And the crop will be . . . drumroll please . . . rice!
After 2.5 hrs of reviewing all of our survey results and discussing all of the issues, our group voted to grow rice together, probably planning to begin in July. This is a huge step for us, and introduces a whole new host of issues/opportunities/objectives into the project (working with ag extension officers, giving the group information about loan opportunities, discussing marketing strategy, visiting other groups who do similar things, etc).
One interesting thing that come up was that the farmers seemed to act just as the research and observation indicates that they might: as long as the presence of the white man doesn't create too much expectation for free stuff, small scale farmers tend to be risk adverse, and to choose high levels of diversification to protect against risk rather than investing more heavily into a few apparently more profitable options. So while tomatos and mellons have a higher income potential than rice, the farmers unanimously decided against growing them as a group. Several of the members indicated that they will be growing them on their own on a smaller scale, but the risk in terms of both markets and pests and diseases just was too high in their estimation for a group project.
This is a good reminder for anybody concerned with helping the poor anywhere. If people are really taking initiative and ownership over projects, they should and normally will prefer opportunities that are smaller, more sure, and less risky. Some people talk as if farmers need outside help to understand risk, but this seems to me to deny the observable fact that farmers survive year after year by managing risk. All too often development projects focus on the "big opportunities," which give huge promises of "transforming" an individual or a community's life nearly overnight ('with your support we can purchase piece of equipment x that will automatically allow a farmer currently living hand-to-mouth to become affluent in three weeks' and that sort of thing). My gut instinct on these kinds of projects is that either a) the truly poor involve themselves in them because they're confident that they will get the rewards if it succeeds and be spared the risks if they fail because of the presence of the church, or the NGO, or whatever, or that b) these projects primarily attract people who aren't really all that poor. The beauty of small projects that take seriously the idea of keeping farmers from taking unnecessary risks is that they not only succeed more often, but that they attract the type of people who fit in the target group for the project. The big projects with the huge goals more often than not seem to encourage the wealthier members of the community to crowd out the needier in terms of participation.
The Thursday after Easter we begin our third step: kupanga biashara, or "to plan the business." Please pray for wisdom and guidance as we go forward with this, that we would continue to allow the farmers to take the initiative, and that we would be advocates for safer investments in slower, longer lasting changes for them and their families.
Peace,
Michael
Monday, March 29, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Pilot Project Part 8: Slow And Steady
Thanks to everybody who prayed for our meeting yesterday. I think it was a real success.
What was particularly cool was the way that group members got to basically do everything that mattered in the meeting. I sort of coordinated and introduced the agendas, but different members of the marketing team actually presented each poster, explained the results to the rest of the group, and took questions afterwards. We've said this so many times that it's becoming cliche, but again, this really allowed the group members to take ownership of the process, and to feel proud of the work they had done for the group. And at the end, members were able to share insights from the survey, and even debate a little about what they meant, which markets would be best for which crops, etc. None of this would be possible unless we had such a great group of really intelligent and talented farmers.
Another thing that stood out: at various points in preparing this meeting and in sifting through the survey results, many of which were incomplete or less clear or came from fewer traders than would have been the case if it had been professionally done, I thought, 'gosh, why didn't we just do this ourselves? The results might be better, and it could be more thorough.' But what I kept coming back to, and had confirmed yesterday, was the importance of people being given the opportunity to learn and gain new skills and experiences, and the importance of putting the process even above the result in community work. Who cares if they make scads of money if they go home thinking 'we succeeded because Michael and Rebecca were so great?' Is this the great promise that the poor will become Oaks of Righteousness? I think not.
For whatever reason, I was particularly struck by the beauty of Kenyan meetings yesterday, from the flowing KiKikuy language, to the warmth of the mud-walled church where we met yesterday, to the constant sounds of cows and goats outside and of playing, screaming, and occasionally crying children inside. In Kenya, it apparently really does "take a village to raise a child;" I couldn't ever really figure out who the three running around yesterday belonged to, because they were so warmly received and taken care of by every member.
Yesterday, Rebecca came with large posters that showed the results of the market survey. Rebecca designed these posters so that you could look at Tomatoes, for instance, and compare the results in each market for that particular crop (one poster for each crop: tomatoes, melons, green grams, and rice).
Another thing that stood out: at various points in preparing this meeting and in sifting through the survey results, many of which were incomplete or less clear or came from fewer traders than would have been the case if it had been professionally done, I thought, 'gosh, why didn't we just do this ourselves? The results might be better, and it could be more thorough.' But what I kept coming back to, and had confirmed yesterday, was the importance of people being given the opportunity to learn and gain new skills and experiences, and the importance of putting the process even above the result in community work. Who cares if they make scads of money if they go home thinking 'we succeeded because Michael and Rebecca were so great?' Is this the great promise that the poor will become Oaks of Righteousness? I think not.A huge issue in community work is being willing to go at the community's pace. Jesus always met people where they were, even though He was Word made flesh! How much more should we, who have so much to learn from low income communities be willing to set aside our idols of efficiency for the sake of walking together rather than running ahead?
For whatever reason, I was particularly struck by the beauty of Kenyan meetings yesterday, from the flowing KiKikuy language, to the warmth of the mud-walled church where we met yesterday, to the constant sounds of cows and goats outside and of playing, screaming, and occasionally crying children inside. In Kenya, it apparently really does "take a village to raise a child;" I couldn't ever really figure out who the three running around yesterday belonged to, because they were so warmly received and taken care of by every member. Next week we're going to discuss the production components of each crop, which come from a survey that I did with two of the members where we went and talked to some different ag experts about how to produce these crops, what yields we might expect, and what they would cost. Please keep this project in your prayers
Peace,
Michael
P.S.- Of course they haven't decided, but I think it will come down to rice or water melons!
Monday, March 15, 2010
Prayer Request
Hey folks,
We got a big meeting for the Pilot on thursday, where we will try to discuss the results of the survey with the whole group and decide on a crop/crops to begin with for the project. Not only is this a big important meeting, but it will also give us crucial info about the project's time line and give us a good way forward in terms of financing, etc. In short, we need lots of prayer for Thursday! Thanks!
Michael
We got a big meeting for the Pilot on thursday, where we will try to discuss the results of the survey with the whole group and decide on a crop/crops to begin with for the project. Not only is this a big important meeting, but it will also give us crucial info about the project's time line and give us a good way forward in terms of financing, etc. In short, we need lots of prayer for Thursday! Thanks!
Michael
Reflections: Social Justice and the Cause of Christ
Two things happened last week back where most of you live that resonated strongly with what we’re living here. First, Glen Beck equated a Christian concern with social or economic justice with communism and Nazism, told “other Christians” that social justice is a perversion of the gospel, and then told Christians to leave churches that talked about it. This was, as is typical of extremist entertainers with neither sense nor integrity on both sides of the political spectrum from Michael Moore to Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh, accompanied by a series of fear-mongering statements about how your religious beliefs would soon be under attack because of liberal concepts like these.
One commentator I read said that statements like these put Glen Beck right up there with Howard Stern in the “not-for-Christian-consumption-category.” I guess that’s for each of us to decide on our own. But I’ll tell you what, it makes me pretty upset to hear my Jesus, who cited Isaiah 61 in a declaration of the Year of Jubilee as his foundational programmatic statement in Luke 4, spit upon by the likes of Beck. Because let’s be honest, that’s what’s happening here. But since I already put Pat Robertson through the ringer earlier this year, maybe now is a good time to look at the bigger picture: God’s Word is being constantly perverted on every side in our public discourse, at least as often among our “political allies” as among our “political enemies.”
My church home back in Memphis is fairly conservative politically. I’m guessing we’re a majority Republican bunch. We have orthodox views of Scripture and of economics. But I’ll tell you what, we preach social justice. I grew up learning about social justice in the pulpit and in the youth lounge. And even a cursory reading of the Bible proves that Beck isn’t just a little skewed . . . he’s actually striking at the heart of the Biblical narrative. Which is what is so scary. Because here’s a political figure, appealing to you and me as believers from the political perspective that most of us maintain, to say utterly sinful, ridiculous, unbiblical things about our God. Here’s a guy on what is for most of us traditionally “our side” appealing to our religious values in a way that our Biblical churches would decry as horribly unbiblical. How about this: if your church does not talk about social and economic justice, you should change it (not leave it, that’s only more pseudo-Christianity of the worst kind), because your church is blatantly and objectively unbiblical.
So point one: I don’t think all of our political or social commentators have to be believers to be listened to. But we’ve got to hold those who do claim Christ accountable to represent Jesus as He comes to us in the Scriptures. Too many of our so called “conservative” spokespeople are ravaging the gospel in public discourse, hiding all the while behind the guise of “family values.” As if social and economic justice isn’t at the heart of family values.
So the discourse needs to change. But now I’m going to really turn up the heat: so does the political action. This past week, one of my U.S. Senators and the former mayor of Chattanooga, Bob Corker used his position as one of the Senators working on financial regulation to push for looser standards for payday lending companies like Check Into Cash. Let me say that again: Corker is working on a bill to put tougher regulation on lending companies, but now, he’s pushing for a special exemption for payday loan groups. In college, I spent a great deal of time researching this industry and even raising awareness about its evils among local communities. Payday lending makes loans with annual interest rates of around 400% to over 12 million Americans nation wide every year. They open around poor minority communities and military bases en masse, targeting those most likely to be in need of a crisis loan. They are also tremendously powerful lobbyists, and the owner of Check Into Cash, who is a friend of Senator Corker has given money regularly to his campaigns from the mayoral election to the present.
In college and afterwards, my friends and I talked to inner-city pastors and community members in both Memphis and Chattanooga (constituents in other words) who said that payday lending was a major threat to many of their members. I talked to politicians who told me that despite increased regulation at that time, it was still a dangerous industry for the poor. But those folks don’t have the money or political capital to lobby Mr. Corker’s office, I suppose.
Bob Corker was a regular attendee at my home church in Chattanooga. Bob Corker ran on a platform of family values and is well liked. I’m sure we agree on numerous issues, and that he is a brother in Christ who has done much good for the world. But that rhetoric from Beck, that overly-individualized, unbiblical, unChrist-like theology that we might be tempted to write off as over-the-top has gone deeper than we might think. I’m guessing Bob Corker has done what so much of so called Christian America has done: put the Bible and all it says behind the doors of our home and tried to figure out how to live “in the real world” on our own steam. Because here’s a politician elected partially because of his religious values taking a stand against legislation that would objectively help the poor, and claiming the Christ who came “to preach good news to the poor” as his guide and God.
What are religious values? What would Jesus do? I would suggest that many of our politicians, even ones with authentic faith relationships with Christ, have horribly unbiblical answers to this very question. The political debates of our day are using and abusing the person of Jesus, they are making idols after our Lord’s own image to be the false gods for a whole host of various political platforms that often have no relation or even an antithetical relation to the real agenda of our Savior. This week I wrote Senator Corker and told him that as a brother in Christ and a member of his constituency that I would do everything in my power to let other members of his constituency know about this anti-poor legislation and encourage all of them to call in, write in, and vote differently if necessary to get the point across (thus, this blog post).
Because the truth is, if Beck is right, all community development workers, all pastors concerned with helping the poor, every social activist pursuing moral and just society, and every person convicted about the need for both racial and socio-economic reconciliation is out of a job and a calling. But then again, if Beck is right, Yahweh God at Sinai, all of the Biblical Prophets, and Jesus are all out of a job as well. Because our pursuit of social or economic justice is derived from the words and actions of God’s prophets and of God’s own actions in the Old and New Testament and in the life of Jesus Himself. And to close in such as a way to prove that at the end of the day we “social justice” Christians really do believe in the real gospel, how about us? How about me? Have I really let the poor into my life? Have I carried my poor brothers and sisters’ burdens as my own? Are we mourning with those who mourn? Are we crying out with Amos that justice would roll down like waters . . . in our own hearts and lives and actions? There’s a lie out there: that Christ may save my soul, but he doesn’t have much to say about society, justice, peace, and the rest of the things that the Bible’s pages are filled with. To worship a Jesus like that is to worship a Jesus that is an idol, and nowhere to be found in the Christian Scriptures or in the church, a Jesus who saves my soul from hell in the afterlife, and leaves my life in society to be lived however I see fit. Let’s beat that lie and reject that idol. Let’s live the truth of Jubilee, the truth of the gleaning laws, the truth of Jesus. And maybe that might include turning Beck off and writing Bob.
Peace,
Michael Rhodes
See for details on Corker's involvement and the state of the bill currently: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/business/10regulate.html?hp
One commentator I read said that statements like these put Glen Beck right up there with Howard Stern in the “not-for-Christian-consumption-category.” I guess that’s for each of us to decide on our own. But I’ll tell you what, it makes me pretty upset to hear my Jesus, who cited Isaiah 61 in a declaration of the Year of Jubilee as his foundational programmatic statement in Luke 4, spit upon by the likes of Beck. Because let’s be honest, that’s what’s happening here. But since I already put Pat Robertson through the ringer earlier this year, maybe now is a good time to look at the bigger picture: God’s Word is being constantly perverted on every side in our public discourse, at least as often among our “political allies” as among our “political enemies.”
My church home back in Memphis is fairly conservative politically. I’m guessing we’re a majority Republican bunch. We have orthodox views of Scripture and of economics. But I’ll tell you what, we preach social justice. I grew up learning about social justice in the pulpit and in the youth lounge. And even a cursory reading of the Bible proves that Beck isn’t just a little skewed . . . he’s actually striking at the heart of the Biblical narrative. Which is what is so scary. Because here’s a political figure, appealing to you and me as believers from the political perspective that most of us maintain, to say utterly sinful, ridiculous, unbiblical things about our God. Here’s a guy on what is for most of us traditionally “our side” appealing to our religious values in a way that our Biblical churches would decry as horribly unbiblical. How about this: if your church does not talk about social and economic justice, you should change it (not leave it, that’s only more pseudo-Christianity of the worst kind), because your church is blatantly and objectively unbiblical.
So point one: I don’t think all of our political or social commentators have to be believers to be listened to. But we’ve got to hold those who do claim Christ accountable to represent Jesus as He comes to us in the Scriptures. Too many of our so called “conservative” spokespeople are ravaging the gospel in public discourse, hiding all the while behind the guise of “family values.” As if social and economic justice isn’t at the heart of family values.
So the discourse needs to change. But now I’m going to really turn up the heat: so does the political action. This past week, one of my U.S. Senators and the former mayor of Chattanooga, Bob Corker used his position as one of the Senators working on financial regulation to push for looser standards for payday lending companies like Check Into Cash. Let me say that again: Corker is working on a bill to put tougher regulation on lending companies, but now, he’s pushing for a special exemption for payday loan groups. In college, I spent a great deal of time researching this industry and even raising awareness about its evils among local communities. Payday lending makes loans with annual interest rates of around 400% to over 12 million Americans nation wide every year. They open around poor minority communities and military bases en masse, targeting those most likely to be in need of a crisis loan. They are also tremendously powerful lobbyists, and the owner of Check Into Cash, who is a friend of Senator Corker has given money regularly to his campaigns from the mayoral election to the present.
In college and afterwards, my friends and I talked to inner-city pastors and community members in both Memphis and Chattanooga (constituents in other words) who said that payday lending was a major threat to many of their members. I talked to politicians who told me that despite increased regulation at that time, it was still a dangerous industry for the poor. But those folks don’t have the money or political capital to lobby Mr. Corker’s office, I suppose.
Bob Corker was a regular attendee at my home church in Chattanooga. Bob Corker ran on a platform of family values and is well liked. I’m sure we agree on numerous issues, and that he is a brother in Christ who has done much good for the world. But that rhetoric from Beck, that overly-individualized, unbiblical, unChrist-like theology that we might be tempted to write off as over-the-top has gone deeper than we might think. I’m guessing Bob Corker has done what so much of so called Christian America has done: put the Bible and all it says behind the doors of our home and tried to figure out how to live “in the real world” on our own steam. Because here’s a politician elected partially because of his religious values taking a stand against legislation that would objectively help the poor, and claiming the Christ who came “to preach good news to the poor” as his guide and God.
What are religious values? What would Jesus do? I would suggest that many of our politicians, even ones with authentic faith relationships with Christ, have horribly unbiblical answers to this very question. The political debates of our day are using and abusing the person of Jesus, they are making idols after our Lord’s own image to be the false gods for a whole host of various political platforms that often have no relation or even an antithetical relation to the real agenda of our Savior. This week I wrote Senator Corker and told him that as a brother in Christ and a member of his constituency that I would do everything in my power to let other members of his constituency know about this anti-poor legislation and encourage all of them to call in, write in, and vote differently if necessary to get the point across (thus, this blog post).
Because the truth is, if Beck is right, all community development workers, all pastors concerned with helping the poor, every social activist pursuing moral and just society, and every person convicted about the need for both racial and socio-economic reconciliation is out of a job and a calling. But then again, if Beck is right, Yahweh God at Sinai, all of the Biblical Prophets, and Jesus are all out of a job as well. Because our pursuit of social or economic justice is derived from the words and actions of God’s prophets and of God’s own actions in the Old and New Testament and in the life of Jesus Himself. And to close in such as a way to prove that at the end of the day we “social justice” Christians really do believe in the real gospel, how about us? How about me? Have I really let the poor into my life? Have I carried my poor brothers and sisters’ burdens as my own? Are we mourning with those who mourn? Are we crying out with Amos that justice would roll down like waters . . . in our own hearts and lives and actions? There’s a lie out there: that Christ may save my soul, but he doesn’t have much to say about society, justice, peace, and the rest of the things that the Bible’s pages are filled with. To worship a Jesus like that is to worship a Jesus that is an idol, and nowhere to be found in the Christian Scriptures or in the church, a Jesus who saves my soul from hell in the afterlife, and leaves my life in society to be lived however I see fit. Let’s beat that lie and reject that idol. Let’s live the truth of Jubilee, the truth of the gleaning laws, the truth of Jesus. And maybe that might include turning Beck off and writing Bob.
Peace,
Michael Rhodes
See for details on Corker's involvement and the state of the bill currently: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/business/10regulate.html?hp
Monday, March 1, 2010
Pilot Project Progress Part 7: The Survey Begins
That paragraph, quite frankly, is amazing to me. For the past 14 months we have been thinking, praying, discussing, and yes blogging about how our belief that every person is made in God’s image forces us to do what we do in a certain way. We have explained how despite our best efforts, previous attempts to “do for” the farmers (by telling them what to grow and how to grow and sell it, or by providing outside money for production) have caused tremendous problems and given us mixed results. Although we still have numerous farmers that we are working with under our previous model who we are still hoping and praying will succeed, there is no doubt that the “doing for” aspects of those programs have undermined our theology and our results.
But what we are seeing now is a project that has gone slowly and surely because we are walking a road the farmers have chosen and at the pace that they have chosen to walk it. By forcing our farmers to do the survey themselves, we are empowering them to recognize their own gifts and abilities, and giving them an opportunity to learn new skills and ways of thinking through the survey exercise. Moreover, the farmers seem to be taking responsibility for the project at a much higher level than our other groups, which is so vital, because if we are the ones who are responsible for the project’s success, when we leave the implicit message for the group will be ‘oh that worked because of the white folks. Wasn’t that nice.” And that will be the end of it.
One of the market centers the farmers studied was in Nairobi. While the farmers group pitched in to buy lunch for the members of the marketing team in the other centers, we thought that this would be a great opportunity to welcome members of the group into our home. Rebecca donned her apron and became a Kenyan cooking fiend all morning, and by the time the farmers arrived we had heaping hot plates of Kenyan food to share together. We laughed and joked about the latest Nairobi news, and chatted about the rain and how intimidating it is to talk to the traders in the market. And through it all I kept thinking, ‘hey, this is what it’s all about.’ Sharing food together. Swapping stories. Learning new things like how to survey markets and how to cook Kenyan food. In short, learning and walking and growing as equals in a task that goes beyond any individual gain.
One of our frustrations here is that we don’t get that as often as we’d like. Our farmers live far away, and when we’re traveling we are so often in a hurry to get home before dark. But this Pilot has been a constant encouragement, a taste of what it can look like when we really work with each other. Which reminds me of that great spiritual truth spoken by so many that the Gospel never ever preaches independence¸ but rather the interdependence on one another across all racial and socio-economic lines that is part and parcel of being a member of this rag tag body of Christ called the church. Please pray for our farmers and us this next week, as we discuss the results of the survey. Ask God that he would guide us towards success through His wisdom.
Peace,
Michael
P.S.- Don’t miss the post below! We posted twice today.
Reflections: Corporate Sin and Redemption
As anyone who has ever glanced at the “What We’re Reading” bar knows, Rebecca and I have both been challenged and encouraged greatly through the writings of Anglican theologian N.T. Wright. Bishop Wright has recently come under fire for his highly complex and nuanced views on justification by faith, and the role of that phrase in Paul’s writing (none of which will be discussed here). Because his work has been so influential on us (I consider Surprised by Hope one of the most important books I have ever read), I have tried to understand the basic issue under consideration. I recently ran across a Boyce College panel discussion on “N.T. Wright and the Doctrine of Justification.”
During the debate, some of the Boyce panelists accused Wright of diminishing or reducing the doctrine of sin. Coming from the theological tradition that I do, I take this accusation quite seriously. To diminish our sinfulness is to diminish Christ’s work, as far as I’m concerned, and if indeed Wright does this I think he’s in dangerous water. So I began listening very carefully, and was deeply disconcerted by what I heard . . . from the Boyce panelists.
How does Wright diminish sin according to these good traditional folks? He does so by elevating the importance of cosmic sin and our individual sins as existing within this larger framework. “Wright takes the focus off of sin,” says one panelist, “focusing instead on these sort of corporate indiscretions.” Do you see what’s happening here? Wright doesn’t talk about sex, drugs, and rock and roll, which of course are “real sins.” What he talks about about systems of oppression, about injustice, about our participation in a system of violence, and about our disregard for the command to care for the Earth. And, well, if you focus on those indiscretions then of course people won’t hardly know what to repent of now will they?
This is a constant theme in current conservative Christian discussion. In discussing his signing of the Manhattan Declaration which declares the church’s stand against abortion, homosexuality, and stem cell research, Chuck Colson spoke directly to “younger evangelicals” who are concerned about things like “global poverty and the environment:” ““We argue that there is a hierarchy of issues. A lot of the younger evangelicals say they’re all alike. We’re hoping to educate them that these are the three most important issues.” Although Colson doesn’t say whether our role in global poverty or crimes against the environment are mere “indiscretions” or whether they are actually sin, he does clearly see them as being secondary to the “big sins” connected to sexual morality and abortion.
I understand what the Boyce guys are saying. It’s true that emphasizing our corporate responsibility to the world, and the ways that our “society” has done so much evil at home and around the world in and through us may leave people confused about how to respond. It’s easier to hear “Go and sin no more” if you’re sleeping with your girlfriend, maybe, than if you are, say, part of a society that is racist and oppresses the poor. There’s only one problem. Corporate and cosmic sin is at the heart of the Biblical story. When I read these things, about how Colson wants to educate me out of my concern for “global poverty,” I just want to say, “Sorry, Chuck, the Bible speaks more often and more strongly about poverty than it does about homosexuality or abortion.” It’s a numerical fact, as well as an issue of the very heart of the Biblical narrative. I want to say to those Boyce guys, “Sorry, folks. In Genesis 3 it doesn’t say you ate the apple and so you’re going to lust after women and drink too much. No, what it says is cursed is the ground because of you. Work will be difficult and pregnancy will be dangerous.”
The idea that sin is primarily individual is not just unbiblical, it’s an unnecessary either/or. If sin and the curse is indeed often corporate, we maintain the conviction that our individual sins are also a part. We do lust. We do get drunk. We do commit atrocities against the unborn. And we need forgiveness for it. But those sins are part of the cosmic story of a world, a system, a cosmos wrecked by sin and all of its effects. And when you ignore this absolutely Biblical theme, as Colson and the Boyce profs do in the examples above, you begin to act like the big picture sins, like systemic injustice and oppression . . . well, those are mere indiscretions . . . not really that important . . . not the work of the church . . . not part of Jesus’ redemption.
I think these issues explain so much of why our impact on politics and society at large has been such an abysmal failure. When people who have seen the rampant racism and classism that is such an enormous part of everyday American life, when people see Enron and Jim Crowe and banks run into the ground by believers and anti-poor policies voted in by believers, and then hear that Jesus is dealing with sin . . . by making sure you don’t sleep with your girlfriend . . . that is a type of “dealing with sin” that just doesn’t make sense. Or, to put it more strongly, when the world sees our staunch angry defense of the unborn alongside our callous indifference for the single mothers of the world, they see a hypocrisy that is simply unbearable. Maybe if we embraced the cosmic, maybe if we took our stand against the systems of sin and our role in them, the world would be more open to hearing our deeply important contributions to personal sexual ethics as well.
Because, at least in my experience, cosmic and corporate sin is a HUGE PART OF THE STORY! Kenya struggles with sexual ethics, but they also struggle with systemic injustice, and a corporate culture of bribery that keeps our friend Agnes in a constant state of suspense at the hands of “powerful Christians” who are oppressing the poor. The story of South African apartheid was one of individual racists, but it was also a story of greedy international predominately Christian nations that complied with that racism because it was self-serving to do so. Walking around the neighborhood I worked in back in Memphis, I saw rampant sexual misconduct . . . right alongside the systems of sin in which I and my family and my church have participated in that have given that same neighborhood lousy underfunded schools, an economic system that doesn’t work, housing that is undignified, and a legal system that discriminates against the poor and ethnic minorities. You can’t tell the story of what’s wrong without telling the story of corporate sin . . . which implicates us all.
Because corporate sins like injustice, oppression, etc, are at the heart of a Biblical view of sin (if you still disagree, just read the prophets), I think we see several huge losses in our life within the church when we diminish these corporate sins from our corporate repentance and consciousness. First, in total opposition to what the Boyce scholars think, a diminishment of corporate sin actually weakens our confessional life. If sin can be reduced to sex, drugs, and rock and roll, I can avoid that more easily than we sometimes pretend. Oh sure, Jesus talks about the heart, but it’s a whole lot easier to get self-righteous and confident when you rule out our corporate and systemic sinful involvement. But when we know that we are all part of the problem of the world, that my sin and yours make up a vast network of injustice that we can hardly even see, we are driven to our knees, not just in repentance, but in longing cries for Christ’s kingdom. And that, of course, is the second tremendous loss of a belief in corporate sin. If we diminish the role of systemic and corporate sin, we diminish the work of Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Romans, that classic text on justification by faith, declares that the creation is groaning in anticipation for the Sons of God to be revealed! Jesus came to heal the whole thing! And when we forget all the ways we’ve contributed to evil systems, we lose sight of the myriad ways that Christ has healed those sins, the small mustard seeds of systemic change that his kingdom brings, and the ways in which participating with Christ in redeeming these systems of oppression and injustice is a huge part of the gospel!! Take away systemic and corporate sin, and there’s no sense that Christ is calling us to fight for justice and an end to poverty as an explicit part of his kingdom work!
We have said that we want this blog to be a place where you, the community of people who love and support us in our work, can join with us in all that God is teaching us and doing in our lives. More and more every day, I see just how important this concept is: that we are embedded in networks of sin and evil that go far deeper than we realize, and that therefore Christ’s saving work is all the more amazing and beautiful . . . because he is going all the way down to heal the world and the cosmos itself, and calling us to be a part of that work with him. It’s worse than we thought, but Christ is doing far more than we could ever ask or even imagine. And that is truly good news.
Peace,
Michael
During the debate, some of the Boyce panelists accused Wright of diminishing or reducing the doctrine of sin. Coming from the theological tradition that I do, I take this accusation quite seriously. To diminish our sinfulness is to diminish Christ’s work, as far as I’m concerned, and if indeed Wright does this I think he’s in dangerous water. So I began listening very carefully, and was deeply disconcerted by what I heard . . . from the Boyce panelists.
How does Wright diminish sin according to these good traditional folks? He does so by elevating the importance of cosmic sin and our individual sins as existing within this larger framework. “Wright takes the focus off of sin,” says one panelist, “focusing instead on these sort of corporate indiscretions.” Do you see what’s happening here? Wright doesn’t talk about sex, drugs, and rock and roll, which of course are “real sins.” What he talks about about systems of oppression, about injustice, about our participation in a system of violence, and about our disregard for the command to care for the Earth. And, well, if you focus on those indiscretions then of course people won’t hardly know what to repent of now will they?
This is a constant theme in current conservative Christian discussion. In discussing his signing of the Manhattan Declaration which declares the church’s stand against abortion, homosexuality, and stem cell research, Chuck Colson spoke directly to “younger evangelicals” who are concerned about things like “global poverty and the environment:” ““We argue that there is a hierarchy of issues. A lot of the younger evangelicals say they’re all alike. We’re hoping to educate them that these are the three most important issues.” Although Colson doesn’t say whether our role in global poverty or crimes against the environment are mere “indiscretions” or whether they are actually sin, he does clearly see them as being secondary to the “big sins” connected to sexual morality and abortion.
I understand what the Boyce guys are saying. It’s true that emphasizing our corporate responsibility to the world, and the ways that our “society” has done so much evil at home and around the world in and through us may leave people confused about how to respond. It’s easier to hear “Go and sin no more” if you’re sleeping with your girlfriend, maybe, than if you are, say, part of a society that is racist and oppresses the poor. There’s only one problem. Corporate and cosmic sin is at the heart of the Biblical story. When I read these things, about how Colson wants to educate me out of my concern for “global poverty,” I just want to say, “Sorry, Chuck, the Bible speaks more often and more strongly about poverty than it does about homosexuality or abortion.” It’s a numerical fact, as well as an issue of the very heart of the Biblical narrative. I want to say to those Boyce guys, “Sorry, folks. In Genesis 3 it doesn’t say you ate the apple and so you’re going to lust after women and drink too much. No, what it says is cursed is the ground because of you. Work will be difficult and pregnancy will be dangerous.”
The idea that sin is primarily individual is not just unbiblical, it’s an unnecessary either/or. If sin and the curse is indeed often corporate, we maintain the conviction that our individual sins are also a part. We do lust. We do get drunk. We do commit atrocities against the unborn. And we need forgiveness for it. But those sins are part of the cosmic story of a world, a system, a cosmos wrecked by sin and all of its effects. And when you ignore this absolutely Biblical theme, as Colson and the Boyce profs do in the examples above, you begin to act like the big picture sins, like systemic injustice and oppression . . . well, those are mere indiscretions . . . not really that important . . . not the work of the church . . . not part of Jesus’ redemption.
I think these issues explain so much of why our impact on politics and society at large has been such an abysmal failure. When people who have seen the rampant racism and classism that is such an enormous part of everyday American life, when people see Enron and Jim Crowe and banks run into the ground by believers and anti-poor policies voted in by believers, and then hear that Jesus is dealing with sin . . . by making sure you don’t sleep with your girlfriend . . . that is a type of “dealing with sin” that just doesn’t make sense. Or, to put it more strongly, when the world sees our staunch angry defense of the unborn alongside our callous indifference for the single mothers of the world, they see a hypocrisy that is simply unbearable. Maybe if we embraced the cosmic, maybe if we took our stand against the systems of sin and our role in them, the world would be more open to hearing our deeply important contributions to personal sexual ethics as well.
Because, at least in my experience, cosmic and corporate sin is a HUGE PART OF THE STORY! Kenya struggles with sexual ethics, but they also struggle with systemic injustice, and a corporate culture of bribery that keeps our friend Agnes in a constant state of suspense at the hands of “powerful Christians” who are oppressing the poor. The story of South African apartheid was one of individual racists, but it was also a story of greedy international predominately Christian nations that complied with that racism because it was self-serving to do so. Walking around the neighborhood I worked in back in Memphis, I saw rampant sexual misconduct . . . right alongside the systems of sin in which I and my family and my church have participated in that have given that same neighborhood lousy underfunded schools, an economic system that doesn’t work, housing that is undignified, and a legal system that discriminates against the poor and ethnic minorities. You can’t tell the story of what’s wrong without telling the story of corporate sin . . . which implicates us all.
Because corporate sins like injustice, oppression, etc, are at the heart of a Biblical view of sin (if you still disagree, just read the prophets), I think we see several huge losses in our life within the church when we diminish these corporate sins from our corporate repentance and consciousness. First, in total opposition to what the Boyce scholars think, a diminishment of corporate sin actually weakens our confessional life. If sin can be reduced to sex, drugs, and rock and roll, I can avoid that more easily than we sometimes pretend. Oh sure, Jesus talks about the heart, but it’s a whole lot easier to get self-righteous and confident when you rule out our corporate and systemic sinful involvement. But when we know that we are all part of the problem of the world, that my sin and yours make up a vast network of injustice that we can hardly even see, we are driven to our knees, not just in repentance, but in longing cries for Christ’s kingdom. And that, of course, is the second tremendous loss of a belief in corporate sin. If we diminish the role of systemic and corporate sin, we diminish the work of Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Romans, that classic text on justification by faith, declares that the creation is groaning in anticipation for the Sons of God to be revealed! Jesus came to heal the whole thing! And when we forget all the ways we’ve contributed to evil systems, we lose sight of the myriad ways that Christ has healed those sins, the small mustard seeds of systemic change that his kingdom brings, and the ways in which participating with Christ in redeeming these systems of oppression and injustice is a huge part of the gospel!! Take away systemic and corporate sin, and there’s no sense that Christ is calling us to fight for justice and an end to poverty as an explicit part of his kingdom work!
We have said that we want this blog to be a place where you, the community of people who love and support us in our work, can join with us in all that God is teaching us and doing in our lives. More and more every day, I see just how important this concept is: that we are embedded in networks of sin and evil that go far deeper than we realize, and that therefore Christ’s saving work is all the more amazing and beautiful . . . because he is going all the way down to heal the world and the cosmos itself, and calling us to be a part of that work with him. It’s worse than we thought, but Christ is doing far more than we could ever ask or even imagine. And that is truly good news.
Peace,
Michael
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