposed recognizing self-interest as the orchestrating principal of how the world really works. In fact, I went so far as to assert that the world is made better not through the pursuit of selfinterest but rather, as Jesus taught us, in losing our life in the service of God and others,“living more simply that the poor could simply live.”

Recently, however, I read an important book that helped me get my head on straight. In Economics as Religion (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002), Robert Nelson shows us that economic

principles must trump religious principles. He commends traditional faiths like Christianity for seeking to “instill higher ideals in human behavior,” but says that he is troubled by their failure to recognize the fundamental importance of affirming the individual pursuit of selfinterest as the way our world is ultimately made better.“The mechanism of individual exchange and other economic forces grounded in self-interest, not the teaching of the church, drive the world,” he tells us.

Isn’t it time for all of us to join Nelson and his colleagues and acknowledge that free market economic theories born of the Enlightenment, not some archaic biblical principles, are what define most clearly how the world really works?

These theories, after all, show that our individual pursuit of self-interest in a free market will universally and inevitably advance the common good for all the world’s people—including the poor.

Since this view of how the world works makes such good common sense,

shouldn’t it be the foundation stone of any informed Christian worldview?

Shouldn’t you join what I suspect are the majority of American evangelicals in the opinion that the way the world is made better is through the individual pursuit of economic gain? After all, isn’t the pursuit of self-interest as American as apple pie, and shouldn’t we just work our faith in around the edges of the “goods” life?

I would be very interested in your reaction to my rambling about the two very different views of how the world works. What is your opinion? I would love to see a vigorous discussion of the issues of materialism and the pursuit of self-interest that are raised in Ron Sider’s book. ■ Tom and Christine Sine share this column.

Their latest book is Living on Purpose: Finding God’s Best for Your Life (Baker, 2001). Visit their Mustard Seed Associates website at www.msainfo.org.

SINES OF THE TIMES TOM SINE

Materialism: As American As Apple Pie! My friend Ron Sider has some very unkind things to say about materialism in his new book, The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience. He tries to persuade his readers that a Christian worldview doesn’t begin with the materialistic values that are so popular in modern culture.Apparently Ron doesn’t understand that materialism is what made America what it is today.

I want to set the record straight in the next few issues regarding the bad rap that materialism has gotten. Please drop me a note and let me know whether you find my arguments persuasive or not.

During the boom days of the late ’90s, Forbes magazine ran a series of articles making a compelling case that not only is materialism good but greed is good, too.They explained that even the Amish had become entrepreneurs, starting small businesses on the side to increase their wealth while farming. Forbes convincingly argued that the primary goal of life, even for people of faith, is to be found in the aggressive pursuit of material gain.

By the time I read the last in the series of articles they had my vote.

Let’s look at what the celebration of greed and the aggressive pursuit of more have accomplished in our world in the last 15 years. First, we have witnessed the most extraordinary level of economic growth in human history.We have achieved the creation of a super-sized global consumer culture in which we have all learned to consume at levels never before seen on this planet. Of course, many of us have had to go into serious debt to increase our appetite for more. But it’s worth it when you consider all the good things

we enjoy because of it: the latest fashions, home appliances, and entertainment.

We have also seen the creation of more millionaires and billionaires in the last 15 years than in any previous period in human history.Thankfully they don’t seem to be struggling with the debt problem that many of us in the middle class have.How can anyone possibly argue that materialism and greed aren’t good for society? Surely the Christians in the Middle Ages were dead wrong about the so-called deadly sins—how can greed, envy, and covetousness be anything but virtues since they motivate people to aggressively pursue material gain, which is what we need to keep the economy healthy? Those Christian sages did get one of the deadly sins right, however: Sloth is indeed a reprehensible sin, since it is so bad for the economy.

Where would we be without the executives of Enron, World Com, and Tyco modeling the values of excess for all of us? Sure, some of them cut some corners, but who can argue with success? A Tyco executive recently spent $2.1 million of company funds to throw a little birthday party for his wife in Sardinia, flying in friends from all over the world for the celebration. Isn’t that an example of the good life we can all aspire to?

I, for one, don’t understand the furor over the New York Stock Exchange decision to give Dick Grasso, its former chairman and CEO, a $180-million severance package. Nor do I understand why people should be so upset about executive salaries increasing 600 percent since the ’90s simply because workers’ salaries barely kept up with inflation. The fact that CEOs typically earn 300 percent more than the average worker just means that they’re out there spending their cash, stimulating the economy, and creating benefits that eventually trickle down to the workers.

Super-sized compensation packages also help to motivate our corporate lead-

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ers to keep the economy growing through their business practices.Why quibble with whatever it takes to achieve economic boom times?

I have also come to stand with all those who strongly oppose all forms of taxation, particularly for the very wealthy.

I am delighted that 82 major American corporations found a way to avoid paying a single dollar of U.S. taxes last year.

Sure, this represents a loss of $35.6 billion in tax revenue. But this, too, will contribute to the acceleration of economic growth.That growth makes it worth the extra taxes we’ll have to pay to make up for what the corporations don’t.

We all need to support enthusiastically the permanent end of the “death tax” as well, so that wealthy families can leave their entire estates to their offspring. I am ready to join with my friends in the red states who are more than willing to pay a little more in federal income tax to make up the difference. Creating a permanent new aristocracy of privilege, status, and wealth in America gives the rest of us an all-important role model to aspire to.

It has been reported that the repeal of the death tax for the wealthy would mean a serious reduction not only in tax revenues but also in charitable contributions—somewhere to the tune of $5 to $6 billion a year. I know that a number of Christian leaders are alarmed at this potential lost income. But I am confident that the middle-class Christians who strongly support ending this tax are ready to step up to the plate, willing not only to pay more taxes to make up the difference but also to raise significantly their level of financial support to their churches and faith-based ministries so that the needy may continue to be served.

Finally, let’s all strongly support making permanent the tax cuts for the richest 1 percent of Americans. Sure, it will mean billions in lost revenues, resulting in severe cutbacks in assistance to kids,

single-parent families, the disabled, veterans’ healthcare, and the elderly, as we have seen in the proposed federal budget cuts. But I remain confident that if we help lighten the tax load on our wealthiest citizens it will so grow the economy that it will prove to be absolutely the best thing we can do to help our poorest neighbors, if they can just hold on a while longer.

Some Democrats are raising a stink about a deficit of $427 billion those tax cuts help to create. But I see no reason to join these liberal worrywarts. I am convinced that these tax cuts for the super-rich will enable us to grow our way out of this huge debt and to experience an expansion of consumer choices and extravagant lifestyles that today we can only dream of. Most importantly, this kind of economic growth will increase the power and influence of America throughout the world.

There are a small but troubling number of Christian writers and pundits—

like my friend Ron—who spend a lot of time bad-mouthing materialism, greed, and covetousness.With sincere remorse I confess that at one time I, too, was among those seriously confused believers.

But one has only to look around to see the tremendous benefits of what our new economy has achieved by persuading us to be chronically discontented and to devote our lives to the constant quest for more of what God intended.

Materialism is as American as apple pie. Shouldn’t the pursuit of material gain be a foundation stone of any modern Christian worldview, since it recognizes that the ultimate value of human existence, for both individuals and nations, is defined primarily in terms of economic success? ■ Tom and Christine Sine share this column.

Their latest book is Living on Purpose: Finding God’s Best for Your Life (Monarch Books, 2004).Visit their Mustard Seed Associates website at www.msainfo.org.

Not to Be Forgotten, continued from page 3. were soon filled with district residents brought to active Christianity at the same time that they were brought out of the trap of poverty.

In 1823, worn out from ceaseless toil in the parish and assured that his welltrained team could carry on his work, Chalmers left St. John’s Parish to lecture on moral philosophy at St. Andrews.

There his evangelistic spirit was influential in inspiring the first generation of Church of Scotland missionaries to India. In 1828 he became professor of divinity at Edinburgh and poured his still considerable energies into lecturing, preaching, and writing.When the Church was split by the Disruption of 1843,

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which came about as a result of longstanding interference by the state in church matters, Chalmers became first moderator of the Free Church of Scotland.

Just four years later, at the time of the General Assembly, Dr. Chalmers was missed at the morning session, and someone was sent to his quarters to check on him. There it was found that he had “suddenly and unexpectedly slipped peacefully away.” His funeral was the largest ever seen in Edinburgh, with thousands of his fellow Scots paying their respects as the cortege took his body to its resting place in Grange Cemetery. ■ Leslie Hammond

For the first time in the history of the United States, a broadly based Christian organization, representing all the major streams of American church life, is being formed. All the major Christian families— evangelicals/Pentecostals, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, historic ethnic, and mainline Protestants.

—are launching a new process, Christian Churches Together in the USA. This has never happened before in American history.

The national launch will take place in Washington, D.C., at the National Cathedral at 4:00 p.m. on September 18. You are invited to attend!

I have had the privilege of serving on the Steering Committee, working especially on encouraging evangelical/Pentecostal denominations to join.

Seven have already decided to do that and many more are discussing it.

Evangelicals for Social Action and World Vision will also be founding members.

For details on the event, go to www.christianchurchestogether.org Ron Sider PRISM 2005

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SINES OF THE TIMES CHRISTINE SINE

Love and Fear in Uncertain Times The earthquake and tsunami that swept away so many lives and communities the day after Christmas had a devastating impact on people around the world.

The horror of drowned villages with splintered buildings, overturned vehicles, and enormous funeral pyres; the anguish of parents looking for their children; and the grieving of survivors who have lost everything will haunt many of us for years to come.

The response to this crisis has in many ways been just as unimaginable and overwhelming. A wave of compassion from around the world has poured billions of dollars into the relief efforts. People who had never worked overseas before got on planes and went to help. One CNN report told of a New York stockbroker with paramedic training who was so filled with concern that he immediately purchased a ticket to Asia and began helping local doctors.When interviewed he said that he often wore a WWJD (What Would Jesus Do) bracelet, and in this situation he knew that Jesus would be there helping.

As I watched this amazing outpouring of love, I could not help but contrast it to the very different response to the equally devastating destruction of the World Trade Towers on September 11, 2001.This event also triggered an outpouring of emotion, but on that occasion it was a wave of fear and distrust that inundated our world. People walled themselves in, afraid to engage the world around them. As a consequence, mission and relief organizations in the United States faltered as their supply of money and personnel dried to a trickle.

Fear is a powerful and motivating force that often controls our lives. Fear of rejection can incapacitate our ability to confront our own personal tragedies and inadequacies. Fear of homelessness and poverty may cause us to ignore and even despise the most vulnerable members of our society. Fear of illness and death may make us unwilling to confront our mortality and can isolate us from God’s comfort and compassion. It can even cut us off from the healing processes available through prayer. On a global scale our fear of disease and death makes us unwilling to talk to those who are dying or to work in impoverished communities that desperately need to see the healing power of God. Australian cartoonist Michael Leunig, in his delightful little book A Common Prayer: A Cartoonist Talks to God (HarperCollins, 1990), says: “There are only two languages—love and fear….

There are only two motives, two procedures, two frameworks, two results— love and fear.”Though his theology may sound a little simplistic to most of us, there is much wisdom in what he says, as I observed recently when a good friend of mine lost his job. As he and his family struggled to make ends meet, some of their friends surrounded them with love and encouragement. Others turned their backs, unwilling even to look at them.“It was as though we had caught a disease people were afraid was contagious,” they told me. Every encounter, from major crises to our daily interaction with colleagues and friends, provides opportunities either to recoil in fear or to reach out in love.

Fear is the language of a world that is disconnected from God, his love, and kingdom values. It isolates us in our own self-centered little world, surrounded by walls of dread and apprehension that separate us from the pain and suffering of both our own inner struggles and

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those of others. Fear is always destructive.

It breeds violence, hate, and death. It can be deadly not just physically but emotionally and spiritually, too.

Love, on the other hand, is the language of God and is the central value of God’s kingdom. As James reminds us, “You do well if you really fulfill the royal law according to the scripture,‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself ’” (2:8).

Love is a far more powerful force than fear. It is creative and life-giving, nurturing the seeds of God’s image deep within all our hearts. It draws us out of our self-directed preoccupations and opens us up to share in the anguish of those who are suffering. Love is even able to break down the barriers that fear creates. As the apostle John says so succinctly, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18).

Tragedy changes us and our world.

At times of crisis it is good to remember that in the person of Jesus Christ we see the human face of a loving God who cares deeply and compassionately for our broken world. Christ came into our pain-racked world as a vulnerable infant. He faced the threat of death as a child and fled for his life as a refugee.

He entered, in a very personal way, into the pain and suffering of humankind.

He walked alongside all who suffer and willingly endured torture and death as a criminal in order to bring us freedom from our fears and our pain.

To walk in the freedom of a child of God means to make the deliberate decision each day to “live by the law of love.”

It means to cease exploiting or oppressing others, to cease responding in fear or hate. As John reminds us,“We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let

us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action” (1 John 3:16-18).

Through his life and actions Jesus showed us a God of love and compassion and encourages us to go and tell others about this God—not just through our words but through our actions as well.

What is our response to disaster and calamity in our own lives and in the broader world? Do we respond out of love or fear? Do we isolate ourselves behind walls of indifference or break down barriers with our compassionate response? My prayer is that the outpouring of love and compassion following the disastrous tsunami at the end of 2004 will not only be sustained but will also spread out and break down the barriers that fear has created over the last few years. May our eyes be opened to remember the millions who face the possibility of death, starvation, and disease daily because of poverty, injustice,

and oppression so that we will extend our love and compassion to them, too.

As we continue to pour out our love to victims in Southeast Asia, may it broaden our understanding of what it means to be Christ’s representatives of love in a broken world. This kind of love transcends culture, language, ethnicity, and religion. It breaks down barriers, overcomes fear, and brings the offer of new life in the midst of disaster. As Michael Leunig writes,“Love one another and you will be happy. It is as simple and as difficult as that.There is no other way. Amen.” ■ Christine’s latest book is Sacred Rhythms: Finding a Peaceful Pace in a Hectic World (Baker Books, 2003). Christine and Tom Sine share this column.Visit their Mustard Seed Associates website at www.msainfo.org.

Not to Be Forgotten, continued from page 3. limited right to vote on temperance matters. In 1881 she introduced leading suffragist Susan B. Anthony from the WCTU podium, and in 1882 she brought the WCTU firmly out in support of suffrage. Although Willard was largely successful in bringing WCTU members to that cause, she was not able to bring them to the other political activism that she felt was essential. In 1882 Willard joined the Prohibition Party and in 1890 plunged her energies into the new Populist Party, but she was unsuccessful in bringing the populists to support women’s suffrage or the prohibitionists to embrace populism.

In 1892 Willard began spending much of her time in England. There,

under the influence of the Fabians she came to see poverty rather than intemperance as the chief cause of social ills.

At the 1897 conference of the national WCTU she shocked delegates by embracing socialism: “Socialism is the higher way; it enacts into everyday living the ethics of Christ’s gospel. Nothing else will do.”

Willard, who remained unmarried all her life, died of influenza while visiting New York City in February 1898, her position with the WCTU largely eroded by her embrace of broader political causes. ■ Leslie Hammond

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Eastern Seminary and the Sider Center/ESA announce an opening for a joint appointment for a full-time tenure track position in Theology and Holistic Ministry. The position starts in September, 2005.

This person would teach four courses in the M.Div. and D.Min. Programs at Eastern University and serve as the Director of Network 9:35, a Sider Center/ ESA ministry that provides resources for congregations seeking to combine evangelism and social ministry. Qualifications include skills and interest in combining scholarship, activism and popular communication.

Interested persons should contact Ronald J. Sider at: rsider@eastern.edu PHONE: 610-645-9354 6 East Lancaster Avenue Wynnewood, PA 19096

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Do We Need a Day of Rest?

It is the beginning of a new year, and I daresay many of us have already broken our New Year’s resolutions. Some of us haven’t bothered making any because we know our resolves are not likely to last more than a couple of weeks at the most.Why is it so difficult to make changes we know are good for us?

I think one of the reasons is that often we focus more on the symptoms of our problem rather than on the actual disease.We know we should pray more but don’t want to deal with the fact that our lack of prayer is a symptom of a life out of sync with God’s priorities.

Or perhaps we resolve to spend more time working in Christian ministry, but in spite of our resolutions we just can’t find time in our busy schedules to get involved.

Several years ago I made a resolution that not only revolutionized my ability to prioritize my time but also helped me

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stick to the changes I made. I discovered the Sabbath. Sabbath is unique amongst life’s rhythms in that no such day existed until it appeared full-blown in the Hebrew Bible and it has no counterpart in the natural world. According to Albert Schweitzer, “If your soul has no Sunday it becomes an orphan.”

Unfortunately,for many of us Sabbath observances are no more than a set of legalistic rules. During a recent visit to a small town in Iowa, a resident told us that all new houses in the area were being built with drains in the garage.Why? So that people could wash their cars inside on Sunday without the neighbors knowing! How tragic that this kind of thinking shapes the Sabbath day for many people. For others of us Sunday has gone from being a day of rigid restrictions to the only day of the week that provides the freedom to do almost anything we want. Our lives are too busy and our appetites too insatiable to permit us to consider “losing” a whole day that could otherwise be spent on work or shopping.

The Jewish philosopher Abraham Heschel saw the Sabbath day as a miracle.

In his book The Sabbath (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1951), Heschel explains that Jewish philosophers puzzled for many years over Genesis 2:2,“On the seventh day God finished his work,” which implied to them that there was an act of creation on the seventh day, too. They came to the conclusion that what God created on the seventh day was Sabbath, a day of peace and tranquility when God and all of God’s creation rested in the enjoyment of life as God intended it to be. For Heschel, “The essence of the world to come is Sabbath eternal.”

The Jews yearned for a future in which Sabbath was not just a single day’s event but a way of life, seven days a week.The early Christians believed that God was beginning a new creation through the resurrection of Christ, meaning that the eternal world the Jews

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dreamed of was opened to them in the here and now.The Sabbath was the culmination and goal of their week, the day on which they celebrated not just their relationship with God but also the glimpses they had caught of God’s new world.They rested in the satisfaction of all they had accomplished that had glorified God over the preceding week.

Today, too, Sabbath is meant to be what theologian Paul Stevens calls, in Seven Days of Faith (NavPress, 2001),“a delicious relaxation in God,” a day on which we glimpse the joy, tranquility, peace, and abundance of life in eternity.

It is a day that is meant to realign our whole life. It reaffirms our relationship to God, to the rest of humankind, and even to God’s creation.The rest of the week should be focused on activities that enable us to look forward to the Sabbath —not in some perfunctory “Oh, I wish it were Sunday” fashion, but rather the whole of the week is meant to focus on making the joy, peace, and abundant provision of the Sabbath possible not only for us but for all of God’s creatures as well.

First, we celebrate the joy of our restored fellowship with God.Tom and I spend time journaling on Sunday morning, then check in with each other to see how well we have focused on God’s priorities during the preceding week.

During this time I love to spend a few minutes thinking about how I have drawn closer to God over the last week.

I also like to remind myself of how I have helped others draw closer to God. The challenging part is looking ahead and asking myself,“How in this coming week can I improve my relationship with God?” Of course, the restoration of our fellowship with God is not something we can fully celebrate as isolated individuals.

It is only as we come together in a worshipping community that we can fully appreciate and enter into the joy of our restored relationship to God.

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Second, the Sabbath is a day to celebrate relationships—and not just with friends and family. This is a day for delighting in our inclusion in that great international community that is Christ’s body.We are all part of the same human family. As we go to church and interact with people, we should savor the rich diversity of that family and the wonder and joy of sharing life with brothers and sisters from around the world. Particularly as we share the bread and wine of Communion, we sense that we not only come together with brothers and sisters from around the world but also with all those who have gone before us. In the process we become aware of those for whom the Sabbath rest is still little more than a dream: the destitute, the abandoned, and the neglected.

One question I often ask myself at this time is, “What have I done in the last week that bears the fingerprints of God?” It helps me to rejoice in the ways God has used my gifts and talents in the last week to bring glimpses of God’s eternal world into the lives of others.

I am amazed at the peace and satisfaction this simple question has brought to my life. It is easy for me to get caught up in the needs of the world around me.

Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the never-ending parade of pain and suffering in our world. I want to get out and use every moment to heal the sick, feed the hungry, and preach good news to the poor. Unless I take time to remind myself of the good things I have accomplished, I soon find my days becoming busier and busier as I unrealistically try to take responsibility for the problems of everyone I meet. In the process my time with God and my enjoyment of the abundant life God wants for me get pushed further and further to the margins.

Third, the Sabbath is a day to celebrate the glorious world that God has provided for us to live in.This is a great day to go for a hike or a drive in the

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country or to get out into the garden. I love to spend a few moments imagining that our Creator is walking in the garden, too, enjoying with me the beauty of all I see.

Imagine how our priorities and our New Year’s resolutions would change if we had this perspective. No wonder Jesus healed on the Sabbath and criticized the legalisms and restrictive rules the Pharisees inflicted on the people that robbed them of their joy and freedom. He wasn’t downplaying the importance of Sabbath as a holy day, but was bringing the Jews back to God’s perspective. In the process he gave them breathtaking glimpses of the eternal world in which all will one day be made whole.

In a 24/7 world with no space for rest we must purchase our freedom from work and busyness with some hard choices. How could you more authentically practice a Sabbath day? Perhaps you would like to start as one friend of ours recently did, by instituting a “technology Sabbath.” One day a week he disconnects from the phone and the computer (that’s right—no email!). It has done much to decrease the stress in his hectic life and has made it easier for him to enter into the joy of God’s presence.

What choices should you make that will enable you to take at least part of Sunday (or whichever day in the week is most suitable for you) to face in a different direction—towards God and the peace and tranquility of God’s eternal world? ■

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Christine’s latest book is Sacred Rhythms: Finding a Peaceful Pace in a Hectic World (Baker Books, 2003). Christine and Tom Sine share this column.Visit their Mustard Seed Associates website at www.msainfo.org

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SINES OF THE TIMES CHRISTINE SINE

Questioning God Recently I received an email from a young seminarian who was just beginning her theological journey. She had “just one simple question” she wanted her friends to answer: “What is truth?”

I smiled as I deleted the email, knowing there was no way I could answer her query. But the question kept revolving in my mind. Clearly this young woman’s theological studies were raising new and unsettling questions about who God is and what it means to be a Christian, but I suspect that what she really wanted was permission to grapple with whether or not it is okay to question her understanding of God and the Christian faith in which she had grown up.

My own initial encounter with questioning God and my understanding of Christian faith occurred when I worked for six weeks in the refugee camps in Thailand in the mid 1980s. For the first time in my life I was confronted with the misery of abject poverty. I was horrified by the atrocities many of the refugees had experienced. Starving children died in my arms. “Does God care?” I wondered as I struggled to understand. Much of my Christian formation to that point had been in an evangelical, charismatic church that focused on personal salvation and what God could do for me. There was no place in my theology for such pain and suffering in the lives of others.

These weeks formed a pivotal point of my life and turned my world and my faith upside down. Everything I believed about God and what it meant to be a Christian was up for grabs.As I searched for answers I felt like a 4-year-old asking questions about the world. Over the

next few months the walls of the small box in which I had placed God began to come down. My faith in God was strengthened and my understanding of what it meant to be a Christian moved beyond my rather self-centered approach to one in which I started to recognize the otherness of Christian faith. God does care about the poor, I realized, and what’s more, God expects me to act as a representative of that care.

Thanks to our upbringing, many of us place our faith in very small boxes that emphasize a narrow view of discipleship.

Often our role models discourage us from asking questions that are perceived as challenging the authority of God, of the Bible, or of our leaders. Sometimes we fear that questioning what we have been taught will destroy our faith.

Unfortunately, in our efforts to preserve what we believe, we often strengthen the walls of our boxes and stunt the development of our faith.

But, as anyone who is surrounded by young children knows, life in its most dynamic form is all about my young friend’s question: “What is truth?” Our 7-year-old godson, Brendan, constantly barrages us with questions about where we are going and what we are doing.

He is always interested in what we believe about God and why we believe it. His questions relentlessly explore what the world is like and what life is all about.

Sometimes I get frustrated because he doesn’t seem to care much about my well-thought-out answers. Like my seminarian friend, Brendan wants assurance that it is okay to step outside the safe boxes of childhood and question the perception of truth communicated by the authority figures in his life. Questioning is absolutely fundamental to his development. It enables him to look beyond the self-centered world of childhood to a broader perspective that sees his own

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needs as an integral part of a larger world in which the needs of others must also be taken into consideration.The responsibility of parents and other adult figures in children’s lives is not necessarily to give answers but to provide a safe environment in which these questions can be raised and explored. Some of the answers may take a lifetime to discover.

As a young doctor I worked for several months as a psychiatric resident.

The biggest challenge of that job was not providing my patients with the right answers but learning to ask them the right questions. My supervisor taught me that the answers my patients needed were already present within their own minds.To change their behavior I needed to stimulate their thinking in such a way that they would be able to draw out that knowledge for themselves.

Telling them what I thought the answers were more often than not stifled the healing process, as they were usually more an expression of my own insecurities and desire to be in control of the situation.

In this postmodern world, I am convinced that the true purpose of Christian leadership is similar to that of a parent or psychiatrist.We are not called to tell our fellow journeyers what we think the answers to life’s questions are.

Rather, our purpose is to provide a healthy environment in which they are unafraid to grapple with difficult questions about God, Christian faith, and what it means to be a follower of Christ in today’s world. In the process we may discover we have more to learn from their questions than we have to teach.

Jesus specialized in this kind of discipleship building and was a master at the art of questioning. As his disciples followed him around the countryside, watching him heal, preach, and set people free, his teaching raised many questions in their minds that pushed them out-

side their Jewish culture and traditions.

The questions Jesus raised reshaped their understanding of God and what it meant to be a follower of God. Jesus knew how to ask questions that uncovered the deep spiritual hunger within people’s hearts. One of the most profound examples of this is his encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well.“Will you give me a drink?” sounds like a simple plea for water from a thirsty man, yet it opened a conversation that touched the deepest cravings not only of the woman but also of her entire village. Jesus also knew how to tell stories that encouraged his audiences to ask searching questions about faith and their relationship to God.The parable of the sower, for example, raised questions in the minds of the disciples that led to a profound discussion about discipleship. Maybe most importantly, Jesus knew how to make tantalizing remarks that challenged his followers to question the status quo and the prevailing culture’s beliefs about God and what it meant to follow God. In order to ask good questions, we need to be willing to listen to people who view the world and Christian faith through lenses that are very different from our own. It is good, and often very liberating, in our postmodern culture for us to admit that we don’t have all the answers and that we have much to learn from people of different cultures and religions. It is often only as we interact with and listen to people who think very differently about faith and about our world that we truly learn who God is and what it means to be a Christian.

We need to learn to trust that the Holy Spirit working in us and in the lives of those around us will guide all of us into God’s truth (John 16:13) and so move each of us further on our journey toward an understanding of God and God’s

purposes for us and for all humanity.

My own questioning did not stop with those weeks in Thailand. One of the privileges of my life continues to be the opportunity to interact with people who experience the world through cultures and life experiences other than my own. Their viewpoints constantly frame new questions for me. They stretch and mold my life in ways that continue to enrich my faith and expand my understanding of God. For example, when we worked with aboriginal Christian leaders in Australia, they asked me, “How did God view the Canaanites?”

They identified themselves with the people displaced when the Israelites moved into the Promised Land. For the first time in my life I found myself asking questions about the rights of native peoples, not only in Australia but in other parts of the world as well.

The early Christians felt they were privileged to live in a non-Christian society. They believed that it was through their interactions with those outside the faith that they learned what it meant to be Christian. Perhaps during this season of Lent, you would like to consider this: Take time to listen to people from different cultures and backgrounds. Ask them about their views on life, faith, and God. Ask them what they think it means to be a Christian.

Perhaps you, too, will find that your faith and your life are enriched and strengthened. ■ Christine’s latest book is Sacred Rhythms: Finding a Peaceful Pace in a Hectic World (Baker Books, 2003). Christine and Tom Sine share this column.Visit their Mustard Seed Associates website at www.msainfo.org.

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SINES

TOM SINE

Following the Celtic Saints into a WholeLife Faith As we approached the 2004 presidential election, I expressed deep concern, in recent columns,that the American church and the larger society have been seriously divided by America’s culture wars.

I am particularly concerned that so many American evangelicals have so uncritically embraced the politics of the religious and political right.

I have urged American evangelicals to join their counterparts in other countries in embracing a biblical faith that transcends right and left, Republican and Democrat.Now that this very contentious election is over, we need to continue calling Christians to a third way while being a voice for reconciliation in a divided church and a divided country.

But what concerns me even more than American evangelicals being co-

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opted by the ideology of the right is the fact that huge numbers of evangelicals everywhere have settled for a compartmentalized religion that is largely disconnected from their real lives and the urgent issues in God’s world. As we work with Christians in Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the United States, more and more sincere believers seem content to allow modernity and the global consumer culture to define the direction of their lives and the values on which their lives are based.

Consequently, people have less time for prayer, Scripture study, witness, and service.Too often following Christ is trivialized to little more than a devotional lubricant to keep our gears from gnashing as we try to get up all the mountains of modern culture: getting ahead in our careers, getting ahead in the suburbs, and getting our young off to the best schools.This growing marginalization of our faith not only threatens our spiritual vitality but also our authentic witness in an increasingly secular world.

In response to this marginalization, I challenge all of us to consider what we can learn from the whole-life faith of our Celtic Christian ancestors, which made a remarkable difference in their own lives and in God’s world. I still vividly remember my first trip to Iona, Scotland, in 1984. In the 6th century, Columba founded a monastery there that became one of the centers of the emergence of the Celtic Christian faith. As I got off the ferry I was immediately aware of why so many authors describe Iona as one of God’s “thin places,” where one is nearer to that other realm in which God dwells.

Seven years earlier, in a time of crisis, I had met with Richard Foster, who gave me the first three chapters of a book he was writing called The Celebration of Discipline.That book,along with Richard’s willingness to be a spiritual director during a very difficult time in my life, was PRISM 2004

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a godsend. Coming from an evangelical pietistic background, I was delighted to discover a broad spectrum of Christian spiritual traditions that I had never before encountered. As a consequence of my time with Richard and his writings, I was open to what God would teach me during my four-day retreat in Iona.

The story of the Celtic movement begins in 430, when a 16-year-old Englishman named Patrick was kidnapped and taken as a slave to Ireland. Over the next six years of tending sheep, he learned a deep dependency on God and became a young man of devout prayer and spirituality. In God’s providence, Patrick escaped and made his way back to England where he was reconciled with his family. Patrick had only been home a few years when he heard God very clearly call him to return to Ireland as a missionary for the gospel of Christ. He gathered together a few friends and headed back to the land of his captivity.

Incredibly, this small band shared the good news and saw much of Ireland Christianized in three decades.

I am convinced that this is the beginning of the believers’ movement — centur ies before the Protestant Reformation. Patrick and early Celtic saints were never a part of the Roman Catholic Church; instead they had a distant connection to the desert fathers in Egypt. In fact, as one travels around Ireland today, one still sees pictures of Athanasius and Anthony carved on many of the ancient Celtic high crosses.

These Celtic Christians called people to a vital biblical faith that affected every part of life.They were involved in ministries of healing and deliverance, and there were even reports of the dead being raised. They loved the poor, cared for creation,and invited women to be actively involved in leadership.They sent out missionaries from Iona and Lindisfarne, re-evangelizing much of Europe during the 6th and 7th centuries. They had prayers for starting their fires in the

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The growing marginalization of our faith not only threatens our spiritual vitality but also our authentic witness in an increasingly secular world. morning in which they prayed for the coming of the Holy Spirit. They had prayers for milking the cows, planting the fields, and harvesting their crops.

Farmers even routinely stopped in the fields during the day for times of prayer as the Celtic monks stopped to pray.

In this pre-modern faith all of life became a sacrament and every act a liturgy. One has only to read the rich prayers of the Celtic Christian tradition or listen to the towering grandeur of the Celtic hymn “Be Thou My Vision” to experience something of the depth of their spirituality.

We urge busy believers in our modern world to join with these saints and recover a sense of the sacred in all of life.

We challenge you to free up time for your spiritual disciplines throughout the day, observe a weekly Sabbath, and take periodic prayer retreats.

In Prayers for the Fast-Paced and CyberSpaced by William John Fitzgerald (Forest of Peace, 2000), the author offers daily prayers for us to use as we go online, are held up in traffic, or stand in line at the grocery store.We need to find imaginative ways to connect our entire lives with impulses of our faith instead of allowing them to be preoccupied with the addictions of our culture.

There is a growing hunger in the Western church for a more vital spirituality. Saint Thomas Anglican Church in Sheffield, England, has recently insti-

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tuted a new lay order, much like the rule of life of Third Order Franciscans. It is called the Order of Mission. Growing numbers of younger Christians are adopting this rule and carving out much greater space in their lives for spirituality and mission (www.sttoms.net).

Several months ago I attended a conference called “A New Monasticism,” put on by a group of young Christians who are a part of experimental new Christian communities, such as Communality, the Simple Way, and Rutba House. These young people are keen to find a spirituality that not only nurtures their spirits but also equips them to work more effectively with the poor in their communities. (For more information you can contact Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove at jwh16@duke.edu.)

In 1989 we mortgaged our house to purchase 40 acres on an island north of Seattle. Our dream was to create a residential community designed in a way that reflects the early Celtic Christian tradition, and today we hope to use this place to expose young believers to a broad range of Christian spiritual traditions, including the Celtic, to help them design their own spiritual practices.Together we hope to learn to live in community, with spiritual directors who offer two prayer offices a day. On the weekends we hope to use it as place for directed prayer retreats for Christians of all ages.We are always looking for fellow dreamers (email us at mail@msainfo.org).

We urge those interested in a more serious whole-life faith to begin by discovering a sense of God’s call on your life through Scripture study, prayer, and community.We urge you to express that sense of call in a biblically shaped mission statement and then to use that statement to create a liturgy of life, family rituals, and celebrations that bring your faith into every part of your life, creating a richer, more festive way of life than anything modern culture and the global consumer mall can offer. ■ PRISM 2004

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Visit the Sines’ Mustard Seed Associates website at www.msainfo.org, where they host online forums on such topics as culture, faith, future trends, and God’s alternative vision for our world.

Not to Be Forgotten continued from page 3. her academic credentials to fight for women in academia.As a Jewish convert to Christianity she did not reject her people, but attempted, as she put it, to bear the cross for them. Her advocacy for disenfranchised people works out the heart of her Christian thought, and her example is worth our long reflection. ■ David O’Hara is a graduate student in philosophy at Penn State University. He is the author, with Matthew Dickerson, of a book on understanding myth and fantastic literature (forthcoming from Brazos Press) and is currently editing the religious writings of the American philosopher Charles S. Peirce.

SINES

TOM SINE

Unpacking the Great Divide When Jimmy Carter—a committed evangelical Christian and a Democrat —was elected the 39th president of the United States, he received enthusiastic support from both mainline Protestants and fellow evangelicals.This was possible in 1976 because neither the church nor our society was divided by the culture wars that so polarize America today as it races toward the 2004 elections.

American evangelicalism was a very different movement in the ’70s than it is today. Evangelicals were roughly 50 percent Republican and 50 percent Democrat, and most believed that you changed society through preaching and demonstrating the gospel of Christ rather than through political activism.

While mainline Protestants and Roman Catholics were actively lobbying for political change, the National Association of Evangelicals spoke out only occasionally on political issues.

The situation is enormously different today.“The religion gap is fast becoming

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the country’s widest political division,” Knight Ridder correspondent Steven Thomma stated in an April 8, 2004, article.“Those who regularly attend religious services vote Republican by a 2-1 ratio, and those who don’t [attend religious services] vote Democratic by the same margin.” In the past 20 years there has been a huge migration of evangelicals not only into the Republican Party but into the most conservative wing of the party.What has brought about this migration and,more importantly,the conversion of most American evangelicals to a very politically conservative world view?

When Jerry Falwell and Tim LaHaye co-founded the Moral Majority in 1980, they successfully began to convince evangelicals to take back America around a very conservative political agenda. After the Moral Majority folded its tent in 1989, the Chr istian Coalition and groups like Concerned Women for America took up the task of radicalizing evangelicals around a conservative ideology. They, too, have been very successful.

In the early ’70s abortion was a nonissue for evangelicals. The Catholics lobbied alone. But as the religious right took leadership, abortion went from being a topic rarely mentioned in Christian media to virtually the only issue that matters. Leaders on the religious right, like James Dobson, elevated it to the Christian issue and, specifically, the one that moved American evangelicals from non-engagement politically to a very high level of political engagement that included protests and acts of civil disobedience.

In 1996 I wrote an article for the Herald of Holiness reminding evangelicals that Scripture teaches that the primary way we should seek to change society is through sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ through word and deed ministry. I argued that seeking to change society politically should be a secondary approach. I received more angry responses to that article than to any other I have PRISM 2004

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ever written. Readers apparently have been persuaded by leaders of the religious right to view conservative political action as the primary way Christians should seek to change society.

Battling abortion was not the only issue that ignited this new level of evangelical political activism, but it became the litmus-test issue to decide which political party to support. Since the Democratic Party was pro-choice, by default the Republican Party became God’s party. I am convinced that the elevation of abortion to the overarching issue of Christian social responsibility has directly contributed to this enormous migration of evangelicals into the folds of the Republican Party.

While American evangelicals consider themselves ardently pro-life, I have found enormous resistance to following our Catholic friends in embracing a consistent pro-life ethic, one that includes issues like AIDS, hunger, and violence.

When I spoke on Christian radio in Colorado Springs I argued that 25,000 children dying every day from malnutrition made world hunger a pro-life issue, too. I pointed out that our affluent lifestyles in North America directly contribute to this tragic loss of innocent life.

But my suggestion that abortion isn’t the only pro-life issue elicited outraged responses from many of the listeners.

Most of the evangelicals we work with in Britain,Australia, New Zealand, and Canada are also concerned about abortion, but they haven’t made it their predominant cause or used it to select a political party. Rather they have joined Catholics in promoting a consistent-life ethic—lobbying against world hunger, land mines targeting non-combatants, and the proliferation of guns, and lobbying for the care of creation.

They also lobby much more aggressively for justice issues. Scripture has so much to say about God’s concern for the poor, but one rarely hears any mention by most American evangelical leaders

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about social justice. In fact, leaders on the religious right often favor tax policies that benefit the wealthiest Americans while cutting social programs to our poorest neighbors.

There is another reason for this enormous migration of American evangelicals into the Republican Party. In Battle for the Mind (Fleming H. Revel, 1979) Tim LaHaye presented an extremely polarizing notion of what has gone wrong in society.Without any evidence, he argued that a small group of secular humanists had already taken over our public schools, universities, and all the major communications networks. He insisted that this conspiratorial elite is intent on collectivizing us into a Godless, one-world gulag.

This, of course, is the political subtext of the popular Left Behind series.

What’s more, this insistence that secular humanists have taken over public schools has undoubtedly led to the growing evangelical animosity towards public education and the recent call at the Southern Baptist Convention for Christians to take their children out of public schools.

As I mentioned in the last issue of PRISM, nowhere else in the world have I ever heard evangelicals spouting the mantra, so common on Christian radio in America, that a sinister elite of secular humanists, liberals, and feminists in Washington, D.C., is out to destroy the Christian family, take away our liberties, take away our guns, and get us ready for a one-world socialist takeover.

This type of polarizing analysis makes those on the other end of the political spectrum cosmic enemies instead of just people with whom the religious right disagrees politically. Listen to the fearful warnings of one Presbyterian pastor in Portland, Oreg., who has obviously embraced this conspiratorial fiction: “Western European socialists and their American supporters want to dominate the world as much as militant Muslims want Islam to. Their vehicles are the

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United Nations, the European Union, and international institutions such as the International Court.”

This kind of fear-mongering not only has been remarkably effective at galvanizing evangelicals around a very conservative political agenda but also makes an evangelical voting for a Democratic candidate an unthinkable possibility as we approach the 2004 election.

So how should Christians who do not subscribe to either this very conspiratorial view of what has gone wrong or to a very politically conservative advocacy seek to have a Christian influence in the complex world in which we live?

Let me outline one proposal to begin taking back American evangelicalism around a biblical agenda that transcends the deep polarizations of our culture wars.

I propose that ESA host an international conference with the National Association of Evangelicals (in the United States) and its equivalent abroad, the Evangelical Alliances, which are currently in 33 other nations, including Canada, Britain, Australia, and New Zealand. I suggest that evangelical scholars be invited to work with these other evangelical leaders to (1) provide a new biblically informed analysis of what has gone wrong in society to replace the highly politicized secular-humanist critique; (2) offer a new biblically shaped view of Christian social responsibility of compassion that not only transcends right and left but also transcends the self-interested agendas of modern nations, including the United States; and (3) challenge all those of Christian faith to set aside the politics of polarization and address the urgent and difficult issues facing our nation and our world with humility and in the spirit of the reconciling Christ. ■ Visit the Sines’ Mustard Seed Associates website at www.msainfo.org, where they host online forums about culture, faith, future trends, and God’s alternative vision for our world.

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Not to Be Forgotten continued from page 3. the qualifications and the skill to do the work required as well…as any other man.”

Matthew Anderson died in 1928 but his work lives on today in Philadelphia, where all three components of the Berean Enterprises thrive independently.

Berean Savings & Loan makes home loans as part of a national AfricanAmerican-owned financial corporation.

The Berean Institute instructs 500 students in courses ranging from cosmetology to IT, and Berean Presbyterian Church still serves its congregation near Temple University. ■ A retired school administrator,William Allison writes about history, religion, and travel from his home in Narberth, Penn.

“Loose the chains of

injustice...”

–Isaiah 58:6

Stand with us as a voice for the poor and oppressed.

Advocate for justice.

www.seekjustice.org

World Vision is an international Christian humanitarian organization serving the world’s poorest children and families in nearly 100 countries.

SINES

TOM SINE

America’s Culture Wars: In Search of a Third Way The upcoming election between George W. Bush and John Kerry is likely to be one of the most divisive presidential elections in American history. A major reason for this divisiveness is the ongoing culture wars in America reflecting a deeply polarized church.

The polarization in the American church is between the politically correct left in a number of mainline Protestant and Roman Catholic churches and the religious right that is clearly the most influential force in the American evangelical movement.

Although Christians in mainline protestant and Catholic churches reflect a broad range of political views, the politically correct left is becoming an increasingly influential group.Those who

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are a part of these churches are working for a number of causes that Christians from many traditions can affirm, including concern for the poor, environmental stewardship, and racial justice. However, the politically correct left tends to work to support the political advocacy of the most radical edge of the Democratic Party. Some from this group demonize the religious right in order to secure support for agendas advocating individual choice regarding reproduction and sexual-preference issues.

The religious right comprises a major movement within American evangelicalism.A number of issues expressed by evangelicals and those on the religious right could also be affirmed by Christians from many other traditions, including the concern for the integrity of families, moral behavior in society, and religious liberty. However, those who are a part of the religious right are very nationalistic and tend to support the views of the most conservative side of the Republican Party.As leaders in the religious right promote agendas not only to limit abortion and gay marriage but to cut back government funding for many of the social programs that serve those at the margins, they, too, often demonize those on the other end of the political spectrum. One frequently hears the mantra on Christian radio regarding the threat posed by a small elite group of liberals, secular humanists, and feminists in Washington, D. C., whom they accuse of seeking to destroy the Christian family, basic freedoms such as the right to bear arms, and everything else that many evangelicals care about.

Christine and I work regularly with evangelicals and charismatic Christians in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and a number of other countries. Curiously, we have yet to find there anything equivalent to America’s culture wars.We typically find that, in these countries, Christians from oppo-

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site ends of the theological spectrum often work together on social programs for the needy and on political advocacy for a number of legislative initiatives.

Nor have we found anything that approximates the American religious right anywhere else in the world. In fact, evangelicals in these countries tend to be all over the road map politically.They don’t feel an obligation to be a part of either the political right or left. However, they generally tend to be more progressive in their political views than their American counterparts, and they are put off by American evangelicals who are inclined to confuse the agendas of the kingdom with the agenda of the United States.

For example, while evangelicals in Britain, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada are concerned with the abortion issue, they don’t see it as the exclusive pro-life issue or necessarily the most important issue for Christians to be concerned about. Many of our evangelical sisters and brothers in these countries view addressing world hunger, banning land mines, and limiting access to handguns and assault weapons as equally serious pro-life issues. In fact, most Christians we have met in other Western countries are, out of Christian conscience, strongly opposed to the gun lobby.

Our evangelical friends in these countries typically have a much greater concern for the biblical call to work for justice, peace, reconciliation, and creation care than their counterparts in Amer ica. Most of the evangelical churches we work with in Britain sell “fair-trade” products such as tea and coffee in their foyers because they have a much higher level of global awareness about the workers being fairly compensated for their labor.We have yet to see fair-trade products promoted in American evangelical churches.

During our trip to England last spring, we had the opportunity to meet with hundreds of 20- and 30-year-olds

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who are members of an organization called Speak. They educate themselves on a wide variety of issues, from fairtrade products to environmental and military issues. Then they study the Scriptures to define their Christian responsibility and draft a plan for advocacy that often includes taking to the streets to march and protest on behalf of the poor and marginalized.They are rapidly becoming an influential voice in church and society (www.speak.org).

The Urban Seed is an innovative ministry in Melbourne, Australia, that we visited last year. It was started by Tim Costello, a Baptist minister who has become the unofficial chaplain of Australia. His brother, Peter Costello, is one of the most conservative members of Parliament, and Tim, who is also an attorney and a longtime advocate for the poor, is on the other side of the political spectrum. He is highly regarded by both those outside the church and those within for his forceful lobbying for social justice and opposition to the war in Iraq. Tim has recently taken the position as the executive director of World Vision Australia.

Urban Seed is a community that hosts about 30 young people at a time, living together and sharing a rule of life that includes training in the life of prayer, working on the streets with the poor, and learning to become political advocates in the public arena for the marginalized in Australia and throughout the world.

Australian and New Zealand Christians are often in the forefront of lobbying for the just treatment of the indigenous peoples in their respective countries. I know of no similar efforts in America sponsored by evangelicals calling for justice in the treatment of Native Americans as a witness for the gospel of Christ.

In my book Cease Fire: Searching for Sanity in America’s Culture Wars (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1995), I invited American

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evangelicals to join evangelicals in other countries in discovering a biblical approach to political advocacy that transcends right and left, Republican and Democrat. I particularly invited them to consider the model of the Evangelical Alliance (EA) in the United Kingdom, the major umbrella organization for the majority of evangelical and charismatic Christians in Britain, with approximately 1.3 million members.

The first way the EA works for social change in the United Kingdom is not through political advocacy but by encouraging churches to evangelize their neighbors and reach out in service to the poor and the needy in British society.

They provide resources to enable congregations in the United Kingdom to do a better job of sharing the Good News of Christ by word and deed.

When the leaders of the EA go to work in the political arena, they first study the issues,next study the Scriptures, and then come down where they believe Scriptures do. Sometimes they wind up joining sides with the Tories, and sometimes they support the Labor Party.They do not support one party exclusively, and they never identify one ideological viewpoint as the Christian viewpoint.

For example, the EA has joined with conservatives to develop legislation opposing the availability of adult videos to children in the United Kingdom.

But the EA has also worked with the Labor Party to support legislation that increases government funding for the disabled in British society, because they believe God is concerned for the most vulnerable members of society.

Finally, the EA in Britain has made a commitment to work in the reconciling spirit of Jesus Christ whenever they operate in the public square.They don’t demonize those with whom they disagree on either side of the aisle. As a consequence, unlike the religious right in America, they don’t see themselves as

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embattled.They are highly respected by those of all political stripes, because they are viewed as Christians that work from conscience instead of ideology.

As U.S. citizens head toward the very divisive 2004 presidential election, we urge Christians of all traditions to follow the example of the EA. Let’s use Scripture instead of political ideology to define where we stand issue by issue. Let’s also follow the Evangelical Alliance’s example in seeking to work in the spirit of the reconciling Christ as we discuss the views of both candidates and the issues at stake in the upcoming election, praying for God’s wisdom and grace on all nations. ■ Tom Sine’s most recent book, which he coauthored with his wife, Christine, is Living on Purpose: Finding God’s Best for Your Life (Baker Books, 2002).Visit the Sines’ Mustard Seed Associates website at www.msainfo.org.

“Loose the chains of

injustice...”

–Isaiah 58:6

Stand with us as a voice for the poor and oppressed.

Advocate for justice.

www.seekjustice.org

World Vision is an international Christian humanitarian organization serving the world’s poorest children and families in nearly 100 countries.

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CHRISTINE SINE

Doing the Extraordinary for God In a recent article in the Chicago-Sun Times, rock star Bono indicted the church for its lack of response to the AIDS crisis in Africa. “Christ’s example is being demeaned by the church if they ignore the new leprosy, which is AIDS. The church is the sleeping giant here. If it wakes up to what’s really going on in the rest of the world, it has a role to play. If it doesn’t, it will be irrelevant.”

Like Bono I find myself frustrated by the lack of response of much of the Christian church to the needs of our world. It is a lack of response not only to the AIDS crisis, which now threatens to swamp some Asian countries in the same way that it has devastated Africa, but also to the many crises presented by poverty, war, and natural disasters. Part of the problem is that many of us are overwhelmed by the plethora of needs and

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challenges the world presents.We feel guilty because we have neither the time or energy nor the resources with which to respond, and we often feel that our own small contributions are unlikely to make a difference.

How can we change? How do we wake the giant and bring the concerns of this needy world into the center of our lives and congregations? Perhaps by starting right now, during the season of the church calendar which follows Pentecost. Usually known as “ordinary time” because this season is without any distinct focus on the birth, death, or resurrection of Christ, it is sometimes called “Kingdomtide” because it is meant to be the season in which we focus on the role of the church in accomplishing God’s kingdom work in our world.

The coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost drew believers from many cultures and social backgrounds into a new community that truly lived by the principle “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Christians joyfully provided for each others’ needs, living in anticipation of that day when all persons and all creation would once more be made whole.

As a medical doctor, I strongly believe that we will never find the health and wholeness we all crave if we settle for popping pills to ease our physical aches and pains and sequestering our faith to some privatized spiritual compartment of our lives.As Walter Brueggemann writes in Living Toward a Vision: Biblical Reflections on Shalom (United Church Press, 1976): “If there is to be well-being, it will not be just for isolated, insulated individuals; it is rather security and prosperity granted to a whole community—young and old, r ich and poor, powerful and dependent.Always we are in it together.

Together we stand before God’s blessings and together we receive the gift of life if we receive it at all. Shalom comes only to the inclusive, embracing community that excludes none.”

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Perhaps if we recognize that our own health and wholeness is somehow linked to the wholeness and well-being of AIDS victims in Africa, we will be motivated to act. Community is an essential part of our Christian faith, not only because it enriches our own lives as we pray and break bread with likeminded individuals but also because it provides us with opportunities to reach out and enrich the lives of others so that they, too, can experience the wholeness that God intends for them.

In the last few years, interest has been growing in what is being called a “new monasticism.” Small communities with a common commitment to a way of life that includes Christian service are springing up around the globe, particularly among young people. Some of these, like The Simple Way community in Philadelphia, call participants to a radical commitment to simple living so that they can model Christ’s incarnational presence with and among the inner-city poor. Others, like the 24-7 prayer network in Britain, call young people to a way of life in which they are able to focus on prayer and Christian service.

Many creative ways exist in which we can become community to others and make a difference in our needy world. For some, it may be as simple as extending hospitality.When her youngest daughter left for college, Marcy became depressed and lonely. Then she read the verse: “Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it” (Heb 13:2). Inspired, Marcy redecorated the empty bedrooms in her house and informed local ministries that she could provide hospitality for guests. In the last few years she has had the privilege of entertaining people from around the world, and each time they come to stay she imagines Jesus is coming to visit. It has enriched her life and her faith.

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“Always we are in it together. Together we stand before God’s blessings and together we receive the gift of life if we receive it at all. Shalom comes only to the inclusive, embracing community that excludes none.”

—WALTER BRUEGGEMANN

Phil Wall, a good friend of ours in England, has reached out to the AIDS community in Africa with an approach to fundraising that was inspired by the parable of the talents. He and his wife, Wendy, took some of their savings out of the bank and invited 200 friends to a banquet.That night they distributed to each guest an envelope with $15 in it, telling them they could spend it on themselves or invest it in one of the ways listed on an accompanying sheet, thus multiplying it to assist AIDS orphans in Africa. Moved by the Walls’ act of faith, the guests added their own resources to the $15 they were asked to invest, multiplying the Walls’ initial investment tenfold. Phil has since raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for those suffering from AIDS. Another possibility is modeled

by Mission: Moving Mountains (www.movingmountains.org), a group that believes that the best development happens when integrated with Christian discipleship in the context of community relationships.Their “Discipling for Development” program is training local pastors and community workers throughout Africa to plant churches that minister to both the spiritual and the physical needs of their communities. As a result they are seeing both individual lives and whole communities transformed by the power of the gospel of Christ.

As a child, I was inspired by the life of Reverend John Flynn, now known

as “Flynn of the Inland” because of the remarkable work he did to bring help and healing to the remote areas of the Australian outback. In the early 1900s he dreamed what many considered to be an impossible dream—to see every community linked by radio to towns where spiritual guidance and medical help were available. Out of his efforts came the founding of the Australian Inland Mission Nursing Services, the famous Royal Flying Doctor Service, and the invention of a simple foot-pedaled wireless radio. John Flynn always saw himself as an ordinary man whose life was in synch with an incredible God. This God, he believed, imparted dreams from heaven for men and women to bring into reality on earth.

I believe that God has placed within us all “impossible dreams” that we are called to bring into reality on earth— dreams that will bring glimpses of God’s shalom into the neediest of our neighbors’ lives.All of us have the potential to do extraordinary things, but like John Flynn, Phil Wall, and Marcy, we need to discover the joy of living as God intended—in solidarity with our brethren, in service to our community, in the bosom of God's shalom. ■ (Christine Sines’ latest book is Sacred Rhythms: Finding a Peaceful Pace in a Hectic World [Baker Books, 2003]. Go to the Sines’ Mustard Seeds Associates website for more information: www.msainfo.org.)

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CHRISTINE SINE

In Search of Restoration, Transformation A cross made from Post-It notes,“prayer graffiti,” candles lit in prayer for unsaved friends:These are but a few of the rich and innovative expressions of prayer one encounters when exploring the “24-7 Prayer” website at www.24-7prayer.com.

The site links a remarkable network of young people who have organized nonstop prayer meetings via the web to form a unique chain of prayer that literally spans the globe.

24-7 Prayer started with a bunch of young people in England who decided to try praying non-stop for a month.

The movement has since spread around the world, igniting a dream “to turn the tide of youth culture back to Jesus.”

One of the keys to the network’s success has been the establishment of prayer rooms in which people gather to

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pray throughout every hour of the day.

These rooms enable young people to use their creativity and imagination as they pray. Because many of them are visually oriented, they often pray nonverbally by posting artwork, poetry, and graffiti on the walls. Some draw or paint pictures. Others write Scripture verses, poetry, or prayers on big sheets of paper.

Still others prefer to light candles or listen to music while they pray aloud to God. Prayer rooms have been set up in such weird and wonderful locations as a skate park in Switzerland, a bus in the slums of Delhi, and a police station in London, as well as more conventional places like churches, dorm rooms, and chapels. Gathering in these places, young people everywhere are learning the power of prayer as they share each other’s burdens, minister to one another, and celebrate God’s answers.

The wildfire success of these young people doesn’t surprise me. Spiritual hunger is growing in the world as people from every tradition and walk of life search for a more spiritually focused rhythm to live by. Many are looking back to the life of Jesus and to the monastic traditions of the past and using creative ways to adapt their practices to the modern world. Others are experimenting, drawing bits and pieces from a variety of religious traditions in order to create a form of spirituality that is unique to them in their particular setting.

Because we are creatures of habit and routine, we all need spiritual rituals to provide anchors for our souls.When our faith does not provide these rituals, the secular culture quickly jumps in with its quasi-spiritual offerings. Massage therapy, aromatherapy, yoga, and countless other disciplines tantalize us with the promise of peace and relief from our stressedout lives. Tragically today’s Christians are just as likely as nonbelievers to order their lives around these practices rather

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than around the rituals of their faith.

How do we escape the growing pressures and stresses of our secular culture?

How do we avoid the insidious messages encouraging us to find spiritual fulfillment in the things we buy and consume? The season of Lent is the ideal time to reflect on our priorities and consider ways to reorder our schedules with a more spiritual emphasis.

Tom and I look forward to our annual prayer retreat during Lent. We get away to a secluded place for two days to reflect on how well we have used our time and resources over the past year.

Then we evaluate our accomplishments in the light of God’s kingdom purposes.

We also spend time listening for God’s desire for our future and set goals for the coming year that reflect our sense of biblical call—not just for our vocation but for every area of life. Then throughout the year we take time on Sunday mornings to journal and to check up on our progress.

According to anthropologist Paul Hiebert, there are two types of spiritual rituals that we all need in our lives to maintain our spiritual focus and enable us to live at a healthy and balanced pace: restorative rituals and rituals of transformation.

Restorative rituals are those activities we perform on a regular basis to renew our faith in the beliefs that order our lives and to rebuild the religious community in which these beliefs find expression. Daily prayer times, weekly church services, and faith-focused celebrations at Christmas, Easter, and other important Christian festivals are all restorative rituals that can refocus our priorities on the values of our Christian faith. Not surprisingly, the secular culture provides an increasing array of its own rituals that compete with these.

The morning news, Sunday sports, and gala seasonal sales can all drag our focus

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away from God’s priorities.

When our friend Matthew recognized his need for daily faith observances, he also realized that taking a large chunk of time before work would be impractical. Instead he set aside five-minute periods four times a day for prayer and reflection. Upon rising in the morning, he recites a short prayer and reads a psalm.

Arriving at work a few minutes early, he sits in his car thinking about the day ahead. He prays for his colleagues and those he will meet with during the day, asking how he can express God’s love and compassion to each of them. Returning home at night, Matthew again spends a few minutes sitting in the car, this time focusing on his family and how he can show God’s love and compassion to his wife and children. Before retiring for the night, he reads a Gospel portion and spends a few minutes thinking about what God has accomplished through him that day. He ends with a short prayer releasing the day to God and praying for needs in the world he has heard about during the day. Matthew says this practice has revolutionized his life. “Now everything I do feels connected to God and God’s purposes,” he explains.“I enter each day excited by what God can accomplish in and through my life.”

Rituals of transformation are the second type of practice that Dr. Hiebert believes we need in order to create healthy spiritual rhythms.These provide a structure that enables us to change and grow. In Anthropological Reflections on Missiological Issues (Baker Books, 1994), Hiebert explains that these rituals “cut through the established way of doing things and restore a measure of flexibility and personal intimacy.” Prayer retreats, pilgrimages, and mission trips are all transformative rituals that enable us to continue to nurture our faith and mature as Christian disciples. Because our consumer culture is so forceful in trying to

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get us to focus our lives on materialistic values, we need to be just as intentional in focusing on God’s biblical values in order to stand against these pressures.

For Tom and me, regular prayer retreats have become transformative rituals that enable us to adopt a whole new rhythm of life. As a result, we are able to pace our activities more in synch with the life, death, and resurrection of Christ than with the dictates of secular culture.

In an effort to transform their lives, one family we know decided to establish a rhythm of Christian service revolving around the events of the school year. In early September, when buying clothes and books for their children’s return to school, they now donate money to an organization that provides books and school supplies for inner-city kids who lack the resources to provide for their own school needs. At Thanksgiving, in gratitude for the education they are receiving, they contribute to a literacy program for young girls in Africa who would otherwise go unschooled. During the second half of the year, they tutor at-risk kids in their community who have no access to computers, and over the summer months they take some of their vacation time to go on short-term mission trips. Not only has this ritual approach changed the focus of their lives but they’ve found,too,that their children’s academic performance has improved.

Teaching others has enabled them to learn, too.

Lent is meant to be a time of reflection and refocusing to prepare us for the joyous celebration of Easter and the resurrection. Fasting during Lent was established as a way for Christians to free up time and resources to focus on God’s priorities. Spring cleaning began as a ritual that symbolized the cleansing God was accomplishing in our spirits so we could be better able to reach out to our needy world. We can all benefit from

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finding ways to reintroduce these important practices into our Lenten observances: a television fast to turn our attention away from advertising that so insidiously draws us into the consumer culture or a prayer retreat to help focus our lives more intentionally on the values of our faith.

There’s a song from the 1960s that asserts,“Yesterday he died for me—this is history.Today he lives for me—this is victory. Tomorrow he comes for me— this is mystery.”Why not develop some short rituals for you and your family to use throughout the year that will enable you to enter into the history, victory, and mystery of Christ’s glorious love for you? ■ (Christine Sines’ latest book is Sacred Rhythms: Finding a Peaceful Pace in a Hectic World [Baker Books, 2003]. Go to the Sines’ Mustard Seeds Associates website for more information: www.msainfo.org.)

Not to Be Forgotten continued from page 3.

When Liberia’s chief colonial agent returned to America in early 1828, Carey was effectively in charge of the settlement.

Morale in the colony was running high, new schools were being established, and Christianity was flourishing where heathenism had once prevailed. Carey was being considered for appointment as chief agent when he was mortally wounded in a munitions explosion and died on November 10 that same year.

Today the Lott Carey Foreign Mission Convention, founded in his memory, operates in Liberia, Haiti, India, Jamaica, and South Africa, equipping converted Christians within those countries to minister to their own people in the areas of child development, health, and education. ■

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CHRISTINE SINE

We’ve Got Rhythm—But Is It the Right Kind?

Music is an indispensable part of every culture, yet no one really understands why.We use music to evoke powerful emotions, to lubricate social intercourse, and to help us communicate what we could not otherwise articulate. Evidence shows that our language centers, our sense of hearing, the systems that respond to emotional signals in the human voice, and the motor systems that control our muscles when we walk or dance are all simultaneously affected by the rhythms of music.

Rhythm isn’t just about music; it pulses through the whole of the natural world. Night inevitably follows day and the seasons flow predictably from one to the next. Scientists have discovered that even seemingly random phenomena such

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as weather fluctuations and diseases all have cyclical patterns. There is rhythm and order in such seemingly erratic events as the formation of clouds, the eddying of water in a stream, and the rising of a column of smoke.

Our bodies, too, beat to a myriad of interconnected rhythms. Our heartbeat, hormonal levels, blood pressure, mental alertness, physical strength, and countless other bodily functions all ebb and flow in time to an invisible clock pacing our bodies throughout the day and the seasons of the year.

Rhythms that are interrupted can have dire consequences. Sudden climatic changes can contribute not only to famines but also to political, economic, and even religious turmoil.A disruption in sleep patterns can lead to irritability and even illness; an arrested heartbeat can cause death.

In the modern world, our daily rhythms increasingly run counter to those of the natural world: strawberries and central heating in the winter, apples and air conditioning in the summer, for example. But the spiritual rhythms that should undergird all we do are even more important.When these are disrupted we often suffer from spiritual heart problems that are just as life-threatening as a heart attack.

For many of us, the essential rhythms necessary for a healthy spiritual life have been severely disrupted— and we haven’t even noticed.We have become so accustomed to letting the culture control the pace and flow of our lives that we are convinced these artificial rhythms are normal.As authors John De Graaf, David Wann, and Thomas Naylor write in their book, Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic (BerrettKoehler, 2001): “Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work, driving through traffic in a car you are still paying for, in order to get to the job that you need so you can pay for the clothes, the car, and the house that you PRISM 2004

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leave empty all day in order to afford to live in it.” We no longer fast during Lent but go on obsessive spring diets instead. Life flows to the rhythms of Christmas, Easter, and Thanksgiving sales at the mall or to the NFL playoffs rather than to our connection to the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

The growing pressure we all face to be plugged into our work 24/7 is even more disruptive to God’s rhythms in our lives. Our culture tells us there is never time to slow down, take a break, or simply turn off, and it sells us “timesaving” innovations that only serve to crank up the pace. Jet travel rapidly zips us across continents. Cell phones and email instantly link us to friends and colleagues half a world away at any time of day or night. The 24-hour E-commerce and ATM machines reinforce the frantic beat.

Even on our days off or vacation we feel we can no longer disconnect.

How many of us still check our email every day no matter where we are or what we are doing? Faxes, email, mobile phones, and pagers are the new “furniture of…the global workspace, forever blurring the boundaries between office and vacation” (John Leland in Newsweek, July 27,1998,p.47).In our frenzied efforts to remain plugged in, we drown out all other rhythms and retain little or no space for our spiritual life.

What are the essential rhythms God intended to pace our lives? We need look no further than the life of Christ, who in offering us abundant life also models the rhythms of such a life. In his book The Way (Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1946), missionary-statesman E. Stanley Jones called Jesus the “revealer of the nature of life,” a life that “works in His way and only in His way.” If our bodies, our emotions, and our spirits are not functioning in step with God and God’s purposes then we are working for our own ruin. According to Jones, the reason for our out-of-synch rhythms and

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even the cause of much of our physical illness is “homesickness for God.”The only way we will ever find true satisfaction is by returning home to adhere to the rhythms that God through Christ marks out for us.

Jesus modeled four basic rhythms that I believe are still meant to set the pace and pattern for our lives. His intimate relationship with God and dedicated prayer life provided the focus for everything else he did. Jesus sought God’s direction and lived his life according to God’s instructions. Daily prayer to reconnect us to God and to renew our spiritual energy, pausing in our decision-making to listen to God, and taking time for prayer retreats will enrich our lives and bring us into a more intimate relationship with God. How much less stress would we suffer if we gave this kind of priority to prayer? Think about how you could block out five minutes each morning and evening for a time of prayer or Bible study. And the next time you are faced with a major decision, set aside a day for prayer to seek God’s direction.

Jesus’ second priority was community. He spent more time developing a community of followers than he did preaching. He could often be found in a crowd with his 12 disciples, teaching and reaching out with the compassion of God. But Jesus and his disciples didn’t only work together. They enjoyed good food and fellowship and celebrated the Jewish feasts. According to theologian N.T. Wright, wherever Jesus went there was a party. Making time for friends and family; encouraging co-workers, neighbors, and fellow believers; enjoying the celebrations of our faith: God intends all of these to be part of the spiritual rhythm of our lives. One couple we spoke to recently have freed up one evening a week to invite their neighbors over to dinner. The whole family has entered into this endeavor with enthusiasm, and they are beginning

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to see God accomplish remarkable things in their community.

The third rhythm that paced Jesus’ life was work, but the goal of his work was less about putting bread on the table —something for which he encouraged his followers to trust God—than about serving God’s kingdom purposes. Jesus wants us, too, as God’s representatives, to ask,“What is it that you want me to accomplish today that will further the purposes of your kingdom in our world?”

We are meant to proclaim hope, healing, and salvation, and to help those around us look forward to a world in which there will one day be no more crying or hunger or pain.We needn’t all become pastors or missionaries, however.Think about how you could encourage a colleague or offer a helping hand to an elderly person in your neighborhood.

During his earthly life Jesus believed not only in work but also in rest, recognizing it as a necessary rhythm of life.

He encouraged his followers, saying, “Come to me all you who are weary and burdened and I will give your rest” (Matt. 11:28). Regular sleep and the practice of Sabbath are both ways to reconnect to God’s rhythm of rest and refreshment. One friend of ours recently instituted a “technology Sabbath,” deciding that for one day a week he would disconnect from the phone, the email, and the computer. It has done much to decrease the stress in his hectic life.

A young pastor in Denver told me that a member of his congregation recently asked him why he was always so busy.Thinking his parishioner wanted an account of his time, the pastor started listing all the activities that kept him constantly on the run—church, committee meetings, hospital visits, family, and friends. “No, no,” the man interrupted, “that’s not what I meant.

Why are you so busy? Don’t you think God wants you to model a different way of life?”The question stopped him short and soon had him rethinking his priorPRISM 2004

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ities and the shape he’d allowed his life to take.

The rhythm of life that Jesus modeled is not just something for the dark, distant past. It is a guide for our lives today. People are still looking for evidence that Jesus’ disciples invest their time and energy in priorities that differ from those in the culture around them.

They are looking for a faith that offers a rhythm that fulfills rather than empties, that nourishes rather than drains. ■ (Christine Sines’ latest book is Sacred Rhythms: Finding a Peaceful Pace in a Hectic World [Baker Books, 2003]. Go to the Sines’ Mustard Seeds Associates website for more information: www.msainfo.org.)

MEDIA PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH

FULL TIME ASSOCIATE PASTOR FOR OUTREACH & DISCIPLESHIP Our church strives to be the spiritual foundation for a united and diverse orthodox Christian fellowship. We are committed to serving the Lord and loving our neighbors, and we are devoted to regular worship, prayer, and discipleship.

We are searching for an associate pastor to join our growing 1,000member congregation. The position will involve preaching and giving leadership and professional support for all ministries and programs in the areas of evangelism and adult education.

Our CIF may be reviewed at www.mediapresbyterianchurch.org.

All PIFs may be directed to the attention of Dorris Mitchell, Media Presbyterian Church, 30 East Baltimore Avenue, Media, PA 19063, or emailed to www.mpcdorris@mycomcast.com.

CELEBRATING OVER 150 YEARS OF MINISTRY