In recent years I’ve become a big believer in being ‘evangelized from below’ - that folks living in more impoverished and often violent contexts know something I don’t about the nature of God and the world I live in. I’ve experienced this in powerful ways in trying to read the bible with homeless young adults and brief experiences talking with migrant workers from Mexico and Latin America. I’m thankful for the privileged place I live for the sake of my family but am aware that I am disadvantaged because I think the gospel was first delivered to an oppressed people. All that to say, I try to be open to being evangelized from below. CNN provided an example of that today in this story from Rwanda about reconciliation and baskets.

 

I foolishly left my camera at home but took a chance and gave my emaill address to the nice lady in front of us who came better prepared than I for “The Swell Season concert” last week. She kindly sent pictures on Monday - how great is that? Here’s a sample:

I was listening to Barack Obama talk this morning about his rapidly disappearing friendship with Rev. Jeremiah Wright on Meet the Press. Now, like many, I’ve debated the question of ‘who’s betraying who more’. I think Obama has much more at stake here and I wish that Wright would stop inserting himself into the campaign in ways that can only hurt the Illinois Senator. But I can empathize with Wright and what must be the sting of betrayal he feels over Obama’s recent words. Clearly Barack has been distancing himself from Wright, using increasingly a-relational language to minimize their connection. I’m not sure anyone really buys this – Wright is essentially Obama’s spiritual father and presided over some of the most significant events in his adult life (conversion, wedding, children’s’ baptisms, etc.). What should be a time of profound pride for Wright and celebration for them both has deteriorated into a very public redefining of their relationship. Ouch - nothing worse than two people feeling strongly justified in denouncing each other - especially on CNN. Obama suggested today that Wright may have ‘resurfaced’ to be in the limelight in lieu of his retirement. Ouch. At the National Press Club, Wright said that if Obama becomes president, he’s ‘coming after him’ just as he would any other president. Ouch:

“And I said to Barack Obama, last year, “If you get elected, November the 5th, I’m coming after you, because you’ll be representing a government whose policies grind under people.” All right? It’s about policy, not the American people.”

Wright has also stated he knows he’s hurting Obama’s campaign but doesn’t care about that. Then Obama really closed the book today, saying:

“SEN. OBAMA: I ultimately trust the American people that they’ll put this in context and they’ll say, “You know what?  This is not who Barack Obama is. It’s not what he stood for.  It’s not what he’s said.  It’s not what he’s written.” And so I think a lot of people understand that, you know, you have people in your lives over periods of time.  They change sometimes, they may go off in a different direction.  Sometimes the rupture in relationships may be painful, but they’re necessary.  And, and that’s what’s happened here.

MR. RUSSERT:  You’re done with him?  If you’re elected president, you won’t seek his counsel?

SEN. OBAMA:  Absolutely not.”

Have you ever come to a point in a close relationship where something happens to fundamentally change the nature of it? It can be especially painful when you’re talking about a younger / older mentor and parent type relationship. When this has happened to me or folks I know, I always ask myself some questions: Do I want to be saying and doing what this older person is saying or doing when I’m at that point in my life? The obvious answer is ‘no’ – and then the question becomes how do I avoid this? What kind of mentor do I want to be to younger leaders? I think one of the hardest things as an older leader must be to truly ‘make room’ for someone you’ve guided and now is ready to step up on their own. Of course there’s a level of self-reflection needed as well: how do I avoid being in this situation again? What am I doing now to hurt this relationship? How have I not honored this person who’s invested so much in me?

I’m not sure this kind of reflection really works for Obama and Wright. But I’ll bet when the media’s gone and these men are alone with their spouses or their own thoughts, they must wonder how things got to this point with such an important, beloved person in their lives. Can you relate?

Still basking in the afterglow of my evening with Glen and Marketa. There’s a nice interview with the “Once” stars at this NPR link, and if you scroll down there’s a link to listen to or download a live concert at the 9:30 Club in DC. Pretty sweet freebie. WordPress likes me today - here’s that youtube of Fogtown:

On a rare journey into our city for good food and great (and I mean great) music, Kristi and I joined our beloved friends Jason and Sharon (and Bill Gates) for The Swell Season at The Moore. Oh my. Bono has my heart, but Glen and Marketa are fighting him for it after our musical tryst last night. I defy you to find a better live front-man (in a small setting – Bono reigns in the stadiums) than Glen going right now. I had high expectations going in and they were exceeded – which is usually not the case (see: Sting at the gorge playing for about 60 minutes). Seriously, he was fantastic – and strums one smooth guitar. I was very impressed at his rapport with the audience. He seems steeped in the Irish tradition of Stream of Consciousness which he mingled brilliantly with humor in introducing songs. The best interaction may have been when someone yelled “Congratulations on the Oscar!” in between songs. Glen said “Tanks!” and then described the funny tension in having made a movie totally outside of the Hollywood “system” but having been given its greatest award – it’s about 2/3 cool and 1/3…. He said something to the effect of, “It’s like when you kick your ball – you kick it and think it’s only going to the curb. But then it goes across the street, over your neighbor’s house, over the field and you say, ‘wow, I kicked that fuc$*&% ball far!’” [Pause for laughter—clearly the image is of being smug with one's ability to boot the ball]. He continued, “But then you’re like, ‘I want my fuc$*&% ball back!’” I’m sure with the success has come the loss of some of the simpler / peaceful aspects of life.

 Overall, it was like that experience when you read about an unusually awesome concert in the paper that you had turned down tickets for and you start looking for a pillow to scream into. I was there this time, baby! He intro’d the night by expressing concern over feeling sick and having low energy. Then they proceeded to play for over 2 ½ hours and closed by bringing back the opening musicians (Rónán Ó Snodaigh and Liam Ó Maonlaí of Hothouse Flowers fame) and rocked Dylan’s Forever Young (sorry, Jason – I almost didn’t want to tell you about missing it). What a fabulous show. Sooo, I’ve got some good work to do in getting to know The Frames and trying to understand more of Glen’s eclectic spirituality – seems to have a Celtic-pagan-Christian-fusion thing going on. Here’s a video of them covering a Michelle Shocked song, Fogtown - they played this one last night for us as well *sigh* (wordpress isn’t letting me put the video here) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrlkDfk_f-c

 

In the arena of your strong convictions (religious, moral, political, etc.), do you ever in the anonymity of your own mind, waver on something? No? Well, I do. Sometimes there’s this whisper in the back of my mind – like a butterfly or bat in the night that comes fluttering too close to your head and then zips away. It says, “But what if it is that way?” Then you do that quick intellectual duck to dodge the question and try and go back to what you were doing. For me, an example of this is the political nature of Christianity. How political was Jesus? How political should we be today? Some theologies intentionally use language many consider ‘leftist’ in their discussion of Jesus and his movement: insurrection, liberation, solidarity, revolution etc. I live in a time and place where the dominant culture reflects much of my values. Not all of course, but enough that I don’t often find myself thinking ‘liberation’ or ‘insurrectionist’ thoughts. But what if I lived in modern-day China or Venezuela, or El Salvador in the early 1980s? What if the melanin in my skin quadrupled all of a sudden? How would living as an oppressed Christian mold my perspective on Christ, the cross and the nature of ‘salvation’? Even in Seattle, I’ve experienced little meaningful opposition to my faith. Occasionally I’ll get, “You’re not one of those Christians who think Jesus is the only way, are you?” But I’ve yet to face down the barrel of a gun, experience torture, or have my house burned down because I follow Jesus. Thus, I think I and those who relate to my context don’t fully ‘hear’ the power of certain Bible passages.

A few years ago, Sarah McLachlan made a nice statement by doing the video for her song World on Fire on the cheap. Then she showed how much money the video done with the usual flare and FX would have cost. Those monies instead were donated to various charities around the world. I really appreciated the effort and even preached on it as an example of how we as Christians should be as ready to give props to pop culture stars when they do something that reminds us of Jesus, rather than only engaging in the usual culture war criticism. Well, what I didn’t expect was a powerful encounter with Psalm 118. If you look carefully at around 2:49 of the video, there’s a woman from Ghana being highlighted for working two jobs – 16 hours a day, 7 days a week to send her kids to school, etc. The door of her home has Psalm 118:5-12 tagged on it.

 This blew me away because of the context and how little I understand the meaning of its words:

5 In my anguish I cried to the LORD,
and he answered by setting me free.
6 The LORD is with me; I will not be afraid.
What can man do to me?
7 The LORD is with me; he is my helper.
I will look in triumph on my enemies.
8 It is better to take refuge in the LORD
than to trust in man.
9 It is better to take refuge in the LORD
than to trust in princes.
10 All the nations surrounded me,
but in the name of the LORD I cut them off.
11 They surrounded me on every side,
but in the name of the LORD I cut them off.
12 They swarmed around me like bees,
but they died out as quickly as burning thorns;
in the name of the LORD I cut them off.

How does “being set free” resonate differently for this woman and me? How much more relevant are the words “It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes” for her than me? When I read “being set free” I usually think of my future freedom from death and sin – maybe some measure of freedom for my personal struggles and health before then (and hey, this is powerful-good-news). Compared to some of its West African neighbors, Ghana is relatively wealthy – relatively. Until 1957 it was a British colony and has survived several versions of parliamentary and military governments. Regardless, this woman is working hard in tough conditions and found some kind of voice in putting Psalm 118:5-12 on her front door. I’ve yet to feel the need to do that. And maybe I should wonder why. Is the ‘gospel that has the power to save’ only for a time in the distant future? Is there no power now for those we see God bend his ear to over and over and over and over in scripture? The widow, the orphan, the alien in our land, the prisoners - those who’ve been ‘cut off’ in one form or another…

I identify with something I heard Rob Bell say recently about growing up with a lot of Billy G, but not enough MLK. He said we need more MLK in the church today. Now, before you write Rob and I totally off as liberals gone wild, please note that when someone asked if he wanted more MLK and less Billy G, he said, “No, we need the same Billy G – we just need more MLK.” That resonates with me.

           

All that to say, as one who’s trying to figure out what it means to be ‘theologically conservative and socially liberal’, sometimes when nobody is watching I browse over to certain sections of my library and Wikipedia and wonder if there are some things I haven’t fully ‘gotten’ in my understanding of Jesus’ liberating message to the world. Am I alone in that?

17And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book and found the place where it was written,
    18“THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME,
    BECAUSE HE ANOINTED ME TO PREACH THE GOSPEL TO THE POOR.
    HE HAS SENT ME TO PROCLAIM RELEASE TO THE CAPTIVES,
    AND RECOVERY OF SIGHT TO THE BLIND,
    TO SET FREE THOSE WHO ARE OPPRESSED,
    19TO PROCLAIM THE FAVORABLE YEAR OF THE LORD.”

20And He closed the book, gave it back to the attendant and sat down; and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on Him. 21And He began to say to them, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” [Luke 4:17-21]

 

 

Many of you (like me) have coughed up a lot of money to sit in classes, attend trainings and ‘continuing education’ courses all in the name of getting smarter and more qualified for…whatever. But have you noticed all the things you learn just going through everyday existence here on the 3rd planet from the sun? That brings up a good example! A friend, who shall remain nameless, and I were sitting on a beach and I said something about how amazing it was that the sun was a star and one day would burn out. This person got a funny look on their face and said, “The sun is a star? I thought it was a planet.” Now, eventually I stopped laughing, changed my wet pants and dried my tear-streaked cheeks, and found out they were serious. Ok, this is a smart person who has an advanced degree and a high-paying job that requires some good brain-power. But somehow, they’d made it to that point in life thinking the sun was a planet. And it was just an everyday moment that rescued them from their ‘astronomical’ error.

I’m convinced that the best lessons in life happen in the normal flow of things – and for free! Hence every-so-often, let’s devote time to sharing these little lessons. Think of it as a course / seminar / continuing ed.  in the school of not-so-hard-knocks. What simple yet important thing did you learn today? I’ll get us started with a few that have stuck with me:

1.    It doesn’t take much to attach the toilet tank to the toilet base. So did you know if you over-tighten the bolt on the underside of the toilet base where the tank attaches, the tank will just crack somewhere and spew water? Yeah, I learned this one the hard way. I now know you just need to tighten it a bit – gravity and compression do the hard work. This is related to another lesson I learned – a 14 volt drill is over-kill when installing one of those simple ceramic light fixtures in your attic. Oh yeah, it cracks fast. The funniest part is you hear the ceramic start to fissure about 2 seconds before it POPS! And you can’t do anything about it – except go back to the hardware store.

2.    That Krusteaz pancake mix is pronounced crust-eeze! Yes, for years I innocently made it gourmet and called it “Croos-T-Oz”. My college roommates, Ben and Josh, loved it the morning I asked, “Has anyone seen my “Croos-T-Oz” mix?

3.    I don’t care what your friends, doctors and nurses tell you ahead of time. Infant poop stinks really bad.

4.    If you take a car out of ‘park’ while on a hill – even for a moment to clean around the shifter – it will take off like a shot. And you can’t do much about it if you’re sitting in the passenger seat. I really dented the snot out of my dad’s new Buick that day…

Your turn!

One of my assigned readings for Christian Ethics this quarter is The Massacre at El Mozote by Mark Danner (it’s in book form, but you can read the initial full article here). It is the horrific account of one of the largest massacres in Latin American history. It’s set against the backdrop of the battle between leftist guerrillas and the U.S. backed El Salvadoran army. On December 11 (day after my birthday), 1981, a unit of ‘elite’ government soldiers tortured, raped and massacred hundreds of campesinos (peasants) from infants to the elderly. It’s a story of truth-telling, cover-ups and some redemption (hope for more). Today, there is a medical clinic in El Mozote named after the only survivor of the massacre, Rufina Amaya. This article is the single hardest thing I’ve ever had to read. It’s horrible and you should know about it but be warned about reading the article - it’s graphic in its description. I think from now on, when I celebrate my birthday on December 10th, I’ll always remember that in 1981, a group of innocent men, women and children were about to experience living hell. The irony is, I’ll be thankful my family lives in a place free of such military violence but angry that my government supplied the M-16s, money and training that helped fuel this atrocity. May God have mercy on all of us.

     

Here is a passage towards the end of Danner’s article which includes quotes from the United Nation’s Truth Commission’s report, From Madness To Hope: The 12-Year War in El Salvador:

“Finally, in October, the experts began to dig. And there, on the third day, in the silence of the ruined hamlet of El Mozote, all the words and claims and counterclaims that had been loudly made for nearly eleven years abruptly gave way before the mute force of material fact. The bones were there, the cartridges were there; the sleeping reality of El Mozote had finally been awoken.

They dug and sifted and charted for thirty-five days, and soon the cartridges and the clothing and the bones and bone fragments, all labelled and packed away in bright manila envelopes and fresh new cartons, would depart El Mozote and travel by car to a laboratory in San Salvador, where the experts worked away into December. The following March, when the United Nations made public the Truth Commission’s report, entitled “From Madness to Hope: The 12-Year War in El Salvador,” the analysis of the evidence was there, laid out for the reader in clear, precise language, each successive sentence demolishing one or another of the myths put forward during the previous twelve years. Of the hundred and forty-three skulls found, all “were deposited during the same temporal event,” which is “unlikely to have occurred later than 1981.” El Mozote could not have been a guerrilla graveyard, as some had claimed, especially since all but twelve of the one hundred and forty-three remains identified turned out to be those of children under twelve years of age, including at least one fetus, found between the pelvic bones of one of the adults.

The cartridges recovered in the sacristy showed that “at least twenty-four people participated in the shooting,” and the distribution of the shells indicated that they fired “from within the house, from the doorway, and probably through a window to the right of the door.” Finally, of the two hundred and forty-five cartridge cases that were studied — all but one from American M16 rifles — “184 had discernible headstamps, identifying the ammunition as having been manufactured for the United States Government at Lake City, Missouri.”

From this evidence and from a wealth of testimony, the Truth Commission would conclude that “more than 500 identified victims perished at El Mozote and in the other villages. Many other victims have not been identified.” To identify them would likely require more exhumations — at other sites in El Mozote, as well as in La Joya and in the other hamlets where the killing took place. But the Truth Commission has finished its report, and, five days after the report was published, the Salvadoran legislature pushed through a blanket amnesty that would bar from prosecution those responsible for El Mozote and other atrocities of the civil war. In view of this, Judge Portillo, after allowing two American anthropologists to work in the hamlet for several weeks with inconclusive results, in effect closed down his investigation. The other victims of El Mozote will continue to lie undisturbed in the soil of Morazán.”

 http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=166407

I haven’t commented on the debate this past week between Obama and Clinton; but it was a little over the top on silly questions. Sorry about the annoying link - I couldn’t get this thing embedded…

 

Well, to borrow a phrase from one of my prof’s, I got to ‘touch the velvet’ last night. That’s right, I heard in person one of my favorite celeb pastors, Rob Bell. Rob is the pastor of the other Mars Hill (for you Seattle-ites and those aware of Mark Driscoll) where you may actually experience a woman teaching you scriptures from the main stage. Rob also is the creative force and ‘host’ of one of the first set of Christian teaching videos who’s production style / quality are not embarrassing, noomas. Eugene Cho has another great and lively discussion about it on his blog that’s not worth my trying to duplicate. You can read more about the discussion between Rob and my friend Rose on women in leadership there. It seemed Rob was on the same page at a theological and ‘ecclesiological’ level as Rose (egalitarian), but there was also some disconnect. Final plug for Rob on this topic: I did value his strong statement that went something like, “In the past we used to say things like, there are two different interpretations of scripture that we have to agree to disagree on. No - now we should say, there are two ways of interpreting scripture here, and one of them is wrong.”

         

The evening with Rob was put on by Off the Map at VCC and included others like Doug Pagitt, Todd Hunter and Sunil Sardar. They were all in town as participants in the Seeds of Compassion conference featuring the Dalai Lama and Bishop Desmond Tutu. You can watch the final panel discussion of the event here. It was good to hear from them about their experiences as I found myself yesterday feeling a little jaded and even frustrated at times. Seattle has been abuzz about the Lama’s visit and really, it should. He is a towering figure in the world as a Nobel peace prize winner and has returned to the main stage with the current conflict in Tibet. But I was trying to hold in tension with the hype, the complex reality of the history of Tibet and the Lama.  I wonder if many recognize the role of the brutal caste system within Tibetan Buddhism and what life in Tibet was like prior to China’s invasion in 1950 under Mao Zedong, and the eventual “Lhasa Uprising” in 1959 that led to the current Dalai Lama fleeing to India. But among those I spoke with who attended the conference yesterday, all were very impressed with the multi-faith panel and participants - to the point of being challenged in whether or not their personal Christian faith understood concepts like compassion, righteous anger, justice, etc. as well as the Buddhists, Muslims and others they heard. As Rob said, Christians should not be afraid to go anywhere. And how refreshing that the voice of good Christian leaders were at the table! Rob expressed how wonderfully he was received; over and over hearing, “You are and evangelical Christian? We’re so glad you are here!” He also said, “People are so compelled by Jesus. They want to know about Jesus.” So, that was very helpful for my cynical-self to hear.

Finally, Rob spoke about 20 minutes on his upcoming book “Jesus Wants to Save Christians“. It’s definitely a McLaren-esque book title. Here’s the description:

“There is a church not too far from us that recently added a $25 million addition to their building.
 
Our local newspaper ran a front-page story not too long ago about a study revealing that one in five people in our city lives in poverty.
 
This is a book about those two numbers.
 
It’s a book about faith and fear,
 
wealth and war,
 
poverty, power, safety, terror,
 
Bibles, bombs, and homeland insecurity,
 
It’s about empty empires and the truth that everybody’s a priest, it’s about oppression, occupation, and what happens when Christians support, animate and participate in the very things Jesus came to set people free from.
 
It’s about what it means to be a part of the church of Jesus in a world where some people fly planes into buildings while others pick up groceries in Hummers.”

He talked about the bible having been written about and by a people living under the brutal thumb of military empires. The story begins in Exodus with God hearing the cry of the oppressed in Egypt - the God who always hears such cries - and bringing freedom and deliverance. And particularly in the Old Testament, we see God’s people getting themselves in trouble when they forget this and become the empire (e.g., Solomon). For those of us living in America today (particularly affluent America), Rob stated we need to understand that as the most powerful country in the history of the world who is around 8% of the world’s population but with almost 43% of its weapons, there may be some things we don’t understand about the biblical story. We need to be careful that we don’t align ourselves with ‘empire’ so much so that we cannot critique it. He is not the first to say this of course, but his popularity among young Christians, especially young evangelicals, may spread this important corrective further than it has gone before.