September/October 2011 PRISM magazine

PRISm Taking Aim at the Gun Industry Faith communities fight back with prayer and protest

Exonerated death row prisoners speak out Can we afford not to educate “at-risk� youth?

September/October 2011

US Christians learn to love their Muslim neighbors

PRISMmagazine.org

PRISM Vol. 18, No. 5  September-October 2011

Editor Art Director Copy Editor Financial Operations Publisher Assistant to Publisher Member Services

Kristyn Komarnicki Rhian Tomassetti Leslie Hammond Sandra Prochaska Ronald J. Sider Josh Cradic Debbie Caraher

Contributing Editors Christine Aroney-Sine Myron Augsburger

Clive Calver Rudy Carrasco Andy Crouch J. James DeConto Gloria Gaither David P. Gushee

Jan Johnson

Craig S. Keener Peter Larson

Richard Mouw

Philip Olson Jenell Williams Paris

Christine Pohl

James Skillen

Al Tizon

Jim Wallis

Issac Canales M. Daniel Carroll R. Paul Alexander James Edwards Perry Glanzer Ben Hartley Stanley Hauerwas Jo Kadlecek Marcie Macolino Mary Naber Earl Palmer Derek Perkins Elizabeth D. Rios Lisa Thompson Heidi Rolland Unruh Bruce Wydick

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A Publication of Evangelicals for Social Action The Sider Center on Ministry and Public Policy www.EvangelicalsforSocialAction.org Palmer Theological Seminary of Eastern University All contents © 2011 ESA/PRISM magazine.

Cover Image: Rhian Tomassetti

September / October 2011

In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky, and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land, so that all may lie down in safety.

Hosea 2:18

Contents 2 Reflections from the Editor Sticking It to The Man

10 Crossfire The gun lobby is rich and ruthless, but God's people have the power of prayer and protest on their side.

3 Talk Back Letters to the Editor 4 Word, Deed & Spirit Islamophobia

18 A Costly Thing to Waste Donors wanting bang for their buck should understand that the payoff for educating urban youth far outweighs the cost of failing them.

5 Hands & Feet Safety Cop 7 A Different Shade of Green The World Is Watching 8 Global Positions Nigerian Christians Seek a Theology of Conflict 9 Washington Watch Passionate Politics

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39 Art & Soul Beauty Out of Tragedy 40 Music Notes Broken and Sacred 41 On Being the Church The Good News of Vulnerability 42 Off the Shelf Why we expect more from technology and less from each other, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, rescuing the lost children of Nepal, ministering to prisoners, debunking Alfred Kinsey.

22 Found and Standing Firm The Lost Boys of Sudan open the hearts of American Christians to the broader immigrant (and indigent) needs around them.

26 Privileged, Prepared…and Powerless An American struggling to bring his niece out of the Congo learns a harsh lesson about the vagaries of US immigration policy.

28 Freed to Speak Exonerated death row prisoners put real faces on the high cost of the death penalty.

34 What's So Radical about Loving Muslims?

A look at evangelicals who are learning to love their Muslim neighbors.

46 Kingdom Ethics Christianities 48 Ron Sider Reflections on 50 Years of Marriage The weapons of the strong are smashed to pieces, while the weak are infused with fresh strength.

1 Samuel 2:2 (The Message)

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R eflections from the Editor Sticking It to The Man “Sticking It to The Man” is generally understood as performing an act of subversion or disobedience in order to oppose some faceless but powerful entity, such as the government, big business, or the moneyed class. In everyday life, it is often characterized by petty, cowardly acts of entitlement, such as stealing paper clips from one’s employer or using work time to browse the internet. There is something deep within us that revels in rebelling, but I marvel at the smallness we often exhibit in the form—and object—of our rebellions.

This is a downright shame, because many things are genuinely worth rebelling against—prejudice, usury, violence, to name a few. Pick any form of oppression, please, and rebel away—with God’s blessing. But how much time do we spend “sticking it” to those versions of The Man, shaking our fists in the face of evil and standing firm in the knowledge that the God of the universe has our back?

In this issue we take an up-close look at several of The Man’s most unpleasant manifestations: the gun lobby, the criminal “justice” system, an educational system that fails the kids who need it most. We also witness how God exalts the lowly in order to expose, challenge, and humble those the world exalts. That’s God’s trademark move, of course, but it never ceases to astound me.

Our cover feature tells a David and Goliath tale of faith communities taking a stand against national gun control laws that favor politicians (those in the NRA’s pocket) over people. The evidence is overwhelming—guns regularly and easily get in the wrong hands, leading to more than 100,000 US citizens being maimed or killed every year. Yet many legislators continue to respond to pressure from the cash-rich gun lobby, effectively saying with their votes that money is more important than life, liberty, and human flourishing. This stinks, but it’s not the end of the story, and

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Kristyn Komarnicki

in this feature you’ll learn about gun wield rhetorical weapons, in both the violence victims, such as Jamillah Posey Christian and the Muslim fundamentaland Jim Brady, who have turned their ist camps—than to learn to live in love pain into a platform to speak out against and harmony with our neighbors? This is laws that fail to protect. radical rebellion at its finest!

In “Freed to Speak,” the This is the first and the final frontier in the frankly criminal inequities of the rebellion that God invites us to.

US court/prison system come into sharp focus as exonThere is one more version of The erated—that is, convicted, proven inno- Man that we all, no matter who we cent, and released—death row prisoners are or what we believe, need to rebel tell hair-raising stories of jury tampering, against, perhaps with more passion and lawyer incompetence, and fabricated rigor than any other—and that is the testimony from bought witnesses. Al- “natural man” that lives within each of though beaten down physically, mentally, us. As Paul wrote in his first letter to the and spiritually, these men have found the Corinthians, “the natural man does not faith and courage to return from death’s receive the things of the Spirit of God, door and testify to the political manipu- for they are foolishness to him” (2:14). lations that go on behind the scenes and Our own sinful nature—so determined lead to such terrible injustices against to strut, to justify, to grasp at power and the poor. While justice would require get its own way—is our biggest obstacle that they be compensated for their pain to living in harmony with God, ourselves, and rewarded with a long luxury cruise, and our human family. This is the first reality fails to conform to that picture, and the final frontier in the rebellion that and they instead donate their time ad- God invites us to, calling us to “throw off vocating for others who have yet to find everything that hinders” (Hebrews 12:1) their voice, a responsibility they take and “cut off and throw away” every part dead seriously. of us that causes us to sin (Matthew In “A Costly Thing to Waste” we 18:8). meet a young man who, in spite of Corporately and individually, let us all the rhetoric about “at-risk” youth commit to “sticking it to” The Man that and how much they drain the system, lurks within all of us. Let us rebel against defied every stereotype and obstacle the rebel within us and follow Jesus— to become a successful banker—only the greatest and most radical rebel-rousto return to the streets in order to er that ever lived—in a rowdy, jubilant help lift other kids out of poverty and protest of all that is unjust in our world. hopelessness. The Man asks, “What’s Are you in? the point of pouring resources into these Kristyn Komarnicki kids who are going to end up in jail is partial to anyway?” UrbanPromise’s Bruce Main children, the sticks it to The Man by asking, and then elderly, sexual acting on, “How can we afford not to abuse victims, educate these kids, who, if not snatched prisoners, from this system of despair, will end up immigrants, opencosting taxpayers millions of dollars in hearted people of court fees, welfare, and damages alone?”

And as 9/11 turns 10, we look at all faiths, and all who are in touch Christian/Muslim relations in the US with their own inner frailties. Among and are encouraged to learn of grow- her “everything that hinders, ”she wrestles the most with controlling ing efforts to build bridges between the her temper, refraining from offering two faith communities. What better way to stick it to the terrorists—both those unsought advice, and remembering who use physical violence and those who the Sabbath.

Letters to the Editor I have been reading PRISM since about 1998. I have given subscriptions to our college interns for the last seven years, to friends, seminarians, and now the youth staff at both of our church's sites. Thanks for one of the best periodicals in what’s left of the West.

Rev. Drew Henderson Colonial Presbyterian Church Kansas City, Mo. I couldn’t help being slightly amused by David Gushee’s column in the May/June issue, “Moral Excellence in Small Things,” lamenting the decline of Bible study among younger Christians while simultaneously decrying the alleged sinfulness of gambling. After 20 years of Bible study, I’m fairly certain that Scripture is silent on the subject of gambling. It is undoubtedly abused by many, like sex or alcohol, but that hardly makes it inherently sinful. I really don’t think legalistic hangups are how Jesus calls us to be set apart from the world; that was the Pharisees’ approach to spirituality.

Mike Nacrelli Portland, Ore. PRISM is simply outstanding and unique in the field of Christian journalism.

It addresses the tough issues of our time—such as poverty, political and social injustice, violence in the home and

T alk Back on the street, economic exploitation, environmental degradation, human trafficking, illegal immigration—from the perspective of a deeply grounded biblical faith. It is evangelical without being doctrinaire; hard-hitting and prophetic but not judgmental; forthright and incisive yet irenic in tone and generous toward dissenting voices. I respect and laud its authentic witness to the whole gospel.

Dr. Manfred T. Brauch Palms, S.C.

Thanks for a “A Call to Compassion for Our Brothers the Animals” in the July/August issue. Unlike the religions of the East (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism) which have clear injunctions against eating meat, the Bible is ambiguous. Certainly, people cited in the Bible ate meat, yet the book of Genesis suggests a vegetarian path. “Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground…I give every green plant for food.’ And it was so.

God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Gen. 1:29-31).

This passage indicates that humans were to eat seed-bearing plants and fruits while animals were given green plants.

Victor M. Parachin, author of 365 Good Reasons to Be a Vegetarian (Avery, 1997) Tulsa, Okla.

We’d love to hear from and keep in touch with you. There are lots of ways to interact. Email the editor at KKomarni@Eastern.edu. Check us out on Facebook @PRISMmagazine and Twitter @EvanSocAction. Sign up for the free weekly ePistle at EvangelicalsforSocialAction.org/ePistle, also published by Evangelicals for Social Action, for timely news and action alerts. Join the conversation! We look forward to connecting with you.

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W ord, Deed & Spirit Islamophobia Most Americans are afraid of Muslims.

We have only to recall the recent controversy concerning the proposed construction of a mosque near the Ground Zero site. The hate speech, slandering, and truth-blurring via the national news and political talk shows rode the wave of American fear as high as they could, exposing the “Islamophobia” that plagues our land.

What I find even more disturbing than this sweeping aversion is the fear that manifests itself on smaller relational scales. For example, residents of a street just a few blocks over from where I live successfully prevented the use of a house on that street for Muslim worship.

Opponents cited zoning and parking concerns, but insiders knew better—fear of Muslims “taking over” won the day. Resistors of the plan far outnumbered those who tried to uphold the religious freedom of the Constitution. Not surprisingly, relationships in the neighborhood have been strained ever since.

But Islamophobia is manifested on an even smaller scale than neighborhood politics. My daughter Candace shared an experience with me recently as part of a college course she took on Islam. I invited her to share it with PRISM readers firsthand: “I recently completed a course called, ‘Women of Islam.’ I had an elective to fulfill, and this class looked interesting. I knew almost nothing about Islam when the class began, and I still have much to learn, but by the end I had gained a deep appreciation and respect for it. I have no plans to convert to Islam, but my eyes have definitely been opened to the inaccuracies and stereotypes about it.

“One of our assignments was to go as participant-observers, on our own time, to jum’ah, the equivalent to our Sunday church service, but jum’ah happens on Fridays in mosques. I was excited to experience Muslim worship and not just read about it. A Muslim classmate helped me and two others from

the class to properly put on the hijab, the traditional Muslim head (and sometimes face) covering. Once we were all dressed respectfully for prayer and worship, we drove to a local mosque near the college.

Al Tizon with Candace Tizon Martinez shouldn’t have been playing with it, but my mom pushed me around in it while we waited for our flight. Apparently, we ‘played’ well enough that people thought I was disabled, and they looked away.

That poor, poor child. That’s the way it felt as I walked down the street wearing a hijab; I experienced the same averted gazes as I did when people thought I couldn’t walk.

“The only way I can describe the second exchange is the word prejudice, plain and simple and ugly. On my way home from the mosque, still wearing the hijab, I entered an office which I’ve frequented many times before, to take care of some paperwork.

In the past, I had always been greeted with friendly and helpful staff there.

But on this day, I was not greeted at all. I received no smiles and hardly any eye contact. Furthermore, somebody asked me for my ID, which had never happened before.

The stark difference in treatment as a ‘Muslim woman’ rather than a ‘normal American woman’ shocked me. I was saddened and angered by the way I was treated by the people from that otherwise friendly office, just because they believed I was of ‘that’ faith.

“I learned much from this assignment, probably more than the professor intended. Yes, I experienced Muslim worship, but more importantly, I learned how not to treat Muslims—or anyone for that matter—just because they’re different from me. Isn’t this Christianity 101?”

The stark difference in treatment as a “Muslim woman” rather than a “normal American woman” shocked me.

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“Almost immediately, as the three of us drove to the mosque, I began to see different looks on the faces of those we passed, from confusion to pity to fear—just because our garb identified us as being Muslim. At least that was the way it felt, and my feelings were confirmed in a few of my post-jum’ah experiences, which I’ll tell you about shortly.

As for the service itself, my responses were mixed. The sense of unity, reverence, and sacred space, as well as the humility, particularly among the men, were extremely moving. On the other hand, the message (sermon) wasn’t all that great; but then again that’s how I often feel when I worship in churches (no offense, Dad).

“Afterwards when we drove back to campus, we were again met with stares, glares, and ‘no-looks.’ Through the eyes of a ‘Muslim woman,’ I experienced two exchanges in particular that unveiled for me the discrimination shown toward Muslims. The first was avoidance. My classmates and I obviously stuck out, but many people just walked by us, knowing we were there but clearly avoiding eye contact. I noticed some even turning their heads away from us. The only other time I ever experienced such treatment was when I was a teenager at an airport playing in a wheelchair. We

Al Tizon (atizon@ eastern.edu) is director of ESA’s Word & Deed Network and associate professor of holistic ministry at Palmer Theological Seminary in Wynnewood, Pa. Candace Tizon Martinez (cjtmartinez@ gmail.com) studies early childhood education at Mills College in Oakland, Ca.

H ands & Feet

Kelly Givens

Safety Cop The prophet Zechariah describes the New Jerusalem as a place where “men and women of ripe old age will sit” safely in streets “filled with boys and girls playing” (8:4-5). Zechariah’s vision suggests peace and security, two things that were decidedly absent from the Jerusalem of his day, which was defined instead by slavery, starvation, and sin.

God used his prophet to paint a picture of what God desires for his people—a world of peace, safety, and joy, free of discord and violence.

Major Carole Newell, a division commander at the Broken Arrow Police Department just outside of Tulsa, Okla., is inspired by a similar vision.

She’s been a police officer for 26 years now, but before entering law enforcement, Newell, a new believer at the time, struggled to understand God’s direction for her life.

“Like so many Christians who get born again,” Newell says, “I immediately thought, ‘Well, I’ve got to go to the mission field. That’s where God has called everyone, right?’ But my whole life I had a desire to be in law enforcement.”

In spite of her initial doubts and a pastor who told Newell that her desire to be a cop was “fleshly” and counseled her to renounce it, she eventually came to understand why her yearning to be a police officer was proving so difficult to shake.

“I finally realized that God had put in me that desire from the time I was probably in my mother’s womb.” At 5’1” and 104 pounds, Newell may not look as if she was designed to deter crime, but she says God assured her that he was using what looks foolish to humans to express his divine wisdom in the world. Newell employs her skills as a policewoman, combined with her gift for teaching, to advance God’s kingdom—upholding peace, protecting the innocent, and preventing crime. And in recent years Newell has found a way to work for the kingdom beyond the boundaries of her law enforcement job.

Several years ago, when a serial

Carole Newell shows women how to prepare for and fend off an attacker.

and went home. That’s how much God loves the mentally ill, I tell these Tulsa Christians, who live at the buckle of the Bible Belt. ‘Stop acting like the world does. We have the answer; we have the power. We are the hands and feet of the Lord Jesus. If he would cross a lake and battle a storm to free a madman, should not the saints of God be willing to do what we can to set the captives free?’ ” Churches face any number of security challenges today, from shootings to fraud to child abuse, both outside and inside their ranks. “We must not stick our heads in the sand and have the attitude it could never happen here,” says Newell. “Nor can we become militant in our stance, distrusting everyone. Jesus told us to be as wise as serpents and harmless as doves. So be educated, be prepared, and stay abreast of crime trends affecting churches in your area.

Take steps to minimize loss and protect yourself, but never forget this truth: We belong to the one death fears, and he has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him. Whether it’s putting policies in place, installing alarm systems, or holding revivals in dangerous places, the Holy Spirit has got to be the leading force in our decisions, and the love of God our motivator. When we do what we can and put our trust in God, he always responds in supernatural ways.”

rapist was at large in Tulsa, Newell offered to teach a Bible-based self-defense course at a church in the area.

Requests began pouring in from other churches, and Newell found herself with a new ministry. In her classes, Newell focuses more on what the Bible promises about personal safety and the importance of pursuing wisdom than on defensive moves, although some tactics are taught. “My goal is to make Psalm 91 a reality in people’s lives,” she says.

Then a prominent pastor in the Tulsa area was assaulted during a prayer service. The assailant had already committed a similar crime at another church.

These assaults prompted church security staff from several large churches in the area to form the Tulsa Ministerial Security Association (TMSA). The TMSA coordinator approached Newell Learn about the National Organization to see what expertise she could con- of Church Security & Safety Managetribute. Having worked as a crisis ne- ment at NACSSM.org. gotiator for 14 years, particularly with people living with mental illness, Newell did indeed have expertise to share. She Kelly Givens is a taught some 80 church leaders in the research assistant at area how to identify people living with the Sagamore Institute mental illness, how to reach out to and in Indianapolis, Ind. communicate with them, and how to defuse situations and protect congregants, all without abandoning Christ’s call to hospitality.

“I always start out my teaching with Hands & Feet profiles extra/ordinary Christians who embody the gospel. the story of the Gerasene madman,” Send your nominees or essays to says Newell. “Jesus crossed a lake, set kkomarni@eastern.edu. him free, then got back in the boat

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Rusty Pritchard

The World Is Watching Creation care opponents have thrown caution to the wind. Emboldened by demagogues like Glenn Beck, they’re not averse to painting as “totalitarians” anyone even slightly concerned about pollution, resource conservation, biodiversity loss, or energy efficiency.

The Washington Times published a piece on May 19, 2011, by creation care critic Cal Beisner purporting to reveal the “hidden dangers” in the National Day of Prayer for Creation Care, which was sponsored by the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN). Among their “dangerous” prayer requests: reducing mercury pollution that passes from pregnant mothers to their unborn babies.

Aside from being a worthy cause in its own right, the campaign seemed to me to be good apologetics as well. Here were evangelical Christians claiming publicly that God’s call to compassion and wise dominion extends to stopping air pollution that affects our most vulnerable citizens, growing the credibility of the pro-life witness by linking it to more than fighting abortion (the frequency of which, we must all admit, remains our greatest current national travesty), and doing so with smart, well-documented research and policy recommendations. I personally know of formerly pro-choice environmentalists who have changed their positions on abortion because of encountering prolife evangelical environmental advocates.

But the most visible anti-environmentalists never let concerns about the church’s witness in the world overcome their fundamental desire to fight even the suggestion that democratically elected governments might use their regulatory authority to protect the environment.

The libertarian ends consistently trump the means, and evangelism tends to be the first casualty, with regard for truth a close second.

In Beisner’s critique, he constructed two straw-man claims that EEN’s materials didn’t make; and even the way he rebuts the fictitious claims reveals a lot about his commitments.

Beisner said EEN claimed “the main source of mercury pollution is dirty air re-

A Different Shade of Green leased by coal-burning power plants” and that international sources are more important. Beisner apparently didn’t read the materials he was criticizing, because they didn’t say what he said they did. Apparently the Washington Times can’t afford fact-checkers. EEN gave a quite detailed explanation on the sources of mercury pollution and the relative contribution of domestic and international sources, which varies from place to place (they even provided a map).

But the reason Beisner invented that red herring is that he sniffed out an attempt to strengthen regulation on emissions from coal-fired power plants. He challenged a fictitious version of EEN’s claims about sourcing, because he didn’t want to draw attention to their well-researched claims about the economic benefits from regulating mercury emissions (which predict $60-140 billion in total health benefits, or a return of $5-13 for every $1 invested in meeting the regulations).

It wouldn’t be surprising, when we look back from the future, if the costs of limiting mercury went down relative to predictions and the benefits went up.

That’s been the case with other environmental regulations as well—something even those opposed to regulations at the time now admit. Since we enacted the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, the economy has grown 64 percent while air pollution has gone down 41 percent, a puzzle to those who predict economic collapse in the face of strong environmental regulations.

Beisner goes on to accuse EEN of being a mouthpiece for the environmental lobby, repeating someone else’s suspect talking points about how bad mercury is for fetuses. But he ignored the peerreviewed scientific literature the EEN documents clearly cite—again, he simply makes stuff up about EEN and its campaign to suit his own rhetorical purposes.

Beisner gives a drastically lower figure for unborn babies afflicted with unsafe levels of mercury in their blood—but he doesn’t say where he got his figures. So it turns out that Beisner committed the vice he (wrongly) accuses EEN of. EEN cited multiple studies that demonstrate not just

how many infants are affected by mercury in utero but also to what degree, and (crucially) puts a dollar value on the health benefits of mercury pollution reductions.

I’m sympathetic to the problems of exaggeration and the nuances of weighing costs and benefits. I railed in the past about the irrational fears some parents have about the tiny amounts of mercury in vaccines, when the private and public health benefits from being vaccinated so far outweighs any negligible risk. Atmospheric mercury emissions are a different case—but it’s an empirical question, not an ideological question. Because Beisner is motivated chiefly by a libertarian worldview, he simply assumes that the costs of reducing mercury emissions will outweigh the direct and indirect benefits, when the best evidence shows that the reverse is actually true.

Beisner is certainly a devoted advocate. He is faithful to his ideology and political positions and tireless in their defense. There is indeed a strong case to be made for the free market and for capitalism; environmental policies for a flourishing economy would be much better if they reflected the concerns of economic conservatives. That case is not made stronger, however, by a sloppy critique that runs roughshod over facts or by deafness to reasonable counterarguments.

Beisner cites, without apparent sense of the irony, 1 Thessalonians 5:21 (in reference to prophecies, the readers are told to “test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil”). Free market advocacy and creation care advocacy can be done with care, rigor, and honesty. When the lost world is watching the way we argue, it is a necessity.

Editors’ note: We invite readers to sign EEN’s End Mercury Poisoning Pledge at CreationCare.org/view.php?id=314.

A natural resource economist, Rusty Pritchard is the cofounder and president of Flourish (FlourishOnline.org), a national Christian ministry that serves Christians as they grow in environmental stewardship, healthy living, and radical discipleship.

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G lobal Positions This ECWA church in Buruku, Kaduna State, was destroyed by Muslim militants.

Nigerian Christians Seek a Theology of Conflict Armed Muslim militants continue to attack the Christian community in northern Nigeria. In April of this year, Human Rights Watch reported that in two days of post-election violence targeted at Christians and their churches, more than 800 were killed. Christians who call for retaliatory attacks say armed offense is the only way to ward off the Muslim militants.

Should Christians fight back to protect their lives and property, or should they take to their heels when the enemy rampages against them?

What does the Bible have to say on this matter? Is there a theology of conflict that can help embattled Christians address these questions? Has the church failed to provide answers to these conflicts and thus exposed her members to avoidable harm? These are the kinds of thorny but crucial questions that Nigeria’s church leaders are facing today.

Lamenting the spate of attacks, Mark Jacob, a member of the Middle Belt Dialogue, an advocacy group fighting for the religious and political liberty of minority groups in central Nigeria, says, “I have interviewed and felt the pains of mothers who saw husbands and children butchered; I have encountered men who wept helplessly as their children, wives, or aged parents, who could not run fast enough, were butchered. Unless you have been

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hurt yourself it is quite easy to dismiss the deep, genuine questions of our people.”

Joy Machunga, another member of the Middle Belt Dialogue, asks, “Are there no justified wars? Do we just sit and watch them slaughter us like lambs? During biblical times, didn’t Israel fight their enemies who are of other faiths?

In fact, I believe it is a sin for you to lie down on your bed claiming to be a Christian when a madman comes in with a machete and slaughters your wife and children. Israel would not have survived today if they had followed that kind of teaching.”

Rev. Tersur Aben, professor of systematic theology and philosophy at the Theological College of Northern Nigeria (TCNN) in Bukuru, a town near Jos, comes from the Reformed Church and says that his church embraces Just War theology. “Christians can engage in a war wherever injustice or oppression exists,” explains Aben. “This is precisely why America has been supporting opposition elements in the Middle East and in North Africa.” When Qhadaffi declares war on his own people, there is no way Christians can ignore such an evil regime, he says.

However, Aben believes there are some cases to which the Just War theory cannot be applied and that this is the case with the Nigerian situation.

“This theory does not advocate the defense of one’s faith,” asserts Aben.

“What we have in Nigeria is the battle of Islam against Christianity. Global terrorism is nothing but the war Islam is waging against Christianity. But we must note that Christians cannot fight for God. God rather will fight for his people and then provides solace and comfort for them.”

Quoting from Revelation 6, Aben says that conflicts have engulfed the world today in fulfillment of biblical prophecies. Of the seven seals mentioned in Revelation, he says, “The

Obed Minchakpu second seal (vs. 3-4) shows how world peace would be taken away and wars and conflicts take its place. It is therefore not a surprise to see Muslims waging war against Christianity.”

Aben also believes that all these conflicts are within the sovereignty of God, that they will come to an end at the appointed time (vs. 9-11), and that the perpetrators will be brought under the justice of God (vs. 13-17).

Dr. Phil Andrew, an American missionary who is director of Serving In Mission (SIM) in Nigeria, admits that religious and political conflicts have adversely impacted Evangelical Church Winning All (ECWA), a church planted

by SIM and other churches in northern Nigeria.

“In this part of Nigeria,” says Andrew, “Christians have been killed and churches burnt. This is very difficult for us, because we brought the gospel to them, and to see them suffering is not a pleasant thing. We have continued to encourage Christians not to despair in the face of these challenges, and we have also tried to raise support in order to assist those suffering and the displaced.”

At the global level, the story is the same, asserts Andrew: “Even missionaries have been killed in the African continent and in other parts of the world.” But then, he adds, “those of us serving in missions see this challenge as a motivating factor to urgently recruit more missionaries so that the task of evangelism can be carried out.”

Whatever it is, the prevailing situation in Nigeria and elsewhere demands the urgent teaching of the word of God, for it is only through the power of the Holy Spirit that Christians can withstand the pressures of the evil one.

Obed Minchakpu is a writer and media consultant. He lives in Jos, Nigeria, with his wife and four children.

Heidi Unruh

Passionate Politics Our winner-take-all political culture rewards activism that is simplistic, shortsighted, and suspicious. We are encouraged to posture rather than produce, complain rather than create, mock and attack rather than reconcile and resolve. Four out of five political ads sponsored by outside groups in the 2008 election were negative. Total campaign spending in 2010 mounted to nearly $4 billion. Anti-government militia groups have increased by 61 percent since 2000.

Thus we have good reason to dread the encroaching presidential campaign season. We may be tempted to agree with Thomas Jefferson: “Politics is such a torment that I advise everyone I love not to mix with it.”

Yet as Christian citizens, we have an obligation to insert ourselves into the mix. Romans 13:1 suggests that members of a democracy should participate in civic life as stewards of their political authority. Apathy and abdication are not constructive options. We must engage in politics with passion.

You’re probably thinking: Aren’t our political woes the result of too much passion? Shouldn’t we all just calm down?

Passion often fuels destructive deeds, but it is also essential to achieving good ends. As Rick Warren states, “Nothing great is ever accomplished in life without passion. Nothing great is ever sustained in life without passion.”

What most of us are passionate about, honestly, is preserving the status quo. We Americans live fairly comfortable lives and get riled up by apparent threats to our security. The Tea Party, for example, has largely attracted people not previously active in politics—until they perceived their way of life to be at stake. Meanwhile, those who have been excluded from rights or benefits are passionate about winning their due.

A different kind of political activism is grounded in passion for Christ and his kingdom. These political commitments flow from a consuming love

W ashington Watch for God that fuels love of neighbor (Mark 12:29-31). This kind of passion always considers the good of others alongside our own, and God’s purposes above all (Philippians 2:4).

What characterizes political activism that “strive[s] first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33)?

1. Visionary patience: The phrase “passionate politics” may invoke an image of angry protesters, but as Jim Wallis writes, “The best protest is not merely countercultural, it ... gives a society a better vision for itself and for the future. That is the way of the prophets. They began in judgment but ended in hope for change.”

The prophets exposed the excesses, exploitation, and idolatry of their society. Yet they also unveiled glimpses of society as God intended it.

“There should be no poor among you” (Deut.15:4). “They will not toil in vain or bear children doomed to misfortune” (Isa. 65:22-23). “Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore” (Mic. 4:3). “The nations on every shore will worship the Lord, every one in its own land” (Zeph. 2:11). “Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!” (Amos 5:24).

The prophets staked their lives on the hope of these visions, without seeing them fulfilled. A deep yearning for God’s kingdom “on earth as in heaven” (Matt. 6:10) drives us to pursue justice and righteousness despite expecting only limited fruit in our lifetime.

2. Bold humility. “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute” (Prov. 31:8). The prophets and the early church set an example of boldly and sacrificially speaking truth to power (e.g., Acts 5:29-30).

In the political realm, courage is often confused with hubris. Abraham Lincoln remarked that people “are not flattered by being shown that there has been a difference of purpose between the Almighty and them.” We must be honest with ourselves about the mixed motives that creep into our best inten-

tions. An accountable community can help keep us from conceit or passivity in public life. Boldness derives not from conviction of our rightness but from confidence in the ultimate triumph of God’s righteousness and justice.

3. Radical integrity. Passion divorced from truth becomes a weapon.

Godly ends never justify dishonest or ungracious means. Refrain from repeating falsehoods, unfounded claims, half-baked analysis, or sensationalist propaganda. Do your homework before hitting “forward” on your email or pasting to your Facebook page (I plead guilty). Listen to political opponents without prejudice, lest you misrepresent their motives or position.

The word radical shares the same root as radish, meaning “rooted.” To become passionate radicals for Christ we must be deeply rooted in God’s love, increasingly reflecting God’s character.

True radicalism is displayed as fully in one’s conduct at a town hall meeting as in one’s zeal for ending hunger.

What is at the core of your being that fuels your passion? Will your political involvement be driven by fear of losing what has been yours or greed for what could be yours—or will you follow in the steps of the Suffering Servant, whose passion led him to sacrifice for others? As Isaiah foretold: “He will not grow faint or be crushed until he has established justice in the earth” (Isa. 42:4).

As you slog through the mudsplattered, uphill field of political involvement, may you be guided and sustained by a vision of servant activism that integrates faith and justice, and may your hope never grow faint. May your passion transform you as you seek to transform the world.

Heidi Unruh is director of the Congregations, Community Outreach and Leadership Development Project, and author of Churches That Make a Difference (Baker, 2002).

9

CROSSFIRE With prayer and protests, people of faith target the gun industry

by Drick Boyd

January 8, 2011, Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and several others were shot by a lone gunman during a political gathering at a Tucson, Ariz., shopping mall.

While the public discussion following the Giffords shooting focused on how the polarizing political rhetoric of the fall 2010 campaign might have contributed to the shooting, few political leaders spoke up for greater regulations on the sale of handguns.

This event highlighted a continuing paradox in the ongoing debate over the place of firearms in American life.

Numerous academic studies have documented that the proliferation of firearms increases the likelihood of those guns being used against innocent citizens.1 Organizations like the Brady Campaign for Gun Violence Prevention,2 Mayors Against Illegal Guns,3 and numerous local groups have sought to inform the public about the link between lax gun laws and death/injury by firearms. High-profile shootings have occurred in places like Columbine High School, Virginia Tech, and Tucson. Even so, the gun lob-

On

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by continues to make advances in easing access to guns, from local ordinances up to the Supreme Court. Why? Why is there such vigorous opposition to regulating handgun sales when research studies clearly show that the presence of firearms raises the likelihood of innocent people being hurt by those guns? Why do gun violence prevention groups have difficulty convincing political leaders of the need to pass laws limiting and regulating the sale of handguns? How have the pro-gun advocates been so successful at dividing the American public on this lifeand-death issue?

In truth, the pro-gun forces have been far more successful in selling their message than have the gun violence prevention advocates. The gun industry has effectively created a polarizing climate of fear and distrust whenever regulations on the sale and use of firearms are proposed.

Employing effective marketing strategies and image manipulation, the gun industry continues to be financially profitable and politically influential.

Seen through a theological lens, the struggle over gun policy in this country is a deeply spiritual issue, reflecting what the apostle Paul refers to as a battle with the “principalities and powers” (Ephesians 6:12; Romans 8:38).

Even so, the institutional church has been largely silent and inactive on this issue. Recently, however, Christians have begun to challenge the gun industry, realizing they are uniquely equipped and called to work for common sense laws and policies regarding the sale and use of firearms.

The challenge At first glance, the challenge facing gun violence prevention advocates is daunting. According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC), each year approximately 50,000 people die in the United States due to violence-related injuries. Over half (51 percent) of all suicides and twothirds of all homicides are committed with firearms, most often handguns. The victims tend to be overwhelmingly male, and in the case of homicides more than half (53 percent) are under the age of 18.4 Because of these stag-

On the 2009 International Day of Peace, a boy called for sensible gun sale protocol during a protest in front of Colosimo’s Gun Shop in Philadelphia. The owner refused to sign the Code of Conduct, but the shop closed down soon afterwards. (Photo by Kemah Washington)

gering statistics, the CDC considers interpersonal violence to be a matter of public health, particularly among young people. While guns are not the sole cause of these tragedies, when combined with factors such as poverty, social stress, domestic violence, and substandard education, the presence of guns increases the likelihood that injuries and deaths will occur, especially in low-income communities.

Simply put, the availability of guns is a significant risk to those who possess them and those who live with their owners.5 As tempting as it is to attribute these grim statistics simply to oppressive social conditions, there is ample evidence that the gun industry has taken deliberate steps over the years to increase their profits in ways that have increased the incidence of violence in urban communities.

In the 1980s, when gun sales to hunters and collectors began to lag, the gun industry introduced handguns into the market and promoted “innovations” that increased their accuracy and firepower. These guns had only one purpose—to be used against other people.6 The industry also propagated the idea that gun ownership is a constitutional right, and their efforts were rewarded in the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller Supreme Court decision that affirmed that right.7 As the illegal gun market grew, gun manufacturers were accused of tacitly encouraging these new “markets.” While they consistently denied these allegations, one industry insider stated in a sworn affidavit that “the firearms industry … has long known [of] the diversion of firearms from legal channels of commerce to the illegal black market … Leaders in the industry have consistently resisted taking constructive voluntary action to prevent firearms from ending up in the illegal gun market and have sought to silence others in the industry who have advocated reform.”8 Unlike the auto or pharmaceutical industries, the gun industry is largely unregulated and operates without public accountability and scrutiny. Through the lobbying efforts of the National Rifle Association and other gun owner advocacy groups, the gun industry routinely opposes any and all attempts to regulate the sale and use of guns, and it has been successful in getting restrictions loosened in many jurisdictions. Hoovers.com9 reports that approximately 300 gun manufacturers are operating in the United States today, earning a combined profit of $5 billion. As Tom Diaz, author of Making a Killing: The Business of Guns in America (see sidebar on page 15), says, the gun industry is “a little money-making machine.”10 At the same time, most firearms manufacturers operate without scrutiny or oversight because the vast majority are privately owned and therefore do not have the reporting requirements of publicly traded companies.11 In response, gun violence prevention advocates have sought to pass legislation designed to keep guns out of the hands of those unfit to use them responsibly. The proposed laws include measures such as comprehensive

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Billboard created by Modernista!, courtesy of StopHandgunViolence.org.

background checks on potential gun owners, limits on the sale of handguns to one per month, criminal penalties for those persons serving as straw purchasers for illegal gun users,12 and a ban on the sale of lethal weapons such as assault rifles. Because most firearms legislation is handled at the state level, and because the political climate varies significantly from state to state, there is a patchwork of laws that vary significantly from state to state.13 The success of the gun lobby has been largely due to two factors. First, the gun lobby headed by the NRA is considered one of the most effective special interest advocacy groups on Capitol Hill.14 This influence is no doubt in large part to the enormous amounts of money the NRA

spends on political campaigns; for instance, in the 2008 election the gun lobby spent 41 times more in political contributions and 34 times more on political lobbying than did gun violence prevention advocates.15 Secondly, the gun lobby has been successful at framing the gun issue as “a cultural war.”16 The NRA has employed an effective strategy of don’t-confuse-me-withthe-facts-I-know-what-I-believe. Visitors to the NRA’s website17 will see the arguments for lax gun laws presented in terms of freedom, patriotism, autonomy, smaller government, family values, and self-defense. Studies linking increased injury to the proliferation of guns are dismissed as liberal and biased and countered with anecdotes of gun owners fending off would-be intruders. As one NRA insider once put it, the best way to understand NRA zealots would be to “approach us as if you were approaching one of the great religions of the world.”18 Dennis A. Henigan, author of Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths That Paralyze American Gun Policy (see sidebar on page 15), concurs: “To the true believers, the gun is an object of religious devotion.”19

A customer checks out the wares at a traveling gun show in West Palm Beach where guns on sale to the general public range from assault rifles to all varieties of handguns, including accessories such as silencers.

(Photo by Robert Wallis/Corbis)

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A faith-based response Given the emotional nature of the issue and the financial and political power of the gun industry, gun violence prevention groups must do more than provide the public with research data and public statements. The issue must be addressed on a spiritual level—on the level of culture, values, and beliefs. People of

During the 2009 trial of 12 Heeding God's Call activists arrested for civil disobedience, over 300 T-shirts were displayed in center city Philadelphia, each one bearing the name of a local murder victim. (Photo by Rich Gardner of phillyimc.org)

faith are best equipped to address this dimension of the issue.

In light of the power and influence of the gun industry, the challenge facing gun violence prevention advocates feels very much like the challenge faced by David when he came up against Goliath (I Samuel 17). As the story goes, the Philistine warrior Goliath was estimated to be 6 cubits tall, or between 9 and 11 feet.20 No man in the Israeli army dared to meet him on the battlefield. However, David, who was “but a youth, ruddy and fair of skin,” became incensed at the giant’s insults and volunteered to go out to fight him. Armed with only “five smooth stones,” he killed Goliath with one shot from his sling to the forehead. Despite being covered with powerful armor and wielding powerful weapons, Goliath had left that one part of his body vulnerable to attack, and thus David, the much smaller contestant, prevailed.

While it may be somewhat awkward to call upon an Old Testament battle story to urge people of faith to join the effort toward more restrictive gun laws, there are deeper truths here worth noticing. The story of David and Goliath reflects an overall biblical pattern of God’s people prevailing despite seemingly insurmountable odds, and doing so from a position of apparent weakness.

Also, as in the case of David, often these victories were gained through extremely unconventional means. Moreover, as the David and Goliath story illustrates, often the victories came by focusing strategically on both one’s own strengths and the opponent’s weaknesses, while still depending on God’s intervention.

People of faith, specifically Christians, have a unique and vital role to play in efforts to challenge the false

and irrational claims of the gun lobby—for five reasons.

First, faith communities deal in the world of symbols and values. As has been shown, the pro-gun forces have been effective at bathing their position in emotional and deeply held American values. People of faith need to raise up alternative symbols that provoke questions about foundational beliefs and values and that invite people to examine the underlying assumptions guiding their decisions and actions. While communities of faith do not have the political authority to enforce their ethics on others, they have the moral authority as a values-based group to raise legitimate moral questions.

Second, just as the gun lobby buttresses its position in personal stories, so too the Christian tradition is based in personal and communal stories. While empirical research clearly supports the gun violence prevention position, the truth of that research must be conveyed in Billboard created by Modernista!, courtesy of StopHandgunViolence.org.

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Top: Fr. Mike Phleger of St. Sabina's Roman Catholic Church in Chicago leads a dynamic youth violence prevention program.

Middle and bottom: Heeding God's Call unites local faith communities in advocacy campaigns to encourage gun shops to adopt a code of conduct to deter illegal purchasing and trafficking of handguns.

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part through stories. Stories reach beyond the cognitive realm to the heart, that emotional core from which most personal change begins.

The central person in the Christian story is Jesus of Nazareth, who taught love of one’s neighbor and enemy, who eschewed violence of every kind, and who redeemed the world through suffering a violent death. Moreover, Christian history offers countless stories of people who brought about significant change while acting without violence toward others—Francis of Assisi, the historic peace churches, and leaders of the civil rights movement, to name a few. Additionally, people can tell their own stories. Many people are moved to become active in the gun violence prevention movement because of the personal stories of those affected by gun violence and how God helped them. People of faith are the original storytellers and must use the power of story to reinforce the overwhelming practical evidence for gun violence prevention.

Third, faith communities touch people at the grassroots level. Every week people of faith gather in houses of worship, and in less formal settings, to exercise and strengthen their basic faith convictions. By their very nature churches are grassroots-oriented. If even a small percentage of the faith community could be mobilized to work for gun violence prevention, it would be a powerful people’s movement to contend with.

Fourth, for the most part church buildings and houses of worship are safe zones where information can be shared and meaningful conversations can be conducted.

These are places where difficult issues can be discussed and debated, where people in conflict can resolve differences, and where persons caught in a web of violence can find safety and solace.

Finally, and most importantly, Christians claim to operate under the guidance of a God who transcends all of human life and history. When David responded to Goliath’s challenge, he called attention not to the stones in his bag but rather to the fact that he came onto the field “in the name of the Lord of Hosts.” As this story illustrates, might does not always make right, nor does economic, social, or political power mean victory in itself.

This is not to dismiss the importance of gaining social and political power, but rather it is to recognize that sometimes that power can be exercised in surprising ways.

Because of these five factors, people of faith are uniquely positioned to take on the pro-gun forces in a way that supplements and complements the work being done by numerous gun violence prevention organizations.

This is not to say that the faith community can go it alone. However, given the complex and multi-faceted nature of the gun violence issue, the faith community has a unique and vital role to play in bringing about the changes need in our nation’s laws, policies, and personal practices with regard to firearms.

Despite the hesitancy of many church leaders to

speak out on such a volatile issue as gun violence prevention, some faith communities are responding to the reality of gun violence and in the process experiencing spiritual renewal as they proclaim a message of life in the midst of a culture of death. Even though the gun lobby is powerful, Christians are offering an energizing challenge to the gun industry and its pro-gun mania.

Heeding God’s Call Since 2009, the multi-faith group Heeding God’s Call (HGC) has been calling attention to illegal “straw” purchasing by challenging local gun shops to sign the Gun Dealer Code of Conduct co-developed by Mayors Against Illegal Guns and Wal-Mart; the code’s purpose is to make the gun dealer an active agent in discouraging the purchase of guns by one party for another.21 Through the process of regular vigils in front of gun shops, public liturgical actions, and in one case an act of civil disobedience that led to a high-profile trial and acquittal, HGC continues to pressure gun dealers to take responsibility for keeping guns out of the hands of wouldbe criminals.

In the process HGC has employed the creative use of symbols to convey its message. For instance, at a recent Good Friday prayer service outside a gun shop in Philadelphia, paper crosses were handed out, each with the name

DIG DEEPER Making a Killing: The Business of Guns in America by Tom Diaz (New Press, 2000) Lethal Logic: Exploding the Myths That Paralyze American Gun Policy

by Dennis A. Henigan (Potomac Books, 2009) Private Guns, Public Health by David Hemenway (University of Michigan Press, 2006) Every Handgun Is Aimed at You: The Case for Banning Handguns by Josh Sugarmann (New Press, 2002)

and death date of a different gun victim. On another occasion, 300 T-shirts were strung on a plaza to represent all the victims of gun violence in the city over the previous year. Parents and friends of victims have shared the stories of their murdered loved ones, evoking the personal nature of the issue. While Heeding God’s call is centered in Philadelphia, its influence has spread to other cities such as Harrisburg, Pa.; Baltimore, Md.; and Columbus,

COUNTING THE COST: GUNS IN THE UNITED STATES ❱ In 2007, guns took the lives of 31,224 Americans in homicides, suicides, and unintentional shootings. This is the equivalent of more than 85 deaths each day and more than three deaths each hour. ❱ Combining these deaths with the 69,863 Americans who were treated in ER departments for nonfatal gunshot wounds in 2007 reveals that more than 100,000 Americans were injured or killed by guns in 2007. ❱ In the first seven years of the US-Iraq War, over 4,400 American soldiers were killed. Almost as many US civilians are killed with guns every seven weeks. ❱ Guns cause the death of 20 young people (aged 1-24) each day in the United States, where almost 1.7 million kids age 18 and under are living in households with loaded and unlocked firearms. ❱ Firearm homicide is the leading cause of death for African Americans ages 1-44. ❱ Firearms were used to kill more than two-thirds of spouse and ex-spouse homicide victims between 1990 and 2005. Abused women are five times more likely to be killed by their abuser if the abuser owns a firearm. ❱ Firearm-related deaths and injuries result in estimated medical costs of $2.3 billion each year, half of which are borne by US taxpayers. Once all the direct and indirect medical, legal, and societal costs are factored together, the annual cost of gun violence in America amounts to $100 billion.

Statistics gathered by the Legal Community Against Violence (LCAV.org), a public interest law center dedicated to preventing gun violence. Founded by lawyers, LCAV is the country’s only organization devoted exclusively to providing legal assistance in support of gun violence prevention. Learn more and find sources at bit.ly/o57Z6F.

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Ohio. (Learn more at HeedingGodsCall.org.)

The Save Your Life Campaign While home on break from college, Jamillah Posey was shot by a 14-year-old boy who was sent by a local gang to shoot her; Posey was seriously wounded but survived and went on to earn a master’s degree in Urban Studies at Eastern University in St. David’s, Pa. Upon graduation she parlayed her personal story and training to begin the “Save Your Life Campaign” (SYL).22 Beginning in her home city of Newark, N.J., and her adopted city of Wilmington, Del., Posey has been raising awareness and support for organizations addressing youth violence in local communities. She has established a Facebook page23 and an internet radio program24 featuring youth talking about their concerns, as well as youth workers talking about ways they are seeking to bring about positive change in their communities. In the summer, SYL organizes basketball tournaments and community forums designed to bring urban youth together to talk about ways to bring safety and peace to their neighborhood The overall purpose of SYL is to provide positive youth activities and to promote youth as responsible members of their communities. What separates SYL from other youth programs is that it calls upon youth themselves to address concerns such as gun violence and bullying in the belief that if youth are empowered they can make decisions that will build stronger, safer, and healthier communities.

SYL’s greatest strength is the personal nature of Posey’s story and how she has transformed a potential tragedy into an opportunity to address the issue at a deeply personal level. While theirs is not an overtly Christian program, SYL and Posey operate out of a Christian commitment that permeates all they do. Moreover, SYL speaks with youth from the perspective of their street culture and in terms that they can relate to, proactively equipping urban young people with skills and perspectives that can help them avoid being caught in the despair and hopelessness that often lead young people into gun violence.

St. Sabina’s Silent Vigil St. Sabina’s Roman Catholic Church has been a force for reconciliation and social justice in the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood of Chicago for nearly 30 years under the dynamic leadership of Fr. Mike Phleger. The congregation started a community development corporation, The Beloved Community, that has addressed issues of education, housing, and unemployment. As part of their youth outreach, the church participated in Safety Net, a citysponsored youth violence prevention program. In response to violence in their neighborhood, the youth in Safety Net decided to call attention to the violence by constructing 35 coffins, representing all the children killed in that neighborhood in the previous year. The youth then carried the coffins through the neighborhood in a silent vigil.25 Fr. Phleger promoted the march through a press conference, inviting church members, community residents, representatives of other faith communities, and political leaders to join in the vigil.

In these and other ways St. Sabina’s continues to be a powerful voice for gun violence prevention at the local, city, and state levels, using their moral authority to send a message about the need for common sense gun legislation in Chicago and the state of Illinois.

Like the Save Your Life Campaign, this response was initiated by and has been carried out by young people who were most directly affected by gun violence. Their response is based in their personal stories and a creative response that speaks to their neighborhood culture. The coffins were a potent symbol of the cost gun violence exacts on the youth of that neighborhood. With the support of Fr. Jamillah Posey (bottom row, third from left) pictured with youth and volunteers of the Save Your Life Phleger and the St. Sabina commuCampaign (SYL), after cleaning a local park for Philadelphia Community Day. nity of faith, the young people have

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TELL CONGRESS: PREVENT MORE SENSELESS SHOOTINGS Join more than 550 US mayors in calling on members of Congress to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people by taking two critical steps: 1. Get all the names of people who should be prohibited from buying guns into the background check system.

2. Require a background check for every gun sale in America.

Sign the petition at FixGunChecks.org today. (Sponsored

by MayorsAgainstIllegalGuns.org) become a powerful voice for peace and safety in their community.

A Center for Peacemaking St. Rita’s of Cascia Roman Catholic Church is located in South Philadelphia, one of the most culturally diverse sections of the city, as well as a center of racial strife and violence in recent years. The church was established by the Augustinian friars in 1907 and named after St. Rita of Umbria, Italy, known as “a sympathetic and attractive model of holiness and a powerful intercessor in the most needy of cases.” In the mid-1990s the Augustinian order decided to make St. Rita’s a national shrine, and now people come to St. Rita’s from all over the country for healing, prayers, and spiritual inspiration.

Building on St. Rita’s character as a healer and peacemaker, church leaders decided to transform a school building into the Cascia Center for Peacemaking and Conflict Resolution.26 Opening this fall, the center will offer programs on urban peacemaking, as well as provide a place for individuals and groups to work through conflicts and differences. The center will also house an outreach center providing legal advice, ESL classes, and a health clinic. Finally, on the ground floor of the building, a spacious auditorium will host large group gatherings, as the center hopes to bring together service providers to share ideas as well as a time of spiritual refreshment.

The Cascia Center is an impressive example of a faith body capitalizing on the symbols already in its history to address needs in its immediate community. While providing much needed pastoral care and social services, the center also embodies a proactive vision for peace and change in a heavily conflicted community, and stands to be a space where persons of all faiths and no faith can come together in a spirit of reconciliation.

The power of many Davids These examples in no way exhaust the myriad ways that faith communities are using their unique role as ethical, spiritual, and prophetic voices for urban peacemaking. In

their own way, each of these efforts moves beyond the facts, figures, and research to speak to the deep concerns and values in people’s lives. Each provides concrete illustrations of how people of faith can make a significant contribution to the effort to reduce the presence and prevalence of gun violence in urban communities.

Taken by themselves, each of these efforts seem meager when compared to the powerful forces promoting and profiting from the proliferation of violence in urban communities. But as part of a mosaic of strategies, they provide a powerful challenge to the gun industry, the gun lobby, and gun rights’ true believers. Like the five smooth stones David ran through his hand, these efforts may seem wholly inadequate, but when strategically and creatively applied, these faith-based efforts can help the gun violence prevention movement prevail as it challenges and stirs people at the deepest levels of their lives and beings.

Goliath will fall, and David will prevail.

Drick Boyd is associate professor of urban and interdisciplinary studies at Eastern University, and a founding member of Heeding God’s Call, a multi-faith gun violence prevention movement.

(Editor’s note: due to space limitations, the endnotes for this article have been posted at EvangelicalsforSocialAction.org/PRISM-endnotes.)

TAKE ACTION Invite your church to partner with these national organizations: > The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence (BradyCampaign.org) is named after Jim Brady, former White House press secretary who, after becoming permanently disabled as a result of an assassination attempt on Ronald Reagan in 1981, became an ardent supporter of gun control. > Stop Gun Violence (StopHandgunViolence.com) works to prevent firearm violence through public awareness and sensible legislation, without banning guns.

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A Costly Thing to W

BY BRUCE MAIN

A

few months ago I heard—via the grapevine—that one of my donors thinks our programs for inner-city kids at UrbanPromise in Camden, N.J., are “too expensive.”

I guess he feels that the $7,000 cost we incur to educate a child in one of our private Christian schools (versus $16,850 per child in the local public schools),1 or the $1,500 we pay to employ a teen for seven weeks during the summer, or the $350 we spend to keep a child in a full-day, six-week summer camp is just too much money—not enough “bang for the

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buck.”

For a few weeks I brooded over the comment. I wasn’t sure how to respond. I tend to think twice before biting the hand that feeds me, so I wanted to be sure I thought through my response before I hit the reply button. Ironically this funder—a Christian I should add—has no problem sending his children to private schools, taking his family on a summer vacation, or tapping into his vast social network to get his kid a summer internship. All of these activities cost money—

How much is too much to educate “at-risk” urban youth? large amounts of money. Not that it is incompatible to be a Christian and take your family on a summer vacation or lobby your friends to help your kid secure a résumépadding internship.

I have no problem with sharing the gifts God gives us with our family. I do have a problem, however, with the notion that organizations working with impoverished, inner-city youth have to always cut corners, do bargain-basement programming, and stretch the dollars like saltwater taffy. Why is money spent on one group of kids justifiable but the same amount spent on other kids deemed “too much”? It’s an interesting statement about values.

One afternoon I walked briskly across the parking lot at our ministry, located on the corner of 36th and Federal Street in East Camden. It was just after 1 p.m., and I was late for my meeting. I picked up my pace. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a young man sitting on the curb— about 8 feet from the front door of our high school. Odd. I kept walking. From the depths of my subconscious emerged the old youth worker. “Why is this kid sitting on a curb, in our parking lot, at 1:05 p.m.? I stopped, swiveled, and headed

Waste

towards the young man.

“What’s up?” I asked, trying not to look like an overly concerned adult.

“Waiting for a friend,” he muttered.

“What’s your name?” I continued.

“Angelo.

“Angelo.” I pressed, “Where do you go to school?”

“Up the street.” He motioned towards the public high school a few blocks down Federal Street. The school houses about 1,300 students and is ranked 315 out of 316 schools in New Jersey. Yes, that’s the second worst high school in the state. According to a recent article, it graduates about 55 percent of the students who enter in the 9th grade.2 “Do you like it?” I continued. “Like your school?”

“Not really.

“Why not?”

“Four fights today,” he confessed. “There’s a group of kids. They just pick fights.”

“Would you be interested in coming to our school?”

“Yep! But can’t afford it.”

I motioned for Angelo to follow me, took him up the steps of the school, and introduced him to Principal Marlowe.

They began to discuss possibilities of getting him enrolled in our school—with a scholarship. My “expensive” programs just got more costly.

Criminologists might refer to Angelo as a “high-risk youth.” Youth workers prefer not to use terms like “high risk” because of its pejorative implications. Labels like “high risk” are negative. Youth workers prefer phrases like “youth growing up in high-risk communities.” But criminologists do not necessarily see things as youth workers do. Criminologists would insist that Angelo, because he is sitting on a curb at 1:05 p.m. on a weekday and is not in school, is high risk. If Angelo is not in school, the likelihood of him graduating from school diminishes significantly. If Angelo is afraid to go to school, he is prone to wandering the streets—or sitting on curbs. If Angelo is roving the streets, the probability of him getting involved in criminal activity is appreciably increased. According to criminologists, by sitting on my curb at 1:05 p.m. on a weekday afternoon, Angelo is no longer just a kid growing up in a high-risk community. He is “at risk” of getting into all kinds of trouble.

In 1996 Vanderbilt University economist Mark Cohen wrote a definitive paper called “The Monetary Value of Saving a High-Risk Youth.” I know the title sounds a little cold and calculating, but that’s why economists are economists and not

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Girls hanging out at UrbanPromise afterschool program

UrbanPromise alumni Tony Vega returns to Camden as role model and teacher.

youth workers. Economists generally don’t lead heartwarming Our young friend had no idea that his afternoon in court was renditions of “Kum Ba Ya” and “Amazing Grace.” Economists fueling an expensive industry. And every time this young boy crunch data, make financial forecasts, and play with numbers. returns to the courthouse or goes to jail, society's costs conSo Cohen decided to sit down with his calculator and calculate tinue to escalate. the potential cost to society of Angelo sitting on a curb at New Jersey spends $690 million on 15,000 prisoners each 1:05 p.m. on a school day. Cohen wanted to assess the actual year. At $46,000 per bed3, this is the largest growing pormonetary value of saving a high-risk youth like Angelo from a tion of the state budget. As our politicians continue to slash life of crime and low productivity. budgets, I think Cohen’s data becomes increasingly relevant.

I never found numbers very fun. My dad was an accounIn our city, for example, state aid will be reduced from $71 tant; I headed in another direction. For me, budgeting and million to $54 million. That’s real money. Fewer police, fewer doing financial forecasts for our ministry have always been a firefighters, fewer social workers, fewer parole officers, less little like filing tax returns—painfully tedious, but required. But money for libraries and communities services. I realize that I am glad there are guys like Cohen who find joy in numbers. there are policy issues that need to be changed in regards to His findings are staggering. According to Cohen, if you factor sentencing, but I also realize that if we can save more kids like in taxes on lost income over a lifetime, potential prison costs, Angelo from dropping out of school and engaging in crime, parole costs, remedial programming, law enforcement, and the monetary savings to our society will be profound. potential support for kids through welfare, the cost to society My ministry budget for the entire year is $3.2 million. This is—ready for this?—approximately $2 million. In economic comes from individuals—mostly church folk who already tithe terms, Angelo sitting on my curb at 1:05 p.m. is potentially a portion of their salary to their church, warmhearted people a $2 million liability to society. (Of course, this doesn’t even who want to make a difference in the world. Most are tired of touch on the exorbitant human costs to Angelo, his family, watching politicians tangle over government-run programs that and his neighborhood.) seem to produce little or no results. Most are dismayed and If you think Cohen is exaggerating, visit a juvenile courtangered when they read about growing prisons, failing schools, room. I recently spent an afternoon at the Camden Court and a drug industry that shows no signs of slowing.

House. A group of UrbanPromise staff were supporting a That might seem like a lot of money for an urban minis16-year-old who had gotten in trouble with the law. The try, but when compared to the cost that Cohen projects for young man already had a rap youth who get swept sheet a foot long, but with our up into the system, it is a drop in the bucket. help he was now taking strides According to Cohen, if to turn his life around. As I UrbanPromise moves looked around the courtroom, just two kids from the I made a mental calculation “high-risk” category to of the cost to the taxpayer the “productive and enof this one-hour hearing: a gaged” category, we are judge, two court reporters, a saving taxpayers at least public prosecutor, a defense $4 million. I know for a lawyer, a woman who monifact that we are moving tors electric ankle bracelets, a more than two kids from social worker, a psychologist, Students enjoy quality Christian education the high-risk category and several security guards. at UrbanPromise's CamdenForward School. each year. Each day All salaried and with benefits.

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500 kids are off the streets and engaged in activities that are leading towards self-sufficiency and contributing to society. In essence, 500 kids are not sitting on the curb at 1:05 p.m. on a Wednesday. And more good news: They are not sitting on the curb at 3:30 p.m. or 6:00 p.m. on Saturdays or on school holidays.

Just for fun, what if 500 kids are “saved” over the next five years? That would total a $100 million payback on a $16 million investment. Even Warren Buffett might retire with that kinds of gain.

Besides looking at Angelo through an economic lens, there are other reasons for investing (and spending money) on programs impacting kids like Angelo. Last November, I received a phone call from Carl Clark. Carl started with our ministry in 1988 as a camper. He grew up in one of the worst housing projects in East Camden. His uncle was a big-time drug dealer on the Eastside. His mother was chronically ill.

No father in the household. Carl came to our after-school programs and summer camps, secured a summer job with our ministry, and eventually went to the College of New Jersey on a full scholarship. He studied business and spent his post-graduation years as a banker.

“Can we meet for breakfast?” he asked, in a greatly matured voice, over the phone. “I have something I need to talk with you about.

“Absolutely!” I replied, thrilled that one of my old kids had called me.

The next week we sat down at Denny’s, drank coffee, and ate our double stack of pancakes. Carl quickly got to the point “I just finished The Purpose Driven Life,” he began. “I think I’m supposed to leave banking and start an UrbanPromise in Trenton. What would I need to do?”

Somewhat surprised by his certainty, I pressed him a little.

“Why do you feel called to do this? You know, there is no security in nonprofit work.”

“I see myself in these kids,” continued Carl. “You know, Bruce, if it wasn’t for people who invested in me, there is no way I’d be where I am. If I’m not supposed to do this, who is?”

I had no answer for Carl. I could hardly think of another person as qualified as Carl—educated, committed, visionary, street-smart, and full of faith.

This past summer Carl birthed a summer camp in Trenton’s West Ward. It’s a tough community—high rates of violence and a proliferation of gangs. As Carl explains, “The gangs have their own after-school programs.

They rent out space for younger kids to come and play video games.”

About 100 flooded through the doors each morning this summer. Ten

teens were employed as camp leaders. It may not seem like a lot of youth, but based on the camp’s success, Carl is adding another site in the fall. More kids will be pulled off the streets into programs that encourage academic, social, and spiritual growth. Fewer kids will be sitting on curbs during the middle of the school day.

Ten years from now I expect a whole new generation of Christian leaders will be raised from Trenton’s toughest neighborhoods—neighborhoods that traditionally have sent more kids to jail than to college. Just like Carl, these young leaders will go to other cities and make a difference. They will return to Trenton as social workers, teachers, pastors, and youth workers. I have seen this happen in Camden many times over the past 25 years.

Cohen was shortsighted in only attaching a monetary value to saving “high-risk” youth. He forgot to calculate the impact of young men and women offering their lives and gifts to God. He forgot to attach the monetary, social, and spiritual value that each young person—like Carl—can have on others when he or she returns to the community and impacts the younger generation.

Are our programs too expensive? No. The real risk lies in not spending more.

Bruce Main is president of UrbanPromise Inc. (UrbanPromiseUSA.org; UrbanPromiseInternational.org), an adjunct professor at Eastern University’s Campolo School for Social Change in Philadelphia, and the author of five books, including Why Jesus Crossed the Road (Tyndale, 2010), Holy Hunches (Baker, 2007), and Spotting the Sacred (Baker, 2006).

(Editor’s note: due to space limitations, the endnotes for this article have been posted at EvangelicalsforSocialAction.org/PRISMendnotes.)

Celebrating UrbanPromise Academy’s 100 percent graduation and off-to-college rate!

21

Found and St A

decade ago, over 3,000 youth known as the Lost Boys of Sudan entered the United States with refugee status granted by the George W. Bush administration. They were distributed to cities across the country, offered three months of government support, and expected to survive on their own after that.

Fortunately, many American communities, churches, and families embraced the refugees, who were primarily orphaned boys who had grown up in war-torn Sudan or in UN-sponsored camps for displaced people. The welcome they received was quite different from the reception that typically awaits new immigrants. Even local and national media outlets reflected positively on the newcomers.

Several factors contributed to the deep connection and commitment that characterized the hospitality offered by Americans, many of whom had not previously engaged immigrant populations.

The first factor lies in the power of the refugees’

Former “Lost Boys” of Sudan le transformation 22 PRISM Magazine

tanding Firm stories. Torn from their families, the Lost Boys of Sudan had experienced unimaginable tragedy in their 1,000-mile trek across Africa. And since the youth already spoke English, their accounts of escaping religious persecution, fleeing gunfire, swimming crocodile-infested rivers, eating roots, and drinking their own urine in order to survive captured the attention and pierced the hearts of those hearing their stories firsthand.

The refugees’ winsome personalities, strong Christian faith, and earnest desire to integrate provided further points of connection between the two groups. And while the newcomers’ needs were many, so were the gifts of the host communities that welcomed them, and the two groups quickly discovered that they each had much to learn from the other.

Woodcreek Church (formerly Richland Bible Fellowship Church) in Richardson, Tex., provides a good case study of how the refugees and their new communities both stretched and enriched each other. When four Sudanese youth, sponsored by the International Rescue Committee (IRC), arrived at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport in

September 2001, they were picked up and housed by members of Richland Bible Fellowship Church, which had a working partnership with IRC. At the time, neither the refugees nor the volunteers could have anticipated the far-reaching impact of their encounters with each other.

The young men needed to learn how to shop and cook. The volunteers stepped up to help and in the process gained a fresh appreciation for the basic life skills they had always taken for granted. The newcomers needed to enroll in schools and food stamp programs. The volunteers helped them navigate the system and in the process learned about challenges most of them had never been called to face. The young men needed to learn to interview and obtain jobs, most of which paid minimum wage, and they were torn between paying their own bills and sending money back home to help relatives who were literally starving. When the volunteers helped them plan budgets, the Americans were introduced to the kind of financial dilemmas they had never before considered.

As the church community worked side by side with people from government agencies, civic

ead Americans on a journey of

by Nita Thomason

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groups, and other churches, unusual partnerships developed. The experience opened the eyes and hearts of many volunteers to the plight of other underserved people in their communities. The Lost Boys’ challenges—getting quality education, finding safe housing, obtaining and maintaining adequate jobs—mirrored those faced by other disadvantaged people in the community, folks who had previously gone unnoticed by local church members.

The friendships forged with the African youth would eventually result in lasting changes to the life of the body, its witness in the community, and its perspective on the world.

Today, as a direct result of Refugee Resources, a nonprofit organization ministering to African immigrants, partners with insights gained from a decade of Woodcreek Church. Here women from both visit the Dallas Arboretum. relational ministry with the Lost Boys of Sudan, Woodcreek Church has a Community Impact ministry. Outreach Pastor Scott Winn explains: “Our outreach to the poor was ✓Journals such as Christianity Today, PRISM, in its infancy when we met the Lost Boys. They were and World motivated members to think more the catalyst God used to move us to be a church deeply about poverty and the Christian evanknown for the transformational relationships between gelical responsibility to engage in social justice those in need and those with resources of hope.” The issues. church utilized numerous resources as their outreach ministry developed: ✓The church developed partnerships with both community schools and local parachurch orga✓Focused Bible studies opened members’ eyes nizations that serve the needy. These partners, to the nearly 2,000 scripture verses dealing with who were already engaged in helping and empoverty and justice. God executes justice for the powering the poor, provided opportunities for oppressed, gives food to the hungry, sets prisonchurch members to engage in meaningful ways. ers free, protects strangers, and supports the fatherless and widowed (Psalm 146:7-9). Jesus The Community Impact ministry clarified underpreached the good news to the poor (Matthew standing regarding poverty, externally focused minis11:5). God commands his people to administry, and the integration of concern for the poor with ter justice, show mercy and compassion to the evangelism. Woodcreek is a medium-sized church and immigrant (Zechariah 7:9,10), and love mercy does not have a large budget for community out(Micah 6:8). reach, yet today the church regularly ministers to and alongside immigrant populations. ✓Books—such as The Hole in Our Gospel by Although the church is situated in one of the Richards Stearns; The Church of Irresistible Inwealthiest zip codes in the Dallas metroplex, just fluence by Robert Lewis, Rob Wilkins, and Bob three miles away are schools with large immigrant Buford; When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett populations and high numbers of families qualifying and Brian Fikkert; and Generous Justice by for free lunch programs. The church adopted Forman Timothy Keller—guided staff and lay leaders.

Elementary School and contributes thousands of dollars of school supplies annually, hosts teacher meet✓Seminars such as the “No Need Among You: ings, provides gifts for teacher appreciation events, Including the Excluded” conference, Leaderand supplies tutors on a weekly basis for individualship Network, and the “Right Now” conferences ized instruction. Not surprisingly, a strong relationchallenged leaders to give more emphasis to ship between the principal and engaged Woodcreek externally-focused ministry. volunteers has developed.

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Refugee Resources, a small nonprofit organization ministering to African immigrants, is another community partner. Church members teach ESL classes and assist with monthly youth outreach programs.

During the annual Woodcreek Community Impact weekend, members recently provided major construction help in updating classroom space for a preschool for immigrant children.

Alice Wani grew up in Southern Sudan and as a teenager lost six bottom teeth. One day she shared with her Woodcreek ESL When Woodcreek Church started an ESL program last year, they were stunned by the number of students teacher the humiliation she who showed up. The classes have provided a foundation for deepening relationships among church memfeels because of the gapbers and the immigrant population in the neighborhood. ing hole in her mouth. Her story was passed on to Dr. they are eager to share. The friendships that grew Chris Miller, a dentist and member of Woodcreek, who generously offered to help. Learning of his offer, out of their interactions were based on mutual respect and a sense of deep community.

Wani threw her hands in the air and praised God for Some of the refugees thrived; others strugthis marvelous gift. gled. Some of the volunteers were engaged in proLast year Woodcreek started its own ESL program called BEST (Building English Skills Together). viding immediate relief for a limited time; others became invested for the long haul, helping move “We knew there was a need in our area,” says Kay the refugees from positions of dependence to a Hurley, the program volunteer director, “but we had healthy interdependence. Innovative partnerships no idea how many to expect when we first opened saw individuals, churches, civic organizations, our doors to serve our community. We thought we parachurch organizations, and governmental agenmight get 45 students our first year. By September cies working together with a common purpose, we had 70 adult students registered and approxiand in the process lives were transformed. mately 26 children in our preschool/childcare. The After nine years of working hard and attenddiversity of our program was exciting, as we had eight countries represented in our student population. ing college classes in his new country, Abraham Akech, one of the original four Lost Boys that We are reminded constantly that not only are we Woodcreek picked up at the airport a decade ago, teaching but we are changing lives.” earned a Bachelor of Science degree in finance When she first met Hurley, Vevey Sherrife, and business administration from University of originally from Mexico, was depressed and seldom Texas at Dallas. He recently landed an accountleft her house. But Hurley helped her find a job, and ing job at an international climate control comVevey was soon awarded a scholarship to attend a pany. The Woodcreek community of friends was local ESL program and began work on a Child Dethere to celebrate with him.  velopment Associate certification. She now works in the BEST childcare program, as well as the church’s Mother’s Day Out program. She has since become A life-long educator, Nita Thomason teaches fuan integral part of the BEST community and a ture teachers at Collin County Community College leader in her area of service. in Plano, Tex. She currently volunteers with interVolunteers have experienced numerous blessings national students and immigrants, and she leads as they realize that people like Alice Wani, Vevey the Community Impact ministry at Woodcreek Sherrife, and the Lost Boys of Sudan may be physiChurch. Learn more at WoodcreekChurch.com. cally impoverished but possess many spiritual assets

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Privileged, Prepared... and Powerless An American professor advocating for his Congolese niece comes face to face with the capricious and cruel realities of US Immigration by

Craig Keener

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s the small overloaded boat veered to one side, I feared the water would pour in and submerge us. I was praying fervently; boats have been known to capsize on the massive Congo River, and I had never swum outside a pool. The voyage already had complications. We had just enough money to spend one night cheaply in Kinshasa and then make the return voyage; the guards at our embarking port in Brazzaville had made sure we had no more cash than that.

Nevertheless, we were determined, no matter what the risks, to try to help my wife’s 7-yearold niece, Keren.

My wife’s brother had named Keren for one of Job’s daughters, since she was born just after the war in which they had all been refugees.

Like her father, a professor, Keren was smart; she was working at two grades above her age level, and she learned English words as quickly as I could teach them. Yet she was living now with just one parent in Brazzaville, one of the world’s most dangerous and least healthy cities. Some of my in-laws had nearly died by violence several years earlier; our son had nearly died of malaria there, and Keren had often been dangerously ill. Multiple sources had informed us of roving gangs raping girls, and at this time various circumstances gave us good reason to believe that Keren’s life was especially in danger.

In Africa relatives routinely take in other relatives; in the United States adopting a niece or a nephew is one of the easier

26 PRISM Magazine

forms of adoption. That does not apply, however, to relatives overseas. An immigration lawyer advised us that current US laws allowed no other means to get Keren out of her situation and have her live with us in Pennsylvania than to enroll her in a private school and bring her here by means of a student visa.

Always determined to live simply for the sake of other needs in the world, we had to weigh the costs of paying for many years of private schooling, but in the end we resolved that we would do whatever necessary to help Keren.

This was not Keren’s first visa interview. Twice before, her father, with her mother’s blessing, took the boat across the Congo River to the US consulate in Kinshasa. At the time, the US consulate in Brazzaville, the capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo, was not functioning. Thus all applicants for US visas had to make their way to the consulate in the DRC. In both instances, however, Keren’s folder was placed in the long rejection line before she and her father were even called to the window.

This treatment was in spite of the consulate’s nonrefundable US $131 fee, a sizable sum of money for a Congolese citizen.

The first time, the vice-consul wanted more proof of my wife’s relationship to Keren, which was easily supplied.

The second time, the vice consul objected that the course of study was unclear but refused to explain what she meant by this. She insisted that if Keren’s father wished a foreign education for his daughter he should send her to South Africa. But my wife, Médine, his closest sister, was the only sibling to whom he would entrust his daughter; no relatives lived in South Africa, and at that time the killing of foreigners in South Africa was in international headlines.

On this third trip to the consulate, we had hundreds of people praying for our success. Keren believed that God would grant her the visa, and her faith encouraged the rest of us. Though harboring no illusions, we hoped that as US citizens my wife (though a Congolese citizen before our marriage) and I might receive a better hearing.

A quest predestined to fail The next morning, we waited while people who had arrived after us were granted visas. They were fingerprinted before their interviews, showing that their folders had been placed in the approval line beforehand. One of them was someone notorious for having oppressed and exploited many other citizens of his country! Like those that followed us, we were not fingerprinted before our interview, since we had been placed in the rejection line before being interviewed. Several months of preparation would culminate in a few brief moments before the vice-consul.

She asked us several questions until she found one useful for rejecting our petition. She inquired how long we intended to sponsor the child; we noted that we would do so for the seven years permitted on the I-20. Nevertheless, we also chose to answer honestly that we were prepared to sponsor her beyond that period. Renewal of status while remaining in a program is a fairly standard procedure, specified even on the form, and other international elementary students at the private school we were working with often continue through high school. The vice-consul

responded, however, that our answer revealed that we had no plan of study, hence by “law” she had to refuse us. “This letter explains the law,” she noted, handing us a form In limbo: Keren letter from the in Congo stack.

Because this form letter was precisely the same one that she had twice handed to my brother-in-law, I had already read it. It did not “explain” any law, but specified Section 214(b). Our lawyer had located the relevant laws for us, and this one assigned the consular officer the right to decide but did not specify the criterion the vice-consul used, a criterion that could exclude virtually all elementary students (in contradiction to law N17.2 and the regular admission of elementary students from many other parts of the world). Of the three sample proofs of ties to one’s home country listed, Keren met the only one relevant to a 7-year-old. The law thus did not require a negative decision.

Like a good academician, I started to raise an objection.

“You have total authority to make whatever decision you want,” I offered, “but I have read the laws in question, and ...” I was going to add that since many US private schools do have elementary international students, many other consulates do not interpret the law in the way that the vice-consul had. She cut me off before I could say anything, however, noting curtly that her decision was final. I’m sure she was not accustomed to having anyone speak back to her; as a US citizen, I was not accustomed to dealing with agents of government unaccountable for their actions.

Both sides of Keren’s extended family in Congo attributed the refusal to “the wickedness of the US government.” We and many of our prayer supporters in the US felt the same way.

A misplaced faith in “rights” This was not our first experience with immigration difficulties.

After Médine had survived 18 months as a refugee, we confirmed our love for each other and applied for a fiancée visa.

Because the US consulate in her country had been shut down during war, she waited for the visa in neighboring Cameroon, away from her family, for a period that eventually stretched to eight months. After a senator intervened, the immigration service sent us their approval of our petition. The consulate could not accept our copy of the letter, however, needing it to come by diplomatic pouch from the immigration service. Immigration service and the consulate each accused the other of having lost the file; the former told us that we would need to start the process over again. The consulate was gracious, however, and after we had missed our first wedding date, we were finally able to marry.

Our current petition, however, did not end so happily.

Keren was silent as we made our way back across the river, discouraged. I, meanwhile, struggled with anger and despair.

When our government assigns some countries lower immigration quotas than others, consulates in those countries presumably must refuse more petitioners. I have no way of knowing if immigration quotas affected our case, but it is clear that the laws are interpreted differently in different consulates. The private school noted that they had never experienced these difficulties with students from other countries, for which the process had always been straightforward. Yet the situation could have been even more difficult; a missionary friend in Congo told me that his own nation’s consulate in Congo had standing orders to find excuses to reject all applicants.

My concern is less with the laws, however, than with compassion and truth. Legally the vice-consul could make whatever decision she wanted. But what moral purpose does it serve to bar our 7-year-old niece from the country where we are living? All the objections people raise against immigration were irrelevant in her case: She was not a potential terrorist, not illegal, and not a burden on society; we had legally obligated ourselves to cover every aspect of her support. Some may object that everyone would like to bring their relatives here, but Keren is the only one we have tried to bring, because of her special circumstances.

Because we have had a series of miscarriages, we cannot be accused of contributing to overpopulation. The harshest critics of immigration might finally suggest that if we want to be a family together so much, we should simply emigrate. That is an option we have discussed; however, due to my linguistic deficiencies, Congo itself would not be a likely destination.

Devastated but unwilling to give up, we waited two years and applied again. This time the consulate, now in Brazzaville, was courteous and noted that all our papers were in order. Nevertheless, they refused the visa. My brother-in-law pointed out to no avail that the private school has students from many other countries. As I have mentioned, however, some countries are more favored by US immigration policy than others. At the time this article goes to press, Keren is 10 years old, staying with her father, whose job requires him to be away from her for many hours each day. The most direct original danger has apparently passed, though new threats arise periodically; in any case, life remains much less secure in Brazzaville than in the States; Keren’s father was wounded by robbers as this article went to press. The Congo region has the world’s highest incidence of rape, and we still want to make life better for her. If US immigration policy makes this impossible, am I wrong to ask why the policy is written and implemented in this way? Spoiled with our many “rights” in this country, it never occurred to me that what initially and instinctively seemed a matter of course—to be able to take in a child who is a relative—would be denied us.  Craig Keener is professor of New Testament at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky., and the author of 14 books. He has trained ministers in various parts of Africa, primarily Nigeria, Cameroon, and Kenya.

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FREED TO SPEAK

by Janell Anema Photography by Sofia Moro 28 PRISM Magazine

Top (left to right): Perry Cobb, Randal Padgett, Nathson Fields, Ron Keine, Shabaka WaQlimi. Bottom (left to right): Ray Krone, Freddie Lee Pitts, Dale Johnston, Albert Burrell, Harold Wilson

WITNESS TO INNOCENCE PUTS A FACE ON THE DEATH PENALTY DEBATE

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very six months an exclusive fraternal order gathers in a different US city where members can fellowship, celebrate, and support each other. To enter this brotherhood one must endure a cruel hazing and an induction process perpetrated by the American criminal justice system. Inclusion in this fraternity requires that one must be arrested, falsely convicted, sentenced to die…and then set free. This is the brotherhood of the exonerated.

Capital punishment has long existed in America but was temporarily suspended on a national scale between 1972 and 1976 after the US Supreme Court declared executions to be unlawful violations of the Eighth Amendment (protection from cruel and unusual punishment) and the Fourteenth Amendment (granting the right to due process). Individual states quickly enacted revised legislations, adapted to address constitutional questions concerning capital punishment, and the first execution in the modern era occurred in 1976. Since then a total of 1,253 people have been executed in the US. Today over 3,000 people await execution on death row, but as of this past June, 138 men and women have been exonerated.

Exoneration occurs when a person is proven, through a trial of appeal, to be innocent of the crime for which they were convicted. For a multitude of reasons, ranging from the discovery of jury tampering, lawyer ineptitude, false testimony of incentivized witnesses, and DNA evidence, these men and women have been acquitted, exonerated, and released from prison.1 Many American citizens remain oblivious to the politi-

cal issues that don’t directly affect them. Those who have never been the victim of a crime, never served on a jury, and never set foot inside a prison are not likely to spend much time thinking about the nation’s criminal justice system. But the brotherhood of the exonerated, served by Witness to Innocence, one of their most active advocating agencies, wants to change all that.

Witness to Innocence

Based in Philadelphia, Witness to Innocence (WTI) is the only organization of its kind in the United States—created by, comprised of, and working for exonerated death row survivors. Since being established in 2005, WTI has had as its primary goal to “empower death row survivors and their loved ones to be effective leaders in the movement to abolish the death penalty.”2 For the first time in the history of the abolition movement there is a body designed to empower the exonerees.

WTI does this, in part, by placing them in classrooms and on stages, in professional organizations and on city hall steps to champion the cause of abolition. Kathy Spillman is WTI’s speakers bureau director, dedicated to acquiring platforms for the exonerated.

“I’ve seen them change minds,” enthuses Spillman.

“People who come into a talk pro-death penalty come out, after hearing our guys, against the death penalty or, at the very least, supporting a moratorium. It’s extraordinary. I’ve never seen anything like it. Even the most expressive activist would not have the effect that they have

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Add your voice Check out this short list of organizations that fight for the unconditional abolition of the death penalty. Find out what’s happening and where, sign up for their action alerts, and add your voice to the fight! ❶ Amnesty International USA’s Program to Abolish the Death Penalty (AmnestyUSA.org > Our work > Campaigns > Abolish the death penalty) ❷ Center on Wrongful Convictions (Law.Northwestern.edu/WrongfulConvictions) ❸ Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty (CUADP.org) ❹ Death Penalty Information Center (DeathPenaltyInfo.org)

on people in changing their minds on this issue.”

But Spillman is quick to point out that, while they are effective, the exonerees continue to be the most disadvantaged in this movement. “Exonerees don’t have the privilege of activism—to them it is their duty. It is their responsibility.”

Witness to action

The semi-annual gathering that WTI sponsors for the exonerees is composed of peer support counseling among the (mostly) men and their families as well as a public action coordinated with numerous state agencies—from a press conference in Chicago with the Illinois Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, to a news conference in the Texas capital, to a proclamation of innocence dramatically signed by dozens of exonerees across the street from Independence Hall in Philadelphia. This past June, the unique community gathered to rally at the Bell Tower on Capitol Square in Richmond, Va. The tactical activism of the exonerees includes public demonstrations, work with alternative spring break projects, community marches, letter-writing campaigns, and speaking events. WTI members have also testified before legislatures on behalf of innocence and abolition. Both Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico and Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois cited the exonerated while signing laws against the death penalty in their home states. Illinois is the fourth state in the last four years to abandon the death penalty.3 New Mexico and New Jersey voted to abolish the death penalty in 2009 and 2007, respectively.

In his prepared remarks, Richardson said he would “never forget the story of Juan Meléndez, who spent 18 years on Florida’s death row before being exonerated for a murder he didn’t commit.”4 Meléndez is an active member of the WTI national speakers bureau.

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❺ Innocence Network (InnocenceNetwork.org) ❻ Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights (MurderVictimsFamilies.org) ❼ Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation (mvfr.org/) ❽ National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP.org) ❾ Witness to Innocence (WitnesstoInnocence.org)

Each division of Witness to Innocence is interconnected as part of its strategy to educate and raise awareness, but the speakers bureau is the most thought-provoking and motivational agent of the organization. Exonerees have been described as “alternative rock stars” as they travel to colleges, churches, and professional organizations across the nation. The poignant and charismatic storytellers are the conciliators of transformation in the hearts and minds of the public when considering their stance on the abolition of the death penalty.

Witness to an audience

Kathy Spillman has always been an opponent of the death penalty. Drawn to issues of social inequality and motivated to help educate the American public about the disenfranchised in our society, Spillman sees the death penalty debate as part of a larger conversation about punishment, justice, vengeance, and retribution. These words are not interchangeable, but in the death penalty debate they are used interchangeably, and, according to Spillman, “if we are going to be a society that values our citizens, then we need to walk the fine line between justice and vengeance and not cross it.”

WTI is always looking for an audience willing to engage with a unique and powerful story. The hope is that if listeners change their hearts and minds, they will change their policies.

“We’ve never had anyone regret having one of our speakers,” insists Spillman. “For most people it’s the most powerful program they ever do, but it’s hard to convince them to do it…because it’s uncomfortable to listen to people who are directly impacted by the oppression in our society.” The exonerees have not simply been impacted by oppression; they have been traumatized and, in many cases, tortured. The men and women who have survived

death row in this country have lived the American Nightmare writ large, and, like others who have experienced trauma, they often relive the nightmare while sharing their stories. This is a powerful experience for both the speaker and the audience.

“It is not only about converting people to the cause of abolition,” Spillman explains. “It is about inspiration. It is about transformation.”

Supporters, staff members, and exonerees agree that the real strength of Witness to Innocence is its ability to put a human face on this issue—138 faces, to be exact.

People often think about the death penalty in abstract terms rather than as individual lives caught up in the system.

Gary Drinkard: convicted in Alabama in 1995, exonerated in 2001

Gary Drinkard served seven years, eight months, and 27 days in prison, spending over five years on Alabama’s death row for a crime he did not commit. Drinkard was sentenced to death in 1995 for the robbery and murder of a junkyard dealer in Alabama, a state with more death sentences per capita than any other. The conviction rested primarily on the testimony of Drinkard’s own halfsister, who was at the time facing charges in an unrelated crime. Her testimony, along with that of her corroborating common-law husband, was exchanged for their immunity.

Adding insult to injury, Drinkard was represented by two ill-equipped lawyers whose experience was limited to debt collection and foreclosures. Failing to present the testimony of two physicians—who would have spoken to a recent back injury that made it physically impossible for Drinkard to commit the crime he was accused of—cost Drinkard his case.

It would have cost him his life, but while imprisoned Drinkard wrote letters to every attorney he could get an address for, and he eventually caught the attention, in 2000, of an attorney in Birmingham. Through the coordinated efforts of local attorneys and the Southern Center for Human Rights, Drinkard was acquitted in 2001. The center has since presented Drinkard to the United States Senate Judiciary Committee as evidence of the pressing need for experienced lawyers in capital cases.

Upon his release Drinkard pursued the things in life that had been put on hold during his incarceration—career and family. But hurdles awaited. His two children, 6 and 9 at the time of his sentencing, had been deeply traumatized, and his marriage was over. “My wife and I are good friends now, but we never got back together. There was just too much water under the bridge at that point.”

Drinkard can testify to the waves of injustice that

continue to Gary Drinkard wash over the exonerated after their release.

He had been in construction but due to his injury had enrolled in school before his arrest. “After I got out, I went back to college for respiratory therapy. When I was about six months from completing the course—and I was doing very well—they said no one would hire me due to the capital conviction. If they’d told me that beforehand, I would have gone into horticulture.”

The consequences of a wrongful conviction are deep and wide, affecting the lives, the liberties, and the pursuit of happiness of the exonorees.

Drinkard now serves on the board of Witness to Innocence, traveling and speaking out against the death penalty. As he speaks he extends an invitation for people to “join the bandwagon of abolishing the death penalty.

And if you can’t actually get out to speak out against it, fund us so we can.”

Juan Meléndez: convicted in Florida in 1984, exonerated in 2002

Juan Meléndez spent 17 years, eight months, and one day on Florida’s death row for a crime he did not commit. His story draws attention to the many problems that plague the death penalty system.

In 1984, in a trial lasting less than a week, a jury convicted Meléndez, then 33, of killing a white man in Auburndale, Fla. Questionable testimony from two convicted felons placed Meléndez at the scene, and without a single piece of physical evidence connecting him to the crime, a jury sentenced him to die.

Meléndez was exonerated from Florida’s death row in January 2002, the 99th man acquitted since the death penalty was reinstated.

“My momma did not raise no killers.” Meléndez’s Puerto Rican accent is thick and his story is gripping. He chooses each word purposefully.

31

"We can never, and I mean never, He recalls the week of his arrest and his sentencing vividly. Although he regularly recounts the story for audiences and journalists, he still sounds confused by the haste with which he was sentenced and the gross injustices of the case made against him.

He was a migrant worker, picking apples in a field with a handful of his co-laborers, when police cars roared up and officers jumped out, firing off questions, each one finding its target. Are you Juan Meléndez? Are you missing a tooth? Do you have a tattoo?

The false testimonies—which provided the sole connection between Meléndez and the murder—came from a police informant who had a felony record (including a homicide conviction) and who received $5,000 to testify, and another convicted felon, a friend of Meléndez, who was threatened with the electric chair if he refused to testify against Meléndez. Meléndez was given a public defender who he remembers regularly patting him on the back and assuring him that “everything would be okay.” Everything was not okay. His trial began on a Monday, and Meléndez was found guilty on Thursday and sentenced to death on Friday of that same week.

He spent the next 17+ years in a 6-by-9 foot cell waiting to die.

Meléndez describes it as “horrifying—a terrible experience. I had shackles on my legs, chains on my waist, and handcuffs on my wrists, and the place was infested with rats and roaches. A few times I came close to committing suicide, but what kept me alive were these dreams from God.” Meléndez often dreamt of his childhood in Puerto Rico, days on the island playing in the surf and sun, looking to the shoreline to see his mother standing there watching him and smiling.

Years into his sentence, Meléndez went so far as to fashion a noose out of a trash bag, but he says that his dreams and his prayers kept him alive. It was not until the discovery, 16 years after his trial, of a taped confession by the real killer that Meléndez was proven innocent. In a shocking miscarriage of justice, both the prosecutor and the defense attorney were aware of this confession at the Juan Melndez

32 PRISM Magazine

time of the trial, having learned of it approximately one month earlier. But the defense attorney failed to introduce the taped confession into evidence at trial, and the prosecutor engaged in gross misconduct by deliberately withholding evidence from the defense that corroborated the taped confession of the real killer, which the jury never heard and which the appellate defense attorneys had no knowledge of.

Meléndez now travels and speaks through Witness to Innocence, educating audiences about the death penalty.

When asked what he wants people to walk away knowing after they have heard him speak, Meléndez succinctly states, “The death penalty debate is about education.

People need to know it does not deter crime. They need to know it is expensive. They need to know it is racist.

But most of all they need to know that we can never, and I mean never, release an innocent man from the grave.

And that’s a problem.”

Shujaa Graham: convicted in California in 1976, exonerated in 1981

Ernest “Shujaa” Graham was born in Lake Providence, La., and grew up on a plantation in the segregated South.

As a teenager, after moving to South Central Los Angeles, Graham lived through the Watts Riots and the consequent police occupation. In and out of trouble, Graham spent much of his young life in juvenile institutions and detention centers.

Behind prison bars, Graham discovered true advocates and educators for the first time in this life. After a childhood of sub-par schools where he was never expected or inspired to learn, here he was discipled and taught to read and write by the leadership of the Black Prison movement. Eventually Graham became a leader within the movement, changing from what he called the “criminal mentality” to the “revolutionary mentality.”

In November 1973, while incarcerated, Graham and codefendant Eugene Allen were framed in the murder of a state correctional officer. Graham’s first trial resulted in a mistrial with a hung jury, but he was sentenced to death in 1976 after his second trial. He was only 21 at the time; his death was to be carried out in the gas chamber at San Quentin.

The Supreme Court of California reversed his conviction and death sentence in 1979, finding that prosecutors improperly used their peremptory challenges, excluding prospective jurors who were black. Graham was retried for his original crime twice more. Finally, in 1981, he was acquitted by the jury in his fourth trial and proved innocent of all charges.

“Skin may differ, but affection dwells in black and

release an innocent man from the grave." white the same,” Graham says, quoting from a Martin Luther King speech that concludes, “I must be measured by my soul; the mind is a standard of the man.”

With his wife of 30 years by his side, Shujaa Graham speaks softly, his conversation lilting like Dr. King’s, seamlessly weaving stories of prison with perspectives on social inequalities into a narrative of hope for the future. In the fraternity of exonerees, Graham’s pledge name would be Pastor.

“Every day on death row, when you get up you have to be ready, because when the daylight comes, same bars gonna be there. You ain’t going nowhere,” Graham recalls in a hoarse whisper. “When you open your eyes you’ve got to be ready to deal with those bars, and you got to be ready to deal with your basic mobility from here to here.”

He motions from one side of his body to the other. “You live with optimism and pessimism in there.”

Graham was released three decades ago, but he spent one additional night in jail since then. On December 1, 2005, the eve of the 50th anniversary of Rosa Park’s act of civil disobedience, Graham and a group of 16 others were arrested in North Carolina while protesting the thousandth execution since the reinstatement of the death penalty. He went to the death house and stood in solidarity with abolitionists, with activists, and with murder victims’ family members, protesting the statesanctioned murder carried out that December night.

Graham has also slept out on the streets of Washington, DC, to protest homelessness. “I slept out in front of the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

If they don’t have a bed, I don’t have a bed.” Activism, for Graham, is not limited to the abolition of the death penalty; it extends to any justice issue that affects human beings.

An engaging storyteller whose Shujaa Graham eyes spill tears as he tells his story, Graham is an active member of WTI’s speakers bureau, but he often cautions new exonerees joining the movement: “It’s not about getting the opportunity to speak. I can go on the corner and speak and talk to anyone, but it’s going to the gatherings and being with the exonerees and helping each other

that is the most important thing. It’s been a great source of strength, and it gives you a greater purpose, too. Some days I get up and I say, ‘If I can’t do it for myself, let me do it for the group.’”

Resurrecting justice

The solidarity the exonerated men and women experience within the Witness to Innocence community is invaluable. Exonorees face considerable barriers when they are released. A $10 bus ticket and ill-fitting clothes are typical of the meager tokens offered by the state as the exonerated are released with next to no material possessions.

Often, those wrongfully convicted of serious crimes are not eligible for the minimal state supports offered to offenders released from prison. Since exonorees will not usually qualify for any of the services offered to parolees, WTI provides a necessary support network.

Their exoneration places them in a “legal no man’s land” unless they seek compensation from the states through civil suits, private bills, or compensation statutes.

A study in 2000 by the Innocence Project revealed that only “37 percent of all wrongfully convicted persons (not just death penalty cases) receive compensation.”5 Most states still don’t have clear methods of compensation for those wrongfully convicted, and only 20 states have systems for financial reparations. The federal government, the District of Columbia, and 27 states have some form of compensation statutes, but 23 states do not.6 What is the cost of incarcerating the innocent in America, and who is paying the bill?

Proponents of the death penalty cite the cases of the exonerated as proof that the system works—innocent people are set free—but the exonerees’ stories of discrimination, trumped-up charges, apathetic public defenders, lopsided juries, and years of languishing on death row are proof that the system is, on the contrary, terribly broken.

As Juan Melendez so eloquently reminds us, we can release an innocent man from prison, but we can never release him from the grave.

To learn more and to host a speaking event at your church, university, or other public gathering, go to WitnesstoInnocence.org.

Janell Anema is a freelance writer, an adjunct instructor at Eastern University, and the executive administrator for The Simple Way, an intentional community and nonprofit organization in North Philadelphia.

(Editor’s note: due to space limitations, the endnotes for this article have been posted at EvangelicalsforSocialAction.org/ PRISM-endnotes.)

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What’s So RADICAL Ab

A growing number of evangelicals are building How would you respond if your pastor proposed hosting a banquet at your church for the local Muslim community? Pastors Kevin Luce and Matthew Kruse of Seven Mile Road Church in the greater Boston area were willing to take the risk in 2009.

“When we learned that there were tens of thousands of Moroccan Muslims living within a few miles’ radius of our church, we began thinking of ways that we could extend grace to them,” says Kruse. So on a chilly Saturday night members from Seven Mile Road joined with Muslims from the Moroccan American Cultural and Civic Association to share a warm meal and remember the events of Christmas.1 The experience was so positive that it led to an ongoing series of events in which members of each community gather to build friendships, dialogue about their faiths, and grow in their understanding of each another.

Pastor Andy Larsen has been teaching a course called Extending Hospitality to Our Muslim Neighbors

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at Pine Lake Covenant Church in the Seattle area. “I’m now working full time in this initiative and am beginning to facilitate church to mosque and Christian to Muslim relationships in our broader Covenant church family,” explains Larsen. “Who would have ever thought this would be possible in our post 9/11 world? I clearly didn’t see it coming.”2 And he’s thrilled with the positive response to the initiative. “One thing I have noticed, most folks in Covenant churches I visit love this stuff and are eager to learn about, respect, and engage their Muslim neighbors.”

One Pine Lake member recently shared: I am one of the millions of Americans who had a bias against the Islamic faith. It wasn’t anything specific, but more related to news media and, more importantly, my own ignorance. I had little knowledge of the Islamic faith and really didn’t care to…[Pastor Larsen] had arranged for us

bout Loving Muslims?

g bridges into Muslim communities to attend a service at a local mosque, and that experience opened my eyes tremendously. At the mosque I met a fellow from Saudi Arabia, and we had a tremendous amount in common. This relationship has been my first Muslim friend.

These are just two examples of a growing trend among American evangelicals willing to refuse the antiMuslim rhetoric that has proliferated in public media and opinion since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Instead, they are choosing to tear down walls and build bridges into Muslim communities. What’s the motivation? Simply taking seriously Jesus’ command to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Radical love

Loving our Muslim neighbors should be no more radical than loving any other neighbor. Neighbor-love is an essential part of being a follower of Christ. What is radical

by John Becker

about this shift is the nature of the love being cultivated in Christians’ hearts.

First, it is a love that refuses fear. “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear…” (1 John 4:18). The love that motivates “bridge-building” refuses the recoiling nature of fear. In place of fear is an active, embracing love. Richard Sudworth states this well in the title of his book about Christian presence in a multifaith society, Distinctly Welcoming. Sudworth writes: The events of 9/11 and 7/7 [in London] have brought to the fore our deepest fears, and we could be excused for being paralyzed by inaction…How do Christian communities appropriately reach out to those of other faiths in such a time as this? The challenge is to walk on a journey of interaction with others which somehow enables us to be true to our faith yet appropriately shaped by our experiences and the people As part of the Trac5 (Trac5.org) conference in June, Christians visited the mosque at the Colorado Muslim Society in Denver.

(Photo by Andy Larsen)

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Building Bridges’ Bruce Green, center, reached out to Muslims when a tragedy hit the Afghan community. (Photo by Tammy Sawyer).

we meet…The background noise is alarming, yet we are called to be witnesses to the world, to offer hope and a distinctiveness centered on Christ.

What should contemporary church life in its engagement with those of other faiths look like while the background noise of the so-called ‘clash of civilizations’ assaults all our senses?3

building is only effective if it gives birth to genuine relationships. In our divided world, Christ’s followers must be committed to reconciliation that seeks to embrace Muslims as individuals who display the image of God, are worthy of relationship, and have much to offer.

Too often Muslims and their Islamic faith are seen as a monolithic entity. As I interact with American Christians I hear Muslims being referred to as “they” or “them” when in fact Muslims, who make up roughly 25 percent of the world’s population, represent enormous diversity in ethnicity, culture, language, religious practices, and beliefs. Many Americans are surprised to learn that the majority of Muslims are Asian, not Arab.

Shared life, shared pain

My own journey with Muslims began in Nairobi in 1994.

Our family shared living space with a Muslim family in a growing Muslim-majority neighborhood full of South Asians, Somalis, and Swahili Arabs. In a short time our network of friendships with Muslims became rich. I will never forget the first wedding we attended, hosted by a Pakistani family. Because of their deep appreciation for hospitality, our new friends made us the guests of honor—they offered us trays of savory food and videotaped our every move. We felt like celebrities and worried that we were receiving more attention than the bride and groom!

Many of our relationships with our friends of Muslim faith became endearing and meaningful to us. Our neighbors were exceedingly generous with us, inviting us

In the past two decades, terrorism perpetrated by Islamic fundamentalists has victimized the world like never before in its catastrophic destruction of civilians, property, and infrastructure. Before the 9/11 attacks, most Americans didn’t spend much time thinking about Muslims. In its wake, US citizens had a new enemy, one it had to put a face to, and, unfortunately, it was a Muslim face. For many American Christians, ambivalence towards Muslims morphed into hostility.

According to the Pew Research Center, a quarter of Americans say they know “nothing at all” about Islam, and Christians, Muslims, and Jews gathered at the Community Multifaith Forum hosted

by Trac5 in Colorado in June. (Photo by Andy Larsen) of the non-Muslims polled, 58 percent said they don’t know any Muslims. The research also found that evangelicals are more likely to view Islam as a violent religion than are others.4 Even among Christian leaders, the majority have an unfavorable opinion of Muslims.5 Conversely, Todd Johnson, director of the Center for the Study of Global Christianity at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary, says that 86 percent of the world’s Muslims, Buddhists, and Hindus know not even a single Christian. “The friendship gap is significant,” says Johnson.6 Second, radical love refuses alienation and therefore seeks reconciliation. Bridge-

36 PRISM Magazine

Take the Radical Love Pledge! into their lives. They were kind to our children, concerned for our wellbeing, and vocal in their appreciation of our values as they shared their burdens with us. We were free to speak of our love for Jesus and discuss both the common and conflicting tenets of our faith.

On August 7, 1998, our neighborhood was shaken by a massive explosion that took place just a mile away.

It wasn’t until we were in the midst of a swarm of blood-stained people running helter-skelter and saw the plume of smoke rising from the US embassy that we realized what had happened. Hundreds of people were killed that day in simultaneous truck bomb explosions at US embassies in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. The date of the bombings marked the eighth anniversary of the launch of Operation Desert Shield, after the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The attacks came at the hands of members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden.

We were overcome with emotion, full of righteous anger over the needless bloodshed of innocent bystanders. Is this Islam? Is this what Muslims do? Why do they hate America? These were the questions running through our minds as we reeled with the up-close reality that the world was not a safe place. The truth, however, was that all of us were victimized that day—every single resident of Nairobi, whether Christian or Muslim, Kenyan or immigrant or foreign national. We all lost something to terrorism, and it was pointless to vilify Muslims by association. Radical, reconciling love chooses forgiveness and seeks redemption. These acts of violence could have brought alienation to our relationships with our Muslim friends, but instead our friendships were deepened as a result of our common pain.

Blessings from curses

Pastor Bruce Green, executive facilitator at Bridge Building, an outreach ministry to Muslims in the San Francisco Bay area, knows the power of sharing pain with the Muslim community. In 2006 an Afghan woman was killed while walking to her children’s school just a few blocks from the church that hosts Green’s ministry. Although the murder turned out not to be a hate crime, it was trumpeted as such by the local media and, predictably, says Green, “produced a revenge-style response, and graffiti appeared on several local buildings,” including the church Green works from, where the victim’s name and “R.I.P.” were painted in large letters.

The church left the tribute there and added a wreath, Green explains, “as a symbol of Christian identification with the angst and pain of our Afghan neighbors.”

“The very moment we hung the wreath,” continues Green, “two Muslim men drove up from a local mosque, offering to remove the graffiti. When I explained our desire to see God bring a blessing from this curse, they wanted to have their picture taken with me in front of

Christian relationships with the wall. I sent that Muslims have often been photo to the media, characterized by conflict, fear, and it appeared on and lack of love. This is the the front page of the local paper. Thereafter opposite of how Jesus taught his people to live. As his the media descended followers, we are promised a on that wall as a backdrop to their TV love that casts out fear. We are commanded to love neighbor coverage. The next and even enemy. Therefore we day I visited the vicresolve to imitate and obey tim’s family and met Jesus by making the following her husband, Ahmad, who shared his broken pledge: heart with me in a • I will repent of any hateful room full of Afghan feelings toward Muslims and leaders. In front of will pursue love. all these Afghans we • I will pray for Muslims, agreed to have an asking God to bless them interfaith community and help them experience his memorial service for peace. his wife in the church • I will do at least one act of gym the following kindness for a Muslim in this Saturday. This unprecnext year. edented arrangement • I will respectfully share the became controversial good news about Christ. within the Muslim • I will not spread negative community, but stereotypes about Muslims but despite pressure to will season all my words with back away from the grace.

Christians, Ahmad • I will champion this cause, courageously followed armed only with love, truth, through.” (This story and good deeds. is featured in a film available at Pluralism. org/FremontUSA.).

This type of radical, bridge-building, reconciling love has broadened Bruce’s scope beyond the Bay Area; earlier this year Green was a part of a delegation that visited Afghanistan to develop the Ghazni-Hayward Sister City project, which is helping to rebuild one city in Afghanistan devastated by a decade of war.

Radical love expressed through reconciliation is a powerful antidote to the violence of our day. Hundreds of thousands of refugees live in the Americas today, and the vast majority of these are from war-torn Muslim-majority nations.7 Due to two decades of civil war, Somalia produces the third biggest refugee population. In the United States, Minnesota alone hosts over 70,000 Somalis. What does radical love do in welcoming people so desperate for reconciliation? Mike Neterer, whose master’s thesis was titled “Loving Our Somali Neighbors,” answered this question, in part, by developing Somali Adult Literacy Training (or SALT), which seeks to address the crippling condition of illiteracy

37

Feed Your Understanding Daughters of Islam: Building Bridges with Muslim Women by Miriam Adeney (IVP, 2002)

“Grace and Truth: Toward Christlike Relationships with Muslims: An Exposition,” published by the International Journal of Frontier Missions (IJFM. org) in 2009, is available at tinyurl. com/3pl7rw6.

Muslims, Christians, and Jesus: Gaining Understanding and Building Relationships by Carl Medearis (Bethany House, 2008)

among Somalis in the Twin Cities. Local churches, such as Bethlehem Baptist in downtown Minneapolis, host the program and offer volunteer tutors who work oneon-one with Somali students.8 Volunteers are given one main instruction at the start of their stint: “Get to know one person: Learn their name, learn how to pronounce it, and commit to praying for them.”

Another aspect of radical love is peacemaking. On a recent flight to the United Kingdom I had the privilege of sitting next to a Somali businessman. In the midst of our vibrant conversation, I was compelled to share with him my favorite scripture, Matthew 5:1-11. He was intrigued to read these words of Isa, as he calls Jesus, and especially verse 7: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” He said his people were not examples of peacemakers because they did not live what they claimed to believe. We both confessed our own failures at practicing our respective faiths. By the end of the flight we had discovered that we had a common interest in his country and a real possibility of working together to bring teachers and supplies to schools he had started in Somalia.

Rick Love, president of Peace-Catalyst International, recently organized Building Hope, a 10-day conference for Yale’s Reconciliation Program that brought together Christians, Jews, and Muslims for a period of dialogue, reflection, and informal engagement.9 Love says he learned some new lessons in peacemaking during this conference: “The Yale Building Hope Conference did not just happen. People proactively decided to take steps toward the ‘other’—to bridge the divide. Jesus taught that we need to take initiative when relationships are strained or broken. We don’t wait for people to come to us. We go to them.”10 A Pakistani Muslim who was a participant at the conference told his Christian counterparts:

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Islam & Christianity is a concise pamphlet that compares the basic beliefs of Christians and Muslims and helps believers understand the key differences in a single glance.

Available for order at bit.ly/ncDWZR.

Acts of Faith: The Story of an American Muslim, the Struggle for the Soul of a Generation by Eboo Patel (Beacon Press, 2007)

My time with you has totally transformed my attitude toward Christians and toward MuslimChristian relations. Before meeting you, I thought that many Muslims took an interest in Christianity but that no Christians cared for or respected Muslims enough to take an interest in our faith. But you know our faith better than I do, and you have also helped me to see that I had previously completely misunderstood what Christians believe.11 Jesus said, “He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit” (John 15:5). As we abide in Jesus, his love compels us as ministers of reconciliation who pursue peace. “Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness” (James 3:18). The promises of scripture and Jesus’ command to love even our enemies challenge us to take the next step. Those who step out in radical love find that their efforts of bridge-building, reconciliation, and peacemaking are effective not only in engaging Muslims but also in giving definition and beauty to their own faith.

Learn more and consider joining the Radical Love Campaign at RadicalLoveNow.com.

Currently residing in the San Francisco Bay Area, John Becker has lived and ministered in Africa and the United Kingdom with his wife and four children for the past 16 years. He takes great joy in sharing the love of Jesus with people of other faiths, especially those displaced by war and violence.

(Editor’s note: the endnotes for this article have been posted at EvangelicalsforSocialAction.org/PRISM-endnotes.)

A rt & Soul

Allison Duncan

Beauty Out of Tragedy Looking back at photos of the Southeast Asian bar where she ministered for 10 years, Robin Haines Merrill marvels at the story of Angie.* When the two women first met, Angie was a single mom who sold herself out of a bar that Merrill describes as a “hell hole.” An urban missionary, Merrill hung out at the bar to demonstrate love in action.

It wasn’t easy. Angie would turn her back on Merrill, but often came close enough to overhear the conversations she was having with other bar staff and customers.

Angie eventually gave her life to Christ and chose to leave the bar to minister to the poor living in the city dumps. There she met a seminary student who married her and adopted her two children, and now Angie has traded her old life to become an American pastor’s wife.

“It’s amazing what God has done,” Merrill says.

Now based in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., where she runs the Upper Room Art Gallery and Mission Gifts and where she works as an artist and businesswoman, Merrill continues to see God bring beauty out of tragedy. The Upper Room Art Gallery is a nonprofit composed of six artists concerned with global poverty, fair trade, and environmental issues, whose work uses organic, recycled, and fairly traded materials. The sales of the artwork through the Mission Gifts store coupled with donations from individuals, businesses, and churches help pay street children, formerly prostituted persons, and AIDS victims for their work on the art products sold.

In spite of the donors’, artists’, and workers’ diverse cultures and religious identities, Merrill says, “There’s one thing we can all agree on—that people should not be treated like trash.” Merrill and the other artists are working to restore dignity to the people they employ, so that these people’s sense of dignity and purpose can come from working with their hands rather than having their bodies exploited as a commodity.

Unlike most fair trade retailers who do economic development in village communities, Merrill works primarily with people transitioning out of prostitution. She says it has been challenging to work with a population that is subject to so much transience, but beautiful things have come out of her persistence. One

Robin Haines Merrill on a chair by Ann Wizer, made from non-biodegradable plastic packaging.

The lamps, by Wendy Fernando-Regalado of the Philippines, are of organic paper made by Village Handcrafters, a ministry project among the extreme poor. (Photo by Jason Leidy)

product Mission Gifts sells is a set of cards made from handcrafted paper with images from the artists’ work. Street children are paid to gather old newspapers, mash them into a pulp, and press them into textured paper. Merrill employs a group of formerly prostituted women to assemble the cards.

With a little more working capital, Merrill hopes to expand her work to include some other US populations as well, such as people who live with mental illness. These people are prime targets for sex crimes, Merrill says, but they’re less likely to become victims if gainfully employed.

Merrill draws inspiration from the Quaker saying “Hands to work, hearts to God.” “Making a craft can be turned into an act of devotion,” she says. She hopes to help the people she works with do something that has both integrity and meaning, something that will ultimately bring honor to God. Merrill strives to treat people well, even in her display of their handiwork at the art gallery and at Mission Gifts.

“We’re in a super high-end location that is beautiful, and that’s what the poor deserve and what these issues deserve,” she says. Although the location may seem odd to some, since the gallery and store are in a district filled with fancy tourist shops, Merrill sees this as an opportunity to offer consumers an alternative. “As one person put it, we’re feeding people nutrients as opposed to junk food in terms of what we’re selling,” she says. “We’re bringing forth high-quality products that just happen to be made by the poor.”

Once they’re inside, Merrill gently introduces her customers to the people behind the artwork. “What customers are getting is inspiration in the midst of desperate issues. We’re not hitting them over the head with, ‘Buy this, this is an awful situation,’ but they’re leaving awed and inspired,” she remarks. “And they can go and do likewise. It doesn’t have to be deep and depressing, but I think you can mix beauty and tragedy to help change things.” *Name has been changed.

Learn more about the Upper Room Art Gallery and Mission Gifts at UpperRoomArtGallery.com.

Allison Duncan is a freelance writer and a communications specialist at Immaculata University in Malvern, Pa. She enjoys supporting fair trade initiatives and engaging in the arts of calligraphy and painting.

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M usic Notes Broken and Sacred When I was at a Christian college in the late ’90s, we used to go to the Canal Street Tavern in Dayton, Ohio, to hear husband-wife duo Over the Rhine play.

Ours was a school that felt at times like a summer Bible camp: Sex and drugs were, of course, verboten, but so were certain types of rock and roll. Some faculty thought it was better to indoctrinate us with dispensational theology and literalist views of Scripture than have honest discussions that would help us think things through for ourselves. In other words, my college years marked the end of childhood more than the start of adulthood.

Over the Rhine offered us something different. We’d go to Dayton (or the band’s hometown of Cincinnati) and hear Karin Bergquist sing about sex and suicidal thoughts and existential angst and the Holy Spirit and hope. And it all seemed very grown up, very dangerous.

In our carefully constrained environment, the Holy Spirit was okay as long as he (it was definitely a “he”) agreed with what

Jesse James DeConto were 20, she Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler of Over the Rhine was 30—a real woman, all swaying curves and moans and wordless singing of the sort I’ve heard singer-songwriter Sufjan Stevens call the “sex scenes” of pop music. I heard once that the song “Jack’s Valentine” got Over the Rhine’s albums this night would outlast us / and redeem kicked out of Christian bookstores, some small thing far beyond me.” though that may be suburban legend.

Bergquist’s “Only God Can Save Us “Down here on the hardwood floor/ the Now” has her imitating patients at her lines on the ceiling start to swim once mother’s nursing home, singing “How more.” Bergquist and her husband, Linford Now Brown Cow” and “Fuzzy Wuzzy Detweiler, wrote about their own sex and Was a Bear” in their mental regression. I getting taken in the arms of Jesus, self- asked her if that might alienate fans who empowerment, and a yearning for God, a think of Over the Rhine as a “hip” Chrissort of blueprint for young Christians try- tian band. ing both to “It was the most traumatic thing I’ve be heavenly had to deal with,” she said. “Maybe some minded and people in the younger generation don’t to do some understand the song. But it’s not for earthly good them yet. Someday, they’ll understand.”

“We refuse to separate the world Spoken like a true matriarch of coninto the broken and the unbroken, and temporary Americana. Of course, her we refuse to separate the world into the sultry voice and lyrics about gripping secular and the sacred,” Detweiler, the the “midnight microphone” can still drive son of a Mennonite pastor, told me re- young men mad. But when she sings cently. “The fact of the matter is, we’re about “the young and dumb and bored” all broken, and it’s all sacred.” driving recklessly for the thrill, you know Well, now comes Over the Rhine she’s no pretty girl to be trifled with. This in their mid-40s, with more than two is a real woman, watching her mother die, decades and a dozen studio albums be- giving thanks that her marriage survived, hind them. They released their soulful lifting up fallen friends, savoring Elvis and collection The Long Surrender in Febru- Hank Williams and Buddy Holly. Heaven ary. They’re not singing so much about and earth still collide, but the sadness and sex anymore, though their fierce fight the hope are deeper with age. for their marriage was well-chronicled in their 2005 record, Drunkard’s Prayer.

And their existential angst is all but gone, replaced with a more mature set of strugJesse James DeConto is a gles: the global financial crisis, an ailing writer and musician living mother, scars of relationships and just in Durham, N.C. plain survival, any world-changing ambitions tempered by time. “I still dreamed of a love to outlive us / I still prayed that

“The fact of the matter is, we’re all broken, and it’s all sacred.” some older, wiser biblical exegetes had already decided the Bible said. But charismatic gifts or direct divine communication were suspect. None of it left much room for risks, mistakes, or failure—until, of course, we got out into the real world and found we had to do a lot of improvising, because the Bible doesn’t tell us specifically how to deal with an addicted spouse or a lying boss or how much to put in a 401k. Bible camp doesn’t require hope; there are games and friends and cute girls and piles of food—what more is there to hope for?

Without hope, of course, there is no Christian faith, but without an awareness of what is broken, there can be no hope.

Over the Rhine gave us both. My friend Ken, who was older and wiser (a seventhyear senior, and counting), joked once about how guys from my college went to Over the Rhine shows just to stare at Karin. And, yeah, she was hot. We

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Craig Wong

The Good News of Vulnerability My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.

2 Corinthians 12:9 I recently had a sobering walk with my father. My brother Kevin pulled up the car to shorten the distance between start and finish. Needing my help, Dad gripped my right hand while my brother-in-law, Greg, took hold of his left. My nephew Michael was ready to brace him from behind should he stumble. Coaching him along, my mom led from the front where he could see the most familiar face. Utterly dependent, this man—who used to love to outsprint me in playful foot races—now took over a half hour to travel a mere six yards.

As I write, I am slowly losing my father to Alzheimer’s Disease, a progressive form of dementia that compromises the brain’s patchwork of cells needed to retain information and perform other cognitive functions. The long march downward likely began a decade ago, but this past year has seen the greatest decline. Painful reality has arrived: Dad’s needs have finally surpassed what my mother’s unquestionably heroic caregiving can handle.

Seeing my dad in so helpless a state has led me to ponder more youthful days. I remember the Marlboro-smoking man who exhorted us to “take the bull by the horns” the way he did. Indeed, upon completing service in the Korean War, he worked his way through one of the nation’s most prestigious art schools, becoming a gifted and industrious designer. He fashioned the interior spaces of countless buildings, ranging from big department stores to high-rise corporate offices and even nuclear power plants. Beyond aesthetics, however, my dad’s

O n Being the Church craft was about optimizing physical environments for human collaboration, creating the spaces where people worked interdependently to solve problems and pursue shared goals.

For my '50s-generation, “selfmade” father, the unnerving reality of human dependence—and interdependence—has become graciously inescapable. In caring for my dad, I’ve become more keenly aware of my own vulnerability, seeing in his physical frail-

ty what will one day be mine. My siblings and I feel vulnerable in other ways as well. How do we care for Dad? Are we making the right decisions? Do we have all the right information? How is Mom doing, and are we doing what’s best for her? Are we putting our relationships at risk? What are the longterm implications?

But, with such vulnerability comes grace. It has come from all sides. The rallying together of my siblings. The senior-care specialists who helped us navigate the landscape of institutional support. The nurses, physicians, social workers, janitors, and food service providers during his hospitalization. The in-home providers, physical therapists, ambulance drivers, and medical equipment suppliers. The restaurant manager who came to my dad’s aid. The police officers who joined the search when he wandered astray. My fellow congregation members who watched my kids so that I could watch my dad.

The prayer group that prayed for my family regularly. The fellow parishioner who took time to get my mom out of the house for conversation, laughter, and perspective. The wisdom of the saints who’ve already walked the road of caring for aging loved ones.

In this season, I have come to more deeply appreciate the gift of each other. We learn this best, I’m coming to realize, in those places of weakness and vulnerability. We see how fundamentally interconnected we are, not only as blood relatives and church family but also as members of the larger body of humanity. We see how God provides through people we’ve never even met before, people from whom we might otherwise distance ourselves. Our sense of selfsufficiency and autonomy is humbled. We were designed to be interdependent. On our own, we are all vulnerable, whether or not we care to admit it.

To be reconnected to “the other” in our weakness is another way of understanding the good news of the cross. Jesus Christ, his own body broken for us, graciously exposes our brokenness so that we might be drawn back into relationship with him and to one another. This good news, of course, flies in the face of a culture that venerates personal freedom and despises weakness. It offends an economic system that rewards the fittest, that ultimately assumes that “each man for himself” is morally acceptable. Let us therefore embrace our weakness, that our world might know its need for God’s perfect, powerful, and all-sufficient grace.

Craig Wong (onbeingthechurch@gum. org.) is the executive director of Grace Urban Ministries in San Francisco.

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O ff the Shelf Alone Together

by Sherry Turkle Basic Books Reviewed by Dale S. Kuehne Sherry Turkle wants to talk about technological attachments. Not files we attach to emails, not attachments that allow us to charge our iPod with our car’s cigarette lighter, not special lenses to attach to our iPhones. No, in her recent book, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, she wants to talk about the deep and potentially troubling attachments we form with our email accounts, music devices, and smart phones.

As an MIT professor, Turkle has spent much of her career studying the psychological and social impact of technology on human life. Her particular interest is in studying how robotics and personal technological devices impact how we relate to others and ourselves. She approaches the subject with an appreciation and fascination with technology, and yet from that vantage point has discovered some chilling data concerning how technology is making it more and more difficult for us to be human.

She speaks of how robotics have advanced to the point that children often prefer virtual pets to real pets and how the elderly can find such comfort in virtual pets or robots that they don’t feel as much need for human companionship, including their children. She lets us know that the technology is advancing so rapidly that we will soon be able to create human robots that are so “human” and personally engaging that Scientific American is exploring legal marriage between humans and robots.

Turkle gives us a glimpse into how personal technology and social networking are changing our lives, and especially the lives of our children. For an increasing number of people the most important relationship in their life is with the device that gives them access to email, IMs, and Facebook.

So significant is the attachment we have to our technology that we are often unaware that we have developed an attachment stronger than we have with any person.

Alone Together is a well-written, widely accessible book that is a must read for anyone who wants to try to understand culturally where we are and where we are going, as well as understand how to work with the most at-risk group in our society—our children.

Turkle explains why I can’t go to a gathering of adults without finding a significant number of people, including me, texting and writing email while someone else is talking. Many of us are so attached to our technology that our brains have developed a biochemical addiction to the electronic stimulation of our devices. When that occurs—and youth are especially vulnerable to this due to their stage of development—what drives us is not the desire to be closer

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Book Reviews to the people to whom we are texting but our brain demanding the stimulation the screen is providing. Millions of us are unaware we should be in a new kind of 12-step program.

Turkle is not a Luddite. She appreciates the uses that can be made of the ever-advancing technology. She is trying to alert us to the danger that the technology presents, especially its addictive and antisocial dimensions. This is the greatest contribution of the book.

If an essential part of what it means to be human is to love and be loved, to love God, neighbor, and self, Alone Together introduces us to the profound threat that smart phones, personal computers, and social networking pose for us. As the title implies, this technology can hypnotize us into believing we are relating to others when we are in fact connecting to a technological device. Moreover, social networking provides us with the ability to remake ourselves into who we wish we were and to relate to the fictions of others, thereby further complicating the already difficult task of knowing self and others.

Turkle raises more questions than she answers, but they are the questions that help us put into perspective the challenge our culture faces.

Dale S. Kuehne is the Richard L. Bready Chair in Ethics, Economics, and the Common Good at Saint Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., where he is also a professor of politics. He is the author of Sex and the iWorld: Rethinking Relationship beyond an Age of Individualism (Baker Academic, 2009).

Bonhoeffer

by Eric Metaxis Thomas Nelson Reviewed by John A. Sundquist In Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, biographer Eric Metaxis tells with remarkable sensitivity the story of one man’s faithfulness to the gospel of Jesus Christ and the forces that shaped him. Its 31 packed chapters are informed by extensive quotations from correspondence between Bonhoeffer and his large circle of family, friends, and colleagues as well as excerpts from sermons he preached and lectures he delivered.

The work surveys four major periods of Bonhoeffer’s life and work: his childhood and youth; his theological studies and early pastoral work in the ’20s; the rise of Nazism through the ’30s and Bonhoeffer’s opposition and leadership in the Confessing Church movement; and his involvement, in the early ’40s, in the conspiracy to assassinate Adolf Hitler, leading to his arrest in 1943 and his execution

by the Gestapo in April 1945. Metaxis weaves his knowledge of Bonhoeffer into a vibrant and compelling narrative, opening a window onto the life of one of the most influential theologians of our time, a man who was able to transcend his birth into a privileged, well-connected family and use it to stand up against tyranny and oppression.

Bonhoeffer’s parents rarely went to church, but in hiring two sisters from the Herrhut Moravian community as governesses, they introduced spiritual formation into their children’s lives—perhaps more than they intended. Hymn singing, Bible reading, and personal encounters with the living God made up the air that young Dietrich breathed. At 10 he composed a cantata, and at 14 he decided to become a theologian. Although his father resisted that idea, Bonhoeffer’s call to ministry was not a childhood impulse but a bold declaration of what God was doing in his life.

Bonhoeffer’s struggle with the teachings and prejudices of early 20th-century German society began while he was still quite young. The author depicts an 18-yearold Bonhoeffer, on a visit to Rome, being challenged by the church’s transcendence of race and national identity.

There he was moved by the figure of God in Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, “who reverberates with colossal peace and tender love,” themes which came to dominate his own life and ministry. These themes were further shaped by his time at Berlin University, where, under the tutelage of Schleiermacher and von Harnack, he developed his critical thinking and his growing resistance to Nazism.

Metaxis takes us by ship to New York City, vividly painting Bonhoeffer’s time there—from his distress over the lifeless German church and the liberal but empty gospel preached at Union Theological Seminary, to the joy he discovered at Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem where he heard Adam Clayton Powell Sr. preach.

Revealing the complexities of a life lived in the real world, the author depicts how Bonhoeffer, as part of the Confessing Church, became “a lightning rod for controversy” and yet was able to become a member of the Abwehr (German military intelligence).

Understanding the forces at play in Nazi Germany and how they led to the end of Bonhoeffer’s life offers a poignant portrait of how God uses history to shape our faith and invites our faith to shape history. Metaxis’ work is essential to any serious study of Bonhoeffer or the interplay of theology and history.

John A. Sundquist was executive director of American Baptist International Ministries from 1988 to 2003 and is an adjunct professor of global Christianity and mission at Northern Theological Seminary in Lombard, Ill. Do you find our reviews helpful? What kinds of titles would you like to see reviewed here? Write to the editor at KKomarni@Eastern.edu to let us know.

Little Princes

by Conor Grennan HarperCollins Reviewed by Tim Høiland Conor Grennan never set out to be a hero. Indeed, how could he have known that what began as a sort of guilt-induced public relations stunt to appease his friends and impress girls would in fact radically alter the course of his life and the lives of countless others?

Little Princes: One Man’s Promise to Bring Home the Lost Children of Nepal is Grennan’s story, starting with his arrival as a volunteer at Little Princes Children’s Home outside Kathmandu, intended as a three-month humanitarian stopover on the way to his real adventures elsewhere. But when he came to learn that many of the children in the orphanage—with whom he now shared a deep bond—were in fact not orphans at all, he was presented with a situation he found impossible to ignore.

In a book that is equal parts memoir, cultural study, and love story, Grennan recounts what ensued after this discovery. He tells of trekking through the Himalayas, battling nature and fatigue, facing off against traffickers, forming unlikely alliances, falling in love, and ultimately helping to reunite a good number of these children with their parents in Humla—the far-off, nearly inaccessible part of the country from which they had originally come.

The story is rooted in Nepal’s decade-long civil war, in which Maoist rebels—unable to operate in or near the capital, which remained under the control of those loyal to the king—targeted poor families in rural areas for conscription into their army, often abducting young children. In this context, poor families were presented with the opportunity to pay a large sum of money to a man who would take their children out of harm’s way and into Kathmandu where, he assured them, they would be well cared for. Out of desperation, and wanting a better future for their children whatever the cost, many parents agreed.

Unfortunately, this man was in fact a trafficker, and while some children eventually ended up in orphanages like Little Princes Children’s Home where they received love and care, many others remained on the streets, completely vulnerable to disease, hunger, and worse.

Today, through an organization Grennan cofounded called Next Generation Nepal, trafficked children are placed in safe transitional homes where they are cared for and educated until, ideally, they can be reunited with their families.

But Grennan’s approach is clearly no panacea. It would take a lot more than this to tackle the root causes of trafficking in Nepal at any sort of a structural level. Doing so would require a systematic overhaul of what appears to be a largely corrupt law enforcement system that fails to protect the

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vulnerable and a close examination of the equally important and enduring issue of rural poverty, which makes these families easy targets for traffickers in the first place.

But again, as Grennan makes clear, he never set out to save the world. His connection to Nepal is a personal one, and because of his work—and through the stories in his book—many readers will feel inspired and compelled to find ways to support these families who have endured so much.

One certainly hopes that structural change will come to Nepal in time, but at least for 300 children and their families, being reunited is more than enough for now.

A regular contributor to PRISM, Tim Høiland blogs about the intersections of faith, development, justice, and peace in the Americas at tjhoiland.com.

Ministry with Prisoners & Families Edited by W. Wilson Goode Sr, Charles E. Lewis Jr, and Harold Dean Trulear Judson Press Reviewed by Samuel K. Atchison I’ve spent nearly a quarter-century engaged in hardcore urban ministry—feeding the hungry, many of them returning offenders; housing the homeless (some of the same folks), finding employment for the unemployed (yep, you got it), and serving as a chaplain to the incarcerated. Interestingly, it was my involvement in the first three activities which led me to the fourth.

After doing what amounted to prison aftercare for several years (the term “re-entry” was not in use at that time), I began working as a chaplain at the Mercer County (NJ) Correction Center in July 1993, with the intention of winning inmates to the Lord, helping to disciple them, and assisting them in a systematic way to return to the community, find gainful housing and employment, and avoid getting rearrested.

What I learned, of course, was that though well-intentioned church folk (pollster George Gallup Jr. calls them “the saints among us”) had been engaged in such service for years, there was little appreciation for their work beyond the street level, minimal recognition of what has become known as “the faith factor” in inmate rehabilitation, and no comprehensive policy governing the reintegration of returning prisoners.

In pursuit of the above, I began to seek, find, and make common cause with like-minded individuals such as Gallup, social scientist John DiIulio, religion researcher Harold Dean Trulear, and former Philadelphia Mayor W. Wilson Goode.

Over the years, they, along with several others, have become my friends, colleagues, mentors, and, in the case of both DiIulio and Goode, my employers.

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Thus, in reading Ministry with Prisoners & Families: The Way Forward, I am reminded of how far the prison ministry enterprise has come. Edited by Goode, Trulear, and social work professor-cum-congressional aide Charles E. Lewis, Ministry with Prisoners & Families is a compilation of essays by a variety of experts addressing the broad scope of issues affecting prison inmates, their families, and society as a whole Two features separate this book from similar works addressing these issues. First, the efficacy of faith as a motivating factor in the lives of prisoners, their families, and the volunteers that serve them is seen as a given. This is huge when one considers that barely 20 years ago researchers considered faith too subjective to be measured.

Yet Baylor sociologist Byron Johnson, who has reviewed more than 270 studies examining the relationship between faith and delinquency (and whose recent book, More God, Less Crime, could be read as a companion volume to Ministry with Prisoners & Families), has noted that secular social scientists have now begun to recognize the need for a motivational “trigger” for inmates to change their behavior, and they see that religious conversion can be such a trigger.

Second, each issue the authors address—whether discussing programs aimed at averting incarceration (preentry in Lewis’s words), substance abuse ministry, prisoner re-entry programs, policy advocacy, or chaplaincy—ultimately focuses on a role for the local church. This is especially true of the articles describing Amachi, the mentoring program Goode runs, and Healing Communities, which is directed by Trulear; both programs depend on and are extensions of congregational ministry.

While such congregational emphasis can be seen as focusing the biblical mandate to serve “the least of these,” writ large the book envisions a far more activist role for the church than many may feel comfortable with. Moreover, as a result of the nation’s current fiscal crisis, federal funding of many faith-friendly programs has been cut or eliminated altogether. This, in turn, may serve as a disincentive for some churches that might otherwise become engaged in the struggle.

Such observations should not be seen as a shortcoming of the book, but simply a reflection of reality. In truth, Ministry with Prisoners & Families raises the bar in terms of our collective understanding of society’s most vulnerable stakeholders. It is an important book for those who take such service seriously.

Samuel K. Atchison has served as a welfare policy analyst, social services administrator, social policy consultant, and prison chaplain. He is the president of the Trenton Ecumenical Area Ministry and a community partnership manager with the Amachi Mentoring Coalition Project (AMCP), a program of the Philadelphia Leadership Foundation that provides mentoring to children impacted by incarceration.

Sexual Sabotage

by Judith A. Reisman WND Books Reviewed by William M. Struthers In her newest book, Sexual Sabotage, Dr. Judith Reisman pulls no punches in her war with sexologists, pedophiles, pornographers, and pharmaceutical companies. Lined up in her crosshairs is Alfred Kinsey, the father of modern-day sexology. Sexual Sabotage reads as Reisman’s magnum opus, which gives and takes no quarter with the sex-industrial complex and those who seek to promote a worldview that goes against traditional sexual ethics. It does so by coming at the issue from a variety of levels, ranging from a personal psychological analysis of Kinsey to the broad sociological effects from World War II to the advent of the internet and modern pharmacology.

The book is interlaced with religious, social, political, legal, and historical arguments that can occasionally be difficult to tie together, but for those who can track with her, Sexual Sabotage offers a fascinating answer to the question “How did it come to this?”

Reisman’s main thesis is that the groundwork for the radical shift in sexual morality occurred during the World War II era, when Alfred Kinsey began conducting his now famous texts, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male and Sexual Behavior in the Human Female. Kinsey’s research, she argues, was based on sexual predators and sexual deviants who were not representative of the general public but whose data would advance a view of sexual immorality in which Kinsey was personally invested. The effects of these reports on the culture would culminate in the sexual revolution of the 1960s and contribute to the decline of traditional morality for generations to come.

Kinsey’s reports presented sexually deviant behaviors as norms and, Reisman argues, is a critical tipping point for the cultural acceptance of rape, incest, and the sexualization of children. Capitalizing on academia’s infatuation with contrarianism, Kinsey expanded his influence to the intellectual elites who then began utilizing the label of “science” as a way to protect themselves from criticism. Whether for personal or professional reasons, today’s sex researchers, Reisman argues, are complicit in Kinsey’s agenda by refusing to return to the original data or acknowledge the limitations, legitimacy, and moral questions which surround his “research.” By refusing to do so, a broad agenda of sexual promiscuity, homosexuality, and pedophilia have been cultivated over the last half century, says Reisman, who offers an astonishing number of arguments and amounts of data as evidence. The more than 1,100 citations, references, and endnotes can be overwhelming at times and range from scientific studies, popular press articles and in-

terviews, and a variety of data from multiple media forms.

The book has a clear and unapologetic agenda. Occasionally strident, but meticulous in its detail, Reisman’s work should give pause to those who refer to Kinsey’s research as part of the canon on human sexuality. “The fact is that Kinsey’s deviants and psychopaths betrayed our nation,” writes Reisman, “seducing us into ‘hate America’ and gutting a moral system that had brought our nation unparalleled health and prosperity, and into rejecting our traditional moral standards. With dishonest, mendacious research and a secret psychosexual agenda, Kinsey and his cadre of eugenicists led the sexual revolution—to eliminate babies, love, and family, to destroy our God-based morals, and to allow unfettered access to the bodies and minds of innocent children.”

The primary criticism that many might have of Sexual Sabotage is that Reisman’s explicit anti-pornography agenda colors the tenor of how the data is presented. But it is at least honest and explicit about the agenda, rather than disingenuous and subversive. To raise this as a concern is to miss Reisman’s primary point—that the way Kinsey presented his data is not agenda-free (regardless of whether or not one considers this agenda to be explicit or implicit).

To adopt a Pollyanna attitude about Kinsey’s research as bias-free and objective without regard to the additional contextual data presented is irresponsible.

Make no mistake—this is no conspiracy theory, hatchet job, or anti-porn manifesto; it is, however, a clarion call to those who would sit by and do nothing. Rather than be lulled into assuming that the commodification of children and sexuality is a lost cause, she champions a critical reexamination of Kinsey’s research and the cultural and economic forces that have influenced notions of human sexuality over the past six decades. Occasionally disturbing in its content and uncompromising in its rhetoric, Reisman’s book should not be dismissed. Instead it should wake us all up to the fact that sexuality is not just an appetite that requires feeding but a unique aspect of human beings that is both sacred and integral to our spiritual and social health.

William M. Struthers is associate professor of psychology at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Ill., and the author of Wired for Intimacy: How Pornography Hijacks the Male Brain (IVP, 2009).

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K ingdom Ethics Christianities

The Gushee family is in transition as these words are written. Our youngest child, Marie, is heading off to Emory University. We have become empty-nesters.

My in-laws are moving to Atlanta to be near their daughter. And I just turned 49. I remember when I was young!

I reflect sometimes about the Christian journey that God has taken me on since my childhood, about whether we have successfully passed on a viable Christian faith to our children, and about whether that Christian faith will be central to them and their children after we have gone to be with Jesus.

This has me thinking back to the two most recent stages of our journey: 11 years living in Jackson, Tenn., and four years in Atlanta. I would like to reflect on the Christian experience of our family in these pivotal 15 years for us, because I think it has relevance beyond our family.

The years 1996 to 2007 were spent in Jackson. We moved there so I could take a teaching position at Union University. Jackson is the hub city of western Tennessee. Two hours to the east is Nashville; one hour to the southwest is Memphis. It is big enough to host a Double-A baseball team and a symphony orchestra, but small enough that you can expect to run into an acquaintance every time you leave your house.

The city remains deeply divided along racial lines. North Jackson is overwhelmingly white and at least middleclass if not wealthy. East Jackson is overwhelmingly black and primarily poor to lower-middle-class. We lived in North Jackson. The religion and politics of this part of Jackson are Bible Belt white conservative. Three sizable, overwhelmingly white private schools can also be found in North Jackson, along with Union University. This was the world our family lived in until we moved to Atlanta on the threshold of our youngest daughter’s freshman year in high school.

I have called this column “Christianities” because I am convinced that there is no such thing as “Christianity,” but instead various versions of Christianity,

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generated by different readings of scripture and Christian tradition as well as by cultural dynamics.

The Christianity that predominated in our Jackson context was of a particular conservative white Southern Baptist/ evangelical type. It was Bible-centered, focused on personal piety, embraced conservative beliefs related to everything from sexuality to cursing to alcohol to gender to race to politics, and demanded pervasive centrality in a believer’s life.

The normative Christian in this version of Christianity goes to church three times a week, prays and reads her Bible, tells other people about Jesus, abstains from sex until marriage, gets married at 22-24 years of age, doesn’t drink or curse, raises her children in the Christian faith, opposes abortion, believes women should not be pastors, and votes Republican.

We moved to Atlanta so I could accept a position at Mercer University.

Much went into this decision, including our family’s inability to accept the last two items in the above list as definitive for Christian faith. We joined a wonderful Baptist church with a female pastor and nonexistent ties to the Southern Baptist Convention, and I became an ethics professor at a Baptist seminary linked to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

We had chafed deeply at the casual sexism and assumed political conservatism of the Jackson version of Christi-

David P. Gushee anity, and so were quite glad to enter a religious subculture in which those values were rejected. This new subculture still produces Christians who go to church weekly and love God, but open expressions of personal piety and an open embrace of demanding standards of personal morality seem somewhat less frequent here. Is it really necessary to trade off robust personal piety and rigorous personal morality for a Christianity emphasizing social justice? Why can’t we put the best of both of these versions of Christianity together?

In May I took Marie on a fatherdaughter trip with a group from CarsonNewman College to Cape Town, South Africa. There the 15 of us studied, toured, served the desperately poor with a great ministry called Living Hope, and thought about the meaning of Christian faith in a country as beautiful but stratified as modern-day South Africa. We found in the black townships of South Africa, and in the committed Christians who lived and served there, a faith that had the robust piety of Jackson and the social justice commitments of Atlanta.

These were people who loved Jesus and loved justice; it was the best of both worlds, discovered 10,000 miles from home.

In other words, getting outside the white, southern, Baptist, US setting we encountered once again something like the holistic transformational evangelicalism that we first encountered in Philadelphia with ESA and my dear friend Ron Sider. This is the kind of Christianity that we still find most compelling— the version I hope that our Marie, Holly, and David will teach to their own children in the next generation.

David P. Gushee is director of the Center for Theology and Public Life at Mercer University, Atlanta, Ga., where he is also a professor of Christian ethics. His latest book is Religious Faith, Torture, and Our National Soul (Mercer University Press, 2010).

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R on Sider Reflections on 50 Years of Marriage Our little cabin beside our favorite lake in northern Maine is a good place to reflect on 50 years of marriage. Arbutus often notes that, much of the time, I am in the fast lane and she is in the middle lane. But when we get to our beloved spot in Maine, where we listen to the loons calling as we fall sleep, we are together in the slow lane. With extra time for each other, our feelings of tenderness and love are more vivid and intense.

Several times during this current two-week vacation, I have marveled at how much joy, security, contentment, and—yes—ecstasy two people in their early 70s, married 50 years ago, can give each other. Gratitude is my overwhelming response.

That is not to pretend that all 50 years have been joy and ecstasy. We have quarreled, hurt, and betrayed each other and demanded unfair things of each other. There was a time (yes, a midlife crisis at about 40!) when my boiling anger was so frequent and furious that I doubt our marriage would have survived except for the wonderful gift of months of wise counseling from a Christian family therapist.

We learned how to listen more deeply to each other, stretching ourselves to better understand each other’s feelings and viewpoints. Our counselor asked us to put on each other’s shoes (literally) as we prayed for each other (I only managed to wedge my toes into Arbutus’ small loafers). We learned how to make “I statements” rather than “you statements” (“I feel hurt when…” rather than “You hurt me when…”). We slowly came to accept that we could end disagreements, even on important issues, by saying, “It’s okay for us to disagree on this.”

It took months of intensive marriage counseling and a couple more years of especially focused effort to work through our hardest time of struggle. But the result was a new plateau of less pain and more happiness. Of course we still continued to quarrel and get angry with each other. But those times became less frequent and less intense. Today, I

marvel at how seldom they reappear.

What would I want to say to my children, grandchildren, friends, and others about these 50 years? Basically, that I am certain that the joy we have shared for five decades and the peace and delight we have had and continue to enjoy are far greater than if we had given up on our marriage—either through divorce or by staying together without working through our problems.

Several things have been especially important in our experience. First, since before we first met, we have both been committed to Jesus Christ above all and determined to obey him. Divorce, therefore, was never an option. We have always (albeit imperfectly) communicated to each other our thoughts, feelings, fears, and desires. Over the decades we have learned how to do that better. Full transparency has been our goal. We have frequently asked for and granted forgiveness to each other. We have had a few close friends with whom we could talk about our struggles when we seemed unable to work through problems by ourselves.

We both were committed through all the years to make our commitment to each other our highest commitment after Christ. Love involves passionate feeling, but it is also a decision. And through all of this flowed the mysterious divine grace of forgiveness and the Holy Spirit’s special strength when our own power seemed so feeble.

The petite, vivacious Amish redhead I married 50 years ago on August 19 is today far more truly and deeply my sweetheart and best friend than she was on our wedding day. She has been God’s best gift to me after his Son. That two people can bring each other so much joy simply astounds me. I can only say thank you—again and again and again—to my Heavenly Father for the wonderful gift of this lovely woman in my life for 50 years.

"Love involves passionate feeling, but it is also a decision."

48 PRISM Magazine

Ron Sider is the founder and president of Evangelicals for Social Action, author of dozens of books, and professor of theology/holistic ministry/public policy at Palmer Seminary of Eastern University.

PRISM Vol. 18, No. 5  September-October 2011

Editorial Board

Miriam Adeney Tony Campolo

Luis Cortés Richard Foster G. Gaebelein Hull

Karen Mains

Vinay Samuel

Tom Sine Harold DeanTrulear

George Barna Rodney Clapp Samuel Escobar William Frey Roberta Hestenes John Perkins Amy Sherman Vinson Synan Eldin Villafane

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A Publication of Evangelicals for Social Action The Sider Center on Ministry and Public Policy www.EvangelicalsforSocialAction.org Palmer Theological Seminary of Eastern University All contents © 2011 ESA/PRISM magazine.

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