On Sept. 4, I'm going to Philadelphia to attend the premiere of The Ordinary Radicals, a documentary directed and produced by Jamie Moffett, co-founder of The Simple Way. The trailer gives a sense of this project.
While I can't speak for the others who were interviewed for this film, I felt my role was to serve as a cheerleader for the ordinary radicals profiled in this documentary. These spiritual souls don't issue manifestos and declarations about their goals to achieve radical shalom throughout the world. But you can find their work etched into the landscape of their communities. There Christ speaks loud and clear.
Check out their Web site for theatrical screening information, updates, and online DVD orders.
In her book, Rising from the Ashes: Rethinking Church, Becky Garrison profiles 33 church leaders who are seeking to reach those for whom church is not in their vocabulary.
The Ladies Professional Golf Association (LPGA) confirmed that players' memberships would be suspended if they don't learn to speak English and pass an oral evaluation.
Yuck.
In reality, many believed it was inevitable because there are so many South Korean women (45) now on the LPGA tour, and truth be told, they're simply kicking some serious butt. On any given tournament, it's not surprising to see half of the leader board peppered with the names of Korean golfers. And while I know that there are 121 foreign players on the LPGA, this was indirectly aimed at the Korean golfers -- as evidenced by the "mandatory" meeting South Korean golfers had to attend recently.
The LPGA is a private association so they have the right to make certain policies, but suspending memberships isn't the answer. It's a double bogey.
The LPGA is an association that prides itself as being the premier women's golf tour in the world -- and rightfully so. This is why it attracts the greatest female golf players in the world. And as long as these international players meet the high LPGA "golfing standards," it doesn't seem right that they also have to pass a language exam.
But, wait -- according to LPGA officials, the international players were hurting the marketability, and thus the bottom-line Benjamins, of the LPGA.
Now, I'm not naïve. I understand this thing called the Benjamins, the mighty dollar, the bottom line, and the economics. So having said that, I fully agree and understand that players ought to learn and attempt to speak a certain level of English and assist in helping "market" the LPGA. But making it mandatory? Suspending their memberships, and thus their livelihoods?
When you make it mandatory, it stinks of the whole "colonialism" junk so many have complained about from Western powers: "Fit in or else."
Let me put it another way. What if the LPGA started a new policy where a weight limit was imposed on female golfers because LPGA officials complained that heavier golfers can't be marketed -- thus hurting the economics of the LPGA. Wouldn't we all raise a stink?
This reminds me of when the National Basketball Association (NBA) came down on some of its players several years ago because they didn't dress a certain way. It was a general policy, but it also seemed to be indirectly aimed at the younger black players.
So, we want you to be a part of the NBA -- we'll use you to market the NBA, we'll use you to elevate the game and competition, we'll use you to sell tickets, but we don't want you to look too black. Wear a suit. Take off the chains. Loosen the cornrows. Easy on the tattoos. Blah blah blah.
The LPGA will require its member golfers to learn and speak English and will suspend their membership if they don't comply.
The new requirement, first reported by Golfweek on its Web site, was communicated to the tour's growing South Korean membership in a mandatory meeting at the Safeway Classic in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 20. Connie Wilson, the LPGA's vice president of communications, confirmed the new policy to ESPN.com.
Players were told by LPGA commissioner Carolyn Bivens that by the end of 2009, all players who have been on the tour for two years must pass an oral evaluation of their English skills or face a membership suspension. A written explanation of the policy was not given to players, according to the report.
Eugene Cho, a second-generation Korean-American, is the founder and lead pastor of Quest Church in Seattle, and the executive director of Q Cafe, an innovative nonprofit neighborhood café and music venue. He and his wife are also launching a grassroots humanitarian organization to fight global poverty. You can stalk him at his blog eugenecho.wordpress.com.
One of the great recent joys of my life has been a thing called "Beer and Bible," which happens every other Tuesday night at a small neighborhood pub in Memphis called, appropriately enough, Kudzu's. Kudzu, our bar's namesake, is the South's most ubiquitous form of plant life. It vines its way over almost everything else in sight, giving a vitality and lushness to landscapes that by this time of year would otherwise be sere and faded in our extreme southern heat. Kudzu's, the pub, is a lot like kudzu the plant. It gives vitality and cool to a lot of landscapes that might otherwise have wilted from the heat or just from life in general.
I had heard of Kudzu's over the years, but because it is in Memphis and Sam and I are not, we had never frequented it. But then last May, a call came. There was a group of regulars at Kudzu's who had been kicking around some God-talk for a while. They'd begun to call the thing "Beer and Bible," though most of them were drinking whiskey or wine, but would I be at all interested in just stopping by one late afternoon during happy hour to let us all talk together about some things that interested them?
You've got to be kidding. Would I be interested? Interested doesn't even begin to touch what I would be and was and, these three months later, still am. We've kicked around everything from hell to salvation, Christianity to Zoroastrianism, the relative validity of experiential truth to that of empirical truth, etc., etc.
There are usually eight or nine of us regulars around the table at Kudzu's on Beer and Bible Tuesdays. Sometimes there are more of us than that, of course, and sometimes we are joined by an in-house "visitor" or two who hear our racket, leave their barstools to eavesdrop, and -- inevitably -- join us. We've had a preacher or two come by to try to figure out what we're up to, and even a trained theologian or two. But by and large, we are just finding our way toward a form of being together that has no pre-existing aims and certainly no set pattern to follow or expectations to fulfill. I can say, however, that in all my years as a professional religionist, I have never heard theology more earnestly or more intelligently talked than it is at Kudzu's.
I spend a lot of my professional time studying and lecturing about 21st century Christianity -- how it got where it is, what in fact it is, where it's going. And one of the things that people are most troubled about as I go around the country speaking is the patent decline in church membership per se as well as in church attendance. It would irreparably offend most of those distressed people if I were to say to them, face-to-face, that the church is not necessarily in churches anymore. In fact, church is increasingly more active and fully present in places other than sacred buildings than it is in them. But I can say so here.
I can say here what I know to be true: Christianity has never been more alive and vigorous than it is right here and right now. And Kudzu's is but one of thousands of vibrant proofs that that is so. The kingdom of God comes in many forms and many places these days, and what I really want to say is, "Thanks be to God!"
Jarrod McKenna's post on the 1968 Olympics witness/protest brought back memories of that event, and the impression it made on me. And there is a sequel to the story.
On October 3, 2006, Peter Norman died from a heart attack. John Carlos had this reaction: "Peter was a piece of my life. When I got the call, it knocked the wind out of me. I was his brother. He was my brother. That's all you have to know." Tommie Smith added, "It took inner power to do what he did, inner soul power. ... He was a man of solid beliefs, that's how I will remember Peter -- he was a humanitarian and a man of his word."
Over the years, the three men had stayed in touch with each other. Though stripped of their medals and criticized by the U.S. media, Carlos and Smith had returned home as heroes to the black community, while Peter Norman faced ostracism and hostility in Australia for his role in the protest.
Smith and Carlos traveled to Melbourne and were pallbearers at Norman's funeral. They also spoke about their friend there:
Smith described Norman as "a man who believed right could never be wrong" and told Norman's family: "Peter Norman's legacy is a rock. Stand on that rock." Smith concluded: "Peter shall always be my friend. The spirit shall prevail."
Carlos spoke of the hatred they knew would be directed at them. "Not every young white individual would have the gumption, the nerve, the backbone, to stand there. ... Go and tell your kids the story of Peter Norman."
The film McKenna notes, Salute, was directed by Norman's nephew Matt. This spring, Australia's Qantas airlines announced that the film will be shown on all flights to Beijing beginning in late July. The same news story also reported that:
Australian Olympic Committee spokesman Mike Tancred said despite an International Olympic Committee rule prohibiting any form of protest at the Games, Australian team guidelines had been redrafted to permit freedom of expression.
"The team will be able to express a point of view on human rights, Tibet and any other issue in media interviews and, for the first time ever, in blogs,'' he said.
A stand for human rights in the spirit of Peter Norman, John Carlos, and Tommie Smith will be needed in this year's Olympics. The Washington Post reported on Saturday:
The Olympic Games have become the occasion for a broad crackdown against dissidents, gadflies and malcontents this summer. Although human rights activists say they have no accurate estimate of how many people have been imprisoned, they believe the figure to be in the thousands. ... The repressive atmosphere has intensified in part because senior Communist Party officials seem to be just as determined to prevent embarrassing protests -- which could be televised -- as they are to avert terrorist attacks during the Olympics.
As you watch the Olympics this August, remember and tell your kids the story of Peter Norman, John Carlos, and Tommie Smith.
Duane Shank is issues and policy advisor at Sojourners.
"God Is Love," inscribed on the tracksuit of the athlete who would become the second-fastest man alive, is what first caught the attention of Australian Olympic official Ray Weinberg in the early '60s. But it wouldn't be until Peter Norman participated in an act of holy mischief for human rights (which became known as the "Black Power Salute" of the '68 Mexico games) that this Australian would so publicly put 1 John 4:8 into practice with his African-American brothers.
Life magazine said it was one of the most influential images of the 20th century. Two African Americans and one white Australian took to the winner's dais and, motivated by their shared faith, all wore Olympic Project for Human Rights buttons while the black Americans raised their fists.
Gold medal-winner Tommie Smith and bronze medal-winner John Carlos approached Peter Norman after the race. They asked if the Australian believed in God, if he believed in human rights, and if he would join their witness. Norman explained to Carlos and Smith that he had been raised in the Salvation Army, where service to Christ was never separated from service to the poor and the hurting, that he understood the importance of their cause, and that he would be honored to join them.
Gold medal-winner Dr. Tommie Smith, in his book Silent Gesture, explains the symbols of their prophetic actions that call back to the faithful creativity and holy mischief of Hosea, Jeremiah, Amos, and Jesus himself in confronting the unredeemed "Powers":
Olympic Project for Human Rights button. "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere," said Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who was assassinated earlier that year. With that sentiment in mind, all three men wore Olympic Project for Human Rights buttons connecting the struggle of African Americans to those everywhere suffering for human rights.
No shoes. What is often missed is that both American athletes took to the podium with no shoes as a prophetic sign of the poverty and suffering of black people.
Black gloves. The gloves were not simply about people power (though certainly not less than that), but also about the cry for freedom to the God who hears and acts on the cries of the oppressed. Be it in Egypt many centuries ago or in China today.
Bowed heads. Smith writes that the bowed heads was a sign of prayer. The kind of dangerous prayer that longs for God's reign of justice, peace, and joy "on earth as it is in heaven."
The actions of all three men cost them dearly. As documented in Matt Norman's brilliant new film, Salute, Tommie Smith and John Carlos were kicked out of the athletes' village, suspended and banned from the Olympics. For the Australian Peter Norman, participating in the organised action cost him his athletic career and he was not chosen for the next Olympics despite being one of the fastest men in the world.
Just as Martin Luther King Jr. gave his life earlier in 1968, so these three men lived out the costly truth of the cross. As Dr. King put it,
There are some who still find the cross a stumbling block, others consider it foolishness, but I am more convinced than ever before that it is the power of God unto social and individual salvation.
As the Olympic Games in China draw closer let us remember the witness of these courageous athletes, what it cost them, and how important it is that we cheer on our athletes. Not simply cheer them on in their sporting events, but also in taking what often are unpopular Christ-like actions that prophetically call for the end of injustice. In doing so they witness to another world being possible. A world that reflects the verse that Peter Norman would wear on his tracksuits, that "God is Love" and that in Jesus this love has started to "flood the earth like the waters cover the seas."
And that is my back door into discussing the recent exploits of Rene Marie, an artist based in Denver, Colorado. (I wanted you to understand my presuppositions and how I define my terms.) Rene Marie was invited by the mayor's office in Denver to sing the "Star-Spangled Banner" at the mayor's State of the City address in June. Her artistic offering turned out to be the words of "Lift Ev'ry Voice and Sing" to the melody of "Star-Spangled Banner" (how's that for a good gut check). Her arrangement is the third movement of a broader, evocative, and elaborate "love song to America." She had debuted the arrangement a month prior, in Denver no less, at the statewide Colorado Prayer Luncheon (for which the mayor was an honorary host), with many of Colorado's political elite in attendance. This second time, however, her contribution was met, days later, with venom and vitriol -- including death threats. Denver's mayor is up in arms and many are seeking to characterize the performance as a cheap publicity stunt. Rene has offered this statement and one interview in response.
Rene Marie was invited to sing precisely because she is a talented artist, and I would wager a guess that no one went out of her/his way to specify that only a specific arrangement be sung. Those who requested her participation just got more than they bargained for. Many have recited the words of the anthem as a poem without music -- and called it the "Star-Spangled Banner." At the Olympics, the music of the anthem is played without words -- and we call it the "Star-Spangled Banner." Marvin Gaye crooned the words of the anthem to an R&B groove at a NBA All-Star game (others from different musical genres have done variations of the same) -- and folks applauded it as the "Star-Spangled Banner." Finally someone has dared to complete the artistic set.
Though some may argue that Rene Marie breached her contract or at the very least showed poor manners, I would suggest that this was, even in the way it was structured by the Denver mayor's office, a "contribution" on Rene's part, not a transaction -- and thus should be understood differently. Rene Marie was solicited to offer her talents as a -- albeit public -- gift. No fee for service exchanged hands. There are no acceptable grounds for consternation concerning gifts given in love. This is the home-training we received every time a birthday rolled around (isn't it?). When we are given a gift, the appropriate response my parents taught me is always, "Thank you." Even if we spent time beforehand coming to terms about what the gift was to be and how it was to be presented (like in our Christmas lists), if we got on a stage and I made a monetary contribution to you, a politician, or charitable organization, it would be considered bad form for you to belittle it afterward on the grounds that it was somehow different than you expected. Why is Rene Marie's contribution any different?
One of the challenges of living in a society that is so fiercely market-driven is that we begin to think of every interaction as a "transaction." And we begin to believe that the appropriate response to interactions that fall short of our expectations is to appeal to the legal reasoning we've set in place to protect our transactions. That is one way of going about it, sure. But I don't see society so much the better for having reduced social interactions (i.e., with spouses, friends, teachers, colleagues -- and yes, even with our political representatives) to economic/legal transactions. Divorce is higher than ever, students certainly aren't learning more just because we now consider school a business, and here we have a mayor acting like a spoiled ingrate, and we don't have the collective good sense to chasten him.
Whatever one may think about what she did, Rene Marie did it in honor of America, not in desecration of her. Intent matters. We can't champion freedom of speech as a national virtue, and then crucify someone for exercising it in honor of our nation -- even if her specific expression of honor may not have been our own. In doing so, we miss the opportunity to see our world in new and living ways and to help shape our world into that beauty.
Those are my thoughts, but I'm open to other respectful points of view. What do you think?
Melvin Bray is a devoted husband, committed father, learner, teacher, writer, storyteller, lover of people, connoisseur of creativity, seeker of justice, purveyor of sustainability, and believer in possibilities. This post is one of a series of essays titled Home-Training.
I've been on a real art binge of late. Reading, watching, listening to, experiencing, and creating as much as I can. Good art isn't just creative, it's generative -- that is, it inspires creative acts in others. It gives us hands to shape the world in new and living ways. And I've been thinking a lot about how much this world we share needs more of it.
Like any other act of love, I believe art is fundamentally contributive, not transactional. It's not an if-you-do-this-I'll-do-that proposition. By my experience, as soon as it becomes transactional, art more often than not simply becomes entertainment. The difference is the bottom line. The bottom line in entertainment is to perpetuate the transaction. At least they're honest about it, those who transact in performance art. They call it "the biz," show business, business being the operative word. I was chatting with an Atlanta-based artist friend of mine, Patdro Harris, who used to choreograph for Stevie Wonder. He mentioned Stevie once noted that the great thing for him was that when he broke on the scene in the '60s, the industry and the public were transacting for the very art that was stirring inside of him. Sadly, that is not often enough the case. More often, people transact for (give back to) that which affirms and leaves them right where they are, good, bad or indifferent. Art -- love -- says, "Even if you don't give back to me, I'm going to give to you, and it's going to be an attempt to seek your best."
As much as I'm extremely protective of people's right to create and contribute, I'm not one of those anything-for-art's-sake and all-things-are-art kinds of guys. For example, perhaps counterintuitively, I don't find a lot with the marketing label "Christian" to be good art. Don't get me wrong (I can hear some readers' blood pressure rising), brand-Christian has great Jesus-and-me-God-is-awesome-way-to-go inspiration and encouragement (which definitely has its place), but not enough ears-to-hear-tongues-to-taste-new-possibilities for my palate. Like this Christian comedy duo I recently saw on national network television. Fun, campy, entertaining, audience-participation act, but rather than subverting the Christian kitsch that has become the popular caricature of the way of Jesus, they seemed to be promoting it as adorably goofy and secretly cool because ultimately (shhhh!) "We're gonna win." Such triumphalism makes me nauseous. And we also can't overlook how often brand-Christian buys into notions that the Christian narrative totally overthrows. Take, for example, the alternative extreme, tragic hero/ine. Why are there so many tragedies of redemption (one dies a spectacular death so others can live) on brand-Christian shelves, but so few stories of resurrection (one succumbs to death and defeat, to be composted into a new iteration of life)? (I bet there are fewer than you think.) Resurrection (the anti-conclusion that manages to subvert every possible anticipated ending -- triumphant, tragic, cleverly ambivalent -- while being a bit of each and then something more, all at once) is the gift of hope-for-all that those who know the Jesus story have. However, many of the compelling tellings of it are currently coming from outside the brand. While we vacillate between Left Behind and The Passion, some have chosen a more/less _______ path (I couldn't think of a fully accurate word that would be worth the offense).
I don't find degradation very artful either. With art being quintessentially generative as far as I'm concerned, that which is degenerate doesn't do it for me. I can abide the grotesque and dark, but once I heard the story of an exhibit that was closed because of a piece debasing a graphic of The Virgin by placing it in a toilet with feces. I wholeheartedly agree with that decision. On the other hand, I was dismayed when the Secret Service shut down Yazmany Arboleda's installations The Assassination of Hillary Clinton and The Assassination of Barack Obama--which though provocatively titled, are purely symbolic portrayals of the media's treatment of these figures.
. Assuming the best until evidence to the contrary surfaces, I think they are brilliant, though undeniably disturbing (á la The New Yorker). Sometimes a good gut punch is the only thing that will blur our vision long enough for us to see.
[to be continued...]
Melvin Bray is a devoted husband, committed father, learner, teacher, writer, storyteller, lover of people, connoisseur of creativity, seeker of justice, purveyor of sustainability, and believer in possibilities. This post is one of a series of essays titled Home-Training.
What's a bit more outlandish is that we wanted to make this unlike any other book tour, so we conceived of and wrote a 90-minute show to highlight the core message in each of our books. And in that show, we each play our fictional great-grandfathers, two-bit revivalists from 1908.
Honestly, we stumbled on 1908 because it's 100 years ago, but then we started doing research and discovered what an incredible year it really was. (On the RV we've been reading the book, America, 1908: The Dawn of Flight, the Race to the Pole, the Invention of the Model T and the Making of a Modern Nation by Jim Rasenberger.) At the dawn of 1908 almost no one had heard of the Wright Brothers; by the end of the year they were household names. The race to the North Pole was on, and an automobile race from New York City to Paris (via the Bering Straight!) had captured the American imagination.
But while most Americans were extremely optimistic about the technological advances of the telephone, the automobile, and the airplane; all was not well. That winter, President Teddy Roosevelt (whom many in the country consider deranged for his fluctuations of temper) sent the U.S. Navy's Great White Fleet around the world, most probably to intimidate Japan. And that spring, New York and Chicago experienced frequent terrorist bombings by anarchist groups.
Over two million children worked in factories and mines. And sixty percent of the wealth in America was controlled by a hyper-wealthy two percent of the population (think Carnegie, Morgan, et al).
Things have changed in America in the last century, to be sure, but I keep thinking about a summer 100 years ago when our nation was sending Olympic atheletes overseas (to London) and preparing for a presidential election between a Republican insider (Secretary of War William Howard Taft) and a midwestern Democrat known for his scintillating oratory (William Jennings Bryan).
And the more I think about it, the more kinship I feel with my great-grandfather (the non-fiction one).
(Spoiler warning--some major plot details are revealed in this article. Stop reading now if you want to see the movie without knowing the outcome. However by the time you've read this article you may not want to see it anyway.)
"Hancock" (the current vehicle for the biggest star in the world, Will Smith) is a superhero story that, on the surface, seems to offer something different to the super-spider-xmen films of the recent past. "Hancock's" protagonist is a drink-sodden flying strongman with amnesia. So far, so not your average underwear-on-the-outside embodiment of truth, justice, etc. Sadly, beneath the surface of this blockbuster beats a hollow heart, that not only adds little or nothing to our vision of what a hero can be, but reinforces the notion that more often than not, popular cinema's vision of heroism begins and ends with whoever can overwhelm the bad guy with the most spectacular force.
The genesis of "Hancock" might have gone something like this:
• Let's do a movie about a superhero who doesn't know where he came from, or why he's here.
• Let's do a movie about a superhero who wakes up regularly drunk and depressed, and causes mayhem every time he tries to save someone, leaving a trail of metallic wreckage throughout the urban landscape.
• Let's make him unique: an unpopular superhero. Let's put him on the receiving end of anger from the public, and in need of some redemption.
• Let's mix things up a bit by making his only friend married to a beautiful woman who feels a little strange around our protagonist.
• Let's make the revelation at the centre of our story be that this superhero is the most truly tragic superhero in movie history. Let's make him a lonely amnesiac who has been suffering an identity crisis for over eighty years; and let's make the beautiful woman his wife of several thousand years, who, like him, does not age because she cannot. She has left him alone because--in a twist that is potentially up there with "The Usual Suspects", "The Crying Game" and "The Sixth Sense"--she is his superhero pair, and they have discovered that even though they love each other, when they are in physical proximity, their powers weaken, and they are vulnerable to attack.
• Let's end the story with both of them nearly dead at the hands of their enemy, and deciding to part in order to save each other.
• If all goes according to plan, it will be that rare thing: a mainstream Hollywood movie that manages to be both entertaining and artful, dramatic and intelligent; honest on its own terms.
And, to a degree, the film succeeds--it's entertaining, a bit of a laugh, and there are some plot elements that haven't been done to death in a hundred other movies of its type. There's also an attempt at presenting the central character as a caricature of US foreign policy, or a ridiculously over-the-top satirical version of President Bush. But this potentially interesting idea is buried beneath the indecision of the rest of the movie.
The potential pathos of a superhero whose actions have real consequences, for himself and the world, sadly, is set aside in favor of a tone of schoolboyish humor, including the most absurd and grotesque bodily function joke I've ever seen, and climaxes with an act of violence that would not be out of place in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre." It's a pity the completed film squanders its own possibilities, with its treatment of the questions of power and responsibility, and most especially, the notion of how so-called "heroes" and other public figures are often scape-goated by the rest of us. Will Smith is a talented and often enjoyable screen presence; his director Peter Berg has some genuine cinematic flair (and made one of the best sports movies of recent years in "Friday Night Lights"); Jason Bateman is a natural comic and Charlize Theron deserved her Oscar a few years ago; but cinema, produced by industrialists, by way of focus groups, will always reduce to the lowest common denominator. Though I still think a mass audience could have coped just fine with "Hancock" being something other than "Superman III" meets "American Pie."
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com.
Low is a band that defies easy characterization. Over their 15 years as lauded pioneers of the minimalist brand of indie rock they're so closely identified with (they're not crazy about the oft-applied term "slow-core"), the husband-and-wife team of guitarist Alan Sparhawk and drummer Mimi Parker -- plus a revolving roster of bassists -- has seemed to thrive on juxtaposition. At once reflective of their faith and steeped in the violence of the human condition, Low's music is anchored by the couple's haunting vocal harmonies.
Dutch filmmaker David Kleijwegt's fascinating new documentary about the band, You May Need a Murderer, chronicles their life at home in Duluth, Minnesota, as well as on the road, touring for Low's latest record, Drums and Guns (Sub Pop, 2007). The film opens with Sparhawk dressed for church, reading the words, "Repent, for the great day of the Lord has come." He says to the camera, "The coldness of man to one another is such that, even in modernized, enlightened times, we still find justifications for going to war and killing each other." In the same breath, he says, "No matter what terrible things we do to each other as brothers and sisters, I think we still have a loving God, a parent giving us every opportunity to resolve that."
Drums and Guns covers decidedly darker terrain than most of Low's previous work, concentrating mostly on various types of warfare. Alternately preachy ("Our bodies break/ And the blood just spills and spills/ But here we sit, debating math," Parker and Sparhawk plead on "Breaker") and contemplative ("Where would you go/ If the gun fell in your hands?" asks "Sandinista"), Drums continues to move away from the group's quiet beginnings, enhancing the harsher sonic edge they began experimenting with on Things We Lost in the Fire (Kranky, 2001) and built on with The Great Destroyer (Sub Pop, 2005).
Murderer makes clear that Sparhawk, particularly, has wrestled with identity. "Where's the place of music, in its godly nature, when the lights are flashing and people are drunk and screaming?" he asks of playing in bars and clubs. "I don't know. Jesus went to the temple, but he also spent a lot of time on the edge of town." Its narrative, though, is rooted in the remarkable balancing act he and Parker, who both grew up in the same rural county -- "the poorest in Minnesota," Sparhawk points out -- are able to navigate raising two children and taking a rock band across the world. (One scene depicts the family in their living room, improvising the song "Sharp-Tooth Dinosaur.")
Parker tells a story about members of their church approaching the two after a Low show, asking them about the meaning of their titular song, "You May Need a Murderer," with its lyrics, "One more thing I'll ask you, Lord/ You may need a murderer/ Someone to do your dirty work." Sparhawk clarified, "It's about a moment when a person comes before God, asking to be a tool of God's hand, but as that tool, to be vengeful." Emphasizing the song's theme of extremism, Sparhawk says, "Nobody's listening to God anymore. And the people who say they are are liars."
Whether that answer, or the couple's vocational choice for that matter, satisfied their fellow congregants doesn't seem to concern Sparhawk too greatly. "I don't think the point of church is to gather all the good people, or the perfect people," he says in Murderer. "It's to gather those that are struggling and have the same hope."
John Potter, a former Sojourners intern, is on staff at Bread for the World. He writes about music and movies at On Tape.
Comedian George Carlin died this week. While his humor could often be profane, there was one of his standard pieces that I loved the first time I heard it and have ever since. It was titled "Baseball and Football," and hilariously summarized the difference between the two sports. For a lifelong baseball fan, it confirmed my passion. The piece ended with:
In football the object is for the quarterback, also known as the field general, to be on target with his aerial assault, riddling the defense by hitting his receivers with deadly accuracy in spite of the blitz, even if he has to use shotgun. With short bullet passes and long bombs, he marches his troops into enemy territory, balancing this aerial assault with a sustained ground attack that punches holes in the forward wall of the enemy's defensive line.
In baseball the object is to go home! And to be safe! - I hope I'll be safe at home!
Father's Day was especially poignant this year with the shocking weekend news of the death of Tim Russert, the long-time and extraordinary host of Meet The Press. I knew Tim a little, mostly from the times I have been on the show or at Washington events that we both attended. Watching Meet The Press is a Sunday ritual for me; one of the very few things on television that I always tape. Tim Russert's unexpected passing broke the heart of official Washington and the outpouring of emotional remembrances was highly unusual for this cynical city. Listening to so many of the heartfelt tributes to Tim Russert made it painfully clear how much the people in this city and around the country knew him well and loved him dearly. The outpouring of praise from his colleagues spoke of Russert's brilliance as the best--always tough but fair--interviewer on television. They spoke of his consistent and daunting preparation before each show, and how much the leading politicians of our time knew they had to really be prepared for an interview with Tim Russert.
We often hear the words, "speaking truth to power," but in watching Tim Russert each week you got a ringside seat to that "prophetic" vocation. And unlike so many of the television talk show hosts of this era, his show was never mostly about him, but rather about holding politicians' feet to the fire of accountability to their own words and positions, and giving the American people the opportunity to evaluate what they say and what it really means. Russert's work ethic came right from his working class roots in Buffalo, which he never forgot, and helped make him much more likeable and accessible to ordinary people in America than the media elite who often act as if they are celebrities, not journalists who are supposed to ask the hard questions of important people. His producer reported that, after every Sunday show, Tim would call his dad back in Buffalo, "Big Russ," a retired sanitation worker, to get his opinion of that week's Meet The Press which, Russert said, was the cheapest and best focus group a journalist ever had.
Tim Russert was also a man of deep personal faith, a Catholic whose religion meant much more to him, again, than it often does for many of his media colleagues. He regularly had faith leaders as guests on Meet the Press and treated the subject of relgion and public life with both knowledge and respect. I remember one show that I was on, along with Jerry Falwell, Al Sharpton, and Richard Land. Russert kept probing deeper and deeper, often with good insight, trying to avoid the religious food fight that often breaks out in politics. We sometimes discussed how the perspective of faith could help get us beyond the narrow confines of the "right" and "left" political categories and maybe even help the nation to find some common ground on the crucial moral issues like poverty. Russert himself was known for generous involvement in many causes that served the poor.
Many of the tributes went even deeper than the numerous accolades for his many gifts and skills. Tim Russert was not only the premier political journalist in America, as everyone agreed, but was also a real "father figure" to many people, from the whole family at NBC News to the extended community of journalists in this city--even to many of his rivals. And so many of Russert's colleagues and friends spoke of his interest in their children, and how much he meant in the lives of their own families. Story after story recounted how often he would inquire after how someone's children were doing, and how Tim was often "there for you" in times of personal and family crisis. I recall him asking me about my kids, and us smiling when we realized that we both had sons named "Luke."
Tim Russert and I were about the same age when he died so unexpectedly last weekend, a fact that was not lost on my own son Luke. On Father's Day, it was his role as a faithful father to his own son and very attentive "godfather" to so many other people's sons and daughters which most broke through to me. Later on this Father's Day, our Little League baseball team, the Astros, had its last game of the season and a celebration pool party. One of the greatest blessings of my life has been to coach my nine-year-old Luke's team for the last several years, and now also help with five-year-old Jack's as well. Before we passed out the medals to each kid and talked about our season together, I remembered Tim Russert with a few words on Father's Day for the boys and their parents by saying that the premier American journalist of our time would have thought this--kids, baseball, parents, family, community, and celebration--to be the most important thing of all. And in being faithful to that priority himself, in the midst of an enormously busy and significant public life, Tim Russert is a role model for every dad and mom; every uncle, aunt, godparent, teacher, and coach; and every adult who realizes how much kids need people to love and teach them the important things of life. Thanks Tim, we won't forget you.
Some days the material writes itself. As reported by The Washington Post, Mary Stevenson’s son claims that as his mother penned the infamous poem, “Footprints in the Sand,” he seeks any royalties earned from said literary work.
For those of you who tend to walk away from Christian kitsch, “Footprints in the Sand” describes that moment when two sets of footprints morph into one as Jesus goes from walking beside you to carrying you when you are too weak to carry yourself. Inspirational to many, insipid to others, the poem has been plastered on plaques, postcards, posters, prayer cards, and pretty much anything else that can produce a biblical buck.
As a writer, I sympathize with anyone who has found their work used without their consent for commercial purposes. But in this case, it seems to me that the son is playing footsie with the facts. Raise your hand if you’ve heard different preachers take the same folksy story and then repeat it with only slight variations, without giving proper credit. Such stories become woven into the oral fabric of American Christianity to the point where no one really knows where and when they first heard this theological tidbit. Also, skim the sermons delivered across the country on any given Sunday by priests and ministers who use a common lectionary, and you’ll find very similar themes emerging. Such is the nature of the collective consciousness when guided by the Holy Spirit.
Yes, there are genuine copyright infringement cases, but in this case, I think this dude appears to have stuck his foot in his mouth. Given a claim by Brooklyn journalist and literary sleuth Rachel Aviv that she can trace elements of "Footprints" to a sermon delivered in 1880, one does question whether or not Mary Stevenson’s poetic footprints are indeed the earliest fossil record on file. Furthermore, I have to question why her son tiptoed around the issue of copyright given this item was allegedly penned during the Great Depression. While I can't speak for Mary Stevenson, it seems to me that if she had intended to commercialize her work, she or her estate would have secured the necessary copyright a long time ago.
To date, at least a dozen people claim that they received the divine spark that set their pen afire to create these words of wisdom, including one Margaret Fishback Powers, a Canadian poet and "itinerant evangelist" whose marketing efforts appear to have legs. To her credit, she claims to direct what little profits she has made toward her youth ministry programs.
So here’s a modest proposal. How about the parties who claim to have penned this prose promise that any profits garnered from the sale of said Footprints be given to, say, the AIDS Walk, where people actually walk the walk?
I don’t want to assume that readers automatically know who Steven Curtis Chapman is, but if you’ve been surfing the Web recently, it’s very likely you may have seen the name. Chapman is one of the most visible and influential figures of the Christian music genre. As of 2007, he has sold more than 10 million albums, has nine gold and platinum albums, and won five Grammy awards.
Chapman and his wife, Mary Beth, have six children – three biological and three adopted young girls from China. On Wednesday, May 21, the Chapman family received the worst of news. In what was meant to be a celebratory week for the Chapman family, their youngest daughter – 5-year-old Maria Sue Chapman – was killed in a tragic car accident.
“Just hours before, this close-knit family was celebrating the engagement of the oldest daughter, Emily Chapman, and [was] just hours away from a graduation party marking Caleb Chapman’s completion of high school. Now, they are preparing to bury a child who blew out five candles on a birthday cake less than 10 days ago ..." said Jim Houser, Chapman's manager.
As a parent of three myself, my heart absolutely aches and mourns for Steven and Mary Beth and their entire family. What makes this story more gut-wrenching was that their daughter was accidentally struck and killed in their driveway by an SUV driven by their younger teenage son. Tragic.
I’ve been surprised at how Maria Sue’s death has impacted so many. I figured a handful of Christian news sources would cover the story, but it’s been very widespread and still remains one of the top items on search engines. The last time I checked, 18,301 well wishes, blessings, condolences, and prayers were left on a tribute blog titled, “In Memory of Maria.” Perhaps it speaks to the many ways Chapman has ministered to so many people through his music. Or perhaps it speaks to how Steven and Mary Beth have demonstrated the beauty of the gospel through their lives – not just through his music but their advocacy for adoption through Shaohannah's Hope, “a charity organization which offers grants to qualifying families to help defray the cost of adopting, at home and abroad,” along with numerous other expressions of justice and compassion.
No parent ever wants to be in the news because of a tragedy, but nevertheless, it is good that so many have been drawn to the Chapman family story and the loss of their child. While we lift them in prayer and celebrate Maria’s life and the hope that is found in the gospel of Christ, let’s not stop there.
Be mindful of the millions -- especially children -- whose lives are as precious in the eyes of God. As a result of Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar and an idiotic military junta government, at least 80,000 have perished with about 56,000 still missing. About 2 to 3 million people are homeless. Relief groups estimate that at least one-third of the perished are children. Do not forget them.
Be mindful of millions impacted by the earthquake in Sichuan, China, where, as of this morning, these were the “statistics:" 67,183 confirmed dead, 361,722 injured, 20,790 missing, and approximately 5 million people homeless. About 5,000 children have been orphaned. Do not forget them.
According to UNICEF, 27,000 to 30,000 children die each day due to the complexities of global poverty. It is true that last year UNICEF reported worldwide child deaths at a record low: 9.7 million per year. For the first time in modern history, the number of children dying before age 5 fell below 10 million per year. But that’s still 9.7 million children.
Let that sink in … deep. And do not forget them.
I grieve, mourn, and hope with the Chapman family. I’ve found myself randomly crying for their family -- even while I am convicted of the great hope of the gospel of Christ. But it’s also my hope that the outpouring of care and compassion for the loss of their child also compels each of us to be more HUMAN. By this, I am simply suggesting that we live as God intended -- to care not only for ourselves [our kind, our nations, our families, and our children] but for the many -- locally and globally -- that need the compassion and kindness of fellow humans.
Let’s not just be in love with the idea of compassion and justice. Let’s do our part to change the world.
Eugene Cho, a second generation Korean-American, is the founder and lead pastor of Quest Church in Seattle, Washington, and the executive director of Q Cafe, an innovative nonprofit neighborhood café in the city with only a handful of cafés. You can stalk him at his blog at: eugenecho.wordpress.com.
It's a slim, illustrated book, less than a hundred pages, and it presents the title character with the same mixture of affection and mockery with which Ned has been portrayed in the series for nearly two decades. What is interesting, however, is that the credited author is Matt Groening, the series creator, and the publisher is HarperCollins, a division of Fox. Together, this puts an imprimatur on the basically favorable view of believers that The Simpsons' irreverent writers have been running away from for years. That is, Ned Flanders is an exemplar of good-natured and (literally) muscular Christianity.
The "Simpsons" writers have managed to navigate the tricky space between animation and caricature in portraying Ned's Christian faith. He has a dual, almost contradictory appeal. College-age evangelicals see many of their own well-intentioned foibles in him. And some secular viewers outside the Sun Belt suburbs and the heartland -- who may have yet to meet an evangelical in the flesh and may even be hostile to the rise of religious conservatives -- find him to be an accessible and even sympathetic exemplar of American evangelicalism.
But telling you that was just an excuse to plug an article I did for Sojourners magazine waaaay back in 2001, titled "Don't Have a Sacred Cow, Man," in which I compare and contrast Ned Flanders and Rev. Lovejoy as representatives of incarnational vs. institutionalized Christianity. (Update to my tagline at the end of that article: My complete Simpsons archive is still up to date, but I've made the switch from VHS to digital. And though he's gotten a little grayer, my dad still kind of looks like Ned.)
Ryan Rodrick Beiler is the Web editor for Sojourners.
On Christmas Day a few years ago in Dallas, Texas, Socheata Poeuv's parents called a family meeting to tell her that her sisters weren't really her sisters, and her brother was not her full brother. After 25 years of attempting to live a "normal American life," her parents revealed a shocking family secret that would draw them all back to Cambodia, the home they fled and struggled to forget during the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. As she packs for her trip back to Cambodia, Socheata turns to the camera and confides, "I knew more about the Holocaust than the Khmer Rouge. I knew even less about my own family."
Socheata Poeuv documents the unfurling of her family mystery in a beautiful, strong film called New Year Baby. After arriving in Cambodia, Socheata narrates the film through a series of interviews with her parents, relatives, and even the former Khmer Rouge leader who supervised the labor camp where her parents were forced to work. In one exchange that filled me with both dread and loathing, Socheata asks the former KR district manager, now a poor farmer, if the thousands of dead weigh upon him. Chillingly, he explains, "No. They do not come to conscience," and "I have forgotten so much." Shocked, Socheata presses him for more but the only thing he has left to say is, "I am sorry for the mismanagement of my district." He shifts on the dirt floor as his wife fries some fish for Socheata's mournful, exhausted Pa.
Ma and Pa Poeuv emerge as heroes by the end of the film. Ma's compassion for orphaned children and Pa's courage as he leads his family through minefields, gunfire, and across borders are stories that Socheata calls "remarkable, but common." When you watch the film, you'll find yourself marveling at how simple, ordinary people can be fiercely courageous, unconditionally loving, and self-sacrificial -- and you'll wonder about your own capacity to "go and do likewise."
For Socheata, what had started as a "glorified home video" turned into a 90-minute film, which in turn led to a significant human rights effort to document and archive testimony of what it was like to live under a regime some call "the most controlling government in history." Socheata's latest project is Khmer Legacies, a nonprofit whose goal is to videotape testimonies of thousands of Cambodian survivors by having children interview their parents. Socheata knows firsthand the importance of storytelling through the generations: After New Year Baby was screened at a film festival in Dallas, Texas, Socheata brought her parents and entire extended family up to the stage. Upon seeing the 300+ audience give Ma and Pa Poeuv a standing ovation and wait in line to shake their hands, Socheata recalls, "It really was that experience of having the audience affirm their story that transformed their relationship to their past. More than anything, they had never been honored like that before in their whole life. These are broken-English immigrant people who are invisible in our society." Socheata's film and new nonprofit shed some light and heart on the Cambodian genocide and the importance of "Never Again."
Anna Almendrala is the marketing and circulation assistant for Sojourners. To learn more about Khmer Legacies, visit their Web site: www.khmerlegacies.org
My fingers have been tapping out of control for more than a month and a half now. Don't worry, though -- I am not falling to the symptoms of my own PTSD just yet. At the completion of the Winter Soldier event, all Iraq Veterans Against the War members in attendance received a copy of the movie soundtrack compiled by Body of War subject Tomas Young, a partially paralyzed veteran of the Iraq war. It is a two-disc eclectic ensemble of major artists such as Talib Kweli, Bruce Springsteen, Michael Franti, Tom Waits, Neil Young, Serj Tankian, and Tom Morello.
I nearly threw it away but instead hesitantly shoved the CD into my computer on the plane home. To my surprise, many of the lyrics are still stuck in my head, from Brendan James' therapeutic "Hero's Song" ("in the water, in the sand ... is the blood of an ancient people in whose holy war I stand") to System of a Down's fast-paced "B.Y.O.B." ("why don't princes fight the war, why do they always send the poor?").
If you are able to handle the recurrent explicit language, other notable tracks -- especially for evangelicals -- include Immortal Technique's scathing rebuke of religious bigotry in "The 4th Branch" ("The voice of racism preaching the gospel is devilish"), and Bright Eyes' inquisitive "When the President Talks to God" ("I wonder which one plays the better cop"). However, each of the 30 tracks has proven prophetic in its own right.
The deal was made even better when we were told that proceeds from sales do not line the pockets of music industry execs, but that 100% goes straight back to Iraq Veterans Against the War. Eddie Vedder worked directly with Tomas to secure artists' contributions for this inspiring soundtrack, and he convinced Sire Records to distribute it at-cost. He also provided his own forceful track, "No More," with Ben Harper (though Harper includes his own track, "Black Rain," about the lack of resources for New Orleans), and Pearl Jam contributed their live track "Masters of War."
Body of War is playing now in theaters throughout the country. The film follows Tomas from his enlistment in the Army through his deployment and subsequent activism to end the war through Iraq Veterans Against the War. Eddie Vedder teamed up with Ellen Spiro and Phil Donahue, whose show on MSNBC was cancelled due to his outspoken opposition to the Bush administration's decision to unilaterally initiate a war of aggression (as defined by Article 5.1, Rome Statute, of the International Criminal Court), to produce the hard-hitting documentary of one veteran's struggle post-Iraq.
Visit the Body of War Web site to find a screening near you and get your copy of the soundtrack. You can find Body of War: Songs That Inspired an Iraq Veteran on iTunes or maybe in the CD or MP3 player of a local veteran or service member.
Logan Laituri is a six-year Army veteran with combatant service in Iraq during OIF II and experience with Christian Peacemaker Teams in Israel and the West Bank. He is an active member of Iraq Veterans Against the War and has co-founded a faith-based veterans assistance initiative called Centurion's Purse, which seeks to provide financial and spiritual relief to fellow service members in need. He blogs at courageouscoward.blogspot.com.
If you thought socially conscious music in the mainstream was a thing of the past, turn your ears to what Australia is listening to. A song about justice and reconciliation in Australia was the highest new entry in the charts two weeks ago - starting out at #2 on the Australian charts and #2 after Madonna on the digital track charts - and remains in the top 50. As The New York Times reported:
A song about racial reconciliation with the Aboriginal minority has become the fourth-biggest-selling recording in Australia, even though it is available only as a download from the Web.
The song "From Little Things Big Things Grow," written more than 20 years ago by Australian artists Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly, tells the story of Australian nonviolence hero Vincent Lingiari. Under the name "GetUp Mob," they have collaborated with other Australian musicians, such as Missy Higgins and John Butler, to sing of this historic moment in Australian history. And (to my knowledge) they have launched the musical career of Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd by sampling his historic apology speech:
As prime minister, I am sorry. On behalf of the government, I am sorry.
Both Kev Carmody and Paul Kelly's music is richly submerged in themes of justice and in biblical poetry, from Paul Kelly's song "The Lion and the Lamb," to Kev Carmody's "Comrade Jesus Christ." In "From Little Things Big Things Grow," you can hear the mustard seed of racial reconciliation and dignity spreading. As Ambrose, one of the kids in my neighbourhood, said about the song, "It's boss!"
It seems along with little Ambrose, Australian listeners are agreeing.
Jarrod McKenna is seeking to live God's love. He's a co-founder of the Peace Tree Community, serving with the marginalised in one of the poorest areas in his city, and is the founder and creative director of Empowering Peacemakers (EPYC), for which he has received an Australian peace award in his work for peace and (eco)justice.
I've been traveling lately, and in various hotels and friend's guest rooms, have seen more TV than usual. This sojourn away from my usual ignorance of broadcast television has provided the following dubious delights:
• Fox's "Moment of Truth" game show, which really does turn real life into a game, and has apparently bribed at least one marriage into oblivion through paying for public confessions of adultery. (I expect the show's producers might try to tell us that the show teaches something else about personal responsibility, or that's all in good fun, or that the contestants are there by their own informed volition; or we may even discover that the show has been lying to us and faking it. But here's the real moment of truth: when the host says, "some of these questions are way over my line," and yet still asks them, has he himself not become the definition of insanity?)
• CNN rampantly advertising Larry King's exclusive interview with Jesse Ventura as if his non-campaign for the presidency was almost as important as Jessica Simpson's non-engagement and non-pregnancy.
• Various entertainment clip shows dedicated to matters such as Robin Williams' divorce, and the Tom Cruise birthday party video.
• And in the past week, major news networks hysterically talking as if the sad events surrounding a Texas polygamous sect are just waiting to happen to your children; and the ridiculous and over-the-top response to Senator Obama's attempt at explaining an utterly uncontroversial reality: that being economically disenfranchised can make you feel entrenched. This is amusingly accompanied by the absurd suggestion that there has ever been a U.S. President who did not somehow arrive in the White House linked to the economic 'elite'.
Most of us would like to believe that we have come a long way since the Roman circus – where human beings killed people for our entertainment - or even the Victorian circus - where we only abused the disabled and disadvantaged. Today's circus may look like it only mocks the powerful – with the fabulously wealthy being humiliated as they emerge drunk and bloodied from a nightclub, or photographed while getting an embarrassing haircut. But I think we're kidding ourselves if we think people are not harmed by the pornography of social humiliation offered up 24/7. Amy Winehouse's visible bruises and alleged substance abuse problem, and Britney Spears' obvious mental illness are not legitimate fodder for our entertainment, no matter how economically powerful these two women may be.
In Billy Wilder's amazing old film about the potential corruption of making the flow of information subject to commercial dictates, Ace in the Hole, the venal journalist played by Kirk Douglas says, "Bad news sells because good news is no news." But this is only believed to be true because the public appears to like it that way. Inasmuch as all violent political conflict has something to do with economics or economic power, so does all commercial broadcasting. The economics reside in the willingness of an audience – us – to consistently consume crap for every meal.
Tim Robbins' at times remarkable speech to the National Association of Broadcasters earlier this week invited the broadcast media to take their responsibility seriously – to recognize that they have immense power which could be used to inspire compassion and mutual respect. This stands in obvious contrast to the current addiction to seeing rare acts of violence as something just waiting to pounce on every one of us, or sex only as something tawdry and available for the laughter or prurience of others, or the transformation of absolutely vital conversation about the future of the nation and the world into something that is itself socially violent – and intellectually dishonest. The fact that Robbins uses brash humor to make his point, and that his other well-known political views are considered divisive by some, is irrelevant to whether or not his speech resonates: what he says is vital to anyone who cares about truth-telling in public life.
Science fiction author Philip K. Dick once predicted that the future would consist of each human being selling the same hamburger back and forth to each other. E-bay may have proven him more correct than even he would have feared, but the nutritional quality of what is served up by much of our entertainment and news media is not unworthy of the comparison to fast food. I could go on a rant here, and engage in the kind of generalised denunciations that would only make me look like a cynic, or boring, or both.
Instead, I'll say this: I love art and creative media. Television, the movies, the written and spoken journalistic word are capable of producing great beauty. And the best response to corruption is so often to make something beautiful in its place. However, when people's adulterous affairs are being played out, not only for our entertainment, but in a context where the moral failure is being rewarded with a cash prize, I have to wonder if we should not be organizing a campaign to switch off until the networks treat us – and themselves – with some respect.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com. He is also one of the judges of this year's Beliefnet Film Awards, which seek to recognise the best films with spiritual themes. Find out more at http://www.beliefnet.com/bfa/
In church one day, my pastor asked us to raise our hands if we believed in what the Bible said. The right answer seemed pretty obvious, and the whole congregation and I raised our hands. Then he asked us to raise our hand if we had read the Bible in its entirety. Touché, Pastor Sean. Touché.
In his latest book, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, A.J. Jacobs lives as a biblical fundamentalist so you don't have to. Jacobs describes himself as "Jewish in the way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant" and seeks advice from rabbis, pastors, church members, historians, and textbooks on his quest to live the "ultimate Biblical life." The book chronicles his attempt to conform to the myriad rules found in the Bible (Don't wear mixed fibers! Be fruitful and multiply! Stone adulterers! Forgive!), and the results are often pretty funny. Yes, Jacobs sets out to lampoon Biblical fundamentalists, but by the end of his experiment he finds himself changed - he reveres life more, he is a better father, and he has more respect for people of faith. I picked up this book for laughs, but was surprised when I ended up quite touched by it. A.J. Jacobs writes with the tone of a friend, and when I finished the book I felt I had found a fellow believer (he now calls himself a "reverent agnostic") walking by my side.
By day 264, you warm up to Christian literalists as embodied by Dr. Tony Campolo and the Red Letter Christians. How did your year-long experiment affect your perception of Christian "fundamentalists", especially in contrast to how they are portrayed in mainstream media?
It changed it drastically. Like many Americans, I used to have an embarrassingly simplistic view of evangelical Christianity. I thought it was this monolithic movement where everyone walked in lock step with Pat Robertson. I figured almost all evangelical Christians were focused on the issues of homosexuality and abortion. I hadn't heard of the Red Letter Christians and their focus on poverty and the environment. I missed the complexity of evangelical Christianity, as does much of the media. It's sort of the equivalent of saying, 'Oh, James Taylor and Kid Rock are both rock musicians, so they're pretty much the same.'
You call your book a "(gentle) attack" on fundamentalism, as you set out to show how absurd and impossible it is to live a literally Biblical lifestyle without dropping out of general society. Is there anything that especially surprised or delighted you about following the rules? How about anything that really scared you?
So much surprised and delighted me. I fell in love with the Sabbath. I enjoyed the ban on gossiping (not that I was totally successful; I live in New York and I work in the media, so gossip is about as omnipresent as air). And here's an odd one: I liked following the second commandment literally: No making images. I took this to the limit. No turning on the TV, no watching DVDs, no photos, no doodles. And it turned out to be really helpful. I think our culture is too much in love with images. Everything is image-driven, and we're forgetting how to read. And there's something sacred about reading.
What scared me? I guess how easy it is to become self-righteous. I had to fight it every day.
On day 14, you crib a line from "Chariots of Fire" about feeling God's pleasure as you tithe to charities. Have you managed to maintain any of the Biblical practices from your experiment so that you can continue feeling "the warm ember that starts at the back of [your] neck?"
I do still try to do good works. I don't do as much as I should. And I don't tithe as strictly as I should - I'm down from 10 percent to maybe seven or eight percent. But I try. Because my Bible year taught me something that I wish I had known for the first 38 years of my life.
If you want to be happy, you should pursue OTHER people's happiness. You should do good things for others. It's a paradox, but it works. Being unselfish leads to selfish fulfillment.
Who would OT God vote for? Who would NT Jesus endorse?
Wasn't it a wise man named Jim Wallis who said that God was not a Republican or Democrat?
I do remember that part of the Old Testament where God is choosing whom to anoint as the next king of Israel. And a man named Jesse parades all his sons before the prophet Samuel. And Samuel sees the tallest son, Eliab and figured he will be the new leader.
"But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."
Which is good news for Dennis Kucinich. Too bad he dropped out.
But it does remind us: Look beyond the superficial.
You've given a lot of interviews for this book, most of which are on the web somewhere. Tell me something about you that I can't google.
I'll tell you all the answers to my four-year-old son's favorite questions. My favorite color is green. My favorite animal is a zebra. My favorite candy is caramel. And my favorite Dora character is probably Boots the Monkey. You won't find that on the Internet!
Anna Almendrala is the marketing and circulation assistant for Sojourners. For more information on the book, click here.
Charlton Heston died this weekend at age 84, following Roy Scheider and Richard Widmark as the latest in a series of powerful cinematic actors to pass away -- although Heston was probably best known to a younger generation as the old guy who walked out of a Michael Moore interview in Bowling for Columbine. His was an ambivalent life – living through 14 presidencies (and personally befriending several of the most recent occupants of the office), supporting civil rights when it was unfashionable, switching his political allegiances, and latterly becoming identified with right-wing causes. Not often a subtle actor (although you could do worse than watch his performance in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil as a tribute), he represented a particular kind of vanishing screen presence who, like John Wayne, represented a vision of American greatness that depended far too much on the suggestion of invulnerability.
So, now that he is gone, what do you say about Charlton Heston? Something simple: He shouldn't be judged on the basis of one interview, given after a diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease to a door-stopping filmmaker known for his pranks.
He should be judged on his contribution to the movies -- doing gravitas better than anyone else, standing as our image of Moses, Ben-Hur, various military captains, the head of the CIA, and ultimately a particular kind of god figure. I never saw a Heston performance that didn't entertain me on some level.
And, in the interests of full disclosure, he should also be judged on his political activity. The simplistic analysis of the relationship between personal freedom and gun ownership offered by the National Rifle Association, which Heston did so much to bolster, seems outrageous to my Northern Irish ears. In his speeches to and on behalf of the NRA, Heston also sometimes seemed to lack empathy for the victims of gun crime, in his attempts to promote his contentious understanding of the U.S. Constitution.
At the same time, he was an early supporter of the civil rights movement, and even picketed a screening of one of his own films because it was being screened in a racially segregated cinema. He also made several films, such as Soylent Green, The Omega Man, and Planet of the Apes, that endorsed environmental and anti-nuclear causes at a time when it wasn't as easy to engage the public mind in these matters.
When iconic film actors die, something strange happens to our cultural consciousness -- for the movies have captured so many of us like no other medium. The very fact that the projected image on a cinema screen is bigger than life makes people like Heston seem both larger than the rest of us, and somehow less human at the same time.
Heston was a man who appeared to try to live with integrity, and while many of his later political positions are troubling to me, looking back on an ambivalent life like his should not inspire judgmentalism at the expense of the recognition that my own life is subject to the very same competing poles -- between private interest and the common good. And finally, if the stories we tell each other shape our attitudes, values, and beliefs about the world, then perhaps we might respectfully recognise that an era of American cinematic myth-making dominated by the notion of never admitting the possibility of error or flaw seems to be being replaced by something more nuanced, and perhaps more capable of leading us into a real promised land: one where we are honest about our weaknesses as well as our strengths.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com. He is also one of the judges of this year's Beliefnet Film Awards, which seek to recognise the best films with spiritual themes. Find out more at http://www.beliefnet.com/bfa/
Following is an excerpt from an interview with Bob Abernethy that will appear in a forthcoming issue ofThe Wittenburg Door.
GARRISON: When you reflect over your years of doing Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, how would you assess the role of religion in America?
ABERENETHY: I think one of other things that is going to be more and more interesting and important is figuring out how the three major Abrahamic religions can live together peacefully and respectfully. Efforts to figure out how Christianity and Islam can coexist in respectful ways will be a good long running story. I hope to do some things on that. Also, I would hope that after a generation of declining numbers and aging membership that the Protestant mainline would pick itself up and develop a little confidence in its tradition. I'd like to see them get on with the business of being a church and helping everybody around it.
ABERNETHY: What Bill Boyle and I have done is take the transcripts of those interviews that were done originally for Religion and Ethics & Newsweekly, but were used only in the smallest part in the program or on our website. We edited 60-some interviews into little essays. They run the gamut from the spiritual but not religious over to the most traditional and conservative faith traditions. As with the program, there's no preaching just these wonderful ideas that are there for the taking
GARRISON: How does your own faith influence the overall ethos of the program and the book?
ABERNETHY: First of all, it supported my interest in the subject. Also, it helped make all of us who do these interviews more sensitive to the spiritual experience of others and respectful of that experience. Maybe people sensed that and therefore, they felt free to speak really beautifully about the things that mattered to them.
GARRISON: How can one practice their faith while remaining an objective journalist when covering controversial religious stories?
ABERNETHY: I've been around a while and I grew up in the business thinking there should be a clear separation between news reporting and editorializing. When you're editorializing, you should label it as such. I think that's sometimes not honored as strictly as it should be. My advice would be if you're going to editorialize, don't be shy about identifying it as such.
GARRISON: Any thoughts about the rise of a progressive left that seems poised to do battle with the Religious Right?
ABERNETHY: All religion whether it's left, right or center has to be very, very wary of getting too close to power. People have been burned by that for centuries. It's a big, big danger. I think some people on the Religious Right have discovered this in their own case. And I would hope if any other religious group is trying to have political influence that they would be very careful about that. The spate of books about atheism has probably been encouraged by their authors' feeling that the religious right was too powerful and having too much of an influence in politics.
GARRISON: As we approach the 2008 election, we see both Republican and Democratic presidential candidates playing the faith card.
ABERNETHY: I think it's fair to ask candidates for president of the United States questions about their deepest beliefs. Seems to me that in understanding what a candidate is like, it's important to understand where they're coming from, what they think are bedrock truths, what they care the most about. And if they're religious folks, that's something the voters should know about. If they have deep religious convictions, presumably those convictions have an influence on how they live their lives and the decisions they make.
Publishers Weekly cited Becky Garrison as one of "four evangelicals with fresh views" alongside Jim Wallis, Shane Claiborne and Ron Sider.
When I interviewed Phyllis Tickle for Rising from the Ashes: Rethinking Church, she reflected on the seismic changes she sees occurring in contemporary Christianity. "Evangelicalism has lost much of its credibility and much of its spiritual energy as of late, in much the same way that mainline Protestantism has." Lest anyone find this news so depressing they want to run for cover, Phyllis offers some much needed historical and hopeful perspective. "About every 500 years, the church feels compelled to have a giant rummage sale." During the last such upheaval, the Great Reformation of 500 years ago, Protestantism took over hegemony. But Roman Catholicism did not die. It just had to drop back and reconfigure. Each time a rummage sale has happened, in other words, whatever held pride of place simply gets broken apart into smaller pieces, and then it picks itself up and to use Diana Butler Bass's term, "re-tradition.
As I ride along the religious superhighway, I find I need some new tools to help me navigate this process. For starters, Andrew Jones' blog provides excellent ongoing reflections of the changing Christian landscape from a global perspective, as Proost UK offers worship resources that help refuel me and recharge my batteries. Recently, I caught wind of Tickle's radical yet totally orthodox retelling of the gospel. In The Words of Jesus: A Gospel of the Sayings of Our Lord with Reflections Tickle categorizes the sayings of Jesus into five categories: Public Teachings, Private Instructions, Healing Dialogues, Intimate Conversations, and the Post-Resurrection Encounters.
"Psychologists have demonstrated many times over that what we say is tailored to and informed by the audience to whom we say it. In a sense, in other words, while each of us may be an integer, we have various configurations or arrangements of our "self" that we modify, exchange, and employ according to our perception of those whom we are at any given moment engaging. Jesus of Nazareth, being fully human, followed that same pattern, though once again I had never perceived or even entertained such a possibility until I began listening to Him shift emphases, adapt rhetoric, and fashion varying modes of analogy to fit those with whom He was speaking."
Thanks to Lacey's latest and, unfortunately, last book, The Liberator (a revolutionary retelling of the New Testament), the Inspired by the Bible Experience: New Testament audio CD (nothing says "Oh my God" like Samuel L. Jackson channeling the voice of the Almighty), and Tickle's commentary, I've been immersed in scripture from some rather unique vantage points. Over the past year, instead of trying to memorize scripture and verse, I'm allowing these sweet holy words to fall on my ears and into my mouth. It's like I'm falling in love all over again with this radical love-making, rule-breaking, life-taking Christ.
When I got an invite to attend a screening of the documentary, Purple State of Mind, I went in expecting to see a blue state v. red state dialogue/debate with some quest to find political common ground.
Wrong.
Instead, I was treated to an honest and humorous dialogue between Craig Detweiler and John Marks, two former college roommates. The year 1984 wasn't only the name of a famous Orwellian book, but this year also signified Craig's first year in the faith, John's last. After this fateful year, the two men went on their separate faith paths. The film picks upon their conversation some 25 years later.
At first I struggled with the depiction of Christianity portrayed by these dudes. As a budding writer, I was far too geeky to be an Uber-high-school-athlete-turned-Christian-missionary like Craig. Nor did I have that Barbie-beautiful-Christian lifestyle that John eventually left behind. Simply put, my dogs ate my Barbies. My childhood was more Felliniesque than fairytale. Even though I was a pre-natal Episcopalian (my late father was a priest so do the ecclesiology and the science and it sort of makes sense), my relationship with the institutional church remains akin to an outsider lurking around the crevices. Except for a brief period in my mid-twenties when I experimented with a variety of religious experiences - including an adult Campus Crusade for Christ bible study, Cursillo, and the Young Republicans - my spiritual life has been anything but certain.
But as the documentary progressed, I began to see how these men's stories paralleled many of my own struggles. I too often wondered where God was in the midst of global conflicts and my own personal pain. Also, I've encountered more than my fair share of faith fakers. So I understand why someone would just give up on the God game. But I have encountered enough spiritual buds in my life that convince me to keep walking forward on this admittedly crooked spiritual path.
While neither Craig nor John compromise their beliefs, these former college buddies are able to maintain a conversation of the heart. Despite their glaring differences on matters of faith, their friendship enables them to move beyond the white noise of the Dawkins vs. Dobson extremists debates and explore where they have common ground in their shared humanity.
Unfortunately, such genuine dialogues are few and far between. Martin Marty, a church historian at the University of Chicago Divinity School, offers some sage counsel as he explores why we're in such an ideological quagmire these days:
"Fundamentalism is an expected reaction to the anomie that comes with social disorganization. When the social institutions become shaky, and uncertainty about the future becomes widespread, people look to religion to provide absolutes and a sense of security in the midst of their changing world."
Looks like both New Atheists and their Christian counterparts are grabbing onto their belief systems like Linus Van Pelt hanging onto his security blanket for dear life. With all that's going on in the world, I get the need to hold onto something safe. But who ever said the Christian journey was safe and comfy? Ever since the late, great Mike Yaconelli edited my first article, "Beavis and Butthead Are Saved," and got me started on this whole weird world of serving God through my writing, "safe" is never a word I've used to describe my faith journey. Scary, sweet, strange, sacrilegious, spiritual - yes. But safe? No way, no how. Never.
On Jan. 22, 2008, I headed down to Joe's Pub in New York City to celebrate the launch of Quaker singer-songwriter Carrie Newcomer's CD The Geography of Light. Newcomer's lyrics, grounded in her faith formed by a Midwestern sensibility, reminded me of The Power of Song, a documentary that I saw at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival. When I reflected on that film on the God's Politics blog, I asked if, in today's cynical world, we could enact positive social change through artistic self-expression - or if this notion is simply a relic of a bygone era.
While Newcomer's lyrics echo songs penned by folk legends such as Seeger, she explores the themes of justice, forgiveness, and redemption from a 21st century lens. Instead of hitting one over the head with a social justice jackhammer, Newcomer gently carries the listener on a hopeful journey where the spiritual can often be found unexpectedly in the seemingly mundane.
For example, in "Geodes," Newcomer uses these mysterious brown Indiana rock formations to remind us how: "All these things that we call familiar are just miracles clothed in the commonplace. You'll see it if you try in the next stranger's eyes. God walks around in muddy boots, sometimes rags and that's the truth, you can't always tell, but sometimes you just know."
Newcomer's songs reminds me of the Lenten offerings I downloaded from Proost, a UK-based collective of diverse artists, as well as some music I've been listening to from Potter Street Records. All these musicians seem to be tapping into this global change I've noted in other blog postings.
Speaking of globalization, in one of her more whimsical numbers, "Don't Push Send," Newcomer jokes about living in an 24/7 wireless world: "A dangerous form of information and the perils of instant gratification, How many times did I hit my Mac, want to crawl inside and take the whole thing back." Earlier this week, when I attended the Museum of Modern Art's press preview for "Design and the Elastic Mind," I was reminded once again how technology can enable us to be in touch instantaneously without having to actually touch the other.
During her set, Newcomer posed several questions to the audience that resonated with my own questions about what it means to be a church community in the 21st century. In today's transient and wireless society, where does the spirit of community move through the world? Rather than turn to an institution or an individual as the change makers, she aptly notes, "we are the people we've been waiting for," adding that "some things happen in community, some things happens individually."Along those lines, when I was interviewed by Simple Way co-founder Jamie Moffett for the upcoming documentary The Ordinary Radicals, I replied that if you want to see change, look in the mirror and around your community.
So perhaps like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, we've been searching for change when it's been right in our backyards all along.
As I wrote here last week, this year's Oscars, which take place on Sunday night, seem to have caught a cultural mood in cinema that's worthy of reflection – films that take ethical themes seriously are all jockeying for position, with the highest quality slate of Best Picture nominees in years. To my mind, the Academy Awards only matter inasmuch as they provide a snapshot of a cultural moment, and that they sometimes help decent but overlooked films reach a wider audience. And it is, of course, a valuable and often beautiful thing when artists recognize the achievements of other artists – in spite of the superficial glamour and absurd over-statement that often accompanies the ceremony.
So, in the spirit of gentle reminder that there are some pretty wonderful films out there, here are my predictions for what might happen on Sunday. (All made, of course, in the knowledge that false prophets put themselves at great risk – I trust readers will treat me with compassion for the categories where I am proven wrong!)
The Iraq war film No End in Sight is likely to take the documentary award, proving that at least some pop culture mavens have not forgotten that moral disaster. Julie Christie will probably win Best Actress for her work as an Alzheimer's sufferer in the tender Away from Her, although Marion Cotillard more than deserves the award for showing - with near preternatural incarnation - the irony of Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose, a woman known for singing about having no regrets, but who in reality suffered torments of almost biblical proportions.
While any one of the Best Picture nominees is worthy, (Juno's delicate and witty story of unplanned pregnancy - a likely Best Original Screenplay winner; Michael Clayton's puncturing of the myth of the moral neutrality of big business economics; Atonement's suggestion that it's title is impossible; There Will Be Blood's raging portrayal of greed), the Academy is likely to reward the Coen Brothers for career achievement by giving the statuette to No Country for Old Men – a film that has divided commenters on this blog between those who see it as a cry for a change of direction in a violent world, or simply a bleak vision that suggests human nature is irredeemable. However I still consider it to be one of the most humane cinematic treatments of violence I've ever seen. It also has the potential to provoke a serious discussion about just how to end the cycle of dog-eat-dog without resorting to the same methods. The fact that this discussion has been largely ignored, having been acclaimed by most critics merely on its entertainment merits, may be something that the Coen Brothers – who will share the Best Director award - themselves consider an ironic postscript. Their film, which is so profoundly aware of the damage that violence does, has been praised for the 'beauty' of its violence, and the only performance in it that will be recognized is Javier Bardem's chilling portrayal of a psychopath when he wins Best Supporting Actor. (Although even the brilliant Bardem agrees that Hal Holbrook should be winning for his performance in Into the Wild, his exceptionally tender essay of a sage Christian who has been too committed to self-discipline to actually allow his life to breathe reminded me of the deep value of respecting your elders. The Academy should take note and give him the award.)
Daniel Day-Lewis will win Best Actor for There Will Be Blood, Paul Thomas Anderson's discordantly compelling near-opera of early 20th century greed; in which one man's lust for oil and another's pseudo-religious mania are shown to be two sides of a coin: the love of money as the root of all evil. There are of course echoes of our contemporary ways of expressing power, but this film is not an allegory – it's just a magnificently told story about how selfishness is at the heart of all sin; and Day-Lewis happens to be the strongest physical performer in movies today.
Meanwhile, rat-lovers and gourmands everywhere will go home happy when Ratatouille takes the Best Animated Film trophy – and while I know everybody praises this film til the sauce boils over, it really is that rare thing – a kids' film that works better for adults; and does more than bring a wry smile of delight to its audience. It actually reminds us that life could be better, and that sometimes it just takes a change of perspective to get us there. And from a - not purely ethnocentric - Irish perspective, I hope beyond hope that Once, my favourite film of last year, is recognized with a Best Song award. This film said something about modern relationships that reminded me of the possibility that, as Rowan Williams once wrote, no human face has no divine secret to reveal. Like I said, the Oscars are only important inasmuch as they indicate a cultural mood. On this evidence, the mood looks like the marriage between a Hebrew Bible prophet and a hopeful comedian. And I suppose you could do worse than to live in that particular universe...
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com. He is also one of the judges of this year's Beliefnet Film Awards, which seek to recognise the best films with spiritual themes. Find out more at http://www.beliefnet.com/bfa/
The Oscars are a little under two weeks from now - with the threat of the writer's strike leading to an unexpected interruption of one of the most surreal nights of the pop culture year now gone. Rich and famous folk slapping each other on the back, handing out gold statuettes for works of art that many of us haven't seen. It has always surprised me how the winning speeches rarely seem to mention the films that have led to their success – family members, agents, even pets get name-checked – but few awardees talk about the feelings the film may have stirred in the audience. It's as if the heady emotions that are caused at the cinema are too … human … to talk about at something so tawdry as an awards ceremony. Just imagine Jack Nicholson or Nicole Kidman or Will Ferrell discoursing on questions such as the power dynamics in The Godfather, or the sense of loss in American Beauty, or the hope exemplified in Magnolia on the Kodak Theatre stage, and you'll get the picture.
But every now and then, of course, we get the kind of standout moment exemplified by Michael Moore's none-too-subtle attempt at culturally impeaching the president by invoking both the Dixie Chicks and Pope John Paul II at the red-carpetless ceremony that took place just a few days after the war in Iraq began in 2003. In spite of its clunkiness, here at least was a sincere stab at using one of the biggest platforms on earth to make a difference for the common good.
The interesting thing this year is that the films speak for themselves as ethical statements. Each of the five Best Picture nominees represents a high quality attempt at exploring a question of morality, and each takes its purpose seriously enough to propose a response that could stand alongside the kind of ethical positions people who seek to embody progressive spirituality might take.
Michael Clayton is a David and Goliath story about one flawed individual's refusal to continue to be complicit in injustice on a massive scale – and manages to show just how much it costs to stand up for what is right - although it's always better to be poor on the outside than the other way round.
No Country for Old Men pictures a world in which kindness is not enough to defeat darkness, and where evil indulges itself relentlessly; but has an ending that, while oblique, may actually be teaching the audience something very profound about the nature of human relationships and the abuse of power.
Juno is that rare thing – a liberal pro-life comedy, in which the families are honest and loving but don't feel like stereotypes.
Atonement, a remarkably accomplished film, does not offer much hope for those who wish to make peace with the past, and bleakly presents a vision of the world where its title is impossible.
And There Will Be Blood is a unique piece of cinema – illustrating a crisis at the intersection of greed and passion, money and family, religion and oil.
Who wins doesn't much matter to me (well, except for my hope that Marion Cotillard's almost preternatural embodiment of Edith Piaf in La vie en Rose is rewarded, given that, in my book, it's one of the finest pieces of acting I've ever seen), as long as films such as these find a wider audience. Paul Tillich wrote that the church should provide an 'answering theology' – that is, it should seek to answer the questions that society is asking. This year, the movies seem to have got there before the church; and it may well be that the Oscars seem to have found the moral pulse of our society.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
During the 2004 election cycle, I was bombarded repeatedly with messages about how young voters had failed to be involved in the electoral process. My generation—the Millennials—was failing to live up to its potential, it seemed. This time we're starting to shake things up—and people are taking note.
Motivated by growing economic inequalities, a declining environment, excessive war, and a Third World desperately in need of attention, the Millennials are demanding change. It's no coincidence that the word has become the rallying cry of those seeking the presidency.
In the February issue of Sojourners, I discuss how the Millennials are reviving the environmental movement through creative means such as the National Campus Energy Challenge (you can follow the February 2008 contest here). At PowerShift, a youth conference confronting climate crisis, I was amazed by the energy and enthusiasm that surrounded me.
In Sunday's Washington Post, Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais cite the energy evidenced by "thousands of young people filling an arena" last week at American University, when Senator Edward M. Kennedy offered his endorsement of Barack Obama. They describe "civic-minded millenials," as coming of age. "Civic generations," they wrote, "react against the idealist generations' efforts to use politics to advance their own moral causes and focus instead on reenergizing social, political, and government institutions to solve pressing national issues." It would seem—borrowing terminology from Jim Wallis—that my generation is finally waking up. And it's high time.
Instead of using the political system to advance key moral issues, let us use those moral motivations to re-energize the system. Concern for the environment is a moral issue—let's demand of our political leaders that action be taken. If we want to reduce the number of abortions, let's fund systems that help low-income mothers and mothers unprepared to deal with unexpected pregnancy. If we want this war to stop claiming lives—and we're not just talking about U.S. soldiers here, Christ weeps for the countless Iraqi civilians, too—let's work to confront our elected officials, demanding they take concrete steps to bring us home.
It's an exciting time, a time filled with the hope of change. I'm proud to be part of a generation that's demanding it. Let's keep it up.
Cara Boekeloo is an editorial assistant for Sojourners.
Last night I finally saw Juno, Roger Ebert's favorite film of 2007 and recipient of four Oscar nominations, which has as its center the story of an unplanned pregnancy and the people affected by it. The protagonist, Juno MacGuff, played by Ellen Page in one of those so-good-she's-either-brilliant-or-really-like-that-in-real-life performances, is a misfit attracted to her male mirror image. Wiser beyond her years, slightly jaded by life and negotiating the pitfalls of the high school psychological assault course, she responds to her pregnancy by initially seeking an abortion – and the nonchalance with which she is treated is the only thing sadder than the unthinking speed with which she makes the decision. She is greeted by a lone protestor – the sole representative of institutional Christianity in the movie – as young as her, who, while a welcome change from the angry fundamentalist stereotype, may know as little about adult life as Juno does about the experience of pregnancy she's about to have. But something unsettles Juno, and she is unable to go through with the termination. Instead, she plans to have the child and help a couple seeking to adopt.
And that's it – the rest of the film is a deceptively simple story, taking Juno through the following months, her relationship with family, her best friend, and Paulie Bleeker – the dude she hung out with a little too late one night. There's not much to the tale at first glance, but I found the way in which it is told (by writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman – son of Ivan, who brought us Ghostbusters and the wonderful presidential satire Dave) – so utterly beguiling that by the time the film was over I wanted to go straight back to the start to rediscover these characters all over again.
Why? Because the characters in this film not only feel like real people, they are the kind of people you would be happy to spend time with. Because the film does as good a job as the best films of its type at reminding us of what it feels like to be young and not fit in (even the prospective adoptive father is trying to find his liberation in a stifling world). Because there are no grandstanding scenes, no emotional outbursts, no melodramatic moments of "closure." The characters behave the way many of us might hope to be able to do in similar situations - Juno's parents respond to her surprising news with grace, never for a second falling into the cliché of fearing what the neighbours might think. Juno is confident enough not to join so many others of her generation by giving into the stigma of shame, and Paulie ultimately just wants to be a good guy for her.
If this sounds sentimental, that's certainly not the tone of the film. If it sounds unrealistic, however, then perhaps that is indicative of a culture in which perfectionism or arrogance are often preferred over honestly managing the frailty of being human. Diablo Cody was once a stripper and so is likely to have experienced moralistic condemnation at the hands of others. It is a triumph that she has composed a film so full of generosity and so lacking in bitterness, so full of hope for family, for children, for people being able to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start all over again. Alongside the clear exploration of how to respond to unplanned pregnancy, this film has something to say to those of us seeking to explore what forgiveness and redemption means. More than that, in its embrace of the totality of our existence – from its acknowledgement that the promotion of values often has more to do with helping people move on from things that didn't work out than with dogmatic confrontation, to its critique of the fact that some religious voices seem incapable of communicating compassion, Juno is a truly pro-life film.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
Recently, I had the opportunity to interview John Sayles about his movie Honeydripper, a multilayered and complex account of the birth of rock and roll in the Deep South. Following is an excerpt from our conversation. (The full interview with John Sayles will be published in a forthcoming issue of The Wittenburg Door.)
How would you describe the politics of your films?
My films are politically conscious as opposed to being politically unconscious. Part of who we are is what we live, what we see, and how we define ourselves. And politics is how we define ourselves. As a screenwriter of hire, very often my job is to get rid of all that stuff and just concentrate on the genre because it's thought to be distracting. But when I make a movie and want to talk a bit more honestly about people, you can't leave it out. For example, you can't really talk about the U.S. in the Deep South in 1951 without talking about segregation.
What was the significance of having a revival going on the same night that rock and roll was debuting at the Honeydripper Lounge?
That was a dichotomy that was very common in those little towns, both with white and black people, which was that you had to make a choice between being a sinner and being saved. It was often presented by the preachers as a very black and white choice, whereas there were a lot of people who somehow managed to do a little bit of both. For example, Sam Cooke started as a gospel singer and he caught a lot of flack when he started singing secular music.
What outreach, if any, are you doing to the black historical churches?
We're doing quite a bit actually. I know in Atlanta we're doing a lot with Hands on Atlanta around the Martin Luther King Jr. ceremonies. Danny Glover has a cousin who is the minister of a big church in Atlanta and he's going to work with them to do something. One of the things that we're doing with Honeydripper is we're trying to make its opening in each city an event.
How can the medium of film be a vehicle for social change?
Take race relations for instance. If you look at the history of American film, movies were probably part of the problem for the first 55 years of their existence. Even the comedies had hardly any African Americans in them. Then maybe in the late '50s, there started to be a few movies where African Americans seemed a bit more human. So, I think gradually television and movies are a little bit more part of the solution than part of the problem. It's all a conversation and there are a lot of voices in the conversation. Maybe one movie will be helpful or useful to people knowing a little bit more about each other.
Any suggestions for aspiring filmmakers, who want to make a social change but the dynamics of making movies has changed so much since you got started?
Documentaries are great. You don't need a theatrical release now. Just do your stuff and can get it out on the web.
(Author's note: A book I found that really captured the ethos of the South pre-1964 was Gurdon Brewster's No Turning Back: My Summer with Daddy King, an account of his experiences as an intern with Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in 1961 where he lived with Daddy King. Also, in his book, Boom! Voices of the Sixties, Tom Brokaw offers some intriguing reflections about his encounters with civil rights leaders, including Representatives John Lewis and Julian Bond, Reverend Andrew Young, Tom Turnipseed, and Reverend Thomas Gilmore.)
Tim Burton's striking and gruesome film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's musical 'Sweeney Todd' made me feel alternately impressed by Johnny Depp's singing talent and wince at the violence. The story of a 19th century barber who avenges the loss of his wife and daughter by providing the closest shave ever to a litany of customers including the judge who caused his pain left me preoccupied by thoughts closer to home.
If the film is trying to make a serious point, it is that Sweeney's spiral of violence never ends. The previous night I had attended a meeting of the Consultative Group on the Past – a body established by the UK Government to examine methods of helping the people of Northern Ireland to address the legacy of our own violent recent history. Two things were clear from the comments made at this meeting by members of the public: first, that the levels of genuine sorrow in this society are unfathomable – families ripped apart, minds taken to the edge of destruction, small communities shattered. This is real, and not interpretation. Second, we often lack the ability to empathise with the pain of the 'other' community. It is all too easy to see 'our' pain as exclusive, and to become blind to the suffering of the community on the other side of a political divide.
This is as true in situations of deep horror – such as the killing and mayhem that plagued Northern Ireland for so long – as it is for more benign contexts – such as political campaigning. I was impressed by Mike Huckabee's empathetic comments when he was asked to respond to the now well-known moment when Hillary Clinton teared up in New Hampshire. He made the common sense point that politics is tough, and that it's easy to become emotional on the campaign trail. He even risked the wrath of those who appear dedicated to brutalizing politics by acknowledging, as if it needed to be said, that Hillary Clinton is a human being and needs to be treated more humanely. I seem to recall him suggesting at a previous debate that if he were to fund a NASA mission to Mars he would want Hillary to be the first person on the rocket; so his more tender response to her tears is welcome.
Joking aside, what is the connection between 'Sweeney Todd', dealing with the past in Northern Ireland, and the US Presidential campaign? I think it's simple: a cynical world breeds the opposite of empathy. And where there is no empathy with those whom we feel are different, the killing can begin. History shows us that where no attempts are made to resurrect empathy as a meaningful part of politics, the killing may never stop. Obviously, politics requires a degree of robust debate; but all too often our political discourse is reduced to mocking, dehumanizing, or in some cases, let's face it, even killing our opponents. The serious questions I want to ask are: What would it mean to restore empathy with 'the other side' to our politics? What have we got to lose? What have we got to gain?
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
I would love to live as a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.
The Irish writer, priest, and environmental activist, and my beloved friend - John O'Donohue - died unexpectedly and peacefully in the early hours of Friday, Jan. 4, 2008. His witness to peace, his work on the human heart, and his actions for justice make him someone that I want to introduce to readers of this blog who may not already know him.
John's work on retrieving the earthiness of celtic spirituality and helping make sense of it in a postmodern world is so profound that its impact has not yet been fully felt, and it represents something rare in a consumerist culture: a work of art that will outlast its author. He knew that work for justice and peace in the world depends on the inner work we must do to allow our own souls not to become corroded by whatever wounds we have sustained on our journeys.
What many may not know is that in addition to his ministry in the Catholic priesthood, and latterly as a writer and speaker, he was a serious environmental activist, helping to spearhead a small group that successfully prevented the despoilment of the Burren, one of Ireland's most stunning natural landscapes. He put his reputation on the line to save something worth preserving, even being prepared to go to prison to do so; and through building community consensus and taking on the powers that be, won an astonishing David and Goliath victory that resulted in substantial change to Irish law and politics.
John knew that we live in the intersection of the sacred and the profane, and he wanted to nudge us in the direction of understanding that holiness has more to do with being aware of the light around us, and living lives that honour it, than moral puritanism. In the introduction to his book To Bless the Space Between Us, to be published in March, he writes of how, in any given day, some of us humans will experience the shock of being told of the sudden death of a friend. John wanted us to be tender to the fact that the faces of strangers we meet every day all hide secrets that are both divine and tragic. We do not always know who among us is suffering some unnameable torment, nor who is rejoicing at the blessing of a lifetime.
In his activism, as well as his writing and speaking, and most of all, in his life, he wanted people to have shelter from the storms their lives would bring. To those of us privileged to know him, he showed love and friendship of a rare sort; he was the kind of spiritual teacher who revealed mysteries that most of us can't see; he truly lived a life to the full. And at the beginning of this year, which brings the 40th anniversary of the deaths of three other men who sought to embody an extraordinary kind of leadership – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and Father Thomas Merton – most of all what I want to remember about John O'Donohue is that he taught me that the best corrective to evil is not just to kick against it, but to make something beautiful in its place.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
You can't be a rational person six days a week … and on one day of the week, go to a building, and think you're drinking the blood of a two-thousand-year-old space god.
If you polled the audience, my hunch is the majority would normally prefer Maher over Mass. But not this time. Even Catholic Conan was at a loss for words. Looks like Maher might have been on a mission to eradicate religion but he ended up shooting unbiblical blanks.
In all my years as a practicing Christian and a religious journalist, I have never encountered anyone who thought they were actually committing cannibalism as part of their Sunday ritual.With all the faith follies transpiring these days, surely an accomplished comedian such as Bill Maher can find ample fodder without resorting to bad theology. In an ironic twist, these are the same folks who chide Christians (and rightly so) for employing shoddy science and spouting "Jesus said it, I believe it, that settles it"-rhetoric.
While I'm tempted to throw the complete works of Henri Nouwen, Phyllis Tickle, and N.T. Wright at both strident secularists and their religious counterparts whenever they spout such nefarious nonsense, there is that whole turn the other cheek biz. Besides, as I've learned over the years, one cannot reason with the unreasonable.
Here's where the court jester or the satirist enters the scene. Just as there have always been those who misuse and misinterpret religion for their own personal and financial gain, there have a few of us crazy enough to take on the ungodly giants. As a religious satirist, I seek to deconstruct everything and anyone that tries to keep people away from the love of God. Whenever men try to create God in their own image or eradicate God from the face of the earth, I'm right behind them kicking down their prized creations. (Yes, sometimes I can kick a bit too hard, and for that I apologize.) Right after I've smashed these fallen idols to smithereens, for a few brief moments, a calm comes over me. I can see very tiny bits of God shining through the cracks.
It's these glimpses of God that keep me from cracking up.
When I got an invite to the premiere of the IMAX screening for I am Legend, I went to the theater expecting an evening of frothy fun and engaging eye candy - pure escapism at its best. While the sight of zombies up close and personal almost caused me to jump out of my seat a few times, I was more shocked to discover that this action-packed thriller struck an unexpected spiritual nerve.
In a nutshell, I am Legend presents the story of Robert Neville (Will Smith), a brilliant military virologist who was unable to contain a terrible man-made virus. For reasons we don't quite understand, as Neville has become immune to this deadly disease, he remains the last human survivor in New York City, and perhaps the rest of the world.
His days are spent driving around a desolate and deserted Manhattan as he tries in vain for a cure, as well as any sign that he is not alone. This search for meaning in a world destroyed my man's own hand somehow elevated this film from the other flicks that employ the latest in special effects to demonstrate in graphic detail the myriad of ways our planet could meet its final demise.
Even though Neville insists he does not believe in God, the film takes on a Judeo-Christian twist around the third act when Neville becomes faced with a decision that requires an act of sacrificial love. For me to say anymore will destroy the movie-going experience for anyone who intends to catch this flick. While die hard sci-fi fans may decry how the final act unfolds, I left the theater with hope in my heart, a sensation I seldom experience while watching zombies in action.
Even though Neville keeps his body in top physical shape, his soul starts to deteriorate under the pressures of living a solitary life where he is all alone. This demise of the self brought to mind the documentary Soul Searching: The Journey of Thomas Merton that I had seen the previous day. What struck me about Merton's journey was that even though he spent much of his time living in solitude, the Trappist monks living in the Abbey of Gethesmani provided the support that enabled him to live in community while being isolated.
Also, this week, I got the opportunity to observe Justin Fatica conduct a retreat for 7th and 8th graders at St. Gabriel's School in East Elmhurst, Queens. Yes, this self-proclaimed minister's style of full frontal evangelism in a Catholic setting does stir up some understandable controversy. The newly released HBO documentary, Hard as Nails, touches on some of the joys and pitfalls of this type of hard core street ministry to troubled teens. But what struck me by watching Fatica in action was that the core of his message comforts these abandoned adolescents by letting them know that they are not alone. They are guided by God.
MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road, though I may know nothing about it. Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone. - Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude.
Becky Garrison explores ministries that reach those for whom church is not in their vocabulary in her new book, Rising from the Ashes: Rethinking Church (Seabury Books, 2007).
Jim wrote a piece a few weeks back about the new Bonhoeffer-quoting Aussie PM Kevin Rudd. Well, another fun fact is that he has appointed Peter Garrett, rock star turned environmental activist turned Member of Parliament, his new Minister for Environment. That's the Aussie version of putting Bono in charge of the foreign aid budget. Sort of.
If any of our non-Aussie readers know Garrett, it's likely as the singer for Midnight Oil, whose best known album was Diesel and Dust, with the hit single "Beds Are Burning" in 1988. They made many great albums since then, finally breaking up in 2002 when Garret chose to focus on politics. Knowing his music work much better than his political career—having seen the Oils live numerous times over the years—I'm curious if any readers from Down Under have comments on how his political role has changed his activism.
Either way, I'll continue to remember him as the lanky, frenzied, six-foot-six screaming skeleton whose music helped to inspire my own activism. Also, he's a church-going Christian, which doesn't necessarily make him a better politician, though I do think it made him a better rock star, as his faith-infused lyrics—which railed against environmental degradation, militarism, and consumerism—were an early and unlikely witness to my budding integration of faith and politics.
Though I discovered them while a freshman in high school in the early 90s, the first Midnight Oil album I bought was their 1985 release, Red Sails in the Sunset, which I found in the used rack at my local music store. This snippet from "Who Can Stand in the Way" is a great one for the Christmas season:
Now choppers strafe the supermaket sky and people wonder why chopping down tons of trees got seas of print not a soul can read say Why do I drown you build brick boxes one by one now they block my sun But it's metal on metal it's the dance of T.V. If Christ were here he'd camera check he'd cry so loud the planes would stop He'd cry so loud the earth would shake and men would fall in tinsel town There's just one thing, yes there's just one thing Who can stand in they way when there's a dollar to be made
Ryan Rodrick Beiler is the Web editor for Sojourners.
This will be my final post for the God's Politics blog in 2007, and given that it's the time of year for lists, here's my choice of the films that have struck me the most in the past 12 months. (I should acknowledge that I haven't seen There Will Be Blood as it hasn't been released in my homeland yet – but on past form, Paul Thomas Anderson's film is likely to deserve a place on this list.) In the name of the eccentricities permitted to those of us who love films almost as much as real life, and out of kindness to the fine readers of this blog, I'll list a Top 11 – lovers of This is Spinal Tap will understand why.
Joint 11: The King of Kong – the documentary about the battle to become the world Donkey Kong champion gets on the list for pure entertainment value, and the recognition that all of us have to find joy in the ordinary/La Vie en Rose – because it has at its centre a portrayal of an artist, Edith Piaf, that manages to be both a reminder of the often tragic dimensions of the creative process. And, quite simply, one of the finest performances I've ever seen on screen, from Marion Cotillard in the title role.
10: Superbad – a raucous comedy about high school pals who ultimately realize that nothing – not even beer or beautiful girls – can help you negotiate life better than friendship.
9: The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford – an existential Western that names the ambivalence of attributing heroic metaphors to men who kill.
8: Atonement – a dark film that asks how much we can forgive or get over our own past wrongs; its ambivalent answer requires us to think long after the credits have rolled.
7: The Lives of Others – the reflective, sculpted, seductive German movie about spying, jealousy, hope, and the possibility of change.
6: Zodiac – a serial killer film that doesn't indulge the audience's ambivalent desire to see violence that excites us.
5: Ten Canoes – an extremely funny, smart and moving film about an Australian aboriginal father teaching his son a lesson about patience while building the eponymous boats.
4: Into Great Silence – which follows the lives of Carthusian monks over the space of a year; whose appeal to massive urban audiences indicates something profound about our desire for stillness.
3: Into the Wild – Sean Penn's film, with the best male performance of the year from Emile Hirsch as Christopher McCandless, a young man who resisted consumerism by hitchhiking to Alaska. He was trying to find himself – and ended by realizing too late that two keys to a rich life are a commitment to naming reality and investing in community.
2: No Country for Old Men – a magnificent drama that tells us we need different ways of responding to evil, and that these ways may in fact be the very old values of bearing each other's burdens and respecting each other's lives. We need to tell each other different stories about how the world works if we are to avoid destroying each other.
Which brings me to my choice for not only the best, but the most truthful film of the year:
1: Once - the little Irish film that could. A musical that feels like real life; a love story in which the protagonists never even kiss; a drama that is funny, and a comedy that is moving; a film about healing ourselves by telling the truth to each other.
See you next year, at the movies.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
A few years ago I remember a pastor friend telling me they tried something a little different for their Christmas services. Instead of the usual holiday décor and clutter of the sanctuary, they brought in a bunch of manure and hay and scattered it under the pews so the place would really smell like the stank manger where it all began. I remember laughing hysterically as he described everyone coming in, in all their best Christmas attire, only to sit in the rank smell of a barn. They even brought a donkey in during the opening of the service that dropped a special gift as it moseyed down the aisle. Folks looked awkwardly at each other, and then busted out laughing. It was one of the most memorable services they've ever had. Certainly folks came face to face with the "reason for the season" and the reality of what it must have been like for the Savior of the universe to enter the world, far from the shopping malls, as a refugee who found no room in the inn.
Imagination.
That's what our Church and our world seem to be so hungry for–that "renewing of the mind" that will allow us not to "conform to the patterns of the world" as Romans says. I am incredibly hopeful this Advent, because there are so many signs of Christians who are longing for new ways to celebrate our Savior that are not cluttered with the noise of shopping and infected with the myth that happiness must be purchased.
On the biggest shopping day of the year ("Black Friday"), a bunch of us here in Philly headed to the Gallery Mall to exorcise the demons of the Shopocalypse and to heal the disease of Affluenza. Dozens of joyful, singing, dancing, liberated consumers converged on the mall to invite people to reimagine the season. With messages of "Love doesn't cost a thing," "Spend time not money," and "Buy less and love more," the celebration was magnetic. One woman passing by (shopping bag in hand) stopped and said pensively, "Why do we do this empty routine every year? Thanks for making me think."
Sometimes we just need permission to say "NO" to the 450 billion shopping dollars spent during this holiday, and to remember the poor, the refugees, the invisible people abused all over the world making the products we buy in the name of the one born in the manger. Besides, who knew that buying nothing could be so much fun?
One pastor told me that the kids in his congregation looked at the Christmas story with fresh vision. They saw that Jesus only got three gifts that first "Christmas" in Bethlehem … (and they weren't very good gifts at that–myrrh? And what's a baby to do with frankincense?) The kids in his congregation decided that they should not get more gifts than Jesus, and agreed that they would settle for three presents and give the others away.
Imagination.
It is a season pregnant with hope. Congregations across the empire have joined projects like Buy Nothing Christmas and other creative alternatives to the corporate holiday. Some pastor friends of mine started a new project called "The Advent Conspiracy" which has snowballed into an international movement "restoring the scandal of Christmas by worshipping Jesus through compassion not consumption." On their Web site they say:
While we are not living under Herod's reign, there is another empire of consumerism and materialism that threatens our faithfulness to Jesus. Jesus brought with him such an extraordinary Kingdom that is counter-culture to the kingdoms of this world.
That's the Christmas we love. These movements are not just a rant against consumerism but an invitation to renew our minds. These expressions of the true Christmas Spirit are not just about protesting, but protestifying (as our brother McLaren likes to say). They are protestifying that the most precious things in life cannot be bought or sold or stolen. And they are a reminder that the best thing to do with the best things in life is to give them away … lessons we can learn from the kids, or from our Savior who gave left the glory of heaven to join us in the mess we've made of earth.
Here's the good news: The Golden Compass does not promote atheism. It isn't going to steal your children. It does not signal the end of hope for religion in the West. That's the good news. Here's the bad news: it promotes the same, shallow "don't touch my stuff or I'll kill you" message that appears in so much of popular culture. But more than this, in spite of delightful visual imagery, and a couple of performances in which it's clear the actors are having fun (an icy Nicole Kidman, and the great English theatrical knight Derek Jacobi to name two), it's simply a boring film.
At its centre there is at least an attempt at exploring interesting territory – we are in a parallel universe in which everyone is accompanied by a 'daemon' – an animal representation of their personality, and a comfort in times of trouble. Meanwhile, a shadowy authoritarian body, "the Magisterium", is abducting children and performing daemon amputations. Too much daemon, too much free will, too little for the Magisterium to do.
The religious resonances are obvious, but the film doesn't make any explicit commentary on Christianity. Rather, its enemy is the misuse of power to force people to think or act against the exercise of freedom. The image of severing our connection to that which keeps us in a state of wonder is a powerful one; and The Golden Compass does a good job of reminding us just why children can sometimes understand things that confound adults.
But, as is typically the case with such large canvas "family films," the antidote proposed is nothing more than violence on a massive scale. I have not read the acclaimed Philip Pullman books on which this film – the first in a trilogy – is based, so I don't know where the story leads, or if the huge fight at the crescendo of the movie is proportionate to the text. But while the film of The Golden Compass is angry about religious and cultural imperialism, its response is strangely Nietzschean – the reassertion of individualism and the use of physical brute force appear to be the only answer it can think of.
At the same time, it's so muddled as a film - having clearly been made by a studio breathing down the talented director Chris Weitz's neck, with scenes ended before they're finished, and a script that doesn't seem to know where it's going - that it maybe shouldn't be taken anywhere near as seriously as some angry activists think.
It's surreal watching a film like this, for you feel like you're being told something over and over again that you already know: religious power can be a dangerous mix, and so needs to be handled with care and be accountable to the community. This film wants to think that religion and power can never be used for good; and yet, in its unthinking embrace of survival of the fittest/might as right philosophy, it may actually end up on the same side as the neocons and religious imperialists it seeks to condemn.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
When a film ends with the recounting of a dream in which a weather-beaten, life-weary man searches for the fire his father is building to warm them, it's impossible not to think of the love we all yearn for and can hopefully muster. It's also a welcome spiritual respite when that film has seduced its audience on a journey into a hell of the relentless violence that follows a man after he steals drug money in the naïve belief that its owners might ignore him, and the slow-moving chase that ensues when a truly psychopathic person pursues the man and the cash. No Country for Old Men, the new picture from the Coen Brothers, based on Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel, is probably the most accomplished film released this year.
I'll do my best to avoid spoilers, as it would be unfair to assume that readers have seen it. So I must skirt around the issues that cause me to praise this film so highly. In short, No Country for Old Men is a slow, thoughtful, frightening, and beguiling film about the selfishness of people and the desperate need to restore the virtue of community bonds. Its central character – called Anton Chigurh, and played by Javier Bardem – is one of the most titanic characterizations of evil intent I've ever seen in a film. He simply kills what gets in his way, and even plays sport with some of his potential victims - inviting them to toss a coin to determine their fate. Josh Brolin is the man who finds the money belonging to Chigurh's employers, and Tommy Lee Jones the sheriff baffled by the trail of death that ensues in their wake.
We follow these characters - scared of the killer, ashamed of the thief, and hoping against hope for the sheriff. We look away from the screen when the violence occurs, but may perhaps feel a little horrified by the fact that a part of us still wants to watch. And when one character finally stands up to Chigurh, it is not with physical violence, but by simply speaking and refusing to accept his games, forcing him to face the fact that he, and he alone, is responsible for his murderous ways. This film does not suggest that – as some critics have implied – there is no way to stop evil, but rather that we live in an age where we need to find new ways of resisting the violence many of us face. It doesn't provide simplistic answers, but suggests that the path may be found in such things as renewing the bonds of community and mutual respect, refusing to accept the moral reasoning of those who resort to force at the drop of a hat, and embracing something like the vision of the 5th century BCE Chinese thinker Mozi:
'If every man were to regard the pain of others as his own person, who would inflict pain and injury on others?'
The country where violence is king may indeed be no country for old men; but, to my mind at least, the film that takes this term as its title offers nothing less than a prophetic reflection on the most important question facing humanity today: Where do we go from here?
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
Back in 2004, Anthony Flew, the world’s most prominent atheist, stated he believed in God. Since this pronouncement, some of his fellow atheists treat him as though he's gone over to the dark side and literally lost his mind. In a nutshell, they feel this champion of their cause has flown the coop, as it were, and is being used as a pawn by those Christians who need someone of Flew’s stature to give weight to the entire Intelligent Design movement. (See The New York Times article, "The Turning of an Atheist").
Nadda, nope, no way. Not so fast.
Let's reflect on what Flew actually said when he came out as a theist. He told The Associated Press that "his current ideas have some similarity with American ‘intelligent design’ theorists, who see evidence for a guiding force in the construction of the universe. He accepts Darwinian evolution but doubts it can explain the ultimate origins of life."
As Christine Rosen wrote in The Wall Street Journal, "Mr. Flew is not quite the crusading convert his book title suggests: He did not embrace Christianity, but Deism. As he told Christianity Today, he feels more spiritual kinship with the skeptical Thomas Jefferson than with Jesus. 'I understand why Christians are excited, but if they think I am going to become a convert to Christ in the near future, they are very much mistaken,' he said."
Pick up a copy of Flew’s latest book, There is A God: How the World’s Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind, and you’ll see that a thinker of his stature can’t be painted in simple monochromatic colors. Rather, this biography, co-written by Christian apologist Roy Abraham Varghese, reveals that Flew’s lifelong mantra was to follow the policy of Plato's Socrates: "We must follow the argument wherever it leads." After this preacher’s son penned his infamous short paper,"Theology and Falsification" in 1950, he assumed the position as the leading atheist apologist. Later in life, the evidence led him to conclude that the complexity of nature and the origin of life can only be explained by the presence of a super-intelligence.
While we’re at it, let’s not pull out the ageism card willy-nilly. If the critics are correct that Flew has truly gone "off his rocker," I doubt a publisher of HarperOne’s stature would have tackled this project. I’m not about to defend any publisher’s entire catalogue but if you skim their offerings, you’ll see that except for a few bits of New Thought nonsense, they tend to produce serious scholarship, not shoddy schlock. Furthermore, as I interviewed N.T. Wright for The Wittenburg Door and spent some time with him at Soularize 2007, I can attest that he would not have contributed to this dialogue if he wasn't convinced this was a worthy endeavor.
The flurry over Flew raises this question for me. Why do we feel the need to put the other in a prescribed belief box instead of allowing space to differ and dialogue?
It's not often that something I write attracts an immediate response from one of the most famous media entities in the world, but surprisingly enough, just after my recent post calling for our popular culture to propose concrete and distinctive opportunities for progressive activism, Rolling Stone magazine published a 40th anniversary issue that includes interviews suggesting just that. It's amazing how influential the God's Politics blog is becoming, almost as amazing as how quickly RS was able to produce this issue in what was surely a response to my own article. Next month they'll be dedicating their issue to the most humble bloggers they can find.
Just kidding, of course, but until then here are some of the suggestions that the featured stars are making as predictions for "where we're going":
Meryl Streep: "It's in the power of the great universities and colleges to plant ideas and curiosity and not just be mills for turning out hedge fund managers."
Bill Maher: "Nothing will change until the 71 million people who didn't vote in 2004 start to vote."
Chris Rock: "Hopefully the new president will get the troops back. I've got a first cousin who just came home from Iraq .... There's nothing sadder than having [the] party before somebody goes off to war. That's basically what it is: 'Please don't die .... Come back.'"
George Clooney: "'My country right or wrong' is not an option anymore .... [I] don't want to be on the wrong side of history.... I'm always afraid of [saying] 'I was stoning the witches, because it was easier.'"
Bruce Springsteen: "Our moral authority to stand up and say 'We are the Americans' has been deeply damaged."
Jon Stewart: "The reason I don't worry about society is, 19 people knocked down two buildings and killed thousands. Hundreds of people ran into those buildings to save them. I'll take those odds every day."
Granted, these interviews are printed on pages squeezed between the latest "beautiful people are better than you – buy more/spend more and you will feel superior about the world – what you really need is a HUMMER" ads, but at least RS is trying.
It's good that there are figures in our popular culture who are beginning to understand that change will require something other than armchair liberalism. That the common good requires each of us to go the extra mile. Rolling Stone editor Jann S. Wenner writes in an editorial,
We cry out for good leadership. For the past seven years we have been fed a diet of fear and falsehood. We have been led into a war with neither purpose nor success .... Our president has stood numb [in the face of] evidence of catastrophic climate change .... We have watched Congress and the press become weak ... handmaidens to those who would rip apart the fabric and laws of our democratic society .... We don't need leaders who wear flag pins in their lapels, but rather men and women who have the guts to tell us the truth .... We hunger for the restoration of hope and common sense and purpose.
Could a first step toward restoring that hope be inspired by Bono's comment in the magazine: "Isn't it cheaper and smarter to make friends out of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them later?"
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
Millions of Americans will celebrate Thanksgiving again this year with a philosophy of Manifest Destiny. Many Native Americans will not celebrate Thanksgiving at all. They will view the holiday as a national day of mourning. To them, the Thanksgiving Myth justifies the genocide of indigenous peoples and acquiesces to notions of White supremacy. They will protest at Plymouth Rock and disseminate stories of the many massacres of Native Americans.
Some of us, trying to think through our mutual history, have asked questions like: "Should we even celebrate Thanksgiving? And if so, how?" In contrast to the sanitized Pilgrim story that we all learn, and in contrast to the horror stories from our past, I suggest that we replace the dominant myth of Thanksgiving with an alternate view.
We should begin by realizing that Thanksgiving in America didn't begin with the Pilgrims. For thousands of years feasts of thanksgiving have been characteristic of our Indian people. This has never ceased. While I do not advocate we replace them with the dominant Thanksgiving Myth, I still don't want to give up any type of festival of thanksgiving to the Creator—not even Thanksgiving day. Why? The answer is simple. Everything we have comes from God. We should always give thanks—for everything! I think our indigenous ancestors would agree with this point.
I wake up every morning and give thanks to Creator-Son, Jesus, for all that I have. Each day my wife and I burn sweet grass, read a devotional and pray for many things. Most of this time we spend giving thanks. We often have guests in our home (native and non-native) who join us during these times. How can I wake up on the day that is designated "Thanksgiving," or any day, and do something different?
We know that many of the "Christian" Pilgrims did not act like it—their greed for land and false notions of superiority did not reflect Jesus. We also know there were real times of peace and friendship that did reflect the real Jesus. We should celebrate those times. But, if we are using the Thanksgiving holiday as a narrative for peace and friendship, then let's build upon that and not ignore the whole picture.
The fact remains, settlers killed a lot of Indians, sometimes without mercy even for women and children. And, they often justified it with moral superiority from a "righteous" Christian base. That march of supposed moral supremacy over Native Americans is in "lock step" with the current call to war. If you don't support the current war, (or America's feigned moral superiority), take ownership of the whole history and celebrate the times of peace.
We can also celebrate new possibilities of true reconciliation with Native Americans, Muslims, and all the "other" people who have been the recipients of the devastation brought on by the dominant myth. Our family, on Thanksgiving Day, chooses to invite non-Indians to our home to cultivate true friendship.
Our family's prayer for you is to celebrate and enjoy this time of Thanksgiving, be thankful, educate yourselves concerning the real history of America, and use this time to encourage reconciliation between your family and those who share a different history. This is the first step to healing our land.
In some senses Robert Redford is the father of modern independent filmmaking, not to mention the patron saint of Hollywood liberalism – his Sundance Film Festival has launched a couple of dozen major careers, and his concern for progressive environmental policies is well known. And United Artists used to be known for making the kind of movie that entertained and provoked at the same time – from 'In the Heat of the Night' to 'Being There' to 'Rain Man'.
After a decade or more in the doldrums, the studio has been resurrected by Tom Cruise, and the first film released under this banner is the Redford-helmed 'Lions for Lambs' – a tub-thumping intellectual thriller that pits brains against brawn as a liberal university professor, a neo-conservative senator, and a smart journalist duke it out for the prize of 'who gets to direct the war on terror' - which the film shows still to be fought by the poor.
Such a film could have been a thoughtful exploration of the nature of American liberalism post-9/11, a call to action, or an intelligent treatment of the questions of how to respond to injustice without repeating it (or overcoming evil with good, as the New Testament would have it). Yet sadly it ends up a wasted opportunity - with mostly old arguments being rehearsed once more in a film whose performances are flat and is without visual interest.
There is, however, some merit in 'Lions for Lambs'. There is a chilling moment where a missing soldier is confirmed to be alive when he fires his gun – suggesting that we live in an era where threatening the lives of others is what gives meaning to ours. There is a brief moment when two of the characters suggest that resurrecting the idea of a year's voluntary service between high school and college might be the key to developing a generation of socially engaged citizens who care more about the needs of the poor than the brand names on their shirts. And it does at least ask why it is that most of us do nothing in response to the grinding wheels of yet another empire's decline and fall except complain and go on the odd protest march. But in contending with the principalities and powers of this world, the film does not realize that there is more to be done than merely protest.
Sometimes, to be sure, we need to protest against the powers. And sometimes we need to work with the powers – for they are capable of good (such as, for instance, the fact that in some parts of the world whole cities are now adapted for the needs of people with physical disabilities, or that abandoning the death penalty has become a condition for membership of the European Union). Protesting the powers when they mediate evil, and affirming and renewing the powers when they are good are two sides of a coin. But deeper than this, and what 'Lions for Lambs' falls short of understanding, is that the prophetic incarnation of a creative alternative to economic injustice and war without end is the task of this generation. At one point Cruise's character is shown to assert, with Theodore Roosevelt, that he would choose 'righteousness' over 'peace'. The film is not smart enough to recognize that if you understand righteousness in its ancient Hebrew context as 'justice', then you don't actually have to make that choice. I don't know what level of activism Robert Redford is personally engaged in, and I welcome the fact that he did at least try to make a film about something meaningful; but 'Lions for Lambs' left me yearning for our popular culture to start asking us to actually do something instead of fiddling while the emperor burns Rome down.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
The evening news has been filled with tragic reminders of our broken world: continued violence in Iraq, bombings in Afghanistan, and political unrest in Pakistan.
But the most devastating news of all?
Due to Hollywood's ongoing screenwriters strike, Desperate Housewives may have to go into reruns this season. Terrible news, I know. My issue is not with the screenwriters themselves (I sympathize with their efforts to get an equitable share of corporate profits). As to the content of our media culture—now that's another story.
So what will be the consequences of our nation's restricted access to Housewives? Brace yourselves. This could get ugly.
America's appetite for the scandalous, seductive, and scintillating may have to be put on hold for a time. Adultery as entertainment may have to give way to long meals around the family dinner table. On cold, dark evenings we may have to fill the void reading books in front of the warm glow of fireplaces instead of catching up on Eva Longoria's most recent escapades with her pool boy. And rather than lying in bed channel surfing the for the latest television infidelity, we married couples may actually have to turn to one another and engage in meaningful conversations (or even in committed, marital sex).
What terrible, horrible, utterly rotten, no-good news indeed.
Economists are telling us that people are not spending enough money this Holiday time and thus our economy will suffer. I am reminded of the president's urging after 9/11, to go out and spend money, buy things as the way to make things better. I can't believe we fall for this false assumption of economic well-being: buying things, or things themselves, will bring happiness.
A consultant in community building was invited by the South Korean government, saying, "We have money and things, but we are not happy." Bill McKibben in Deep Economy indicates the US is producing more, has higher economic incomes and more things than ever before, but we are no happier or satisfied. There is a growing dissatisfaction with all the things, a deep longing for community. Some people are shifting their priorities, working less and spending more time with family and friends.
Bishop Robinson of England, in his 1980's book, Enough is Enough, called us to a "joyful revolution" of people over things, of time spent in community and making a difference over the work-and-spend treadmill. He suggested three maxims to remember as we look at ads, walk through stores, are tempted to add a few more things to our bounty:
Who are you kidding?
You can't take it with you.
The price is too high.
In this season when we wish people Merry Christmas, and Happy New Year, and seek to create some of that happiness in our families and communities, may we prioritize actions that create and sustain life, family and community.
Mary Nelson is president emeritus of Bethel New Life, a faith-based community development corporation on the west side of Chicago. She is also a board member of Sojourners.
Poet, prophet, outlaw, fake, star of electricity, rock-and-roll martyr, born-again Christian … all of these words have been used to describe Robert Allen Zimmerman, aka Bob Dylan. I've lost track of all the "unauthorized" books profiling this mysterious man that have crossed my desk over the years. So I was intrigued to learn that Todd Haynes had obtained the music and life rights to Bob Dylan's work from his longtime manager Jeff Rosen.
I saw Haynes' feature film I'm Not There last month at The New York Film Festival (NYFF). Suffice to say, he redefines the well-worn term "biopic." Using six actors to portray seven personifications of this larger-than-life star, Haynes weaves through the different periods of Dylan's life, beginning with a preteen African-American runaway who goes by the name Woody Guthrie, and ending with Richard Gere, aka Billy the Kid, living in self-imposed exile.
Much of the film's media buzz circulates around Cate Blanchett's transformation as Jude, the self-destructive rock star who proclaims, "I kind of like getting busted out of my skin." From the moment Jude explodes on the screen - literally - at the Newport Folk Festival to the shot of him crumbled beside his mangled motorcycle, Jude takes the audience on one helluva Felliniesque ride.
Hayes turned to another '60s cinema legend, Jean-Luc Godard, to illustrate how hot Hollywood actor Robbie (Heath Ledger) romanticized and yet condemned women. As his fame skyrockets, his marriage to his idealist sweetheart unravels against the backdrop of the Vietnam War.
Haynes touches on Dylan's conversion to Christianity through the character of Jack Rollins (Christian Bale). This breakthrough singer-songwriter of early '60s protest music has now become a Pentecostal preacher. Apparently, the church seen in the film closely resembles the actual church that Dylan joined in the late '70s. However, there's no mention of Dylan's infamous trip to the wailing wall or other outward displays of the Jewish faith. Hence, his Jewishness remains a very well-kept secret.
Dylan purists will find plenty to nitpick about. For example, I can't find any credible evidence that Pete Seeger actually tried to take an axe to the electrical cords during Dylan's Newport '65 set. And I am not sure if Dylan ever danced with a drunken Allen Ginsburg (David Cross) in front of a crucifix of Jesus as Dylan slurred, "I preferred your earlier stuff."
But those who quibble over factual inconsistencies will end up missing the meaning behind the message. Clearly, some of the Dylan personas featured in I'm Not There correspond to a recognizable period and look in Dylan's life, whereas others are more metaphorical - blending influences, passions, and imagery. I left the film knowing nothing more about Dylan the man, but somehow through these characters I was able experience the ethos of the era, when "Like a Rolling Stone" replaced "Blowing in the Wind" as the song that defined my parents' generation. This film opens Nov. 21 in New York and Los Angeles, with a wider release to follow.
As I was in diapers when Dylan became heralded as a folk legend, I am grateful to the NYFF for showing Murray Lerner's musical documentary The Other Side of the Mirror: Bob Dylan Live at the Newport Folk Festival, 1963-1965. Through vintage footage sans narration, Lerner allows the viewer to experience Dylan's transformation from youthful troubadour to rebel rocker. While this film is still seeking distribution, the DVD will be released Oct. 30.
Sometimes I'm moving so fast that I find it helpful to stop and reflect on the past. I still shake my head when I hear some kid singing a Dylan song without any clue of the history that shaped this message. Thankfully, these movies afford many of us the opportunity to reflect on a world that we were too young to experience firsthand.
I saw an "on the road" film this week that blew open my understanding of travel and confirmed my imagination of what life could look like. Into the Wild, Sean Penn's cinematic recreation of the journey taken in the early 1990s by Chris McCandless - a rich young kid - across North America to the frozen wastes of Alaska is, in the first instance, a magnificent film. It relates McCandless' story with near-surgical detail - the extraordinary central performance by Emile Hirsch would be trivialized by awarding him something so cheesy as an Oscar - and it also succeeds in portraying the character as one deserving both our admiration and critique. He was a flawed hero. On the one hand, he risked social ostracism by donating his trust fund to OXFAM and refusing to obey the death-dealing dictates of upper-middle class society – the big house, the well-paying job, the "respectable" family – so that he could pursue the objective of becoming more human through meeting the goodness in strangers and entering a John the Baptist-type wilderness. On the other, he allowed his family to believe he was missing, presumed dead, for nearly two years.
The film asks the question he asked himself: What is our responsibility to ourselves? Or, better put, what is our responsibility to the image of God to which we all are called to stewardship? Is it to live within the boundaries of commerce, social status, and the monetary value of our homes? Or are we invited to participate in something that transcends the social constructs of economics and society? McCandless knew something of the old adage that making a living and making a life are two very different questions.
I saw the film on vacation, where the closeted hotel I was stuck in due to a connecting flight cancellation seemed to exist primarily to prevent guests from ever having to leave the luxury of a resort. The cultural norms that suggest we find happiness by spending exorbitant amounts of money to have an antiseptic experience of an island thousands of miles away leave me cold. I'd much rather be camping in Alaska, asking myself what it means to be human.
Toward the end of his – ultimately tragic - sojourn in the tundra, McCandless wrote in his journal of his journey's key revelation: 'Happiness is only real when shared'. He had realized that a whole life is always a conversation – with natural surroundings, values, history, traditions, and with the fellow travelers who ground us in community. And that conversation is better held in the light of understanding that making a living and making a life are not the same thing.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
If you want to find out what it means to be a hero, you could do worse than seeing two current documentaries: In the Shadow of the Moon and The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. Shadow consists of documentary footage of the space race, intercut with new interviews of most of the men who have been to the moon and back. Kong follows another race, and one of the strangest competitions of our time – the battle to be the world Donkey Kong video game champion. At first glance, these films may seem to have little in common – but they both reflect different dimensions of the same theme: that of American exceptionalism.
In the Shadow of the Moon brings parts of the politics and adventure of space travel to the attention of an audience for whom putting a human being on another planet is a historical fact rather than a mythical possibility. The astronauts are wholly charming and exude an integrity that we may associate with the post-war era, in which service to the community was perhaps considered a higher ideal than in our own cynical age.
The King of Kong relates the heroic narrative of Steve Wiebe, a Seattle native whose life story more resembles that of Homer Simpson than Neil Armstrong. A failure at high school sports, grunge music, and even being laid off on the day he and his wife signed their mortgage papers, Wiebe is an endearing figure – the kind of guy who seems far too nice to be the recipient of so much trouble. The one thing he knows he is good at is Donkey Kong, which he plays obsessively in his garage, hoping to beat the 25-year-old record held by Billy Mitchell, whom the film portrays (perhaps unfairly) as a hot sauce-hawking Darth Vader with a mullet. Steve's wife supports him in challenging the record, but his nemesis refuses to grant him the dignity of even turning up to participate in the competition, preferring to submit a taped entry. The tension mounts, and we are seduced into feeling the desperation perhaps as much as when the world watched Apollo 11 land on another world.
Both films are stories of people struggling against the odds; and both the astronauts and Steve Wiebe may remind us of ourselves. Regrettably, the moon documentary buries the lead. A film about human beings who can genuinely be said to be unique spends too much time looking at the technical aspects of space travel, and far too little on how the travelers were changed by their journeys. Toward the end of the movie, one of the astronauts speaks of his epiphany that all of creation comes from the same source and that we are all one. It is ironic that such a pacifist (and biblical) revelation resulted from a neo-military endeavor rooted in Cold War paranoia and suspicion.
Meanwhile, back on planet Earth, the Steve Wiebes of this world go about their own, smaller adventures – the adventure of building a family, of living honestly, of seeing ourselves as beautiful imperfections. In the Shadow of the Moon focuses on something extraordinary, but manages to make it seem less than the sum of its parts. The King of Kong, however, takes something apparently absurd and suggests that the decision to try to do one thing right might actually be a key to becoming a better human being.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
(A) Dr. James Dobson is to Sponge Bob Square Pants (B) The new thought movement is to common sense (C) Marilyn Manson is to Satanism (D) Dick Cheney is to gun control (E) Richard Dawkins is to reasoned debate
The correct answer is C. Both Ann and Marilyn found a profitable way to utilize religion as a provocative tool to feed their cash cow. Ann appeals to the base instincts of her rabid followers that right makes (Christian) might. Conversely, Marilyn attracts the kids of control freak parents who want to rebel from what can best be described as a rigid and repressive regime. I'll let the Satanists deal with Marilyn Manson, but please, do not interpret Coulter's trademark viciousness and venom as viable Christian virtues.
I thought when I reported on Coulter's "faggot" comment that this political pundit committed career suicide. But I was wrong. But given that even Fox News condemned the latest Coulter snafu blasting the Jews, one can hope that she will be off the airways for good.
This is not to say there isn't a place for insult humor. While covering The New York Film Festival, I had the opportunity to catch John Landis' new documentary Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project. Landis took me on a journey that enabled me to sample the depth of this fearless comic and actor. In particular, I was impressed by the plethora of comedians including George Wallace, Chris Rock, and Sarah Silverman who praised him for his "take no prisoners" attack dog approach. Throughout the movie, I was reminded that to be insulted by Rickles was indeed the highest compliment. Also, Landis showed us Rickles' softer side by illuminating the kindness he shows towards his family, friends, staff, waiters, and even strangers that he encountered offstage.
Watch this documentary and you'll see how people double up with laughter whenever Rickles reams them. In fact, they jockey for position just so they can be part of the act. Coulter proclaims in her latest book, If Democrats Had Brains, They'd be Republicans, " I am the illegal alien of commentary. I will do the jokes that no one else will do." She might think she's funny, but her targets aren't amused one bit.
For Rickles, hurling insults is an act. In Coulter's case, spewing venom appears to be a lifestyle choice.
The Kingdom opens with a striking historical montage, depicting the roots of Saudi Arabia and why this country means so much to the U.S. We're soon plunged into a horrific attack, viewing the killing of whole American families and the Saudi police who guard them in compounds where Islamic law does not apply. It's not long before Jamie Foxx and his intrepid FBI colleagues are secretly flying to the kingdom to show the Saudi police how to solve crimes.
The film constructs all the clichés of cops traveling to foreign lands – there's a local officer who our own hero at first dislikes, then grows to love, then is killed in a hail of bullets; the token "good Muslim" gets to die a martyr to the cause of keeping Foxx and the rest of us safe; while Jennifer Garner seeks to undo the trauma of violence by offering a lollipop to a child who has just witnessed their rampage. The local State Department official is ineffectual, committed only to keeping the FBI from doing anything that would annoy the Saudi hierarchy.
This film wants to be a serious exploration of U.S.-Middle East relations, and in its portrayal of Saudi street life it manages to be more accurate than many. But ultimately, The Kingdom is in love with violence. The modus operandi of the FBI characters is to look for evidence and then shoot the guilty. It's mob rule, more akin to Wild West stereotypes than even the most right-wing interpretation of due process. Near the beginning of the film, one character tells a grieving friend of one of those killed in the attack, "we're going to kill them all." The friend is relieved and stops crying. The film's implication is that so should we.
Having lived through the civil conflict in northern Ireland, I know closely what it means for people to kill each other over politics, ethnicity, and religion - for nearly 40 years. We have finally brought the violent part of the conflict to an end, not because one party achieved victory over another, but because we agreed to share political power. Some of the very people who supported the killing are now holding office in a devolved local government administration. Former sworn enemies are now responsible for such things as agriculture policy, education, and property tax rates.
Our "peace" was not won through sentimentality, nor did it come by repaying violence with violence. Peace processes are not often about traditional notions of justice – indeed peace processes often necessitate that injustices be done. For example, the release of prisoners who only a few years earlier had ripped out people's teeth or smashed open their skulls is a very painful thing for their victims to observe. But in transitional societies, it may be the only thing that allows everyone to have a new start, whether they deserve it or not.
It should go without saying that "we're going to kill them all," or dealing with guilty people simply by shooting them, does not make it easy for the contrition necessary for reconciliation to happen. It unequivocally does not reduce the tensions that produce only more violence.
The story we tell ourselves about justice in large part determines what we will stomach in the real world. In this regard, perhaps The Kingdom knows more than I want to give it credit for. A film that ends with both the American hero and the future leaders of Islamic militancy swearing, "We're going to kill them all," doesn't just understand the human tendency to seek violent revenge, but prophesies what planet earth will look like if we don't rethink our approaches to violence, justice, and how to have security without destroying our neighbors.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
It's intriguing how many current films address questions of revenge and justice. Like all cinematic epidemics, this is a mixed bag, from Quentin Tarantino's alternately boring and horrifying car-crash fest Death Proof, just released on DVD, to the slasher-style terror of Death Sentence starring Kevin Bacon, to the mature and moving reflection on justice and fatherhood in 3:10 to Yuma, to the ostensibly more thoughtful treatment of vengeance in Jodie Foster's new film The Brave One.
The Brave One begins with a murder that the filmmakers show in subtle but horrendous detail. We really feel the loss of human life that occurs when her character's boyfriend is beaten to death in front of her. Her subsequent fear and desire for revenge are presented as entirely natural responses; in this regard, the film is intelligent and humane. Far too many representations of the aftermath of violence in popular culture refuse to treat it with respect. But when she actually starts killing people, despite the fact that her victims are all portrayed as evil, the movie becomes something other than the serious exploration of how to deal with violence that it purports to be. The victim becomes a perpetrator, and the audience is made complicit.
Throughout its two-hour running time, I hoped the film would suggest that the revenge Foster's character takes does her more harm than good, and certainly does not end or even come close to challenging the spiral of violence in the world. My hope was unfounded, for the film not only presents its protagonist as doing what is normal, but ultimately endorses her violence as the only way to resist evil. In a world where finding alternatives to conflict-as-usual may be our greatest challenge, we desperately need more nuanced investigations of how to respond to violent threats and injustices than this.
What's surprising is that both Jodie Foster and her director, Neil Jordan, know better than this, having between them made smarter films such as The Accused and The Crying Game. But in producing The Brave One, a film that appears to co-opt the values of the war on terror into the domestic life of a character who works for an NPR-style radio station, they have created what The New York Times has called "a pro-lynching film that even liberals can love." Of course, doing nothing in response to injustice will not make the world a less violent place, but neither will suggesting that the only thing we can do is to use the same tactics as our opponents.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
About a decade ago, I wrote a newspaper column offering a theological critique of Promise Keepers, the then-massive Christian men's movement. Within a few days, negative mail (remember letters?) swamped my office. One missive proved especially memorable: "Dear Diana, Promise Keepers is all about love, you b----!"
When I became a writer, perhaps nothing surprised me as much as such attacks. Public figures—reporters, writers, politicians, pastors, and yes, military generals—are on the receiving end of negative criticism on an almost daily basis. Although it isn't fun, it is part of the job. Some of my friends say I have tough skin. Not really. I've learned that Jesus has something important to say about the rough-and-tumble of public exchange: Turn the other cheek. Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you.
Nobody ever suggested that the city council pass a resolution condemning the letter-writers—including the less-than-flattering letters that appeared in the local newspaper. No, I was left with my own spiritual resources to forgive those who attacked me.
I imagine that General Petraeus is a nice Christian gentleman, as are most of the military officers I know. And I also suspect that he has survived public and private criticism worse than the recent MoveOn.org ad. He did not need a Senate resolution to defend his honor or his achievements, as such things speak for themselves. And, if he is anything like other Christians who are leaders, he has long since learned the wisdom of Jesus' dictum to turn the other cheek. Maybe he even prays for his enemies. I bet he can spiritually and morally stand up for himself.
This week's Senate resolution was raw politics, as raw as the MoveOn ad itself, as they deftly moved the issue away from the war to a political ad sponsored by private citizens. Coming from the Senate, a body that depicts itself as above the fray, it proved particularly tasteless—and more than a little shocking—that the senators took time away from important issues to criticize the free speech rights of a political organization, no matter how unseemly the fashion by which those rights were exercised.
During the same week that the Senate passed a resolution to condemn an ad attacking a man who is clearly capable of defending himself, they failed to pass three separate resolutions with plans to end the war in Iraq. The Senate needs to stop playing politics and get the job done for which we elected them: to work on issues of health care, poverty, environmentalism, and to end the war. Senators, let us turn our own cheeks. As for you, it is time for you to move on with America's business.
After a year of scandals in which celebrities such as Mel Gibson, Don Imus, and Isaiah Washington have reminded us that fame does not cancel out bigotry, Kathy Griffin last week became the latest public figure to make such headlines with her Creative Arts Emmy acceptance speech. Referring to the tendency of some of her colleagues to invoke divine sanction for their success, she said, among other things, that "no one had less to do with this award than Jesus." Her remarks were censored on the telecast, and at least one Christian public figure has since implied on CNN that her words were more offensive than Imus' racist comments about the Rutgers basketball players, or Washington’s homophobic remarks about Grey’s Anatomy co-star T.R. Knight. The questionable logic that led to this assertion is that "85% of Americans believe in Jesus," while only a minority are black, and a much smaller number are gay.
First of all, the suggestion that only the groups who are targeted in dehumanising rhetoric should be offended by them is absurd -- of course you don't have to be the victim of prejudice to be offended by it. It's understandable that people get offended when the names of religious figures are used in a derogatory fashion. It is also true to say that today it is more publicly acceptable to criticize Christianity than most other faiths. And sometimes it may be appropriate to protest this.
In the West, however, members of most other faiths and minority ethnic groups have had to put up with a disproportionate share of public insults for far too long. In a healthy society, we should be able to cope with the free exchange of views, including the possibility of upsetting each other. The suggestion that a comedian should be punished for religious mockery is disturbing and bears echoes of Christian imperialism. The point is sharpened by the fact that Griffin was making a commentary that many thinking Christians would agree with: a critique of the superficial celebrity spirituality that claims divine sanction for entertainment awards victories. It is, of course, entirely legitimate to be thankful to God for the blessings of a lifetime; this column is unlikely to win any awards, but if one came my way I'm sure I'd aim my gratitude in the same direction. But to suggest that Jesus is invested in who wins the Emmys is another indicator of a kind of spiritual decadence, akin to when boxers or football teams bow the knee mid-match, suggesting that they think God prefers them over their opponent.
It's striking also that the outcry over Mel Gibson, Don Imus, and Isaiah Washington's dehumanising and bigoted comments was not led by the church, but Griffin's remark at an awards ceremony has been met with the full opprobrium of some religious leaders. I think this indicates something troubling about the priorities of much public discourse by Christians -- and also the hamstrung picture of Jesus offered by much of the church. It seems that we believe in a Jesus who both needs us to defend him, and who couldn't handle a joke at his own expense. It is disturbing also that Mel Gibson's anti-semitic comments, made while drunk, did not really spark a debate about how to reconcile people from different religious traditions. Instead, the church was largely silent about (ostensibly) one of its own.
Griffin's comments were a veiled criticism of a culture of superficiality, in which God is constructed as a wealth-affirming, competition-endorsing elitist who likes to go to the Oscars. It was also a joke. We don't have to like it, but we should be able to take it.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
Many students will groan when I point out these inevitable signs of the times, and an equally inevitable conclusion. August is upon us. Summer is quickly winding down. And this can only mean one thing: school is just around the corner!
I was reminded of this fact yesterday as I sent off my book order for the course I’m teaching at Harvard Divinity School this fall. If you’re looking for some late-summer reading, consider the following titles:
More Bible passages ignored by the Left Behind books.
It's particularly ironic that the judgment scene in Kingdom Come, the 16th Left Behind book, quotes verbatim from Matthew 25, in which Christ sends those who do not help the hungry, the naked, the sick, or the stranger to hell. A priority on helping the sick was nowhere in evidence, say, when protagonist Buck was responding to the huge cataclysms featured earlier. After the giant earthquake, for example, Buck makes a very brief attempt to help one victim, then decides to be a Bad Samaritan, keeping "his eyes straight ahead as despairing, wounded people waved or screamed out to him" for help (and never repenting of this later).
With regard to the hungry, the Left Behind protagonists also flout Matthew 25:
"... the Bible predicts inflation and famine - the black horse. As the rich get richer, the poor starve to death ..." "So if we survive the war, we need to stockpile food?" Bruce nodded. "I would."
In other words, if you see your neighbor hungry, build yourself bigger barns. Later, authorial mouthpiece character Tsion Ben-Judah offers his huge flock "practical suggestions for storing goods." The image of middle-class Christians stockpiling while the poor starve is all too close to today's ugly reality – so the storyline avoids the problem by skipping virtually any mention of famine (in sharp contrast to the other three horsemen).
The Left Behind books do make a big deal of a threat that can fit into their paranoia about government: the economic boycott of those without the mark of the beast. But this boycott isn't so literal either: when I left off reading the books, the heroes were planning to circumvent it by creating a food co-op selling to "a market of millions of saints," from which they would take "a reasonable percentage, and finance the work of the Tribulation Force." It's hard not to see this as a thinly veiled metaphor for the Left Behind franchise itself - and even harder to see this as having anything to do with Matthew 25.
Worse still, the body of Christ is not just seen as a market, but reduced to an audience. TheLeft Behind books I've read have surprisingly little use for church except as a place for one-way transmission of information. And, after the giant earthquake at the end of book three destroys the sanctuary of Buck and Rayford's church, the church community just disappears from the story, without explanation (they can't all be dead)! So much for meeting together to encourage one another, all the more as we see the Day approaching (Hebrews 10:25).
Instead of group worship, we get the image of Ben-Judah, hiding in an underground shelter, beaming his prophetic interpretation out via a Web site that grows to be "ten times more popular than any other in history." "Pretty much every … believer in the world" logs on – apparently, if folks in the global South, or poor neighborhoods near you, can't afford DSL, they might as well not exist.
The novel repeatedly shows the protagonists exulting as the Web site's visit counter registers higher and higher numbers - a perfect image of the Body of Christ reduced to an impersonal mass market. Later, the antichrist inexplicably lets Ben-Judah MC a huge conference in a stadium, broadcast to "the biggest TV audience in history." But, while you focus on those onstage, there's no need to relate to the brother or sister next to you. Even at the last judgment, in Kingdom Come, God stage-manages things so that you only hear the "well done, good and faithful servant" of biblical celebrities and your personal friends, not "strangers."
So go ahead, Left Behind, be literal: tell me to dig up the lawn (if I had one) because Revelation 8:7 says all grass will be burnt up, even though grass still exists in Revelation 9:4. But don't tell me that, because Jesus is coming soon, I should act arrogant, hoard belongings, and ditch my local church community. That's just literally unbelievable.
Elizabeth Palmberg, assistant editor of Sojourners, recommends Sojourners' discussion guide on apocalypse and the other contents of www.sojo.net - but definitely not as a substitute for participation in your local faith community..
I wrote here a few weeks ago about the new Die Hard film, and especially how I felt it represented a disturbing advance in the portrayal of heroes as violent men whose main purpose is to uphold materialism. Among other things, Bruce Willis' character, John McClane, kicks a woman half to death, then drops an SUV on her head for good measure, and we're supposed to applaud. Surprisingly enough, the comments on this blog were mostly critical of what I said – which is of course perfectly fine, given the freedom of discourse that exists on this site. But it was ironic to find that the very point I was making – that we have become inured to violence in the real world by its portrayal on screen – appeared to be borne out by many of the comments.
So it was with a sense of trepidation that I approached The Bourne Ultimatum, another film marketed as a violent revenge fantasy in which another American hero fights his way to freedom from the bottom up. I had enjoyed its predecessors, but not enough to be excited about this second sequel in the story of a CIA operative who is brainwashed into carrying out murder missions for his handlers, and who now wants his identity back.
On the surface, this is an exceptionally good action film – there are undeniably exciting sequences, filmed as if the camera was attached to Matt Damon's belt. The plot rattles along at a heckuva pace, and the story centers on a thoughtful question: what happens to people who realise that the secrets they keep for the sake of someone else's idea of "national security" are not worth the price of their soul?
The central character is obviously not a typical action hero. He has doubts about the meaning of what he has done for president and country; he has loved and lost; he fears that he has passed the point of redemption. Also, unlike the John McClanes of this world, he fights because he hasto, not just because the director sees yet another opportunity to titillate the audience's desire to see metal things being blown up. Jason Bourne comes to a self-understanding in this film that there are some things not worth doing even for the sake of your country. He is horrified by his past; he wants his identity back because he recognises it's the most important thing – perhaps the only realthing - he has. The philosopher Simone Weil once wrote that the most important possession we have is the ability to say 'I' – to take responsibility for acting in the world. In this, she echoed Rudyard Kipling's adage that each of us "should strive for the privilege of owning one's life." The Bourne Ultimatum provocatively reminds us that an uncritical approach to, for instance, defense, or economics, or prison, or immigration policy involves ceding ownership of one's life to "the authorities"; doing it "just because they say so." All too often, refusing to ask questions about the status quo only serves to keep injustice in its perfect equilibirum. Unthinking patriotism or ideology of the kind that allows secret sins – whether of deceit, or conspiracy, or killing - to be carried out in our name because "the country" depends on it meets its match in Jason Bourne.
The Bourne Ultimatum is directed by Paul Greengrass, the British film-maker responsible for last year's recreation of what may have happened on United 93. That film was a stirring and moving reminder of the horror of 9/11, but it managed to take a sober enough view that it tended to inspire mourning rather than feelings of vengeance. Greengrass' intelligent treatment of violence continues at the climax of The Bourne Ultimatum, when the protagonist looks into the eyes of a would-be assassin and asks, "Do you even know why you're supposed to kill me?" Even though this film still derives much of its entertainment value from violent action sequences, it is at least honest enough to affirm the fact that those who live by the sword still have a pretty good chance of dying by it. It underlines Edmund Burke's statement about the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is that good people do nothing. I'm glad that in a summer beset by exploding robots, women with machine guns for legs, and Bruce Willis killing people with cars for our pleasure, at least one action film is attempting to tell the truth about violence. To Bourne's final question I would add, "Do we even know why we are entertained by men and women killing each other?"
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
At the close of the 16th and final Left Behind book, which was perched on the best-seller list a couple months ago, Tim LaHaye yet again emphasizes his claim to "tak[e] the Bible literally wherever possible." I don't get how anyone who'd ever paid attention to the Psalms could imply that the Bible speaks less powerfully when it chooses to speak in symbolic images.
But what I really object to, having plowed through the first five and the last one of the Left Behind books, are the number of Bible passages that the series doesn't take seriously - passages that give clear instructions about how people should act.
For example, consider the third Left Behind book's take on Matthew 10:27-28's call to proclaim God's word openly. Protagonist Buck, realizing that his late pastor Bruce had hooked up the church's small tribulation-fallout shelter to the Internet via a satellite dish on the steeple, quotes the "proclaim from the housetops" passage verbatim, then enthuses, "Wasn't it just like Bruce to take the Bible literally?"
I do not think that word means what they think it means. At this very moment, our hero Buck is hiding his faith in order to work for the Antichrist. (Yes, he's doing it to spy on the Antichrist. No, it's not clear how anyone familiar with Revelation could think anything excused working for the Antichrist).
Nor does Buck's father-in-law, Rayford (also employed by the Antichrist), seem very serious or literal about scripture when counseling a new convert (employed by … you guessed it) to hide his faith:
"...if I were you, I wouldn't be quick to declare myself a new believer. ..." "Yeah, but what about that verse about confessing with your mouth?" "I have no idea. Do the rules still stand at a time like this?"
Yes. Yes, they do.
Nor does the series take literally 1 Peter 3's encouragement to always be ready to tell others about our hope "with gentleness and reverence." In the Left Behind novels, Rayford and Buck sometimes stop playing with spy gadgets long enough to join secondary characters in telling others about God. They get this half right: they repeatedly describe their own faith journeys - but they often have an ungentle, even arrogant refusal to speak in terms relevant to others.
In the most spectacular example, Rayford opens by telling one potential convert, "You understand I don't care what you think of me, don't you?" But really, not having to care what others think is, from the Left Behind novels' point of view, the main payoff of global cataclysms:
Rayford leaned close and spoke louder. "What you think of me would have been hugely important a few weeks ago [before "the rapture"] …"
A little film called Once has been winning the hearts of cinemagoers for a couple of months now, with even Steven Spielberg saying that it has given him "enough inspiration to last the whole year." I finally saw it earlier this week and was moved and entertained by a beautiful little story of love and music on the streets of Dublin. But beyond the pleasure of watching natural performances, hearing great songs, and feeling connected to two lonely people trying to find happiness, Once also tells a story of economic injustice. The central characters are a vacuum repairman with a profound song-writing style, and a Czech immigrant worker who sells roses to tourists on the city streets and plays the piano and sings with heartbreaking fragility. She lives in a house with other immigrants, sharing one room for recreation, cooking, and sleeping, and is used to being treated with disdain. Once is one of the first films to take seriously the condition of the people known as the "new Irish"—the immigrants (primarily from Eastern Europe and Africa) who have made their way to the land of saints and scholars in the hope of being able to send money home to their relatives, or to make a new life for themselves.
It is rare to see these people portrayed as honestly as Once does—this is a humanized vision of people who I often walk past in my own hometown of Belfast. Artists and lovers disguised as rose sellers, manual laborers, and street-magazine hawkers. My conscience was challenged by this movie—to imagine the lives of others beyond the stereotypes that the powers that be tend to reinforce. The day after seeing Once I found myself on an inter-city bus in California and was further reminded of the often-difficult situations of those whose economic circumstances make reliance on public transportation a necessity. A journey that takes three hours by car eventually took nearly four times as long. It included very uncomfortable conditions, intimidating conversations, extremely long delays, and no accurate information for customers, many who were already feeling tired and more than a little powerless. One example should suffice to illustrate this: While in transit I met a woman who had traveled from Canada to visit her ailing brother, and partly due to the chronic tardiness of the bus company, she did not arrive in time to say goodbye. Insult piled on injury on her return trip, as she had to stand in line for several hours to ensure a place on a bus that finally left Los Angeles two hours late.
I contacted the media representatives of the bus company (which I’ll not name, but let’s just say it’s a big one, and has a picture of a fast-moving canine on the side of its vehicles) to raise questions about the way their customers appeared to be treated like cattle. They told me that they train their employees to provide information and assistance as necessary, and that they inform customers when delays are to be expected. Yet neither of these things happened on Tuesday; other customers told me that this was their all-too-common experience. The fact that this company has a near-monopoly on transporting the poor in America may mean that it does not feel the need to do much to respond to complaints. There are many comments on consumer affairs Web sites by people who have never received a response to the questions they addressed to this company. It is not difficult to believe that if everyone with a complaint told the company that they were writing an article about its service they might receive a better standard, one that at least comes close to offering more than a modicum of human dignity to passengers and employees alike. I came away from this encounter thinking that to deny dialogue to disrespected customers is only one of the ways in which the poor are downtrodden in our society. The poor are easy to ignore when they are made invisible to the powerful; it’s for this reason that I recommend that everyone should both take an inter-city bus trip (and tell the company what they think about the service), and watch Once, for it is not just a beguiling love story, but a powerful reminder of how easy it is to hide from poverty if we want to ignore it.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
Film buffs began this week greeting the news that two of our greatest artists had died. Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni lived to be 89 and 94, respectively, and were still making films until a couple of years ago. Their work had exerted such an influence over world cinema for over half a century that it is impossible to imagine film culture without them. Antonioni and Bergman made films about the human interior journey – the travels and travails of the soul. They were sometimes preoccupied with the fear that life had no meaning, and at times seemed desperate to produce cinema because the making of the films themselves were part of their own struggle for enlightenment.
Antonioni explored relationships and their impact on the soul – and he had an ultra-romantic view of women, who often appear as tempting goddesses in his work. His 1975 film The Passenger, starring Jack Nicholson (who pronounced it the greatest adventure he has ever had in filmmaking), is an observation of what happens when a man who seems to have a successful life decides to abandon it all in search of something different.
Bergman was more consciously religious – his most famous film is probably The Seventh Seal, in which a knight of the crusades is pursued by Death; they eventually play chess together in the ultimate existential competition. Bergman had a reputation for being pessimistic, once saying that he hoped not to die on a sunny day – a comment to which his greatest fan, Woody Allen, responded on hearing the news of his passing that he hoped the weather didn’t let him down. I think, however, that the charges leveled against Bergman miss the point – it is difficult to imagine that a person so committed to the investigation of what gives life meaning actually just wants it to be over.
It’s tempting to suggest that the deaths of Bergman and Antonioni represent the end of a certain kind of art film, perhaps the end of an era. We imagine the past producing a different type of movie, a different type of politics, a different type of celebrity and power. We don’t revere our great artists or public figures in the same way today partly because it’s much easier to become famous than it used to be. The bar of quality is set so much lower because we’ve all been told that we can too can be famous. Neither Ingmar Bergman nor Michelangelo Antonioni seemed happy to be publicly known. They just wanted to follow their vocation to make films, and get on with their lives.
There’s a lesson here for those of us who want to make a difference in the world but are striving to balance activism and the spiritual search. One of Antonioni’s last films, Beyond the Clouds, was a European pilgrimage made by a filmmaker played by John Malkovich, delicately shot to a soundtrack by U2 and Van Morrison, among others. It’s clear in this film that Antonioni had come to believe, and I imagine Bergman would agree, that for him the search for meaning in life, and the process of making a truthful work of art, amounted to the same thing. In this regard, Antonioni and Bergman’s legacy may seem obvious, but it’s a deeply important lesson: It is possible to do something great at the same time as not knowing all the answers.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
Ray LaMontagne’s recent album "Till the Sun Turns Black" ends with one of the most beautiful songs about peacemaking I’ve ever heard—in which he simply repeats the refrain "War is not the answer, the answer is within you" over the most delicately lilting instrumentation. It’s the kind of sentiment that could be accused of being too vague to have any practical meaning, but warm and positive enough to be popular. But there’s something about it that feels deeper than that.
It comes to mind as I sit in a cramped and crowded airport in Missouri, between cities on a trip that will take me from the Deep South to the Pacific Northwest, meeting and talking with people seeking to explore faith at the margins of institutional Christianity. I’ll be part of a conference the week after next on the topic "Dangerous Living"(www.solitonnetwork.org)—a title ambiguous enough to invite further interrogation. The organizers aim to build a temporary community of fellow travelers asking questions and sharing experiences of what it means to follow the radical Jesus in a culture that often seems to privilege consumerism above all else and seeks to avoid anything resembling physical work at all costs. We’ll talk about faith and social justice—just what does it mean in our day to hear Jesus tell the rich young ruler how hard it is to get into the kingdom of heaven? We’ll investigate faith and authority: What kind of leadership is required when so many of our public role models leave so much to be desired? We’ll immerse ourselves in faith and creativity, hoping to become more attentive to the voice of God in art, film, music, and nature. Most of all, we will wonder together what it means to be stewards of the Christian tradition that we inherit without falling into the trap of religious imperialism. In other words, how can we take responsibility for sharing our faith without imposing it on others in a way that prevents anyone taking us seriously?
These questions were not far from my thoughts this afternoon, as we sat down for a meal at one of the in-house airport restaurants. Just after my Diet Coke arrived, the gentleman next to our table took a phone call, the first few lines of which went as follows:
‘Hi there—didn’t realize you were on that side of the pond. You looking for more bombers, or just drinking Irish car bombs?’
I froze in my seat, absorbing the impact of his comedic spin on the horrific conflict around which I grew up. I thought of the people I know back home in Belfast who have lost relatives or friends to bombs, sometimes hidden under their cars, and became so incensed that my body began to shake. It turns out that "Irish car bomb" is a name for a drink mixed from Bailey’s Irish Cream, whiskey, and Guinness. As the guy kept talking, I had to seriously consider whether or not to speak to him when the call was over. Wouldn’t it be a betrayal of all the Northern Ireland troubles’ dead if I remained silent? I freely admit that in the grand scheme of things, whether or not a burger-eating business-class traveler understands the pain he may cause by invoking the name of an insensitively-christened cocktail should not be the greatest of our concerns. But at the same time, I have come to believe that it is the small moments of dehumanization that allow the larger context of destruction on our planet to occur. What the late cultural critic Benjamin DeMott in the August issue of Harpers magazine calls the obsession with "impact"—the catharsis that is present when human beings watch images of other human beings violently killed—has become one of the driving forces of our society. Jokes about Irish car bombs not only reveal the ignorance of the speaker, but reinforce the often brutal way in which we are teaching ourselves to relate to each other.
In the end, I didn’t speak to our table neighbor; I felt that it would be unfair to make him carry the responsibility for all the angst I feel about the decades of death from which my home society is emerging. But when we have lost touch with our humanity—and the humanity of others—to the extent that we are willing to sacrifice the dignity of those who have died in war for the sake of the name of a drink, then perhaps our desire for "impact" is stronger than our hopes for peace. When Ray LaMontagne sings that the answer is "within you," might he just be suggesting that we already know that the path we’re on is the way of destruction? That, for a start, we could at least commit ourselves to being careful with the words we use for fear they may re-victimize people who have already suffered far too much?
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
While the rest of the world buried its collective nose in Harry Potter last weekend, I spent my time reading early Christianity. It proved a tough call: The fate of Hogwarts or the Roman Empire? I chose Constantine over Voldemort.
I am not a total geek, but I am writing a new book on church history for progressives. One problem of classical liberalism was its rejection of tradition and the inability to ground its vision in Christian history. The past was seen as imperfect, full of injustice and mistakes, and incomplete understandings of nature, humanity, and God. Thus, liberal Christians embraced the future as the major arena of God’s activity—tending to privilege what is new over what was old.
The past? What does that have to do with pressing issues today?
Well, take the allegations against Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick for animal abuse and dog fighting, for instance.
One of the texts I re-read this week was On the Soul and the Resurrection (c. 380 C.E.) by Gregory of Nyssa, a theologian in the Eastern Christian tradition. The manuscript takes the form of a dialogue between Gregory and his sister, Macrina. In it, she instructs her brother on the nature of creation. Macrina argues that human beings and “irrational animals” share common gifts from God, the ability to perceive and passions. What separates human animals from “irrational” ones is the capacity of free will, part of human ability to discern and choose. Thus, humans are given the responsibility to care for animals, as irrational animals are subject to human free will.
Gregory, quoting his sister, goes on to say: “For when reason does not control the impulse which naturally lies in them, the fierce animals are destroyed by anger because they fight among themselves.” Likewise, human beings who fail to discern and act upon what is good will be consumed by irrational sin. Gregory directly links human treatment and care for animals to acts of human violence, and implicitly develops a Christian theology of creation care.
The dialogue between Gregory and Macrina is one of the gossamer threads in Christian tradition. Unlike Soul, much of Christian theology emphasized distinctions between humans and animals, rather than stitching connections between aspects of creation (indeed, Macrina even develops a connection between humanity and plant life). Dividing creation into superior and inferior ranks served as an excuse for rampant injustice on the part of Christians toward the rest of creation—and, sadly enough, toward other human beings (for example, women denied the priesthood or race-based slavery). What if instead of organizing humans and animals into hierarchical ranks, Christians had theologically developed the commonality of creation so tantalizingly suggested in the fourth century?
In her recent book, The Frontiers of Justice, philosopher Martha Nussbaum points out that Jews and Christians practice ethics of compassion for animals, but that these ethics are incomplete—that “cruel and oppressive treatment of animals raises issues of justice.” Nussbaum insists, “not only that it is wrong of us to treat them that way, but also that they have a right, a moral entitlement, not to be treated in that way. It is unfair to them.” (Emphasis hers.)
The Michael Vick allegations revolt good people, those who believe it is wrong for a person to treat animals viciously. If proved true, Vick failed to meet even the basic Christian requirement to employ reason and free will to care for his dogs. But this case pushes further: What of the animals? What are the fundamental rights of the dogs to happiness and life? How can those rights be guaranteed and protected? (Interestingly enough, India’s highest court recommended a course for the construction of animal rights in 2000.) And how do religious people generate a vision for animal justice from their theological traditions?
Some Christians may think that we have fallen so short on practices of human justice that to consider justice for animals is beyond our capabilities. But Nussbaum insists that “truly global justice” requires constructing a decent life for “other sentient beings with whose lives our own are inextricably and complexly intertwined.”
Of course, that is pretty much what Macrina pointed out to her brother, Gregory of Nyssa, in 380. Maybe the doing of justice just requires going back and paying attention to gossamer threads.
I've seen two powerful documentaries over the past week: Michael Moore's new film Sicko, and the lesser-known Manufactured Landscapes. Both films are intensely political, but the contrast in their approach is striking.
Moore, as usual, is on a crusade. The healthcare system in the U.S. is broken, and we get to see many of the shattered pieces, up close and very personal. To our national shame, we also get to see what a great job the Canadians, Brits, French, and even Cubans are doing.
As with most of Moore's films, his agenda is obvious and immediate. We are presented with a mountain of evidence—some quantitative, much anecdotal—as to why some form of socialized healthcare would be better than what we have now. No dissenting views are presented, and Moore pretty much tells us what to think. And I find myself agreeing with much of what he says. (For example, when was the last time you heard anyone complain about socialized fire departments?)
However, I think he'd greatly increase his credibility if he interviewed at least one Canadian who has some complaints about their system, one Brit who fell through the cracks, one French person who thinks the taxes that pay for their system are too high. We shouldn't expect any system to be perfect—just way way better than one that creates financial incentives to deny care to those who most need it. But instead we have interviews with Che Guevara's daughter, extolling Cuba's virtues. I'm sorry, but I do not think this is an effective strategy for convincing doubtful Americans that government-funded healthcare is the way to go. But as with Moore's other films, there's plenty of entertaining red meat for his left-leaning fans.
Contrast Moore's approach with that of director Jennifer Baichwal, whose Manufactured Landscapes, takes us to scenes of intense environmental and social devastation caused by unrestrained economic development—and simply shows them to us. Monochromatic Chinese factories, grounded oil tankers being scrapped in Bangladesh, the vast scars of open mines. Enough context is provided to explain what you're seeing, but the relative lack of narration is as refreshing as the scenes are stunning. The film chronicles the work of Edward Burtynsky, whose large-format still photographs capture these transformed landscapes in all of their horrible beauty. One leaves the theater in a meditative state, contemplating the origins of one's possessions, rather than chattering about the relative merits of HMOs versus state-run healthcare.
I'm not sure it's necessary to debate which approach is better. One states its bias clearly, rather than pretending to be fair and balanced, energizing activists and alienating opponents. The more subtle approach lacks the rabble-rousing populism that Moore employs, but at the same time might be an easier film to convince your nature-loving conservative cousin to see.
Ryan Rodrick Beiler is the web editor for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.
Posh Spice might hope to feel at home in her new life in Los Angeles, but hubris is winding its way into her week as the ratings of her "Welcome to America" pseudo-documentary come in. In the U.K., where I live, this program was billed as a light-hearted, even "spoof" piece about her reputation for excess. But it seems the U.S. audience, or at least its television critics, weren’t quite ready for this. At any rate, whether or not she was joking, Victoria Beckham and her husband have become today’s totems of consumerist overdrive.
At the same time, according to media reports, the well-known environmentalist and anti-war activist, Barbra Streisand, has apparently issued the staff of a London hotel with demands about how they are to treat her while she stays there—including instructing them not to look her in the eye. You have to wonder just why someone who is about to sing to 15,000 people who are paying up to a thousand dollars each might be scared of a little personal interaction with just one of them, but I guess Barbra feels she’s earned the right.
It makes me wonder just who in public life is willing to set an example that imagines simplicity and economic stewardship as an admirable goal. George W. Bush has been no better than Barbara or Posh—indicating long ago that his environmental and foreign policies would be marked by not doing anything that would affect "the American way of life." When even presidents are afraid to suggest that some moral issues require a tightening of our own purse strings, then we have missed the lessons of two world wars, and have failed to understand the responsibilities of living under rapid globalization.
It may seem obvious, but we need better public discourse than this. Barbra Streisand is not more important than any of us. Posh Spice appears not to know who she really is either. And presidents need to realize that part of their role in today’s world is to endorse the idea that the common good matters more than individual or even national self-interest. Whether pop star or politician, people active in public life should perhaps think a little more clearly about how, at the very least, they are often embarrassing themselves. Bono once said that fame is "a mask that eats the face"—and perhaps the fact that he hardly ever takes his sunglasses off shows that he really means it.
Filmmaker Michael Moore and journalist Mika Brzezinski have both discovered recently what happens when you try to challenge the upside-down celebrity status quo—with Moore being bumped from Larry King Live in favor of an interview with Paris Hilton, and Brzezinski learning just what "values" drive the TV news when she tried to report on Iraq instead of the hotel heiress’ release from prison. Sometimes it seems impossible to do anything to resist the fiasco of much of our popular culture other than turning off our television sets. But, for most of us, that would be a mistake—for one thing, there’s too much good stuff out there in pop culture-land if you look hard enough.
Michael Moore stated last week that his bottom line in life and work was that he hasn’t "forgotten the lessons I learned when I was young ... that we will be judged by how we treat the least among us and that the first shall be last and the last shall be first." Whether or not you agree with his politics, Moore’s assertions are a far cry from a written contract that prevents you being looked in the eye by another human being. But I can see a reason for a certain kind of looking away—perhaps we, like Bono, need shades to shield us from the glare of celebrity bling, because some of us are increasingly concerned that it’s the kind of brightness that only blinds us to the common good.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
When you think of labor unions, do you think of men in coveralls, meeting in dingy buildings late at night, trying to get the public's attention through strikes or maybe a small newspaper clipping? (I'll admit it, I kind of do). Well, it's time to reset that union image—the fight for fair labor practices just got a lot hipper.
They're spoofing the new Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, to raise awareness about the evil practices of Lord Waldemart (aka Wal-Mart).
As the Chicago Tribune reports, Wal-Mart Watch (which is backed by the Service Employees International Union) has released a YouTube video and an accompanying Web site, WaldemartWatch.com, to get its serious message across to a new generation, in a lighter way.
As Andrew Slack, a comedian, activist, and actor in the video says: "I'm a big believer in the power of humor to create social change and get the message out there. … We don't want anyone feeling that they're being lectured at. We want to break away from that to what they're interested in, and humans tend to be interested in laughing."
For those humans who adamantly support Wal-Mart's labor practices, the movie won't likely strike a chord. But for fans of Harry Potter who are indifferent or already see a darker side to Uncle Sam Walton's smiley face, this video is a stunning debut for the latest player in YouTube politics: Big Labor.
Laurel Mathewson is an editorial assistant for Sojourners magazine.
Sinead O’Connor’s not angry anymore; or at least not angry in the same way. Her tearing up of a photo of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live 15 years ago, combined with what we think we know about her ordination into an unofficial offshoot of the Catholic church, give a convenient excuse for people to ignore her. This is a pity, because it makes us forget that she produced one of the only memorable and honest songs about love in the 1990s, her cover version of Prince’s "Nothing Compares 2 U," and one of the most beautiful hymns of spiritual comfort (1997’s "This is to Mother You" on her Gospel Oak EP).
She has made her spirituality more explicit than ever on Theology, her new double album, and the anger of early Sinead has given way to songs of hope, confidence, and worship. In 23 tracks she sings of God being present in the earthiness of a life lived between the search for truth and the struggle to get by—when she relates how God met "my need on a chronic Christmas Eve" it is easy to imagine the pain that many people feel at the times when the culture is forcing them to pretend to be happy.
In an album infused by the Hebrew Bible ("They dress the wounds of my poor people as though they’re nothing; saying peace when there’s no peace"), she expresses her desire to "make something beautiful" for God. O’Connor, who grew up in the 1970s and '80s in an often culturally bleak Ireland, is speaking out of a context that is trying to shake off its sometimes theocratic past. So it’s a risk to make music that quotes the Bible favorably. But she gets away with it—even bringing new moods to "I Don’t Know How to Love Him" from "Jesus Christ Superstar" and "By the Rivers of Babylon" —because she’s not afraid to show that she is indeed sometimes afraid.
Frederick Buechner famously wrote that, in the search for God, "without room for doubt, there would be no room for me" —I for one am grateful that Sinead O’Connor has not allowed dogma to suppress her personality and questions about what authentic spirituality is. Indeed, to sing "I Don’t Know How to Love Him" is a pretty good summation of much contemporary religion, which often seems so unsure what to do with itself.
Her spirituality doesn’t fit easily within ecclesial borders—there’s more than enough Rastafarianism, Buddhism, and generic "God as energy" ideas to go 'round here; not a bad marketing hook or a bad idea since O’Connor has said that the album is partly a response to the global insecurity that affects all faiths and none since Sept. 11. But as the Celtic writer John O’Donohue says, the best response to evil is to make something beautiful. You get the sense that when Sinead O’Connor says that railing against injustice is an act of love, that she also believes it’s better to light a candle than to curse the fact that it’s dark out there. No one can know the depths of the soul-search that goes in inside the heart of Sinead O’Connor—her music over the past 20 years has revealed someone never less than honest—sometimes painfully so. If she can stand in place for seekers like me—who sometimes yearn for the certainties of youthful faith, but know that mature spirituality has to transcend fundamentalism—then I’m grateful. Here’s to the next 20 years.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
Great helicopters and explosions abound, the witticisms are barbed, and the cinematography is silver-grey in Die Hard 4.0 (or Live Free or Die Hard, depending on which empire you see it in). I was tired to start with, but the film couldn't wake me up. I vacillated between being bored and horrified, as Bruce Willis yet again stands in for the lone American male whose first resort is always violence (in the first film he was the archetype of a Vietnam War vet, assailed by terrorists on the one hand, and a frustrating civil service bureaucracy on the other; this time he clearly represents the guy who'd go to Iraq just because it's the right thing to do, even though he knows the government sending him is corrupt).
Bruce may well be caught in the middle between two kinds of bad guys—government flunkeys and monstrous villains—but this film makes it very clear where its allegiances lie: with the worship of commerce. The villain's consistent objective seems to be to destroying the U.S. financial system, partly to take some cash for himself, partly just to show the government where it is vulnerable. He's a public-service kind of terrorist, you see. One of the scenes that's clearly supposed to make us feel horrified takes place on the New York stock exchange floor, when the bad guy uses a computer virus to creating a selling frenzy. I have to say that I found it difficult to muster much sympathy for rich boys freaking out at the prospect of not being so rich any more, but given that the film was paid for by Mr. Murdoch, I imagine I'm not the movie's target demographic.
This scene, however, was not the most striking example of cynicism in Die Hard 4.0—that would be the moment where the extremely attractive Asian woman, played by Maggie Q, gets kicked and beaten by our surrogate Bruce, and eventually crushed and blown up by an SUV while Willis chuckles at having destroyed a hot chick. We're supposed to laugh along with him.
But that's not all—for the price of our ticket we get hatred of people who ask legitimate questions about government power, we get an air force pilot who does the wrong thing for the right reasons and therefore gets to escape with his body intact, we get a decent FBI chief who could pass for being Middle Eastern—you can almost hear the film-makers screaming, "Look at us! We're inclusive!" We even get a propaganda speech by the tech-geek nerd/ wacky sidekick guy confessing his realization that his previous ideas about challenging authoritarianism and supporting a more equitable distribution of wealth are the kind of beliefs that lead to America being blown up by thin cheek-boned terrorists with expensive hardware. He's an Apple geek, of course—and the computers used by the bad guys are right out of Steve Jobs' daydreams. Willis' character may be "a Timex watch in a digital world," but this film is pure Microsoft—battering down the competition with a utilitarian ethic that owes more to John Wayne's arrogant self-belief than anything resembling the beauty of being in favor of life.
Now I know I sound like a killjoy—which is, I suppose, what Bruce Willis does to a lot of people in this movie—but the question still remains:
Why is it that when we fear this kind of thing in the real world, we still want to be entertained by it?
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
I have a confession to make: I watched the Miss Universe pageant Monday night. I could make some lame excuse like “nothing else was on television.” But the truth of the matter is that when choosing between elevating my mind with Al Gore’s new book and sinking into the comfy armchair in front of the flat-screen, I chose Miss Universe – live from Mexico City.
Miss Universe is a particularly embarrassing show to admit watching. Unlike Miss America, a pageant with a modicum of socially redeeming value (scholarships!), Miss Universe is an out-and-out ball gown and bathing suit spectacular. For decades, it was dominated by the blond-haired, blue-eyed likes of Miss Sweden, Miss France, and Miss USA. But this year was a different story.
Of the top 10 finalists, only one – Miss USA – represented the Anglo-European world. No Miss Sweden in sight (she actually dropped out because of social pressure at home that beauty pageants demean women). The other nine included: Miss Brazil, Miss India, Miss Japan (the eventual winner), Miss Angola, Miss Venezuela, Miss Korea, Miss Tanzania, Miss Nicaragua, and Miss Mexico, all citizens of the non-Western, post-colonial world. Even though they had been “Hollywoodized” to resemble Vogue models, they still carried distinctive aspects of their own cultures. Miss Tanzania was nearly bald – I have never seen a bald beauty pageant contestant before. Miss Japan’s modest evening gown looked more like a kimono than Christian Dior. Miss Brazil paraded around stage with Carnival flair.
In a kind of geo-political beauty contest metaphor, Miss USA tripped and fell during the evening gown competition. When she actually made the top five finalists, the Mexican audience jeered and booed like an angry soccer crowd. Were they irritated by our new immigration legislation? Maybe they don’t like George Bush? Whatever the case, Miss USA smiled graciously, and placed fourth.
The best moment, however, came when Miss Korea offered her testimony. While answering a question directed by the judges, she deftly said that she cared about missionary work more than anything else in the world – and that she wanted to be very rich so she could give much money to support the work of missionaries. Except for the accent, she sounded every bit like a Southern Baptist beauty contestant from Tennessee.
As I watched, I realized that I was witnessing a kind of Philip Jenkins (The Next Christendom) meets Miss Universe, a pop culture sort of post-colonial, post-feminist, and post-modern global gala – one to which Western Europeans were not being invited.
Of course, we were not very good hosts when we were the ones handing out invitations, as we expected everyone to come to our party our way. But as the gravity of pop culture moves south – as the gravity of religion already has – it might help for Miss USA’s fellow citizens to be prepared for some big changes, shifts in power, influence, understandings of truth, and yes, even the idea of beauty. I cannot fathom entirely what Miss Universe might portend for the future, but I do know that I do not want my nation to be booed off the world stage.
Around the lunch table the other day, a few coworkers and I discussed food, healthy eating, and body image (brought on by an amateur analysis of trans- and partially-hydrogenated fats and their banning in NYC). Yesterday while scanning my iGoogle (I love that thing), I ran across this Alternet article on a similar topic. The article spends a decent amount of time talking about deceptive lures and health risks of diet pills (has anyone seen Requiem for a Dream?) as well as some interesting points regarding the myth of obesity, a section about other countries’ diets, and the "set point weight" of our bodies.
It is important that we figure out a way to advocate for healthy bodies (not just thinner bodies). A high point of the lunchtime conversation was our distinction between approaching nutrition from a “good/bad” perspective versus what is healthy, and presenting alternatives of how to better utilize what our bodies have and need. For example, we talked about "good cholesterol/bad cholesterol" and "good fats/bad fats" versus all cholesterol is good and all natural fats are good, and it is the amount, ratio, and source of each that we put into our bodies that matters.
In regard to the media’s manipulative depictions of health (read: thinness) and the idea of skinnier = happier, while the equation is hooey, it often does play out in an individual’s social circles and even their own psyche. Though damaging, distorted, and deceptive, I have found some real-life experiential evidence for that equation. After I dropped 35 pounds in about a month during my senior year in high school, there was a significant increase in the attention that I received (as well as it being much friendlier). I also felt better about myself (self-confidence, success, and good-feeling neurochemicals = a synergistic boost to the self-esteem) and enjoyed the positive reinforcement I was receiving from those around me. You really do feel “happier” sometimes - proud of yourself. And if you do not internally feel happy (but instead distressed, irritable, anxious, consumed), other people are telling you that you should be happy through their constant affirmation.
Further, in contrast to the feminist critique that women are told “to be less powerful, less emotional, less hungry, and to assume less space in the world,” from my experience and conversations with friends, this criticism is not always widely felt. By more recent ideals for women, we are expected to be successful, professional, and to excel at everything; we are to be the best, to be noticed, and to be thin and beautiful. This is the unattainable perfection we have been charged with.
In addition, I am a little wary of the “love your body day" mentioned in the article because of the way these types of reactions to an unjust point of view are often perceived by the masses. Instead of “I love my body and thus do not need to listen to people who tear me down, but at the same time realize the importance of taking good care of my body,” it is usually, “I’m just fine the way I am even if I’m at risk of a heart attack because I starve myself while binging and purging or because I am obese and stressing my body, so screw you,” and nothing is accomplished.
All of these things together contribute to a false idea, even a false reality, of what women should be and are, what health should be and is, and how both can be and are achieved. I would like to see a more holistic approach to body acceptance and love, nutrition, and overall physical, emotional, and psychological health. It seems obvious, but here in the United States we seem to be having a rather hard time at achieving such a healthy state.
Katie Van Loo is the marketing and circulation assistant for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.
Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams has allegedly “blessed” an undercover CIA attempt to destabilize the government of Iran. Abrams was, of course, involved in an earlier covert attempt to undermine a foreign government (of Nicaragua) which involved illegally selling arms to Iran. This November will be the 16th anniversary of Abrams’ conviction of lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair. We suggest that he celebrate with cake, ice cream, and maybe taking some time to talk with other administration officials about blowback.
The term “blowback” was, it turns out, first used by the CIA to describe unintended negative consequences of its 1953 plot to overthrow the elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammad Mossadeq.
To be fair, the current alleged plan against the Iranian government is not licensed to kill anyone, and so far does not appear to involve lying to Congress.
Elizabeth Palmberg is an assistant editor for Sojourners.
Driving around yesterday afternoon, I was flipping between the news on two radio stations – a local talk station and BBC World Radio. During the same hour, both stations covered the same story about Islam: the findings of the first-ever nationwide survey of American Muslims, a study conducted by The Pew Research Center.
The commercial station led with the finding that one in four younger American Muslims support – under some circumstances – the practice of suicide bombing in defense of Islam. The BBC report highlighted the fact that American Muslims are far more middle class and assimilated to mainstream culture than European Muslims. The two stations, one sensationalistic and the other measured, seemed as if they were reporting on entirely different research! I went home and downloaded the whole study to check it out for myself.
Needless to say, the commercial station lifted the edgiest finding – one tempered by the fact that Muslim Americans reject religious terrorism by a much larger margin than do Muslims in other western countries. Older American Muslims almost completely reject Islamic terrorism, and half are “very concerned” about Islamic extremism throughout the world. And 53 percent also say that since Sept. 11 it has become “harder” to be a Muslim in the U.S.
The BBC got the big story right. According to the survey, American Muslims are happy, politically and socially moderate, and middle class. The data counters conventional wisdom. U.S. Muslims are better educated, have higher incomes, and express a higher degree of life satisfaction than European Muslims. Fifty-three percent think of themselves as “American” first and “Muslim” second. They believe the American dream: 71 percent agree that people who work hard can get ahead. Almost two-thirds said that “life is better” for Muslim women in America than in Muslim countries.
Muslim satisfaction with American life is a pleasant surprise; a result that should cause all Americans to consider how well immigration can work. However interesting that data may be, the story behind the story – that of the contrasts between U.S. and European Muslims – strikes me as more provocative. In Britain, France, Germany, and Spain, Muslims are much poorer than other citizens. Eighty-one percent of British Muslims consider themselves “Muslim” first and “British” second. French, German, and Spanish Muslims express little concern over Islamic extremism. Of all western Muslims, those living in Germany and Spain expressed greatest life dissatisfaction. Germany and Spain were, of course, places where the Sept. 11 terrorists had cells and financial support.
The primary historical difference regarding religion between the United States and these western European nations is the separation of church and state. Britain, France, Germany, and Spain have long – and often violent – histories of church-state establishments, often having made Christianity (or some form of Christianity) their official religion. In some cases, religious toleration was forced (either slowly or violently) upon European governments, not developing as a natural part of the society’s internal sense of identity. As recently as 2000, during the writing of the European Union Constitution, many Europeans still argued that Europe was “Christian,” and that religious identity should be part of the Union’s legal apparatus.
In the United States, Christianity was the religion of vast numbers of early settlers and political leaders. But it was never of a singular form, allowing for religious diversity since the nation’s founding (and, please, remember the native religions that inhabited this land). Diversity made it impossible for one church to gain hegemony over politics thus necessitating the establishment clause and guarantees for religious freedom. Eventually, the experience of religious diversity, a desire for toleration, and the prohibition of establishment led to the contemporary doctrine of the separation of church and state. At its best, America has a heritage of Christian liberality, intellectually influenced by Christianity but open to a wide range of ideas and peoples through the practice of religious toleration. Religious freedom is the great American contribution to classical liberalism and the foundation of contemporary liberal movements.
With its contrast between the U.S. and Europe, the Pew study suggests that the separation of church and state works to create a more generous, open, and safer society in regard to terrorism. In his recent book, Freedom’s Power: The True Force of Liberalism, Paul Starr argues:
[T]he guarantees of religious toleration and freedom of conscience exemplify the logic of liberalism as a foundation for a stable policy. Internecine religious conflicts and wars of religion, like revenge feuds, deplete the powers of states and societies. Religious toleration serves not only to allow people to worship differently but also to reduce conflict, facilitate economic exchange, and create a wider pool of talent for productive work and the state itself (p. 22).
Since Sept. 11, some Christians have called for an end to the separation of church and state to combat terrorism, claiming a stronger national Christian identity, a “Christian America,” is the way to defeat Islamic extremism – a tactic employed by some reactionary European political parties. The Pew study shows that approach is wrong-headed. The path to peace between Christians and Muslims is that of religious freedom, separation of church and state, and appreciative toleration in the best traditions of liberality.
I watched much of the cable television coverage of Jerry Falwell’s death and legacy. And I did a lot of grimacing, in response to both the uncritical adulations of his allies (who just passed over the divisive character of much of Falwell’s rhetoric), and also the ugly vitriol from some of Falwell’s enemies (who attacked both his character and his faith). And there were even some who attacked all people of faith. I ended up being glad that I had passed up all the invitations to be on those shows. On the day of Rev. Jerry Falwell’s death, I was content to offer a brief statement, which read:
I was saddened to learn that Rev. Jerry Falwell passed away this morning at age 73. Rev. Falwell and I met many times over the years, as the media often paired us as debate partners on issues of faith and politics. I respected his passionate commitment to his beliefs, and our shared commitment to bringing moral debate to the public square, although we didn’t agree on many things. At this time, however, what matters most is our prayers for comfort and peace for his family and friends.
Two days later, I might add that Falwell, in his own way, did help to teach Christians that their faith should express itself in the public square and I am grateful for that, even if the positions Falwell took were often at great variance with my own. I spent much of my early Christian life fighting the privatizing of faith, characterized by the withdrawal of any concern for the world (so as to not be “worldly”) and an exclusive focus on private matters. If God so loved the world, God must care a great deal about what happens to it and in it. Falwell agreed with that, and blew the trumpet that awakened fundamentalist Christians to engage the world with their faith and moral values. And that commitment is a good thing. Jerry and I debated often about how faith should impact public life and what all the great moral issues of our time really are.
But many conservative Christians are now also embracing poverty, HIV/AIDS, Darfur, sex trafficking, and even the war in Iraq as matters of faith and moral imperatives. It would have been nice to hear on those TV shows that Jerry Falwell, too, had moved to embrace a broader agenda than just abortion and homosexuality. Rev. Falwell, who was admittedly racist during the civil rights movement, was in later years honored by the Lynchburg NAACP for his turn-about on the issue of race, showing the famous founder of the Religious Right’s capacity to grow and change. But two nights ago on television, I saw the pain on the face of gay Christian Mel White, who lamented that despite his and other’s efforts, Falwell never did even moderate his strong and often inflammatory language (even if maintaining his religious convictions) against gay and lesbian people. They still feel the most wounded by the fundamentalist minister’s statements; that healing has yet to be done.
Ralph Reed said that Jerry Falwell presided over the “marriage ceremony” between religious fundamentalists and the Republican Party. That’s still a concern about the Religious Right for many of us, and should be a warning for the relationship of any so-called religious left with the Democrats. But perhaps in the overly partisan mistakes that Jerry Falwell made - and actually pioneered - we can all be instructed in how to forge a faith that is principled but not ideological, political but not partisan, engaged but not used. That’s how the Catholic Bishops put it, and it is a better guide than the direction we got from the Moral Majority. But Falwell proclaimed a public faith, not a private one. And I am with him on that. As I like to say, God is personal, but never private. So let’s pray for Jerry Falwell’s family, the members of his Thomas Road Baptist Church, and all the students at his Liberty University. And let’s learn from his legacy - about how and how not to best apply our faith to politics.
I was saddened to learn that Rev. Jerry Falwell passed away this morning at age 73. Rev. Falwell and I met many times over the years, as the media often paired us as debate partners on issues of faith and politics. I respected his passionate commitment to his beliefs, and our shared commitment to bringing moral debate to the public square, although we didn’t agree on many things. At this time, however, what matters most is our prayers for comfort and peace for his family and friends.
The resignation of British Prime Minister Tony Blair comes as no real surprise for those watching the soap opera of British politics over the past two years. Most thought it would come much sooner. This occasion provides an opportunity to assess his legacy over 20-plus years of public service, 10 of those as parliamentary leader.
Tony Blair leaves behind a reputation for aggressive political reform within the United Kingdom and effective statesmanship abroad - two lessons the United States could learn from the former superpower as we move ahead into the 21st century.
Domestically, Blair forcefully confronted the false choice between economic growth and compassionate governance by incentivizing corporate innovation in the social sector and demanding greater accountability from state-run public services.
In doing so, he offered a model for those looking to bridge the gap between the public and private sectors, promoting partnership rather than enmity - beginning with the moral questions of "What must be done?" and ending with the market questions of "How can we do it best?"
Acting with courage and ethical clarity in an era of staggering global poverty and vast economic inequality, Blair believed the ancient wisdom that "to whom much is given, much is required."
To this end, he fought to forgive outstanding loans to developing nations and increased his country's commitments to foreign aid - investments that provided millions with education, food relief, clean drinking water, and access to basic medical care.
Addressing the ever-present threat of international terrorism, Blair shrewdly recognized it for what it is: a symptomatic birth pang of globalization - the inevitable consequence of the three colliding forces of unprecedented individual empowerment, unprecedented financial growth, and unprecedented economic disparity.
As such, Blair led with the conviction that the Western world will never find true security until the rest of the world is given a chance to transcend their current circumstances. In other words, while hopelessness breeds resentment and violence, opportunity secures hope for the future.
While it's sad to see him go (and perhaps even sadder to see his legacy blemished by the unresolved conflict in Iraq), the gentleman he's selected to fill his shoes, Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, brings an uncommon blend of conscience, talent, and experience to the table.
In the end, Tony Blair exits with an important admonition, benediction, and commission:
In 20 years, or sooner, there will be new powers, new constellations of authority, with strong intentions and powerful means of advancing them. What values will govern that new world? Will they be global values, commonly shared, or will the world revert to spheres of interest, to competing power-plays in which the lesser or struggling nations are the victims?
If the narrative we believe in - a world of tolerance, freedom, openness and justice for all - is to be credible, it has to be effective. The best answer to fear is always hope. But hope requires belief. And belief comes only from words turned into deeds. So take these issues: Africa, climate change, world trade.
Imagine over the coming months the world agrees and over the coming years, it acts. Think how attractive our story of the world's progress would be. Then think of failure and who will weep and who will rejoice. Think of all of this. Then let us agree. Then let us act.
Thank you, Mr. Prime Minister.
Chris LaTondresse is the special assistant to the CEO at Sojourners/Call to Renewal.
Sitting in the carpool line, I'm surrounded by a crowd of high-occupancy vehicles. Almost all of them are hued in the peaceful colors of a seascape - navy blue, metallic blue, blue-green, silver, and shimmering beige. There's not a lot of red or yellow here - no shocking colors to interrupt the serene abundance of blues. Minivans are designed to blend in, I think.
Inside the cars are mostly moms, but a couple of dads and several grandparents. Some have come straight from the office to pick up their little ones, and others have worked the day away running errands and managing the demands of their full households. We're coming from many different directions for a singular purpose: We are each collecting our cherished offspring.
The routine of the carpool line is like a well-rehearsed dance performance. Everyone knows their part and slides into step without being told what to do. Cars begin arriving about 20 minutes before school lets out, assembling in a long line that winds through the parking lot. The unruffled, organized people arrive first and set a good example for the rest of us. The frantic, overbooked folks fill in the back of the line. We're all checking our watches with various levels of intensity to be sure that we're staying on schedule for the day.
In good weather, some PTA moms congregate outside their cars and talk about school activities. The rest sit in their cars reading or talking on the phone as they wait. The staff who manage the line of children on the curb talk urgently into their walkie-talkies, calling for dismissal and organizing the kids into groups. We are focused, cooperative, and calm - sticking with the routine. It is a quick break in the midst of the hectic day. The whole scene looks sweet and simple. It's a lovely picture of community - a very suburban ideal. One might even call it peaceful.
As I observe the scene, I think about peace. I think that the view before me is not a picture of true peace. We have gotten very good at creating a façade of peace. On the surface, it appears that every one of us has it all together. We are blending in with our shiny cars and our happy talk about the busyness of suburban life. We commiserate about our full schedules, inserting subtle boasts about our children's accomplishments, our demanding jobs, our overwhelming yard work, our volunteer commitments, and the birthday parties and soccer games we're juggling this weekend. We are working hard to impress each other with this image of peaceful productivity - but our image is interrupted by talk of stress and frantic schedules, and, well . . . our discontent. We don't get enough free time, our children aren't getting enough individualized attention in school, the kids are always fighting, and we're running late. We need help!
I want real peace - the kind that is beyond understanding. I want a peace that can conquer my worries and discontent. I want this so that I can show it to my children, because I know that they need it and I don't think I can teach it to them. In the midst of a world that is decidedly un-peaceful, I want my children to carry this supernatural, God-given peace within them.
This kind of peace is borne out of intentional connection to my Creator. God will help me to see the good that is around me and will make my heart glad. God will deliver peace in just the right measure for today, and God's peace will extend beyond my routines, ahead of my circumstances and it will not be defined by this world.
Today in the carpool line, I'll pause and pray. I will express gratitude for the good things and ask for the gift of peace. I will pause and sense peace bubbling up within me - a gift from my Creator - and I will hope for an opportunity to share it.
"Stop striving and know that I am God." - Psalm 46:10
Julie Clendenin is the mother of three young daughters. She sits in the carpool line every Monday afternoon in Silver Spring, Maryland. She drives a silver Honda and tries not to blend in too much.
When elements of the recent Pew study on Hispanic religiosity were first published last summer, a number of my colleagues in movements for social justice were surprised. Many were also worried.
According to the study (conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life), 15% of the Hispanic community identifies as evangelical (which goes up by generation – a much higher percentage of Latinos are evangelical in the second generation than among immigrants.) Even more surprising for many of my non-Latino friends was that 34% of Hispanics identify as charismatic/evangelical Catholics (whose services and many of whose spiritual practices and faith disciplines are indistinguishable from non-Catholic evangelicals.) The implications? A little less than half of all Latinos in the U.S. are pursuing a form of faith that centers around a personal relationship with Jesus, ecstatic worship, direct experience of miracle (particularly miracles of healing) devotion to personal and small group Bible study, disciplined personal morality, and a strong network of mutual care among the members of the church.
As a member of the Hispanic community myself, a Lutheran pastor who has served Spanish-speaking congregations, and an organizer who works daily with Hispanic Catholics, I’m not surprised. I am also not worried, although I think that we are in a moment of opportunity and danger.
My companions in the struggle for economic and social justice are worried about the frequent correlation in the larger American culture between religious faith with these characteristics and a blatant disregard for the human and sacred rights of the poor and oppressed. My Hispanic, non-Christian comrades know the history of colonialism and how often a similar kind of religion has been used to distract and tranquilize the oppressed so that they can be more easily exploited. They have a point.
However, they are deaf and blind to the beauty of the movement of the Spirit in the Latino community at this historic, kairos moment, and the hope it could bring to this country. Why do we think that oppressed people will be less able and less likely to fight for justice if they are healed and strengthened by the intimate love of Jesus, the gifts of the Spirit, the care of their community? Couldn’t the opposite be true? The study also noted that the single greatest complaint of Hispanic congregants is that their leaders didn’t involve them enough in ministry to the community. The Bible is full of the call to economic and social justice – over 600 verses at my last count. If we who know the dangers of colonial interpretations take up the mantle to teach, we have a slowly awakening giant in our hands – one who could offer a new vision to the American people, a holistic vision of faith that integrates personal joy and healing, integrity, mysticism, the transforming power of scripture, real community, and the ancient progressive prophetic vision of justice. Andale!
Rev. Alexia Salvatierra is the Executive Director of CLUE (Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice), an organization of religious leaders in Los Angeles county who support low-wage workers in their struggle for a living wage, health insurance, fair working conditions and a voice in the decisions that affect them.
When elements of the recent Pew study on Hispanic religiosity were first published last summer, a number of my colleagues in movements for social justice were surprised. Many were also worried.
According to the study (conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life), 15% of the Hispanic community identifies as evangelical (which goes up by generation – a much higher percentage of Latinos are evangelical in the second generation than among immigrants.) Even more surprising for many of my non-Latino friends was that 34% of Hispanics identify as charismatic/evangelical Catholics (whose services and many of whose spiritual practices and faith disciplines are indistinguishable from non-Catholic evangelicals.) The implications? A little less than half of all Latinos in the U.S. are pursuing a form of faith that centers around a personal relationship with Jesus, ecstatic worship, direct experience of miracle (particularly miracles of healing) devotion to personal and small group Bible study, disciplined personal morality, and a strong network of mutual care among the members of the church.
As a member of the Hispanic community myself, a Lutheran pastor who has served Spanish-speaking congregations, and an organizer who works daily with Hispanic Catholics, I’m not surprised. I am also not worried, although I think that we are in a moment of opportunity and danger.
My companions in the struggle for economic and social justice are worried about the frequent correlation in the larger American culture between religious faith with these characteristics and a blatant disregard for the human and sacred rights of the poor and oppressed. My Hispanic, non-Christian comrades know the history of colonialism and how often a similar kind of religion has been used to distract and tranquilize the oppressed so that they can be more easily exploited. They have a point.
However, they are deaf and blind to the beauty of the movement of the Spirit in the Latino community at this historic, kairos moment, and the hope it could bring to this country. Why do we think that oppressed people will be less able and less likely to fight for justice if they are healed and strengthened by the intimate love of Jesus, the gifts of the Spirit, the care of their community? Couldn’t the opposite be true? The study also noted that the single greatest complaint of Hispanic congregants is that their leaders didn’t involve them enough in ministry to the community. The Bible is full of the call to economic and social justice – over 600 verses at my last count. If we who know the dangers of colonial interpretations take up the mantle to teach, we have a slowly awakening giant in our hands – one who could offer a new vision to the American people, a holistic vision of faith that integrates personal joy and healing, integrity, mysticism, the transforming power of scripture, real community, and the ancient progressive prophetic vision of justice. Andale!
Rev. Alexia Salvatierra is the Executive Director of CLUE (Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice), an organization of religious leaders in Los Angeles county who support low-wage workers in their struggle for a living wage, health insurance, fair working conditions and a voice in the decisions that affect them.
Peggy Noonan, a special assistant and speechwriter for Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, isn't exactly my favorite pundit, but she's right on in her OpinionJournal.com column today on the effect on children of our cultural propensity toward in-your-face violence.
Her strongest language is aimed at the callousness of the rich:
We are frightening our children to death, and I'll tell you what makes me angriest. I am not sure the makers of our culture fully notice what they are doing, what impact their work is having, because the makers of our culture are affluent. Affluence buys protection. You can afford to make your children safe. You can afford the constant vigilance needed to protect your children from the culture you produce, from the magazine and the TV and the CD and the radio. ... The lacking, the poor, the working and middle class--they have no protection. Their kids are on their own. And they're scared.
The crisis in Zimbabwe has become the crisis of the church. How can we, as Christians and Zimbabweans, be the church in this context? When the apostle Paul describes the church in 1 Corinthians 12, he uses the metaphor of the body in order to capture the relatedness, interdependence, and diversity of the church. I want to pick up just two aspects of Paul’s description of the church in my discussion on the current role of the church in Zimbabwe. The two verses I want to focus on are verse 17 (“If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?”) and verse 26 (“If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it”).
In verse 17 Paul recognizes the different roles and ministries within the church that compliment each other, just as the different parts of the body. The prophetic voice represents the “mouth” of the church, the naming of injustice, articulating the issues and pointing out a vision of justice that is informed by faith in a just and liberating God. The prophetic voice of the church is present in Zimbabwe. There is an emergence of a distinctive prophetic voice that is breaking denominational divisions. An example of an emerging prophetic voice is the newly formed Christian Alliance. This is how they define themselves and their mission in Zimbabwe at this time - I will quote directly from their founding statement.
The Christian Alliance is an organized network of Christian leaders and organizations who felt called by God to be instrumental in resolving the crisis in the country peacefully and permanently so that Zimbabweans can again live in freedom, peace and prosperity. It was born as a result of pressure from Zimbabweans who had become disillusioned on issues of corruption and human rights abuses by the government, the security forces and the militias.
The CA was officially launched at St. Mary’s Anglican Church in Bulawayo on February 3, 2006. Over 200 pastors, priests and church leaders from various churches and denominations attended the colorful all day event marked by singing, praying and preaching. They came from across the country as far as Mutare and Victoria Falls.
Lawyer and church pastor, Reverend Lucky Moyo, one of the organizers of CA said about its work, "All dialogue will be pursued following Christian principles of non-violence and ethical debate. The war ethos prevailing in Zimbabwe must be broken. We are not going to war; neither do we expect to be attacked. This is simply a platform to engage in meaningful discussion for the greater good of all Zimbabweans."
There are other initiatives, but this one is of particular interest because of its Christian ethos and representation across denominations.
The other equally essential ministry of the church is the pastoral role, the “walking with” people in great pain and suffering, instilling hope and courage for the harsh realities of everyday life. The political crisis affects the day-to-day life of ordinary Zimbabweans. Examples include the ongoing stress of making ends meet in the context of inflation of over 1700 percent and the failure to pay for the basics of life such as education, foods, health and the ongoing devastation of HIV & AIDS. The pastoral work in this context can best be illustrated by the narrative in Daniel 3 about the three Hebrew young men who were thrown into the fire for disobeying the orders of the king. The text I want to focus on is verse 25: He said, "Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods."
The fire represents the harsh realities of life, and pastoral care is mediating the presence of God in the midst of suffering so that people are not destroyed by the situation. This ministry is carried out faithfully by pastors and lay people as they encourage, pray, preach, and be present to others. The church in Zimbabwe is growing, and many people are under the pastoral care of pastors. Their pastoral work is as essential as the prophetic voice, because a country is as strong as the soul and character of its people.
The challenge is to keep the prophetic and pastoral connected. The prophetic needs the pastoral to keep in touch with the experiences and voices of the people. The pastoral needs the prophetic to connect the political to the personal. Together the prophetic and pastoral empower Christians to go beyond survival to participating in creating a new vision for Zimbabwe that we can all be a part of.
The last text I want to look at is 1 Corinthians 12, verse 26a: “If one part suffers, every part suffers with it.” The church in Zimbabwe is part of the world wide church, and if the church in Zimbabwe is suffering, then the whole body of Christ is suffering too. Geography does not separate us; Christ has made us one. Therefore the question is not “What is the church in Zimbabwe doing?” but “What am I - as a member or community of believers in Christ - doing?”
Nontando Hadebe, a former Sojourners intern, is originally from Zimbabwe and is now pursuing graduate studies in theology in South Africa.
Monday was a heavy day. That night, my family sat down for our usual routine - some quiet moments before dinner when we sit and pray together. My two younger daughters, ages 9 and 7, were in their places as their daddy began to pray, "God, we're so grateful for all the good things you give us." But this night, he included something else in our prayer. As he asked God to comfort the people and families affected by the students at Virginia Tech, the girls both looked up. "What happened?!?" they asked, almost in unison. My husband's answer was short and simple: A young man was upset and confused and did something that is completely beyond our understanding. There is no way to know why he did what he did and it's very sad that no one was able to stop him.
I guess I should mention that my children don't watch TV news and that we often hide the front page of the paper in an effort to shield them from the shock of our daily news. We want to break things to them gently and remind them that God is alive and at work in this world despite all the hate and anger around us. I want them to know God's touch first, so that they can manage the barrage of frightening events around them.
So, how do parents explain this kind of thing to their young children? We can't. There are too many unanswerable questions. Who is this shooter? Why did he kill? Who could have, or should have, protected the young ones who are now lost? My daughters want to understand - and so do I. But we don't.
The one mystery I can explain is this: God will be the comforter and the peacemaker in this kind of situation. We say it and we believe it, but this truth does not explain things and it doesn't make events seem any more reasonable. I'm reminded of the ancient prayer: "O God, we do not know what to do, but our eyes are on you."
Julie Clendenin works in the media department at Sojourners/Call to Renewal.
If a world famous violinist plays his 1713 Stradivarius at the entrance of a subway in downtown Washington, D.C., will anyone listen? Watch the video clips as Joshua Bell busks at L’Enfant Plaza metro stop while 1,097 people pass by. Bell’s social experiment or “art attack” chronicled in The Washington Post begs the question of the place of beauty and art in American life.
Elaine Scarry, a Harvard University professor of aesthetic, has written eloquently on the role of beauty in shaping the moral and spiritual life of human beings. “What precisely does one hope to bring about in oneself when one opens oneself to, or even actively pursues, beauty?” she asks in On Beauty and Being Just:
When the same question is asked about other enduring objects of aspiration—goodness, truth, justice—the answer seems straightforward. If one pursues goodness, one hopes in doing so to make oneself good. If one pursues justice, one surely hopes to be able one day to count oneself among the just. If one pursues truth, one wishes to make oneself knowledgeable. There is, in other words, a continuity between the thing pursued and the pursuer’s own attributes. Although in each case there has been an enhancement of the self, the undertaking and the outcome are in a very deep sense unself-interested since in each case the benefits to others are folded into the nature of my being good, bearing knowledge, or acting fairly. In this sense it may have been misleading to phrase the question in terms of a person’s hopes for herself. It would be more accurate to say that one cannot further the aims of justice without (whether one means to or not) placing oneself in the company of the just. What this phrasing and the earlier phrasing have in common, the key matter, is the continuity between the external object and the person who is dedicated to it.
In order to usher in a reign of God where humans are at least as lovely as the lilies of the field we must cultivate a discipline of beauty in our daily lives, churches, and workplaces. In order to move from being the “ugly American” to an “American beauty” we have to embrace what is beautiful. War, for example, is ugly. As is poverty. So today, practice the art of gazing upon something beautiful. Spend time listening to Joshua Bell’s violin amid the morning rush. Read a poem.
Rose Marie Berger, an associate editor of Sojourners, is a Catholic peace activist and poet.
Over this past weekend, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich equated bilingual education with learning "the language of living in a ghetto," and said, "Citizenship requires passing a test on American history in English. If that's true, then we do not have to create ballots in any language except English." While the merits of bilingual education may be a topic of ongoing discussion, it is Gingrich's apparent fear of a majority non-white America that reveals his jingoism. If the words of Congressman Tancredo and even the writings of Harvard Professor Sam Huntington are any indication, Gingrich's attitude regarding America's multi-ethnic future is not an isolated one. A central question and issue may be: Who gets to define what America looks like in the 21st century? Should every effort be made to maintain a white majority that reflects the current Western European culture and ethos of American society?
The unavoidable reality is that by the year 2050, projections point to a nation without an ethnic majority. In other words, the majority of Americans will be made up of current ethnic minorities. America will no longer be a Euro-centric, white nation. Furthermore, the trends seem to indicate that the non-white population among Christians is growing at a disproportional rate. In other words, American Christianity will become non-white before the rest of American society. Even now, most denominations are faced with the reality that unless they see growth among the ethnic minority population within their denomination, they will experience steady decline.
The problem of immigration presents an interesting dilemma for majority-culture Christians. Immigrants and ethnic minorities are saving American Christianity. Immigrants and ethnic minorities tend to be socially and morally conservative. Immigrant and ethnic minority churches are restoring spiritual vitality and fervor oftentimes missing in many white evangelical churches. Too often, the future of American evangelicalism is viewed as a battle over the heart and soul of middle-America (i.e. – white America), when the restoration of faith in American culture may actually depend on the ongoing growth of immigrant and ethnic minority Christian communities. So what is the response of the white evangelical community to the changing face of America? So far, it has been one of conspicuous silence on the issue of immigration. Many Christian leaders have been hesitant to support genuine immigration reform – maybe reflecting the fear of a non-white America and a non-white American Christianity.
As an evangelical Christian, I look towards scripture for my guidance. In my study of scripture, I have yet to find a single passage which supports the right to bear arms. (I'm not arguing against the right to bear arms, I'm just saying I can't find a biblical reference regarding the right to bear arms). I have, however, found numerous references (50+ and still counting) calling believers to care for the alien among them. Why is it then that I am more likely to find members of the NRA in a typical American evangelical church than I will find those who advocate for an immigration policy that shows compassion for the immigrant among us? How much of our view on immigration is driven by a political and social agenda rather than a biblical one?
Rev. Dr. Soong-Chan Rah is Milton B. Engebretson Assistant Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at North Park Theological Seminary and a member of the Sojourners/Call to Renewal Board.
A new book just came out that you don’t want to miss. It’s by my good friend, Robert Franklin, who is the Distinguished Professor of Social Ethics at Emory University. He is someone I have come to deeply respect as an insightful public intellectual and social commentator as we’ve worked together for many years.
Last week, I was part of a panel discussion to launch Bob’s new book, Crisis in the Village. It’s one of the best contemporary analyses of the state of Black America I’ve seen. He pulls no punches in describing the crisis, identifying three key institutions in the community and what they now face. It’s a “crisis of commitment” for the Black family, a “mission crisis” for the Black church, and a crisis of “moral purpose” for historically black colleges and universities. Bob calls these the three “anchor institutions” that “are the bedrock of civil society.” He cites alarming social indicators which powerfully show how vulnerable the black community still is, especially black children.
But, it is not a book of despair, it’s a strategy for resolving the crisis. The subtitle is “Restoring Hope in African American Communities,” and that hope is where he focuses. Bob wrote the book, he said “…because I have seen an abundance of books out there that describe the problems of the African American community … but, there are fewer than you might think that offer practical visions and strategic thinking about how to move forward.” And, he added, the reversal of the crisis “begins with personal renewal and commitment to community uplift.”
Also on the National Press Club panel were journalist E.J. Dionne, Children’s Defense Fund President Marian Wright Edelman, former National Urban League President Hugh Price, and Professor of Christian Ethics at Howard University Cheryl Sanders. Cheryl talked about how much sense this book made from the perspective of the street where she lives as pastor of the Third Street Church of God in Washington, D.C. Marian spoke passionately to how the future of black children is literally at stake in the issues raised in Crisis. Hugh Price said how the book cuts through so much of the confusion about these issues in the black community, and E.J. Dionne showed how Bob’s ethic of combining personal and social responsibility also cuts through our polarized political debate. I recalled a book by Abbie Hoffman called, Steal This Book!, which was memorable only for the title, and suggested this one should be re-titled Read This Book! Bob Franklin always cuts through the morass of blame and despair to offer us a politics of solutions and hope. This book is Bob at his best. He transcends left and right, and helps us understand what it right and wrong. Then he points the way forward. We had a lively discussion about the book, and the importance of realizing that the crisis and its solution must involve all of us.
Read this book! Crisis in the Village is one book I really do urge you to read. Bob’s challenge calls us all to deeper reflection and more serious action. His passionate vision for change and prophetic call for commitment are for everyone who cares about the black community and about America. At the Press Club, Bob left us with one of his favorite quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. which I have often heard him use. It has now become a favorite of mine. "This hour in history needs a dedicated circle of transformed nonconformists. The saving of our world from pending doom will come not from the actions of a conforming majority but from the creative maladjustment of a transformed minority."
To read more from Crisis in the Village, see an adapted excerpt in “The Gospel of Bling,” by Robert M. Franklin, in the January 2007 issue of Sojourners magazine.
It’s a question I had to finally face because it has been gnawing at me for years, just below the surface. As a Native American and a student of history, I know of the hypocrisy, the constant sway towards American myth building, the social construction of "the White Man," in order to maintain power and how many treaties were made by the United States with really no intention of keeping them. I’ve seen the disregard for the poor and the hate exhibited for those who are not mainstream or not from the "right" ethnicity. I’ve seen all this sin, both in its ugly raw grassroots forms and in its heinous sophisticated expressions.
Now it appears the present administration may be gearing up for an Iran assault and I wonder what is next? How many innocent Iranians will die? How many of our sons and daughters will have to die for someone’s political agenda? When will the quest for world domination ever end? History continues to repeat itself. I heard someone say, "if we invade Iran, I’ll move to Canada." Others are speaking out of frustration and cynicism at what appears to be a growing fascism in the United States. Yet, for Native Americans—this is all yesterday’s news...
You may wonder why Native Americans fly the U.S. flag at our Pow Wows. Why do we have the highest rate of service in the U.S. military than any other group? Why despite continued mistreatment, do we remain citizens? While I can’t answer for all Native Americans, I believe I can safely say that it is not because we did not recognize the fascism, the attempted genocide, the lies, and the hypocrisy. Given our history with the U.S., these are very appropriate words to describe the government’s relationship with us. We have never held our eyes closed to the truth.
In some ways Native Americans comprise some of the best citizenry in America because we know the most vile underside of America personally. We benefit the least from America’s accomplishments and we still hold a glimmer of hope that the United States will one day live up to its own goal of being a true democracy. It has even happened in history on several occasions. Perhaps it can happen again. One thing is certain, fascism will not turn itself around willingly. The intoxication of power for those who lead such a regime will not simply abandon their addiction.
I hope that once we, as a nation, get over the shock of the American Myth being shattered, we can see more clearly that something else must happen to allow us to call on our "better angels." Apparently our university students are not going to be the influence for peace like they were during the Vietnam era. And, even if they were, much of the media has opted out of protest coverage. The politicians are obviously unable to buck the system in the halls of power. The legal system is slowly being purged and gilded. The church is quietly acquiescent in regard to the affairs of the state. So, shall we just lay down and die? Become total cynics? Bury our heads in the sand? Join the rhetoric of those in power? Are there other options?
Without sounding trite, I am actually wondering what Jesus would do. Whatever it is that Jesus would do—it will take you for him to do it. I look forward to hearing from you.
I've attempted to distill the most helpful elements from the rather heated comments on Tony Jones' post on Mitt Romney's Mormon faith, much of which focused on this sentence: "I'm skeptical of a religion that admonishes its adherents to wear sacred undergarments ... that didn't allow non-whites to be clergy until 1978, and that follows the teachings of Joseph Smith, whose scriptures I find highly dubious."
The strongest objections came from blogger Faithful Progressive, who has repeatedly asked for apologies from Tony and Diana Butler Bass for what he considered "mocking," "insensitive and ultimately intolerant remarks," though he has since moderated some of his original criticism.
I've defended Tony's post as honest inquiry - especially since he bracketed his questions with a confession: "My ambivalence stems, I suppose, from my ignorance," and an acknowledgement of the strangeness of his own beliefs: "I know that much of orthodox Christianity is irrational, too: I eat flesh and drink blood every Sunday."
Many of the most balanced and insightful comments came from Mormons themselves:
Unfortunately I have met far too many people who seem to imagine that Mormons worship Joseph Smith (or even Satan), using that as a basis for their arguments against our being Christians. Aside from that, I wasn't trying to beg into the club. I am proud of our doctrine, its materialism, its progressive nature, its undercurrent of gnosticism, its belief in a God who is willing to extend ALL his blessings and glory to his children. …
Also, for the record, I found out about this post thanks to Faithful Progressive. I'm afraid he made it out to sound worse than it was, and I wish he could have toned down the rhetoric. Diana's comment could easily be read in a positive light, depending on your opinion of Stanley Hauerwas. Many of us in the LDS church (myself included) have ancestors who were tarred and feathered, forcibly relocated, even hanged from their own porches on account of their Mormonism. Some of us can feel small in comparison to these heroes in our past, and will look for persecution anywhere we can get it. Perhaps it is an attempt to prove our mettle.
As a Mormon and a liberal I was disappointed in Tony Jones' comments. I can appreciate that some Mormon thought is "out of the mainstream" but one should keep in that the fundamental belief of Mormonism is in Jesus Christ as Savior and Redeemer. Tony is right; he is ignorant of Mormonism. But ignorance should in thoughtful Christian people motivate an effort at greater understanding instead of disrespect.
As I've reflected on these comments it's occurred to me that from a Mormon perspective, such questions, however intentioned, can be offensive when they're perceived through the lenses of those who've endured patterns of ridicule or condescension. And as a member of the majority dominant culture, I generally want to give extra credence to the testimony of those who've been marginalized in these ways. I felt a creeping double standard as I reflected on my own words regarding the Biden blow-up:
Choose your words carefully, and be aware of how they may be interpreted. And if challenged, be honest with yourself about your own prejudice - the prejudice that infects all of us. I am the chief of sinners, and confess that I constantly grapple with the stereotypical fears, lowered expectations, etc. that I've inherited from a society permeated with prejudice. This may seem unfair, but it is the responsibility of those who have been given unfair privilege and power by that society to go the extra mile.
While I still think it's inaccurate to call Tony's comments "mockery," insensitivity may be the fairest criticism. I get the sense that between the two of us, he'd rather err on the side of candid inquiry, and I'd rather err on the side of sensitivity. He's volunteered to grow a thicker skin for these conversations - I'm just not sure it's always fair to ask that of the minority in any given situation. But above all, I believe we both want to strike a balance between honesty and sensitivity while walking the tightrope of true dialogue.
Ryan Beiler is the Web Editor for Sojourners/Call to Renewal.
Last week, I caused a bit of a dust-up by wondering aloud about Mitt Romney's LDS faith, including an admittance of my own ignorance about particular practices and beliefs therein. It seems to me that Romney has been less that forthcoming about his commitment to LDS beliefs and practices, and he will be compelled, as the presidential race goes forward, to honestly confront those questions: Is he a "high priest" in the LDS church? Does he consider the words of Prophet Gordon Hinckley inspired and infallible? Private concerns these are not, particularly for a presidential candidate.
However, I'm more interested today in responding to the criticism of my last post. Faithful Progressive (FP) repeatedly castigated me for referring to the sacred undergarments worn by many Mormons, calling me everything from "bigoted" to "immature." While I am predisposed not to respond to anonymous criticism, I will make an exception in this case, for I think the difference between me and FP points out a major philosophical difference.
Call it globalization, postmodernism, or a "flat world," we live in a radically pluralized society, and it is only becoming more so. As the U.S. pluralizes, we become increasingly aware of the "otherness" of those around us. The Other looks, talks, and worships differently than I do. And, case in point, we've got a woman, an African-American, and a Mormon as leading contenders in a presidential race, a situation unthinkable just 50 years ago.
We face three choices when confronting our increasingly pluralized society. The first is the traditional conservative response, alternatively called ethnocentrism or fundamentalism. Proponents of this tactic build walls, both figuratively and literally, between themselves and the Other. Whether it be the attempt to move millions of evangelicals to South Carolina, or to found a Roman Catholic town in Florida, the desire to "conserve" a previous state of affairs leads to cultural withdrawal at its most innocent (see M. Night Shyamalan's movie, The Village, for a disturbing portrayal of retreatism), and to purgings and pogroms at its most dire (Fox TV's 24 is dealing with these pressures this season).
Just the opposite is the traditional liberal response to radical pluralism. FP and other liberals posit that we secularize. That is, he wants us to avoid talking about some of the very core practices and beliefs that differentiate us in an attempt to keep the peace. But arbitrary rules that attempt to avoid offense end up gutting the heart from real, robust conversations about the beliefs that many of us deeply hold and about the practices that guide our very lives. Sen. Obama, in his otherwise excellent speech to Sojourners last June, fell into this trap himself when he said, "Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values." By my lights, the ecumenical and inter-faith movements of the 20th century were failures for just this reason: they endeavored to have lowest-common-denominator conversations, and thus talked about things that weren't of much interest to anyone.
The third, and I believe superior strategy for public conversation about religion, is the truly postmodern one: recognize the difference of the Other, even as you are robustly and distinctly yourself. To enter inter-religious dialogue, I've got to grow a thicker skin, for I need to be ready to answer penetrating, and even prickly questions about what I believe and how I practice it. I can neither be hypersensitive about what I'm asked, nor should I be expected to walk on eggshells when talking to others.
On the very day last week that I was receiving e-mails from FP demanding that I apologize to Mormons, I went to dinner with a bunch of friends. We all had black smudges on our foreheads, and we were compelled to describe to our waiter the increasingly foreign practice of the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday. Likewise, I will unashamedly ask a Sikh man next to me on a plane why he ties his beard over his head and covers it in a turban, a Hindu woman why she wears a dot on her forehead, an orthodox Jew why he wears tassels, an old-order Mennonite woman why she covers her head, or a Mormon the reason for the sacred undergarments.
Over the past year, I've had the good fortune to make friends with some rabbis who gather under the auspices of Synagogue 3000. In our inter-faith dialogues, we have committed to speak candidly and frankly about what we believe, and not to shy away from asking each other difficult and pointed questions. We've endeavored to always give one another the benefit of the doubt, to think, "I assume he's asking that question out of love and a desire to understand me better," rather than, "I assume he is mocking my deeply held faith." This very assumption has led to some of the most enlightening conversation - and some of the most moving worship! - in which I have ever been involved.
Pluralism demands a new tack. Various "centrisms" are disastrous, and secularization is a dead end. The vast majority of human beings are deeply faithful, and as we come into closer contact with one another, we're sure to get bruised and even cut occasionally. But we need to grow thicker skins if we are going to live together in something approaching harmony and peace. Better understanding comes from asking the hard questions, not from placing some questions off-limits.
Last week, I caused a bit of a dust-up by wondering aloud about Mitt Romney's LDS faith, including an admittance of my own ignorance about particular practices and beliefs therein. It seems to me that Romney has been less that forthcoming about his commitment to LDS beliefs and practices, and he will be compelled, as the presidential race goes forward, to honestly confront those questions: Is he a "high priest" in the LDS church? Does he consider the words of Prophet Gordon Hinckley inspired and infallible? Private concerns these are not, particularly for a presidential candidate.
However, I'm more interested today in responding to the criticism of my last post. Faithful Progressive (FP) repeatedly castigated me for referring to the sacred undergarments worn by many Mormons, calling me everything from "bigoted" to "immature." While I am predisposed not to respond to anonymous criticism, I will make an exception in this case, for I think the difference between me and FP points out a major philosophical difference.
Call it globalization, postmodernism, or a "flat world," we live in a radically pluralized society, and it is only becoming more so. As the U.S. pluralizes, we become increasingly aware of the "otherness" of those around us. The Other looks, talks, and worships differently than I do. And, case in point, we've got a woman, an African-American, and a Mormon as leading contenders in a presidential race, a situation unthinkable just 50 years ago.
We face three choices when confronting our increasingly pluralized society. The first is the traditional conservative response, alternatively called ethnocentrism or fundamentalism. Proponents of this tactic build walls, both figuratively and literally, between themselves and the Other. Whether it be the attempt to move millions of evangelicals to South Carolina, or to found a Roman Catholic town in Florida, the desire to "conserve" a previous state of affairs leads to cultural withdrawal at its most innocent (see M. Night Shyamalan's movie, The Village, for a disturbing portrayal of retreatism), and to purgings and pogroms at its most dire (Fox TV's 24 is dealing with these pressures this season).
Just the opposite is the traditional liberal response to radical pluralism. FP and other liberals posit that we secularize. That is, he wants us to avoid talking about some of the very core practices and beliefs that differentiate us in an attempt to keep the peace. But arbitrary rules that attempt to avoid offense end up gutting the heart from real, robust conversations about the beliefs that many of us deeply hold and about the practices that guide our very lives. Sen. Obama, in his otherwise excellent speech to Sojourners last June, fell into this trap himself when he said, "Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values." By my lights, the ecumenical and inter-faith movements of the 20th century were failures for just this reason: they endeavored to have lowest-common-denominator conversations, and thus talked about things that weren't of much interest to anyone.
The third, and I believe superior strategy for public conversation about religion, is the truly postmodern one: recognize the difference of the Other, even as you are robustly and distinctly yourself. To enter inter-religious dialogue, I've got to grow a thicker skin, for I need to be ready to answer penetrating, and even prickly questions about what I believe and how I practice it. I can neither be hypersensitive about what I'm asked, nor should I be expected to walk on eggshells when talking to others.
On the very day last week that I was receiving e-mails from FP demanding that I apologize to Mormons, I went to dinner with a bunch of friends. We all had black smudges on our foreheads, and we were compelled to describe to our waiter the increasingly foreign practice of the imposition of ashes on Ash Wednesday. Likewise, I will unashamedly ask a Sikh man next to me on a plane why he ties his beard over his head and covers it in a turban, a Hindu woman why she wears a dot on her forehead, an orthodox Jew why he wears tassels, an old-order Mennonite woman why she covers her head, or a Mormon the reason for the sacred undergarments.
Over the past year, I've had the good fortune to make friends with some rabbis who gather under the auspices of Synagogue 3000. In our inter-faith dialogues, we have committed to speak candidly and frankly about what we believe, and not to shy away from asking each other difficult and pointed questions. We've endeavored to always give one another the benefit of the doubt, to think, "I assume he's asking that question out of love and a desire to understand me better," rather than, "I assume he is mocking my deeply held faith." This very assumption has led to some of the most enlightening conversation - and some of the most moving worship! - in which I have ever been involved.
Pluralism demands a new tack. Various "centrisms" are disastrous, and secularization is a dead end. The vast majority of human beings are deeply faithful, and as we come into closer contact with one another, we're sure to get bruised and even cut occasionally. But we need to grow thicker skins if we are going to live together in something approaching harmony and peace. Better understanding comes from asking the hard questions, not from placing some questions off-limits.
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Eugene Cho, a second-generation Korean-American, is the founder and lead pastor of 
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This summer, two friends and I are doing something that seems a bit outlandish (especially for 40-year-old guys). We've borrowed a friend's RV, and we're touring the country to talk about our books. Doug Pagitt (
Tony Jones is the national coordinator of 
(Spoiler warning--some major plot details are revealed in this article. Stop reading now if you want to see the movie without knowing the outcome. However by the time you've read this article you may not want to see it anyway.)
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful 
Comedian 
I don’t want to assume that readers automatically know who Steven Curtis Chapman is, but if you’ve been surfing the Web recently, it’s very likely you may have seen the name. Chapman is one of the most visible and influential figures of the Christian music genre. As of 2007, he has sold more than 10 million albums, has nine gold and platinum albums, and won five Grammy awards.
Some fun for your Friday: Mark Pinsky, author of 
On Christmas Day a few years ago in Dallas, Texas, Socheata Poeuv's parents called a family meeting to tell her that her sisters weren't really her sisters, and her brother was not her full brother. After 25 years of attempting to live a "normal American life," her parents revealed a shocking family secret that would draw them all back to Cambodia, the home they fled and struggled to forget during the fall of the Khmer Rouge in 1979. As she packs for her trip back to Cambodia, Socheata turns to the camera and confides, "I knew more about the Holocaust than the Khmer Rouge. I knew even less about my own family."
Anna Almendrala is the marketing and circulation assistant for Sojourners. To learn more about Khmer Legacies, visit their Web site: 
My fingers have been tapping out of control for more than a month and a half now. Don't worry, though -- I am not falling to the symptoms of 
Logan Laituri is a six-year Army veteran with combatant service in Iraq during OIF II and experience with 
In church one day, my pastor asked us to raise our hands if we believed in what the Bible said. The right answer seemed pretty obvious, and the whole congregation and I raised our hands. Then he asked us to raise our hand if we had read the Bible in its entirety. Touché, Pastor Sean. Touché. 
Charlton Heston died this weekend at age 84, following Roy Scheider and Richard Widmark as the latest in a series of powerful cinematic actors to pass away -- although Heston was probably best known to a younger generation as the old guy who walked out of a Michael Moore interview in Bowling for Columbine. His was an ambivalent life – living through 14 presidencies (and personally befriending several of the most recent occupants of the office), supporting civil rights when it was unfashionable, switching his political allegiances, and latterly becoming identified with right-wing causes. Not often a subtle actor (although you could do worse than watch his performance in Orson Welles' Touch of Evil as a tribute), he represented a particular kind of vanishing screen presence who, like John Wayne, represented a vision of American greatness that depended far too much on the suggestion of invulnerability. 
Following is an excerpt from an interview with Bob Abernethy that will appear in a forthcoming issue of 
When I got an invite to attend a screening of the documentary, 
On Jan. 22, 2008, I headed down to Joe's Pub in New York City to celebrate the launch of Quaker singer-songwriter 
As I wrote here last week, this year's Oscars, which take place on Sunday night, seem to have caught a cultural mood in cinema that's worthy of reflection – films that take ethical themes seriously are all jockeying for position, with the highest quality slate of Best Picture nominees in years. To my mind, the Academy Awards only matter inasmuch as they provide a snapshot of a cultural moment, and that they sometimes help decent but overlooked films reach a wider audience. And it is, of course, a valuable and often beautiful thing when artists recognize the achievements of other artists – in spite of the superficial glamour and absurd over-statement that often accompanies the ceremony.
During the 2004 election cycle, I was bombarded repeatedly with messages about how young voters had failed to be involved in the electoral process. My generation—the Millennials—was failing to live up to its potential, it seemed. This time we're starting to shake things up—and people are taking note.
Last night I finally saw Juno, Roger Ebert's favorite film of 2007 and recipient of four Oscar nominations, which has as its center the story of an unplanned pregnancy and the people affected by it. The protagonist, Juno MacGuff, played by Ellen Page in one of those so-good-she's-either-brilliant-or-really-like-that-in-real-life performances, is a misfit attracted to her male mirror image. Wiser beyond her years, slightly jaded by life and negotiating the pitfalls of the high school psychological assault course, she responds to her pregnancy by initially seeking an abortion – and the nonchalance with which she is treated is the only thing sadder than the unthinking speed with which she makes the decision. She is greeted by a lone protestor – the sole representative of institutional Christianity in the movie – as young as her, who, while a welcome change from the angry fundamentalist stereotype, may know as little about adult life as Juno does about the experience of pregnancy she's about to have. But something unsettles Juno, and she is unable to go through with the termination. Instead, she plans to have the child and help a couple seeking to adopt.
Recently, I had the opportunity to interview John Sayles about his movie 
Tim Burton's striking and gruesome film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's musical 'Sweeney Todd' made me feel alternately impressed by Johnny Depp's singing talent and wince at the violence. The story of a 19th century barber who avenges the loss of his wife and daughter by providing the closest shave ever to a litany of customers including the judge who caused his pain left me preoccupied by thoughts closer to home. 
When I got an invite to the premiere of the IMAX screening for 
Either way, I'll continue to remember him as the lanky, frenzied, six-foot-six screaming skeleton whose music helped to inspire my own activism. Also, he's a church-going Christian, which doesn't necessarily make him a better politician, though I do think it made him a better rock star, as his faith-infused lyrics—which railed against environmental degradation, militarism, and consumerism—were an early and unlikely witness to my budding integration of faith and politics.
A few years ago I remember a pastor friend telling me they tried something a little different for their Christmas services. Instead of the usual holiday décor and clutter of the sanctuary, they brought in a bunch of manure and hay and scattered it under the pews so the place would really smell like the stank manger where it all began. I remember laughing hysterically as he described everyone coming in, in all their best Christmas attire, only to sit in the rank smell of a barn. They even brought a donkey in during the opening of the service that dropped a special gift as it moseyed down the aisle. Folks looked awkwardly at each other, and then busted out laughing. It was one of the most memorable services they've ever had. Certainly folks came face to face with the "reason for the season" and the reality of what it must have been like for the Savior of the universe to enter the world, far from the shopping malls, as a refugee who found no room in the inn. 
Shane Claiborne is a 
Here's the good news: The Golden Compass does not promote atheism. It isn't going to steal your children. It does not signal the end of hope for religion in the West. That's the good news. Here's the bad news: it promotes the same, shallow "don't touch my stuff or I'll kill you" message that appears in so much of popular culture. But more than this, in spite of delightful visual imagery, and a couple of performances in which it's clear the actors are having fun (an icy Nicole Kidman, and the great English theatrical knight Derek Jacobi to name two), it's simply a boring film. 
When a film ends with the recounting of a dream in which a weather-beaten, life-weary man searches for the fire his father is building to warm them, it's impossible not to think of the love we all yearn for and can hopefully muster. It's also a welcome spiritual respite when that film has seduced its audience on a journey into a hell of the relentless violence that follows a man after he steals drug money in the naïve belief that its owners might ignore him, and the slow-moving chase that ensues when a truly psychopathic person pursues the man and the cash. No Country for Old Men, the new picture from the Coen Brothers, based on Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel, is probably the most accomplished film released this year. 
Millions of Americans will celebrate Thanksgiving again this year with a philosophy of Manifest Destiny. Many Native Americans will not celebrate Thanksgiving at all. They will view the holiday as a national day of mourning. To them, the Thanksgiving Myth justifies the genocide of indigenous peoples and acquiesces to notions of White supremacy. They will protest at Plymouth Rock and disseminate stories of the many massacres of Native Americans. 
Rev. Randy Woodley is a Keetoowah Cherokee Indian teacher, lecturer, poet, activist, pastor and the author of 
In some senses Robert Redford is the father of modern independent filmmaking, not to mention the patron saint of Hollywood liberalism – his Sundance Film Festival has launched a couple of dozen major careers, and his concern for progressive environmental policies is well known. And United Artists used to be known for making the kind of movie that entertained and provoked at the same time – from 'In the Heat of the Night' to 'Being There' to 'Rain Man'.
Mary Nelson is president emeritus of 
Poet, prophet, outlaw, fake, star of electricity, rock-and-roll martyr, born-again Christian … all of these words have been used to describe Robert Allen Zimmerman, aka 
I saw an "on the road" film this week that blew open my understanding of travel and confirmed my imagination of what life could look like. Into the Wild, Sean Penn's cinematic recreation of the journey taken in the early 1990s by Chris McCandless - a rich young kid - across North America to the frozen wastes of Alaska is, in the first instance, a magnificent film. It relates McCandless' story with near-surgical detail - the extraordinary central performance by Emile Hirsch would be trivialized by awarding him something so cheesy as an Oscar - and it also succeeds in portraying the character as one deserving both our admiration and critique. He was a flawed hero. On the one hand, he risked social ostracism by donating his trust fund to OXFAM and refusing to obey the death-dealing dictates of upper-middle class society – the big house, the well-paying job, the "respectable" family – so that he could pursue the objective of becoming more human through meeting the goodness in strangers and entering a John the Baptist-type wilderness. On the other, he allowed his family to believe he was missing, presumed dead, for nearly two years.
If you want to find out what it means to be a hero, you could do worse than seeing two current documentaries: In the Shadow of the Moon and The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. Shadow consists of documentary footage of the space race, intercut with new interviews of most of the men who have been to the moon and back. Kong follows another race, and one of the strangest competitions of our time – the battle to be the world Donkey Kong video game champion. At first glance, these films may seem to have little in common – but they both reflect different dimensions of the same theme: that of American exceptionalism. 
The Kingdom opens with a striking historical montage, depicting the roots of Saudi Arabia and why this country means so much to the U.S. We're soon plunged into a horrific attack, viewing the killing of whole American families and the Saudi police who guard them in compounds where Islamic law does not apply. It's not long before Jamie Foxx and his intrepid FBI colleagues are secretly flying to the kingdom to show the Saudi police how to solve crimes.
It's intriguing how many current films address questions of revenge and justice. Like all cinematic epidemics, this is a mixed bag, from Quentin Tarantino's alternately boring and horrifying car-crash fest Death Proof, just released on DVD, to the slasher-style terror of Death Sentence starring Kevin Bacon, to the mature and moving reflection on justice and fatherhood in 3:10 to Yuma, to the ostensibly more thoughtful treatment of vengeance in Jodie Foster's new film The Brave One.
About a decade ago, I wrote a newspaper column offering a theological critique of Promise Keepers, the then-massive Christian men's movement. Within a few days, negative mail (remember letters?) swamped my office. One missive proved especially memorable: "Dear Diana, Promise Keepers is all about love, you b----!" 
After a year of scandals in which celebrities such as Mel Gibson, Don Imus, and Isaiah Washington have reminded us that fame does not cancel out bigotry, Kathy Griffin last week became the latest public figure to make such headlines with her Creative Arts Emmy acceptance speech. Referring to the tendency of some of her colleagues to invoke divine sanction for their success, she said, 
Many students will groan when I point out these inevitable signs of the times, and an equally inevitable conclusion. August is upon us. Summer is quickly winding down. And this can only mean one thing: school is just around the corner! 
More Bible passages ignored by the Left Behind books. 
At the close of the 16th and final Left Behind book, which was perched on the best-seller list a couple months ago, Tim LaHaye yet again emphasizes his claim to "tak[e] the Bible literally wherever possible." I don't get how anyone who'd ever paid attention to the Psalms could imply that the Bible speaks less powerfully when it chooses to speak in symbolic images. 
A little film called Once has been winning the hearts of cinemagoers for a couple of months now, with even Steven Spielberg saying that it has given him "enough inspiration to last the whole year." I finally saw it earlier this week and was moved and entertained by a beautiful little story of love and music on the streets of Dublin. But beyond the pleasure of watching natural performances, hearing great songs, and feeling connected to two lonely people trying to find happiness, Once also tells a story of economic injustice. The central characters are a vacuum repairman with a profound song-writing style, and a Czech immigrant worker who sells roses to tourists on the city streets and plays the piano and sings with heartbreaking fragility. She lives in a house with other immigrants, sharing one room for recreation, cooking, and sleeping, and is used to being treated with disdain. Once is one of the first films to take seriously the condition of the people known as the "new Irish"—the immigrants (primarily from Eastern Europe and Africa) who have made their way to the land of saints and scholars in the hope of being able to send money home to their relatives, or to make a new life for themselves.
Film buffs began this week greeting the news that two of our greatest artists had died. Ingmar Bergman and Michelangelo Antonioni lived to be 89 and 94, respectively, and were still making films until a couple of years ago. Their work had exerted such an influence over world cinema for over half a century that it is impossible to imagine film culture without them. Antonioni and Bergman made films about the human interior journey – the travels and travails of the soul. They were sometimes preoccupied with the fear that life had no meaning, and at times seemed desperate to produce cinema because the making of the films themselves were part of their own struggle for enlightenment. 
Ray LaMontagne’s recent album "Till the Sun Turns Black" ends with one of the most beautiful songs about peacemaking I’ve ever heard—in which he simply repeats the refrain "War is not the answer, the answer is within you" over the most delicately lilting instrumentation. It’s the kind of sentiment that could be accused of being too vague to have any practical meaning, but warm and positive enough to be popular. But there’s something about it that feels deeper than that.
While the rest of the world buried its collective nose in Harry Potter last weekend, I spent my time reading early Christianity. It proved a tough call: The fate of Hogwarts or the Roman Empire? I chose Constantine over Voldemort.
I've seen two powerful documentaries over the past week: Michael Moore's new film Sicko, and the lesser-known Manufactured Landscapes. Both films are intensely political, but the contrast in their approach is striking. 
Sinead O’Connor’s not angry anymore; or at least not angry in the same way. Her tearing up of a photo of Pope John Paul II on Saturday Night Live 15 years ago, combined with what we think we know about her ordination into an unofficial offshoot of the Catholic church, give a convenient excuse for people to ignore her. This is a pity, because it makes us forget that she produced one of the only memorable and honest songs about love in the 1990s, her cover version of Prince’s "Nothing Compares 2 U," and one of the most beautiful hymns of spiritual comfort (1997’s "This is to Mother You" on her Gospel Oak EP). 
Great helicopters and explosions abound, the witticisms are barbed, and the cinematography is silver-grey in Die Hard 4.0 (or Live Free or Die Hard, depending on which empire you see it in). I was tired to start with, but the film couldn't wake me up. I vacillated between being bored and horrified, as Bruce Willis yet again stands in for the lone American male whose first resort is always violence (in the first film he was the archetype of a Vietnam War vet, assailed by terrorists on the one hand, and a frustrating civil service bureaucracy on the other; this time he clearly represents the guy who'd go to Iraq just because it's the right thing to do, even though he knows the government sending him is corrupt). 
I have a confession to make: I watched the Miss Universe pageant Monday night. I could make some lame excuse like “nothing else was on television.” But the truth of the matter is that when choosing between elevating my mind with Al Gore’s new book and sinking into the comfy armchair in front of the flat-screen, I chose Miss Universe – live from Mexico City.
Around the lunch table the other day, a few coworkers and I discussed food, healthy eating, and body image (brought on by an amateur analysis of trans- and partially-hydrogenated fats and their banning in NYC). Yesterday while scanning my iGoogle (I love that thing), I ran across 
Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams has allegedly 
I watched much of the cable television coverage of Jerry Falwell’s death and legacy. And I did a lot of grimacing, in response to both the uncritical adulations of his allies (who just passed over the divisive character of much of Falwell’s rhetoric), and also the ugly vitriol from some of Falwell’s enemies (who attacked both his character and his faith). And there were even some who attacked all people of faith. I ended up being glad that I had passed up all the invitations to be on those shows. On the day of Rev. Jerry Falwell’s death, I was content to offer 
The resignation of British Prime Minister Tony Blair comes as no real surprise for those watching the soap opera of British politics over the past two years. Most thought it would come much sooner. This occasion provides an opportunity to assess his legacy over 20-plus years of public service, 10 of those as parliamentary leader. 
Sitting in the carpool line, I'm surrounded by a crowd of high-occupancy vehicles. Almost all of them are hued in the peaceful colors of a seascape - navy blue, metallic blue, blue-green, silver, and shimmering beige. There's not a lot of red or yellow here - no shocking colors to interrupt the serene abundance of blues. Minivans are designed to blend in, I think.
When elements of the recent 
Monday was a heavy day. That night, my family sat down for our usual routine - some quiet moments before dinner when we sit and pray together. My two younger daughters, ages 9 and 7, were in their places as their daddy began to pray, "God, we're so grateful for all the good things you give us." But this night, he included something else in our prayer. As he asked God to comfort the people and families affected by the students at Virginia Tech, the girls both looked up. "What happened?!?" they asked, almost in unison. My husband's answer was short and simple: A young man was upset and confused and did something that is completely beyond our understanding. There is no way to know why he did what he did and it's very sad that no one was able to stop him.
It’s a question I had to finally face because it has been gnawing at me for years, just below the surface. As a Native American and a student of history, I know of the hypocrisy, the constant sway towards American myth building, the social construction of "the White Man," in order to maintain power and how many treaties were made by the United States with really no intention of keeping them. I’ve seen the disregard for the poor and the hate exhibited for those who are not mainstream or not from the "right" ethnicity. I’ve seen all this sin, both in its ugly raw grassroots forms and in its heinous sophisticated expressions.
