the impotence of international law, the power of the individual

I thought this article was well written, and I empathize with the frustrations of the author.

Ahmed Shihab-Eldin: Obama’s ‘Hope’less Response to the War on Gaza.

But is it realistic to think that the international community would actually condemn Israel and their blatant breeches of international law?  Perhaps this is cynical, but I don’t think it is possible.  The United States, which many see as the most powerful nation in the world, has been participating in illegal wars (Iraq, for example) for years, completely  unchecked by the international community.  Is it any surprise that Israel, who the US continues to back unconditionally, would follow in US footsteps?

And, need I write of the irony of the situation?  Here, on one hand, the US and Israel condemn international aggression (Hamas, Hezbolah, and of course, Russia’s invasion of Georgia), yet all the while both nations are the worst of perpetrators of international aggressive conflict.

We tout ourselves as an ethical nation.  We’ve agreed to the UN charter and international law.  We’ve agreed to limit our nuclear arms.  All the while we’ve violated our commitments.  We have one of the largest caches of nuclear arms in the world, yet we condemn other nations for trying to create their own.  We condemn international aggression, yet we are perhaps the worst offender.

Granted I in no way support the aggression of Hamas, Hezbolah, or anyone else, I’m just continuing to find the double standard laughable.  I’m convinced that because of corruption, the only solution to these issues is grassroots.

If there is to be international peace, it will not come at the hands of agreements between corrupt governments, it will come from Christian, Muslim, Jew, et al, looking one another in the eyes and acknowledging our common humanity, our common dignity, and our common enemy which is our own desire for gain.  It will be through on-the-ground work by organizations like Christian Peacemaker Teams, that progress will be made.  I wish it could be otherwise, but I don’t think it will be possible.  It has been said that means are ends in the making.  Therefore peace, security, and safety must come through non-violent means or they will too become violent ends.

Prayers for those who are currently suffering.

Blessed art thou Lord God of the Universe, who art the only true judge…May he pour out his mercy on mankind.

young evangelicals: an identity crisis (part 2 – nature)

I fully intend to explore this topic more fully in subsequent posts, but I’m itching to get something out before I explode.  Aaron Pluim was definitely correct in his assertions that we write (or blog) in order to achieve some level of catharsis.  I write to clear my head most of the time.

Allow me to get back to the point: I’ve been thinking about nature ever since I was a child.  I was raised in the beautiful hills of upstate New York’s Finger Lakes region.  I spent hours and hours in the maple wood forest behind my house.  My dad’s hobby/art has always been vegetable gardening.  I grew up, consequently, and incidentally, much closer to nature than many of my counterparts:  a majority of Americans live in cities and suburbs.

The topic of nature has had renewed personal interest with me because of several recent developments in my life.  For starters, I just moved from the southern Appalachians of Northeast Georgia (where I spent four years of college), to an urban setting just outside of Pittsburgh.  I can no longer walk out my door and encounter nature in the form of running water and mountain trails.  I’ve also been reading Annie Dillard and Wendell Berry, who both talk frequently about creation.

In Dillard’s For the Time Being I encountered a certain term for the first time: panentheism. Unlike traditional theism that espouses that God is totally separate from creation, or traditional pantheism that equates God with creation, pan-en-theism appears to be some form of hybrid.   God has created all things, and is in all things, while at the same time preexisting creation and remaining distinct from creation (wow, wrap your head around that…so much for plain talk about religion!).

I don’t really know much about panentheism.  I’ve started discussing the topic with some eastern orthodox believers.  I think, and you’re welcome to correct me, that the eastern and oriental orthodox christian  traditions hold to beliefs comparable to panentheism.  I also think, incidentally, that Wendell Berry holds a comparable stance toward nature.

So what?  Well, think about it, doesn’t the notion that God is part of his creation (which makes sense from a creator/creation, artist/art standpoint in my mind), and that the creation is somehow part of God, have drastic implications on how we treat the natural world?  Wouldn’t we quit poisoning the planet?  Wouldn’t we sorrow for what we’ve done to God’s living, including plants, animals, and his physical creation?  God created the world and called it good.  An artist creates a painting and finds value in it.  In both situations, a part of the creator has merged with the creation.  To trash the creation is to insult and reject a part of the creator.

Perhaps it is the protestant traditionally theistic view of God and Nature that has allowed us to become so divorced from the natural world.  If God created the world and no longer has a vested interest in its vitality, then why wouldn’t we rob creation to shit (which is what we are doing, and whats worse, we’ve come so far we don’t know how to revert–that is pointing the finger at myself here too).

That’s enough for now…

Why we use the phrase “social justice”

After my last post I received an email from someone who I believe was a very well intentioned individual. They expressed some reasons why conservative Christians often have a very negative reaction when people, like myself, throw around phrases such as “social justice” when referring to working with the poor, or in the case of my last post, Christian peacemaking efforts. He suggested that this reaction is often because they have too often heard it used as code for liberal social policies which he believes actually contribute to the problems by looking to the Government as a secular Messiah rather than stressing the teaching of individual responsibility which is actually required to make a long-term difference. To quote him directly, “It seems that what you are really talking about is not social justice–as if the poor somehow deserve to have the effects of their irresponsible decisions ameliorated–but social grace.” Now, before my socially conscious readers react too strongly to this, let me just say that I have no doubt that this person is incredibly well meaning. And he is correct in pointing out that some people are poor because of their own bad choices. He also believes that regardless of the reason why someone is poor, or in a rough situation, a Christian is still called to be compassionate.

What I think he fails to recognize, and I do not think he is alone in this failure, is that those of us who seek social justice are not trying to pardon people who have made bad choices. We simply acknowledge that people do not make bad choices in a vacuum. The young man who has young children, and fails to adequately provide for them, and is accused of objectifying women, is the same young man who was exposed to pornography before he went to kindergarten. The addict who prostitutes herself to get a three dollar hit of crack-cocaine is the same woman whose boyfriend began lacing her cigarettes with crack in order to get her addicted. People make bad choices, but there are also systems of evil in place that encourage these bad choices. Social justice is concerned with exposing these systems that encourage people to make evil choices. To deny personal responsibility is to deny moral reality, but to deny that these systems exist is an equal denial of moral reality.

Injustice in the social realm exists.

• It is an injustice when African-American minors are 48 times more likely to be incarcerated for the same crimes that their white counterparts commit.
• It is an injustice when inmates are forced to manufacture lingerie for companies like Victoria’s Secret for about a dollar an hour.
• It is an injustice when Palestinians are denied their natural rights because of Israeli occupation.
• It is an injustice when the poor of our country have no representation in government because it costs so much to run a political campaign.
• It is an injustice when alcohol and tobacco companies spend disproportionate amounts of money to target youth and minorities in poor communities.
• It is an injustice when our military uses depleted uranium munitions which causes radioactive materials to enter people’s food and water systems.
• It is an injustice when almost 900 Palestinian minors have been killed by Israeli security forces since September of 2000.
• It is an injustice when our nation, one of the key figures in the United Nations and a signer of the U.N. charter, willfully breaks U.N. policy by executing minors, waging preemptive war, and torturing prisoners.
• It is an injustice when U.S. soldiers rape and murder Iraqi women and murder their families and are not held accountable for it.
• It is an injustice when American Christians sit back and do not hold their government to accountability in these areas.
• It is an injustice when Americans are overweight and obese when millions in the world are starving.

If these are not examples of social injustice and oppression then I do not know what are. These are the reasons we use the term “social justice.”

Florida

Florida might be one of the worst states in the union, in my opinion at least, and goodness knows I have plenty of opinions. I’m down here in Orlando visiting my older brother and sister for a couple weeks before I head back to my final semester of college. It has been nice, but it is still Florida. Here are some things that stink about this state:

• It is flat–no hills = ugly
• The grass is as smooth as sandpaper–For a rural New Yorker who grew up in bare feet during the summers, this is just plain unacceptable.
• Fire ants–they are everywhere and they bite everything. Another reason bare feet are right out.
• Florida drivers–As bad as any drivers I have ever seen. They speed like the dickens and don’t use their blinkers. They also honk like there is no tomorrow and try to kill bicyclists whenever they can.
• Don’t even get me started on their voting systems…

Speaking of voting systems…I watched a documentary two nights ago about how corrupt the Diebold company is, a company that supplies many of the voting machines our country uses in major elections. The documentary, entitled “Hacking Democracy” explains how easy it is to manipulate today’s technology in order to alter American votes. Americans espouse one of the things that makes our country great is our free elections and the right every citezen has to cast his/her vote.  Its pretty scary that your vote might not really mean anything.

The bottom line seems to be that human beings are corrupt.  Our founding fathers did understand that when they created checks and balances in the US consititution.  But there is only so far checks and balances can go.  Our current system has decayed into corruption.  Capitalism has destroyed democracy.  There is no part of our system that is above the corruption of Mammon.  As long as there are lobbyists, there will never truly be free elections.

These thoughts seem to be pessimistic or cynical at best.  If my hope was in humanity, these would be thoughts full of despair.  But there is hope, in Jesus Christ and his coming kingdom.  As Christians we await a day when our good king will usher in a kingdom far above our corrupted earthly kingdoms.  A kingdom where the lion and lamb lay down with one another, where there is no hunger, thirsting or the shedding of tears.  No there is a kingdom I could pledge allegiance to.

Musings on Art, Stasis, Determinism and Hope

I’ve been reading Taking it to the Streets by Dr. Corbitt of Eastern University. The book is an inspiring introduction to arts-based community-development, a subject I’ve become recently fascinated in for several reasons. Just by way of background, I grew up as an art lover. I remember early childhood gifts of paint brushes and paint; I remember time passed over homemade easels and rolls of butcher paper. Throughout high-school I took as many art classes as I could. For parts of my Sophomore and Junior years I dreamed of studying at art school in the visual arts. Unfortunately, where I grew up there were no real examples of faith-integrated arts programs, or art-based evangelism. I had a hard time reconciling my love for drawing/painting and my desire to share the gospel to the unreached. I saw the two concepts in a false dichotomy, art or evangelism.

Stasis is stagnation. Stasis is things remaining as they are, unchanged. When something is static, it is cemented, fixed in stone. Stasis, in its essence, is a lack of change. When we see the world around us as static, we perceive the world as incapable of change. Seeing the world as static is a hopeless, cynical and desperate (full of despair) way of looking at life. It is also blatantly anti-Christian and anti-hope. Seeing people, churches and communities as static is seeing them as hopeless. We say it all the time in Aliquippa: the Christian faith is not compatible with hopeless people, hopeless churches, or hopeless communities.

I’ve often expressed to Joel and others that I have hard time believing in determinism of all kinds. In fact, I would go so far as to argue that determinism is evil and wrong. What do I mean by determinism? Determinism is the belief that our actions, lives, feelings, etc. are all somehow determined by something. We live in a society that embraces many forms of determinism. Anthropologists suggest our actions are governed by cultural determinism. Scientists suggest that our thoughts, moods and impulses are governed by biological determinism. Psychologists suggest that our thoughts and actions are governed by chemical determinism. Sociologists believe our reactions are governed by social influences, upbringing and demographics. Reformed theologians suggest our fates are theologically determined (predestination). I am not arguing that these different areas (biological makeup, chemicals, upbringing, etc.) do not have any effect on the way we think and act. What I am suggesting, however, is that when we limit these things to determinism, we are essentially believing in stasis. Determinism inevitably leads to a belief in stasis, a belief that things are determined and fixed. Determinism and stasis stand in direct opposition to hope. When we see the world as static, we see the world as beyond the hope of transformation.

Summer 2007

I did not blog this entire summer. I’m now paying the consequences for it. How do you explain an entire summer without being reductionistic or interminable? Thats the dilemna I am facing at present, and my proposed solution is the following eclectic summary of the summer’s events in Aliquippa. This is certainly not a holistic picture of my summer, but it is an attempt to cover those things most formitive, or at least of initial significance after this summer. In many ways processing the summer’s events.

Now that I am done qualifying…

Responsibility
This summer I was the Assistant Program Coordinator for Aliquippa Impact’s summer day camp program. I was the immediate staff supervisor to six full time staff members and six interns throughout the course of this summer. I was also, at times, responsible for the safety and order of day camp (45+ kids grades 1-6). Without going into detail, this was more responsibility than I have ever had in my life. I’ve never been in a real leadership position before. I liked it, but it was a huge challenge for me. Leadership is taxing. Just the mental burden of having so much responsibility can be a monstrous mental strain. I often found myself mentally asphixiated.

Teaching
Aliquippa Impact exists to help serve at risk youth and their families in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. One of the ways in which A.I. goes about this is by attempting to supplement the local school district with additional educational opportunities. Aliquippa Impact primarily focuses on acedemic areas in which the school district has been unable to pour money into, namely, arts and cultural literacy. This summer I tought the fifth and sixth grade class during the A.I.’s summer day camp program. Again, the thrust of this summer program was cultural literacy. Each week of camp focused on a specific region of the world. My job was to teach about these specific regions, as well as about some of the various countries and cultures located therein. It was a challenge to creativly educate students without turning summer camp into summer school. THere were times that I feel like I succeeded, and there were certainly times which I failed.

Perhaps the week that I will remember the most was the week that we focused on the continent of Africa. Even the most ethnocentric American is aware of some of the complex and tragic issues surrounding the continent of Africa including genocide, HIV/AIDS, malaria, starvation, etc. Even though many of our kids are from less than desirable economic situations, the students in my class really latched on to the idea of suffering in Africa. It was amazing to see our kids filled with compassion, frustration and anger at the world’s problems. They wrote letters to Representative Jason Altmire expressing their concern. They talked about and interacted with complex issues. As a class project we made a video to raise awareness about genocide in Africa. I hope to have it up on YouTube soon, when I do a link will be posted.

Without going to much longer, I thoroughly enjoyed my time as a teacher. I loved researching these issues and teaching them in a way that 10 and 11 year old children could understand them. Making things fun was a huge challenge, but all in all, I think the kids really learned this summer. One thing is for certain. I love teaching and I want to continue when I can. Starting in fall 2008 I’ll be co-directing an after school program with A.I. focusing on Global Education. I’m sure I’ll be posting more on that as research continues.

Center for Leader Multiplication
The CLM is a new non-profit emerging in Aliquippa Pennsylvania. You can read more about it at the CLM website www.leadermultiplication.org. Starting June 1, 2008 I will be working as a CLM associate in Aliquippa, Pennsylvania. Each CLM associate is responsible to plant an organic, self-replicating church in Aliquippa over the course of their tenure with the organization. I will be working in conjunction with Aliquippa Impact starting art-based community programs while working as a church planter with CLM. I’ll be writing about this a lot more as time progresses as well. One of the first things I will be working on is art-based street presence. I’ll be defining that in a subsequent blog.

The Holy Spirit
The most misunderstood, and mentally challenging aspect of Christianity might just be the work of the Holy Spirit. Over the course of my time with Aliquippa Impact I’ve had the great opportunity to dialogue with people about the work of the Holy Spirit. While this is certainly not something I have reached total understanding of, I have become certain of two thing: (1) The Holy Spirit empowers Christians to live everyday and (2) the Holy Spirit manifests in the believer in supernatural and sometimes miraculous ways for the sake of the gospel.

“The age of youth was created for heroic service and not for pleasure.”

This quote hangs in the living room of our staff house on 829 Franklin Avenue, Aliquippa, PA. Although it has been there all summer, it hasn’t always held significant meaning for me. As the summer began, five weeks ago for me, I was excited to be here in Aliquippa doing something familiar. Working with the summer day camp (which currently constitutes Aliquippa Impact, Inc.’s main ministry) last summer was a joy and a challenge. Despite the summer’s vast challenges, on the whole I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was a pleasure to be with the kids most of the time. It was in the anticipation of this joy that I was looking forward to City Camp 07.

Well this summer has been different. I’m working a similar position with a bit more responsibility. Staff has changed, but everyone is totally reliable and competent. There are a lot more kids involved in the program this summer, and that has definitely added to the challenge of day camp.

Challenge. Challenge is probably the best way to describe this summer. Last summer was a challenge for me, but somehow I think if this summer had been just like last summer, it would not have been a challenge for me. It would have been to predictable, to comfortable. Prior to this summer I never knew what it felt like to be tired, exhausted and hopeless. It seems like challenges are at every turn, like there is always something else to remember or to do. It seems like there is never enough time to get everything done, let alone sleep and rest. I’m wiped out most of the time.

But somehow, there is no other place I would rather be. This is the most fulfilling thing I have ever done with my time and life. But, I hate it most of the time. It doesn’t make sense at all, but somehow through this hardship there is joy, peace and contentment. But those things are not feelings. Somehow my feelings are the exact opposite of what we often think of as joy and peace and contentment.

Somehow this is what is meant by heroic service. There is no feeling of pleasure associated with it. Granted, sometimes my feelings do seem to be pleasure when I am working at day camp, but those feelings come and go just as quickly. This summer, most of the time my feelings are quite the opposite of pleasure. But, I know I am still serving, and I know somehow God is still using what I am trying to do. Most of the time God is using me even when I don’t want to be at day camp. Its as if just by being present at day camp God is using me. Some days I feel like all I can do is show up, I don’t have the energy to do anything else.

Is what I am doing heroic service? I don’t think so. I don’t think we are really doing anything spectacular here. But God is working through us, and in spite of us. And I’m more content here than I have ever been even though I am more tired and more miserable some days than I have ever been…

As I browse the Facebook’s of my friends from high school I am reminded of how rare this idea is. Its easy to see that many of the kids who sat with me in class are pursuing pleasure. They may even find it sometimes. But those feelings are so fleeting. Feelings come and go so rapidly that I know there must be more to life than them. Somehow true peace and joy are choices that go beyond our temporal feelings. Somehow heroic service IS what we were made for.

Back in Aliquippa

I’m back in Aliquippa again for summer 2007. Actually, I guess I’ve been here three weeks now. The staff for Aliquippa Impact City Camp 2007 has just finished our second week of training, and I think we are all itching for day camp to start. But we don’t have to wait very long, it all starts Monday.

Since writing my last post, I’ve discovered something new about service. I mentioned that last summer was the first time I was ever involved in service that really required something from me, that required real sacrifice. I was expecting this summer to be similar, that is, I was expecting to be doing the same things this summer as I was last summer. But this summer I know what to expect. I’m familiar with day camp; I’ve been there, done that, so to speak. If I just did the same things I did last summer, worked in the same way, encountered the same challenges, would that still be sacrificial service? It certainly woulnd’t be as sacrificial, or “over-my-head-ministry” as last summer was because I am familiar with it, comfortable with it.

But God has a way of making things uncomfortable for those who wish to serve him. Isn’t that interesting? So this summer I have found myself in a place of discomfort. I’m once again in a place where there are challenges I did not anticipate. I still am doing many of the things I did last summer, but now there are additional challenges that I did not anticipate.

Without going into details about these challenges (I’m still processing them in my own mind), I think that this is part of what it means to

Christians and Government

Today in my History of Theology class a discussion concerning the separation of church and state came up, in the context of an introduction to dominion theology. It was an incredibly interesting discussion, and the subject has been on my mind for most of the day. I found myself disagreeing with my prof and about half the class. Overall I would guess our class was 50/50 on the issue, half thinking that Christians in the government can effect morality via the governing authority, the other half rejecting that notion.

To me, the notion of affecting a nation’s morality via the ruling authorities is a proposterous idea. This “top-down” mentality doesn’t work with morality any better than it does with economics! (The trickle-down theory just doesn’t work practically!) The movements that have had lasting effects on our country’s politics and morality have been bottom-up, grass-roots movements. Look at the temperance movement, the women’s suffrage movement, and the civil rights movement…In each case, it was the little people making the change.

When I pointed out in class that the Jesus and his disciples, and the early church for that matter, were grass-roots, I had a classmate try to tell me that the incarnation was a “top-down” approach. Maybe what he meant by this was that Christ came down to the nothingness of humanity from his place as God, but I don’t think that is what this classmate meant. Christ did make himself nothing, and his example is the PERFECT example of effective change from the bottom up!

Jesus of Nazareth had every opportunity to set himself up as the emperor of the world. The Jews of his day, including many of his followers, were expecting the messiah to come and start an earthly kingdom, a “top-down” kingdom that would change the world. They were looking for political liberation and self-determination. But that is not what Jesus had in mind. Instead he turned the tables, and flipped things upside down. How did he start a movement? With an eclectic group of uneducated peasants from a captive nation! And what was his method for changing the world? Dying. Christ and his gospel are the antithesis of a “top-down” approach.

It was a great day when Constantine made Christianity legal in the Roman Empire. I imagine many Christians were joyful and thankful that they could serve God openly at last. The centuries of persecution were finally over. That peace was a great thing. But, didn’t the church thrive under such persecution? Look at the book of Acts… What about today? Isn’t the church thriving in China and other places hostile to the gospel? Is the church thriving in our present day Constantinian empire (the USA)?

I am not sure that I have fully resolved this next idea in my head, but it seems to make sense to me. The ability for Christians to live and worship freely is a great thing, and not something to be taken for granted. It has not always been this way, and will not, most likely, continue to be this way. But, at the same time, persecution is good for the church. It forces the church to rely on God, it weeds out the nominal, and it is a powerful witness to the world. Maybe tranquility for the church is nice for this world, but maybe it is not beneficial for our spiritual condition. Do not trials develop perseverance, character, and hope?

Apostate churches are not born out of persecution, but are born out of the church growing comfortable. I think there is plenty of evidence for this with the Israelites in the old testament. The entire narrative of the Old Testament seems to be the Israelites sinning and doing evil in the eyes of the Lord, being taken captive (much like persecution), and then repenting and serving God again before the cycle begins again.

So what does this mean practically? I’m not sure… Should we pray for persecution? Maybe… at the very least we need to be careful not to take our comfort and prosperity (read laziness and obesity) for granted. Days of comfort often end abruptly.

When its Hard to be a Pacifist

Its days like today that it is not fun to be a pacifist. I received an email yesterday and this is what it said:

“On Thursday, May 3rd at 10:25 AM a young soldier from Franklin County will be coming home.Ryen was killed serving our country overseas and will be arriving at the Toccoa Airport on Thursday. The college is asking our students who can gather on Big A to support his family and show the community our support for one who was willing to sacrifice his life for his country.”

When push comes to shove, I believe Ryen died for nothing. I believe that Ryen’s life had value, but he was a soldier commanded to fight in an unjust war and the loss of his life for the “defense of this country” is meaningless. But that makes me sound as heartless as a war-hawk…Ryen’s death is a tragedy, as is the loss of all human life. I don’t know why it happened and I wish that it hadn’t. His death was as senseless as those that have died in Darfur, or the shootings earlier this year in Aliquippa. Death, wherever it happens is a tragedy. My honest condolences go out to Ryen’s family. It is the individual lives affected by war that make it so tragic. It is not nations that feel the pain of these losses, but fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers. It is the weak–children, poor, and marginalized–that suffer the most.

There must be a better way to peace.

“Sure as a hammer finds a nail, death is the only way to peace” ~Derek Webb

It is Christians dying for others–socially, emotionally and yes physically– that can bring the world peace. Jesus inaugurated the kingdom through his death, and we are called to follow suite. Only through radically associating, and relating to the hurting can we effect peace in this war torn and restless world.

It is not guaranteed to be successful, but a human history of war has never brought peace: the “war to end all wars” (WW1) led to the “war to make the world safe for democracy” (WW2) which has led to more war, and a world hostile to human life (including democracy!). When will we learn?

“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” ~George Santayana