“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.

Reflections on Doug Pagitt, histories of belief, open theism, and general philosophical snobbiness

I got a chance to see Doug Pagitt, writer and pastor of Solomon’s Porch in Minnesota, present and promo his latest work, A Christianity Worth Believing: Hope-filled, Open-armed, Alive-and-well Faith for the Left Out, Left Behind, and Let Down in us All, this past Sunday, and am finally getting a few seconds to reflect on it all. A number of us from Eikon attended together, and we crammed ourselves into the Starving Artist Cafe for a couple hours of evocative provocation. The night was part presentation of the gospel, part history lesson, part music, part book reading, and entirely provocative throughout.

The first thing you notice about Pagitt is his height. The man is ridiculously tall. I don’t meet many people who have 4 or 5 inches on me. I am easily intimidated by such things. The next thing you notice is that he knows his stuff. Right from the beginning, he weaves together the history of theologies in the Church. He has this way of saying things you already intuitively seem to know (instead of being worthless, vile, destructive hell-bate, infants are actually quite nice) without making too big a deal about the doctrine per se with which he is toying with (original sin in the Augustinian sense). I hope I’m able to narrarate belief and history like that one day; it’s way to easy, in every camp, to just talk about what so-and-so believes and why they are technically wrong (and aside from philosophy snobs like myself, I get the feeling most people don’t care that much). It’s a lot more natural to teach constructively around the items everyone can already agree upon and build from there. Having said that, the theological snob in me was wishing for him to dive into the nuances far deeper.

So he’s pretty controversial. I’m not altogether sure why, but he is (enough so that several of us received the damning “facebook de-friending” for publicizing Pagitt’s event). You really wouldn’t know he is controversial from his presentation. He simply presented the gospel so far as I could tell, albeit without normative Evangelical rhetoric. I think a lot of his controversial nature stems from people doing so little research into 1) his beliefs, 2) their own beliefs, and 3) the history of beliefs in general. Regarding any view espoused by Pagit and Co., it is just so much easier to just believe a blog post or email than engage or listen or even read. Secondly, I’m continually amazed at just how few people realize any belief system has mass numbers of holes and problems in it (and, yes, any includes yours and mine). And lastly, people just don’t know that every single belief has a big history behind it. Beliefs, contraire to vague and vogue dogma, were not just handed down to us from the gods. Building off what I said earlier, a lot of Evangelicals are unaware of the history of the Original Sin doctrine, with its bulk supported by a strong-yet-problematic Augustinian theology, which was in turn built of an archaic Pharisaic strand of Judaic commentary. I’m not saying we are not all sinners; I’m just saying Sin isn’t passed via semen (yes, look it up, that is the belief).

There were a couple items I was hoping to hear about, but which he neglected. I speak of the quasi-panentheistic theo-conceptualization I’ve only heard him allude to (again, I devolve into snobiness, but it’s a fascinating concept with incredible implications for how you understand the Spirit). I was also hoping he would hit on the #1 item I hear him accused of heresy for holding two: and open view of God. I’ve read much of Pagit’s work, and listened to just about every media piece he has distributed, but I have yet to hear anything on this. Which leads me to believe the decriers may not have either, but that’s beside the point. An open view of God is often trumped to being a stupid belief that God can’t know the future. While I’m not at this point an open theist, I know enough to say that anyone spouting anything close to the previous sentence has neglected his homework. In reality, there’s all sorts of Scripture and history, tied in with a complex discussion on the nature of space-time, but I’ll save that for another date.

If you get a chance, go hear this guy. Or download him. Or read him. Stalk him even. Pagitt is on of those guys that the Spirit is using to speak to a whole group of people that don’t sit comfortably with the standard Evangelical stream of thought, that have more questions that answers or that lose interest when you come with too much certainty to the answers we have. Like the subline of his book reads, a Christianity worth believing is all about finding the Hope-filled, Open-armed, Alive-and-well Faith for the Left Out, Left Behind, and Let Down in us All.