The only social movement in Southern Missouri December 28, 2007
Posted by Zack in Missouri | 3 commentsI spent the day working in a coffee shop in Springfield—and here’s what was on bulletin board in the back. (The next closest sign of anything political was a flier for free flu shots at Planned Parenthood.)
Link to Perspectives.org. (And here is some explanation of the phrase ‘You are the salt of the earth.’)
Sorry for the fuzzy photo. This is a flier for a church. Here’s a link to the church. Here’s a link to three local news articles about the church. Notice that the quote is from Rob Bell.
When I was an activist in high school and college, I used to dream that artists of my generation would start to see themselves as having a purpose. What I would have given to see a flier back then that said, “Wanted: Marxian Bassist.”
Back then, I scrutinized every bulletin board I ever came near. That was before the web (got out of college in ‘93), and coffee shop and campus bulletin boards were the way to find stuff that was more than one degree of separation away from you.
I kept hoping for some sign of a new revolutionary movement that wasn’t a crazy, worn out society for creative anachronisms. I’d make sure to look behind the fliers from the ISO, RCP or MIM. But nothing ever surfaced.
Thanks for answering December 28, 2007
Posted by Zack in Missouri | write a commentThanks for all the comments and answers to my question in my previous post, everyone!
Here’s another data point that led me to ask the question. On the Sunday before Christmas, Elizabeth and I attended a small country church in rural Southwest Missouri. To conjure some stereotypes: The congregation was undoubtedly mostly Republican, given the solidly conservative demographics of the area and the sample of bumper stickers in the small parking lot; the pastor was recently an Army chaplain. And now to dash some stereotypes, here was the “Prayer of Confession” that the congregation read in unison:
Holy God, every Advent, a voice calls us to walk the straight path. With clear and strong words, John demands we heed the call to live lives which give evidence of our repentance. Holy God, with your gentle gaze, help us look deep within. Loving God, help us examine our life styles: our comfort with ease while others struggle for bread, our tendency to blame the victim for being poor or homeless, our perpetual busyness which keeps us from taking time to see or listen to the hurts. Forgive us when we give only what we no longer want. Forgive us for needing a tax deduction to encourage our giving. Holy God, help us to see you as our Lord and King. Amen.
Has the anti-consumerist message always been this strong in the church? December 26, 2007
Posted by Zack in Missouri | 13 comments
We spent Christmas in Elizabeth’s home town in rural Missouri. Whenever we’re down here, I always make sure to listen to the Bott Radio Network in the car. It’s one of the most conservative, and most interesting Christian networks in the country. One of their driving purposes is theological correctness. A lot of time is devoted to dissecting heresies that various syndicated hosts see gaining traction in the Christian world. To an outsider, it can sound like splitting hairs. But, again, this gets back to my point about evangelical culture being highly intellectual. The equivalent, on the left would be Air America spending hours a day splitting hairs over the history and mechanics of Capitalism—which is unimaginable.
Anyway, here’s a question for lifelong Christians who are reading:
This week Bott Radio has spent a lot of time pushing the same anti-consumerist Christmas message as the quasi-progressive evangelicals who are doing Advent Conspiracy. For example, just now they had a message from Michael Youssef, pastor of an evangelical mega-church in Atlanta. He explained the importance of training children in how to practice a Christian Christmas from a young age: “teach them Christmas is Jesus’ birthday, not theirs—and so the presents should go to Jesus, the poor.”
I have been a little surprised to hear so much of this on Bott. So, those of you who grew up in very conservative churches, can you tell us if this message of giving to the poor and resisting the Christmas consumerist obsession was there all along, or has something changed recently?
The Man Show does Revolution December 21, 2007
Posted by Zack in Nevada | 2 comments
Here’s a perfect example of how much Christian radicals have to teach their counterparts on the non-Christian left—and how cultural differences make cross-pollination difficult.
I saw signs for Deadly Viper Character Assassins project in the Central Christian Church book store in Las Vegas last week, and just remembered to look it up today. It’s a set of resources to help leaders stay grounded and humble, created by CCC senior paster Jud Wilhite and XXXChurch founder Mike Foster.
The spectacular implosion of countless televangelists have made Christians synonymous with bad leaders for a lot of people outside (and inside) the church. In reality, Christian churches are producing an incredible number of incredible leaders. In many churches, leadership training begins at a young age in youth groups and continues through an endless string of volunteer or staff positions of increasing responsibility. All along the way, leaders are nurtured with direct mentorship from more experienced leadership as well as copious books and materials, seminars and big conferences. One constant thread throughout is the struggle to stay humble and self-critical, even in the face of exceptional success.
Tell me you don’t know some leaders who could use some of this wisdom from the Deadly Vipers project:
Often a lifetime of work can be greatly impacted by a few quick, careless decisions. Leaders often engage in “character creep” as they subtly and slowly cross lines….
Subtly we can begin to shade the truth, refuse to face reality and deceive ourselves. A leader begins to live with lies and travels down a slippery slope… Effective leaders embrace transparency, honesty, and a willingness to admit mistakes….
Most people in leadership will get the opportunity to hop into the sack with someone inappropriately. You will have the opportunity to cross a line sexually. You will be faced with a situation that looks like you just can’t pass up. It’s not if, it’s when. …we need to be prepared to make good decisions in the area of sexuality and relationships.
Our culture teaches that we are what we have. Materialism can drive us for more and more money all the while our contentment and fulfillment level is dropping. …leaders have healthy views on generosity, giving, and how to make a living and not make a dying.
Often leaders do what they do in an unhealthy pursuit of proving one’s worth. Ego reveals itself in a devaluing of others to inflate oneself or in believing one’s own press reports. The long-term effect of this behavior is a life that comes up short and meaningless. Leaders must train and fight for a centered perspective while maintaining respect for others….
But chances are, if you came up in the same traditions I did, you’re going to be totally thrown off by the wrapper that wisdom has been placed in on the Deadly Viper site. One of the keys to the success of Christian radicals in reaching so many millions of Americans is that they operate in mainstream cultural vernacular. They’re radicals when it comes to material and emotional lifestyle and their relationships to those around them, but they’re regular people when it comes to surface cultural signifiers.
That’s why the idea for Deadly Viper was hatched in a place called “Da Man Cave,” probably during a Cowboys game (they came up three times in Jud’s sermon that I attended), and packaged in an unfortunate, Asian-stuff-is-so-funny Kung Fu theme.
It is The Man Show does revolution…but with a very strong line against the objectification of women.
Are Huckabee supporters really voting for a religion? December 20, 2007
Posted by Zack in Iowa | 2 comments
Most of the pundits on both right and left are writing about evangelicals as though they are robots, supporting Huckabee because of a simple If statement in their programming:
if isBaptistPreacher(candidate_x)
then voteFor(candidate_x)
Yesterday, Ruben Navarette, at the San Diego Union-Tribune, challenged that picture:
Note the headline in a Newsweek cover story about Huckabee’s strong showing in Iowa: “Holy Huckabee!” On the same cover are references to other stories in the magazine such as “God and the GOP” and “the Mormon-Evangelical Divide.” The lead story, written by editor Jon Meacham, is titled “A New American Holy War.” Even a profile of the Iowa front-runner’s spouse, Janet Huckabee, is dubbed “Wife of the Preacher Man.”
Conflict helps sell magazines. But Newsweek went overboard in framing the Huckabee-Romney contest as an exercise in religious strife.
There are at least three problems with this narrative – it’s dangerous, insulting and likely untrue. Dangerous because it provides yet another way to divide Americans – who have already been split into warring camps based on race, class and education. Insulting because it paints a large swath of the Iowa electorate as religious bigots. And likely untrue because Newsweek’s own polling data suggest that Iowans are more open-minded than national political commentators give them credit for being.
Seeking God, and intellectual stimulation, at church December 19, 2007
Posted by Zack in Michigan | 4 commentsOne of the happiest surprises when I first started exploring evangelical “on fire for Jesus” churches was how much the sermons resemble university lectures on history or literature—and how many people come to hear them anyways. It turns out people are craving intellectual stimulation, and will drive an hour or more every Sunday to get it at a church that serves it up reliably.
This week, I’ve been catching up on listening to sermons from Mars Hill. I just listened to this sermon by Donald Miller from a few weeks ago. It’s a literature lecture. And it’s fascinating. And 10,000 people from the greater Grand Rapids area showed up to hear it.
Also, if you’re an atheist or agnostic who is driven crazy by the “irrationality” of people who structure their lives around ancient Bible stories, this talk will give you a deeper understanding of what that’s all about.
Here’s a 40 second sample:
You can download the whole sermon for free (for the next eight weeks or so) from the Mars Hill teachings page.
Donald Miller is a best selling Christian author. If you look for it, you’ll start noticing people reading his book “Blue Like Jazz” in coffee shops and on subways.
Byron York on the GOP’s “Huckicide” December 19, 2007
Posted by Zack in DC | write a commentMy buddy Byron York at the National Review seems to be one of the only Republican pundits to be comfortable with Huckabee’s populist appeal:
Mike Huckabee was on the “Today” show this morning. Meredith Viera asked him to react to Rich’s remark that nominating Huckabee would be suicide for the Republican party. Huckabee began with his standard line about how he is not part of the “Wall Street-to-Washington axis, this corridor of power.” “They don’t control me,” Huckabee said. “I’m not one of theirs. I’m not one of those guys that just owe my soul to the people on Wall Street. I’m not a wholly-owned subsidiary of them. I don’t live in the circles of power in Washington. I really do come right up from the people.”
Fine. Then Huckabee got into what is really the basis of his appeal for many voters. He’s tapping into that new sort of evangelicalism, that Rick Warren-style worldview that David Brooks and others have been writing about for a few years now. It is real, it is different from older-style evangelicalism, as well as from economic or national-security conservatism, and Huckabee has his finger on it.
Radical non-violence December 17, 2007
Posted by Zack in Missouri | 7 commentsCheck out this stunning letter from Thom Stark, a student at Ozark Christian College in Joplin, MO, to the pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs (where the church shootings happened last week). Read the whole letter. Here’s just an excerpt:
When I learned of the shootings I was heart-wrenched. I immediately began to pray. I began to pray that your church would be empowered to witness to the self-sacrificial, suffering love of the God revealed in Jesus of Nazareth. Some minutes later, I learned of a second great tragedy, a greater tragedy, and one that I did not expect. I learned that the gunman was shot and killed by a paid employee of your congregation of believers. Hearing this, I was devastated. The life of an unbeliever was traded for the lives of believers. A man was consigned to eternal separation from God in order to save from heaven those who are assured of salvation. The opportunity for the unique witness of a Bible-believing, Christ-following people in a world gone mad with violence was surrendered for the safety and security of predominantly wealthy Christians. God was not glorified. In fact, it was the contrary. The way of the world was held up and affirmed. A Spirit-empowered people charged by God to follow Jesus’ example in overcoming evil with good instead chose to fight fire with fire. The gospel of Jesus Christ–the gospel of nonviolent, suffering agape–was displaced by the gospel of the United States of America–the gospel of safety secured by force.
Today the Body of Christ was wounded, not by an unbelieving gunman but by its own left hand. Today we struck back at our enemy, and hit ourselves. It was not merely New Life Church in Colorado Springs that was in the spotlight today, but the Church universal, and the Church universal has been disfigured. We share in your suffering, your torment, and your mourning. Indeed, we share also in your guilt.
Jesus taught radical non-violent resistance to oppression. If a Roman solider forced you to carry his pack a mile (apparently the maximum allowed in the Roman Centurion field manual), then carry it two miles. If someone sued you for your shirt (back in the day when most people only had one), then shame him by giving him everything. If your employer (or owner!) slaps you across the face, then give him your other cheek.
You don’t hear much about non-violence in the teachings of Revolutionary Christians. I think it’s probably because the message would be too divisive in most churches. Re-introducing Jesus as the god of the poor and oppressed is already a lot for existing congregations to handle. Teaching non-violence—for example, that we should have had a peaceful response to 9/11—could be too much to bear. When Rob Bell preached a series on non-violence, for example, he prefaced it with a long and careful intro to explain how closely he had been affected by 9/11 himself (e.g. Todd “Let’s roll” Beamer was his friend and dorm-neighbor at college!). He was essentially pleading with the people who would have trouble with the message, “Stay with us…find it in your heart to hear the difficult words that are coming.”
The participants in this movement have as their goal not to be voices in the wilderness, but to change an American church of tens of millions of people. And that’s a good thing. Under the surface, however, they are embracing Jesus as the god of non-violence just as strongly as they are embracing him as the god of the poor and oppressed.
You can hear it reading between the lines in occasional sermons. And you can see it in Thom Stark’s letter and the comment thread that follows.
This movement was in some ways just getting started when 9/11 happened. Mars Hill, for example, was only three years old. (And sermon archives are not available from then—drats!) If another major terrorist attack happened today, what would be the response of these preachers, their churches, writers, students like Thom and all the others who make up this movement?
Worship the Baby, Resist the Empire December 16, 2007
Posted by Zack in New York, Texas, Michigan | 1 commentThis Christmas, some lefties are telling people to “stop shopping.” And some Baptist preachers are telling people to “resist the empire” (and stop shopping). Isn’t it fascinating?
Listen to Mars Hill’s sermon podcast from last week with Chris Seay: “Worship the Baby, Resist the Empire.”
UPDATE: Actually, here are some audio excerpts from the sermon to make you more likely to listen:
Consumerism is the greatest threat to Christianity today, not evolution, secularism, post-modernism or any other ism; And this has been the story of the human race throughout the Bible; This is what Jesus came to undo…
While while we’re obsessing in our abundance, the reality is that across the globe there are levels of poverty that we can’t even imagine; How should that change the way we do Christmas? In our church, we asked our kids and they told us: Let’s channel these billions we spend on presents into helping the poor…
We are all God’s children, and so if we’re letting our “siblings” suffer, how do you think that makes our Father feel? Imagine one of your own children getting rich and letting your other children languish in poverty…
This is not how it was supposed to be…
Interview with Church of Stop Shopping December 13, 2007
Posted by Zack in New York | write a commentI was living in New York City in 1999 when performance artist Bill Talen started invading Starbucks and other retail chains as wild-eyed, anti-consumerist preacher “Reverend Billy.” I went along once or twice, as we had some mutual friends. I never imagined that the act would persist, let alone grow into a community.
“Supersize me!” director Morgan Spurlock has now made a film about the Church’s Christmas tour from last year called “What Would Jesus Buy.” It’s showing at theaters across the county. As I’ve reported here frequently, many (actual) Christian preachers have been on an anti-consumerist kick for quite some time. (Check out Advent Conspiracy for the best example of anti-consumerism as a broad movement in the church.)
Now, the film is connecting many Christian churches to the Church of Stop Shopping. Imago Dei Church in Portland invited Spurlock over to church for a pre-semon interview (which you can watch here). Our local church in Kansas City has now sent out two emails about the film, as it dovetails nicely with their local version of Advent Conspiracy called “Rethinking Christmas,” and are organizing a viewing this week. I’m pretty sure hundreds of other churches around the country are too. Perhaps a little unexpectedly, no Christians seem to be offended by what could be taken as a parody of their culture (Way to go Christians!).
After I left New York way back in 2000, I kept hearing about Reverend Billy. “Is he still doing that?” I’d ask.
“Yes, and it’s become a real church!” was the answer.
But how did that happen? When I got an email about the film from Savitri D, the director of the Church of Stop Shopping, I asked for an interview and she said OK. So here it is:
Tags: Church of Stop Shopping, Reverend Billy, ShopocalypseRevolution In Jesusland: One thing I’ve heard about, but that didn’t really come across in the film, is that the Church of Stop Shopping has in some ways become a “real church”? Can you tell us about that?
Savitri D: After 9-11 we felt an increasing demand for sincerity from the community. The irony fell away and Reverend Billy began to pastor to a fairly traumatized group of people, many of whom had abandoned “religion.”
We are not Christian but we love Jesus. Can we be a real church if we are not Christian? I don’t know. We gather together and concentrate our efforts on making the world a more just place, and our own actions more just. I think we are praying.
RIJ: Who were the people in the community? Was it a regular audience? The choir? People in the activist community who sought out Billy after 9/11?
SD: Billy and I started going to Union Square everyday after 9/11. Like so many people we didn’t really know where else to go. I was back at work at the theater on September 12 and all that week Billy would come into my office and grab me by the arm and we would run up there. It was a very democratic environment, everyone was talking, and most people were listening (at least in those first few days).
Billy had been preaching for years by then, so his instrument was strong and he was able to articulate what so many of us were feeling: that we, as New Yorkers, had an opportunity to teach the whole world about forgiveness right away. Billy, in his punk rock way, could say this without being sentimental.
How does a community demand something of a person? Well I noticed a lot of people stopping Billy on the street to ask him what he was going to do.
At first he was approached mainly by the younger activists, the bike people, garden people, anti-globalization people but then, increasingly, by more middle class lefties, and finally—and a little less directly—by the ironists and hipsters. Of course we were all asking each other what to do.
But Billy’s answer was simple. He always just said, “Forgive!” And I would shout, “Radically!” over his shoulder. And what really set the whole thing down the path we are on now was the weekly show we put up right away—within just a few weeks of 9/11—just as the bombs started falling on Afghanistan. It was called The Church of Stop Bombing and actually wasn’t a very good show. It was kind of a mess, but it was a way for people to get in the room together and just hope for the best. All kinds of people came to those shows, and many of them are still around. These days, I’d say there are about 300 people in regular attendance.
Just at the time Billy was getting “real,” the choir sort of fell apart and it wasn’t until the autumn of 2002 that we really got the choir going again. Those who returned from the pre 9/11 days found Billy quite changed, more direct, and clearer about his role. I think he had to literally leave the comedic performance of a church behind and start fresh from this realized, sincere position.
RIJ: Have you been surprised by the extent of anti-consumerist organizing inside evangelical churches, like Advent Conspiracy for example? Did you come across that stuff on the tour?
SD: I am heartened by the level of anti-consumerism in the evangelical movement, but not at all surprised. I think Jesus was an anti-consumerist. Of course it is impossible to imagine where this country would be without the amazing work of churches amongst the abolitionists, inside the labor movement, at the helm of the civil rights movement….so its no surprise that the fight against consumerism would happen there too.
I wish there was a way to broadcast the strength and size of that movement to non-Christians, or non-evangelicals. We know that people take things more seriously and are more likely to get engaged if they know lots of other people do too.
We met some wonderful people on our trip across the country, and were housed on several occasions by Christian groups, Evangelicals, Quakers, Catholics. Its encouraging to overcome the largely fabricated divisions between so called progressives and so called conservatives. Obviously there are some key issues where there is a real ideological divide, but that doesn’t mean we should abandon the affinities we do have. That leaves us all paralyzed and isolated in our own particular culture/ideology.
RIJ: The film showed you and Billy feeling that you were voices in the wilderness—that no one was listening. At one point, you were exhausted and said, “I don’t know if anybody hears us—or if they hear us, they so don’t want to hear us.” Did the tour change the way you think about how to change people’s minds and behavior?
SD: One great reason to work within a community, as any active church member will tell you, is that the community holds you up when the going gets tough. The first thing I do when I feel despondent about our work is to turn around and look into the amazing faces of The Stop Shopping Choir.
Being on the road is hard because you are dislocated, you are a stranger in every town, every deli, every rest stop—and you never get to stay long enough to really feel the effect you are having. The report does catch up though, we get emails and phone calls and letters from people who encounter our work -workers and shoppers who are present in stores where we sing or who catch it on the local news, or who hear about it from a friend—and we absolutely feel like we are gaining traction.
The truth is most people sense that something is out of balance in our culture. I have yet to meet an individual who argues FOR more advertising or FOR more shopping—even those who support globalization and the politics that made shopping the central pillar in our economy will mostly agree that the consumerized life is far less satisfying than its promise.
