“The Justice Project”

New book recommendation:  The Justice Project

Edited by Brian McLaren, Elisa Padilla, and Ashley Bunting Seeber, is a eye-opening follow-up to The Emergent Manifesto of Hope.  It continues the theme of approaching a topic, Justice, from an array of voices.  While there were notables such as Tony Jones, Doug Pagitt, Peggy Campolo, and Lynne Hybels, the book mostly consisted of names I’d never heard of, activists working to challenge the status quo from their niches

It was that broad range of experiences that drew me in.  A chapter by Peggy Campolo challenged me with a story of a gay-affirming church here in Arkansas, as well as challenging the typical notion of what “Biblical family values” really are.  Her son Bart explained why campaign finance reform might just be the most important political “Justice” issue out there.  One writer told of her experience in a barely post-Civil Rights black church, which looked up to MLK, Jr. they way we look up to Jesus, and this backed up nicely to stories from South Africa where white anti-Apartheid advocates feared the suspicious, “accidentally” fatal car incidents with cops.  Then a description of Just Conservatism and Just Liberalism.  Samir Selmanovic, author of the newly released It’s Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian has a provocative piece on decolonizing God’s name.

Particular sections where particularly biting.  The entire book was absolutely replete with Scripture.  An early chapter asks if capitalism can be just.  Has there ever been an economic system that paradoxically produced more good while at the same time producing such imbalance of wealth?  A definition of justice is in order, given that we have to decide whether Justice is distributive or redistributive; is Justice starting where we all are and going from there, or is it inherently redistributing and hence imbalanced against those who start off with more.  The West has traditionally ran with the former while the Tanak inarguably aims at the latter.  The question is whether or not a capitalistic system which, while creating a great deal of good, inevitably creates inequality is a redemptive system.  That takes it pretty far, maybe beyond what I am comfortable with, but it does strike me as true that there will be no room for any inequality in God’s economy.

Then cut to a discussion on immigration reform in which a Latino writer recounts a discussion with a friend.  One asks the other if he also carries his ID with him in his sock whenever he leaves the house so much as just to jog.  It’s a world I cannot imagine, where naturalized citizens of the US live in fear of illegal deportation because of the stories they heard about the unlucky neighbor who forgot his drivers license when jogging.  That neighbor is picked up, presumed illegal, detained and/or deported away from his family.  The author barely has to imply the Scriptures that call for lavish welcoming of the squatter immigrants among us.  It challenged me because I know we need serious immigration reform and laws to guide us.  But I also know that Scripture holds up this ideal for sheltering the alien that many of us consider simply too idealistic.  Maybe it is, but it is Just.

Just ecology.  Just land.  Just business.  Justice in the slums.  Justice in the suburbs.  Just parenting.  Just Trade.  Just church-planting.  Justice in religion.  Justice in racial issues. Just elections.  Just family values.  Prophetic Justice.

This is one of those books that has perspectives that anyone but the most hardened ideologue will have their heart melted by.  I’m really encouraged to see the awakening of much of the church to the Biblical primacy of Justice as integral to the Gospel.  The church’s Justice awakening has gained such a tide that there is even now a resistance to it by Christians who feel we should drop such emphasis on Justice and “get back to Jesus.” The Justice Project is one of those books that reminds me why that perspective isn’t much good news at all.  It’s got a perspective to unsettle, teach, encourage, anger, and give hope to anyone.

Links roundup: A/theist pastor Rollins hopes to one day believe in god, Banksy and anarchist art, a bible with all the liberal stuff clipped out, and a god for islam and christianity)

McLaren gets it right on the the question of “Does Islam and Christianity worship the same God?” and tags a quote from that heretic C.S. Lewis.

Peter Rollins writes a brilliantly cryptic piece here on his belief in god, his disbelief in god, and how one day he hopes to believe in god.  Describing his recent interview with Rollins, renowned UK journalist William Crawley, perfectly describing why I love Rollins, writes :

“I was expecting conversation, but what emerged (sorry …) was closer to a visit I might have made to a Sufi wise-man. I would ask a question, like, “Do you believe in God?”, and Peter’s answer would involve saying “Yes and No”, followed by a parable, an illustration, a story, or a cryptic quotation.”

What’s better than a Christianist movement to adopt a liberal for prayer that they may convert to the true god of the Republicans?  How about a revised Bible with all the liberal stuff cut out??

I’m a big fan of graffiti artist Banksy.  He paints his politics from London to the West Bank, always progressive, always disruptive, always hopeful.  HT to Peter Rollins on posting these videos from from a similarly anonymous christian anarchist (who by denying himself credit is defying the temptation to build an empire of religious fame off a good message):

Thoughts on meeting Brian McLaren

(left to right: Me, Brian McLaren, John Hardin, Derek Blaylock)

I had the honor of meeting Brian McLaren last night.  It was a big moment, as Brian has easily the most important writer in my life and spiritual formation.  My faith took a massive turn for the better when I first stumbled across his book A New Kind of Christian nearly three years ago.

Brian is a small, gentle,always-smiling, deeply humble figure.  His humility and stature stands in ironic contrast to his vocation as a massively innovative figurehead of the Emergent Church, impacting millions with his theological and philosophical ruminations.  You cannot hear Brian speak without noting the kindness and humility in every word.  He cannot speak without communicating the Gospel.  It is this kindness and passion that I can’t help but think about when I hear someone criticize him.  If the critic is restless, sarcastic, angry, and loud, and his whole complaint is that Brian McLaren simply does not care about Truth (or Gospel, or Scripture, or he thinks Jesus is a limp-wristed chick), I cannot help but see which has a better grasp on big T “truth.”  Such kindness, gentleness, and self-control testify to orthodoxy.  It was so good to finally meet the guy.

Brian spoke on A Tale of Two Gospels.  I had heard the message via podcasts before, but it was great to see him rehash it live.  It’s one of his shtick keynotes, a description of a faux-gospel of how to believe certain items so that I go to heaven when I die.  McLaren contrasts this with the Gospel as Jesus defined it (“the Kingdom of God is at hand”), and reconstructed the Gospel as being about the saving of the world.  The Gospel is supposed to be good news for the whole world, not just the Christians.

Later, McLaren invited me and my buddies John and Derek back to a friends house for some more conversation.  We tossed around religion and politics.  When someone asked about the implications of emergence theology in an actual church context, I was honored as McLaren asked me to speak on my recent experience in being asked to step down due to theological differences.  I finished with words that I think McLaren had uttered earlier in the day: “if you are seeking the truth, you are going to be called a heretic sooner or later.”

Brian McLaren, as a practical bit, offered the idea that we should test our theology by playing a mental game where we imagine this idea’s political consequences.  If I believe that God selected certain people to go to heaven, was going to do away with the rest in hell, as well as destroy the earth, how would that affect the way I interact with the world?  Would it not be justify massive amounts of planet-destroying greed?  Would it not justify killing 6 million in a holocaust if God is going to do the same later?  If we can ask ourselves about practical implications of our personal and corporate beliefs, we can pick up hints of truth that may turn us away from the destructive epistemological path we would otherwise go down.  Certainly, the Church has not asked itself enough of these questions whenever one interpretation of Scripture seems so repugnant and harmful that it there must be another way of understanding.

We were tossing around the idea that violence is prohibited as a tool for the follower of Christ, a way inaugurated by the teachings and death of the Christ, and McLaren said something I’d never heard before.  McLaren was asked how we deal with the “Every knee will bow, every tongue will confess Jesus is Lord” passage.  McLaren responded that he thinks we are very close to being there already!  I thought he was about to go Tim Lahaye on me and pretend that the Bible says we are all about to get raptured, but he said something brilliant instead.  Brian explained that if you ask almost any non-Christian what they think about Jesus, they already pretty much agree with all the wisdom of Jesus.  We see that verse and automatically place our specific theological grid over it and can only read it as being about afterlife, but that is not what the verse says.  All that is truly said is that Jesus will eventually be affirmed as right after all, by all people.  We are almost there.  Very nearly, all Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, Atheists, ect., already confess Jesus as being right.

We got to talking about hell and exclusivism, and Brian reminded us that Jesus was not a Christian and did not come to start a religion.  As he said this, it reminded me of how many of us Evangelicals will pithily say “Jesus didn’t come to start a religion; he wants a relationship.”  Yet, how many will still emphatically proclaim that all who are not a part of this Christian religion (that Jesus didn’t come to start) will go to hell if they don’t join the religion that Jesus, again, didn’t want to start in the first place.

Derek asked some pointed questions about Final Judgment.  Anyone who reads McLaren will know he does not affirm a “traditional” (though not quite so orthodox as most assume) view of hell.  But many retort that this means Hitler gets off free.  McLaren painted a different view, saying “judgment” should be read as “correcting.”  Imagine, says McLaren, that Hitler is standing for Judgment, and he is confronted with the six million Jews he killed.  And not only those, but also their parents, grandparents, friends; hundreds of thousands would stand to accuse.  If each were to explain their pain to Hitler, he would be destroyed by the pain of realizing what he did.  And here is the beautiful part- what if each Jew hurt by him could see Hitler’s past, the abuse or accusations as a child, the shame at being partly Jewish- those killed by him would actually begin to pity him?  Since most of Hitler’s Germany was Protestant Christian, what if the Jews and Lutherans had to sit down and explain to each other the angst created by the racism and the using of violence to solve problems?  Judgment should not be about getting back at the other; it is about redemption, correction, or it is not of God.

Think about it.

Provocative, innovative, but overall kind guy.  I just wanted to share my reflections on meeting one of the best thinkers in the Church today.