Consuming Jesus

Our post for in the trenches comes from Curtis May. Curtis is Director of the Office of Reconciliation Ministries for Grace Communion International.  We’re excited to be able to have Curtis share about what he does with the Office of Reconciliation Ministries (from here on referred to as ORM).  Below is Curtis’ description of his involvement with ORM.

At ORM I counsel Christians and non-Christians alike on issues of conflict, disputes and broken relationships in general. We have 27 chapters in 5 countries – the U.S., Canada, Ireland, England and Scotland. Our work has extended into Africa and the Philippines as well. Our Vision is: ‘To put the teachings of Jesus Christ into action by advancing relationships between people of different beliefs and points of view.” Our Mission: “To respond to situations of racial or ethnic tension and to help build lasting, harmonious and accepting relationships.

Our Core Values are guided by Scripture:

1. Reconciliation as a ministry given to us by God (II Corinthians 5:18-19)

2. All humans made from one blood (Acts 17:26)

3. The inclusive mission/vision of Jesus (Luke 4:18)

4. Neither Jew, Greek, male nor female, but all one in Christ (Galatians 3:28)

5. Practical demonstrations of love and faith, including literature resources such as our book, Mending Broken Relationships (James 2:16)

In fulfilling our mission we conduct workshops, seminars and give presentations on the topics of reconciliation and conflict resolution throughout the United States and occasionally overseas. We see the need to stand in the gaps that divide people.

ORM has worked with police departments, city halls, schools and other organizations to participate in the mandate of Jesus “that they may be one” (John 17:20-23). We specifically emphasize this message of oneness as we work among churches in the spirit of interdenominationalism. As Dr. Paul Metzger points out so poignantly in his book Consuming Jesus, the church has a huge problem of race, class and consumerism.

We have received a number of awards and certificates for our work, including the key to the city of Memphis. (Please see “Awards” on our website at www.ATimeToReconcile.org.) We also work in inter-faith settings with Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Ba’hai.

Dr. Metzger recently had an article posted on the Out of Ur blog examining and contrasting the types of community formed around the coffee bar and the Lord’s Table.  It is a helpful reflection on the type of communities we are seeking to raise up in our churches, and well worth the read.  You can read the article here.

What do you think about the difference in the sort of communities created around the coffee bar or the Lord’s Table?

Do you have any thoughts or ideas on how we use space to represent the values of our communities?  Share your ideas in the comments here.

Greetings All! During my recent visit to Disney’s Epcot in Orlando Florida, I managed to catch a glimpse of the future, which I’d like to share with you.

Now, Epcot isn’t your average no-tech, smells-of-grease-and-stale-popcorn theme-park. Rather, it is nothing less than Disney’s projection of what an idealized future might look like. Epcot doesn’t just give visitors a chance to jump ahead in time; it also includes the functionality of sending a postcard from the future back to your present-day self. (Ok, the photo of my future self had a giant hole in his head, but I’m chalking that up to a minor backwards-compatibility issue.)

So you ask: “If you could really see the future, Daniel, what would the future hold for me?”

Well it depends…

For those of you who are white, the future is clean, bright, metallic, polymer, automated, digital, and completely Energy-Star compliant.

It’s a little different for us minorities. See, we don’t have a future, or at least one in which we’re represented in any way more significant than say, soylent green. Sadly, somewhere, before the monorail gets to Disney’s “Future,” there’s a stop where we all get off (or maybe the monorail doesn’t stop).

To those who haven’t been there, Epcot is divided into two halves separated by a lake. At the entrance to the park is the “World of Tomorrow,” where all the high-tech future-oriented rides and attractions are. Across the lake is a collection of period sets collectively referred to as “The World.” This is where you can stroll through exotic locales like China, Japan, and Morocco without even leaving the park. .

Visiting “The World” was actually one of the best parts of my trip. Disney gathers people from different countries and brings them to Epcot to crew these destination sets. At first, I couldn’t quite shake the feeling that I was touring a zoo for humans (one where I was part of the exhibit). But once I got over it, I found that talking with people from around the world and getting their perspective was very much worth the price of admission.

Midway through the day, I crossed the lake to continue my visit in Epcot. And then it hit me. “I’m going from ‘The World of Today’ to ‘The World of Tomorrow,’” and boy did tomorrow look different.

In The World of Tomorrow, I crash landed on Mars in “Mission Space,” failed a brake test at “Test Track,” and glided over the Golden Gate bridge in “Soaring.” I even took a 30 second ride on a Segway. I thought to myself, “I kind of like this future.” That was, until I climbed aboard “Spaceship Earth,” located in the iconic Epcot Ball.

Spaceship Earth traces human development from the Paleolithic Age to the Future. As you’re leaving “the Future” a camera snaps a picture of you to send to your present day self. This is, apparently, where future Dan lost half his skull. It’s also here where my concerns about Disney’s version of “Tomorrow” really solidified. And it wasn’t just in my head, or missing from my head…whatever.

The ride started out with a diorama of cavemen fighting a mammoth. Of course, all the cavemen were white. Weird, right? But it’s easy to understand when you remember that Ice Ages only happen to white people. Thank God for that because I’d be really cold in an ice age, not being able to grow facial hair or an Austin Powers-like chest rug (it’s all in the genes, or maybe, not in the genes as it were).

Next, we got into the accumulation of world knowledge, which apparently was stored, in its entirety, at the Library of Alexandria. After that, the Renaissance further increased human knowledge, along with the Enlightenment. And from there we were off to industrialization, computerization, and the future.

Apparently no one outside of Europe and North Africa had any influence whatsoever on human history as a whole. Well, that’s not really fair. There were two black guys (or maybe one was Arab) who sorta helped out at Alexandria. But then we actually got to the future. And everyone looked like Lady Gaga?

Somehow, we colored people aren’t in Disney’s version of the future, but white people are. In fact, when it comes to the World of Tomorrow, white people are like cockroaches after a nuclear winter. And that’s a good thing for white people, because, not only do they survive, but they get to inherit the earth, too. Though, I hope white people like white, because in the World of Tomorrow, the upholstery is white, the walls and ceilings are white and you can wear any color of outfit you want as long as it’s white. Disney’s interpretation of culture in the future is necessarily vague (having to be conveyed by mannequins and repetitive animatronics). However, those that do make it to the future seem to enjoy the pastimes of today’s privileged, like sports (value of leisure), not having to drive for themselves (value of autonomy via automation), and instant food extruded from machines (value of time and instant gratification). Bottom line: white folks might like some aspects of Tomorrow, but they should spend today stocking up on all that good “exotic” food, because I’ve been to Disney’s version of the future, and it ain’t servin’ chitlins, sushi, fry bread, or tacos.

So is this a giant diatribe against Disney? No. Disney actually did a very good job of illustrating a dominant culture (in this country) view of the future. And for that I’m grateful. Plus, Test Track was pretty fun. Epcot’s “World of Tomorrow” is a pitch perfect example of what educator Tim Wise refers to as “universal perspectivism,” as in “the way I see it is the way everyone sees it.” Thus, it’s perhaps unintentional, but only natural that, in a theme park devised by white people, only white people would appear in Disney’s version of “The Future.” Unfortunately, this little oversight implies that somewhere on the path to Tomorrow, minorities step off in a big and permanent way.

The very fact that a strong dichotomy exists between the diverse World of Today and the monochromatic World of Tomorrow within Epcot betrays the presence and execution of universal perspectivism. If that viewpoint were true, there’d be no need for The World of Today as part of Epcot. The fact that not everyone sees things the same way, or even wants the same thing, forms the foundation, literally, for half the attractions of Epcot. That, sadly, is something the other half of the park seems to ignore quite successfully.

Consider this: Although China and Morocco were represented in “The World” of today, they had no place in Spaceship Earth’s representation of human development. Where would whites be without their appropriation (perhaps misappropriation) of the Chinese Hu Yao, a.k.a. “gunpowder?” Certainly the vast European empires which began in the 1500s and covered the globe in Spanish, German, French, Italian, and British flags five centuries later were founded in large part on this technological advancement. What about Arabic lettering? I mean, who wants to do long division in Roman numerals? It isn’t just that minorities don’t exist in the future, but apparently they didn’t exist or contribute in the past either. That’s universal perspectivism at work.

Put succinctly, Disney’s futuristic World of Tomorrow without the diverse World of Today is technically competent, and environmentally sound, but bland, boring, repetitive, incomplete, and yes, unbiblical.

Maybe we should take comfort in the message of someone who really has seen the future and brought a little of it back to us. In Revelations 5:9 (TNIV) the Apostle John tells us:

And they sang a new song, saying: “You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased for God members of tribe and language and people and nation.”

Thank God every tongue and tribe will be represented in the new heaven and new earth and that we all have the privilege of being in this version of the future. Thank God that our Creator’s vision of Tomorrow is both more expansive and more inclusive than Disney’s, because writing this essay has really given me the hankering for a gyro, or maybe some Chinese BBQ pork, or a steak quesadilla. Come to think of it, a nice hot bowl of nabeyaki udon sounds good too…

So, I’d ask you, my readers, to think critically whenever someone talks about “the future” or even “the past.” Whose take on the future are we talking about; whose history? Who’s starring? Who got left off the box office poster? If someone tries to sell you a version of the future that isn’t inclusive of “every tribe and language,” you might want to turn the packaging over and check the expiration date.

In this essay, Kelsi Johns writes with her usual simple profundity and keen eye to the blood, sweat, and tears of true discipleship.  She reflects on her own experiences to draw out what it means to live the gospel rather than simply preach the gospel from a safe distance.  To love is to risk, and as Kelsi explains, the church is called to show the same “messy, generous, limitless love” that God has shown to us in Christ.  Community development, Kelsi asserts, must begin with developing relationships, with truly loving our neighbors and serving  with and among them, rather than just to them.

True Community

This thoughtful reflection piece from Barbara Echo-Hawk provides us a window into the world of segregation which she experienced while growing up in the 1960’s. While reading it, consider ways in which we still face segregation of various forms, and what we can do to expand our horizons and engage redemptively in the process of reconciliation in our own day.

One Saturday at Picadilly’s

In this essay, Alex Mutagubya laments a troubling trend he sees in the Ugandan church: the appropriation of consumeristic tendencies from the Western church.  He addresses the divisions that this trend has caused, builds a biblical and theological basis for correcting this trend, and then offers practical solutions, all within the historical and cultural context of Uganda.  His hope is for the Ugandan church “to see the beauty that God intended for it in having all these tribes and people live and worship together,” as we all will soon enough with Christ’s return.

The Church Viewed as a Voluntary Association

Is the much maligned (and praised) philosopher Jacques Derrida, father of deconstruction, a misunderstood liberator in need of a little liberation himself?  In this essay, Braxton Alsop gives a sympathetic ear to Jacques Derrida as a liberation theologian in his own right, analyzing how well Derrida addresses human suffering caused by structural evil. Braxton then sets forth his own views on God, salvation, and the church, explaining how a Trinitarian perspective better addresses the shared concern for structural evil.

Jacques Derrida and Structural Evil

For the last two years I’ve been encouraging churches interested in figuring out how to be postured more intentionally to serve their neighborhoods, through bringing them together with service organizations for a monthly luncheon and ideas exchange. We started doing this after John M. Perkins visited Portland, and it brought many of us together for inspiration toward loving neighbors, ministering to ex-offenders, and seeking justice among the poor. We’ve been calling our group the Christian Community Development Network (CCDN). It has proven to be very beneficial for those of us who have met regularly. Collaborative efforts have taken place and I think most of us have received encouragement to press on in our areas of ministry. Lately though, I’m sensing from the Lord a need to increase the influence of a network like this.I wonder if there would be a way to bring together helping agencies, civic and neighborhood groups, city-minded educators, the business community, city government people, and churches (including a greater racial diversity than city networks typically have) to share their resources for collaboratively enriching our city. Could a larger network such as this create greater awareness of needs, resources, and opportunities to respond, resulting in greater potential for collaborative endeavors and ultimately greater love shown more consistently to Portland?

To do something like that would take buy-in by influential city leaders and opinion influencing church leaders whose involvement would encourage others to come together, too. That’s the piece that needs to be discerned; who would that be? And do they want something like this? Jeff Spry from City Connections in Little Rock Arkansas contacted me recently. He was encouraged to do so by a representative from the Luis Palau Association. He was told I might be interested to know what they are doing. I had shared with no one at that time what I was thinking, but City Connections is close to what I have been trying to conceive in my mind. Might this be an example that we could modify for the Portland context? I wonder if the momentum toward service generated by Season of Service could move closer to “whole-lives of service” through the kind of inspiration, relationship, awareness, and collaboration opportunities a network like this could provide.Take a look at City Connections’ website and watch the intro video. Could something like this be contextualized to Portland? What if there was a simple format of a once-a-month lunch-time gathering at a consistent city-central location. One helping group or issue could be presented in about 20 minutes or so, and the rest of the time people could network, exchange information/opportunities/needs. If we could get the right people to participate, would you be interested? Would you be willing to help get the right people to the table?

I know there are many conversations going on right now about how to perpetuate service beyond a season; loving Portland, caring for those in need, cultivating a generous Church, resourcing Christian ministries that serve the city (and those are just the conversations I know about). I wouldn’t see this as another competing voice but as possibly a simple and doable way to keep the conversation moving toward outcomes. Just get everyone to the table, build relationships, inform others about what helping people/orgs/churches/groups do, who they are, what they have available and need, then see what folks might be inspired to take back to their people. Basically, it would be about setting the table for dialogue, understanding, relationship, and opportunity. That’s all; we would leave the rest to God. What do you all think?
Clark Blakeman,
Executive Director, Second Stories

New Wine, New Wineskins’ Spring conference on Faith and the Arts, Created to Create, provided space for the Christian community to broaden its scope as to how the arts are so powerful and necessary for Christ’s kingdom purposes. One of the ways in which this theme was powerfully explored was by Richard Twiss, a member of the Sicangu Band of the Rosebud Lakota/Sioux tribe and co-founder of Wiconi International. This ministry is devoted “to live and walk among the people ‘in a good way’ by following the ways of Jesus– affirming, respecting and embracing the God-given cultural realities of Native/Indigenous people, not rejecting or demonizing them.” Twiss gave a powerful perspective on how the arts intersect with his faith, and how the arts are expressed through his Native American Christian heritage. 

Twiss shared with us some of his tribe’s artistic and beautiful ways of praying and worshipping. The tribe’s approach is fluid and rhythmic, vastly different from the Western Evangelical traditional (stoic) approach.  Along the way, Twiss explored the ways in which the dominant Western Christian culture tends to address Native Christian peoples: many dominant culture Christians wash Native Christians’ feet at prayer rallies and build houses on reservations before returning home to their lives of affluence.  These dominant culture Christians never truly enter into solidarity or mutuality with the indigenous community, while also ignoring its rich heritage of Native artistic expression and culture. The failure on the part of the dominant Western culture is twofold: we often fail to sense the beauty in the Native people’s ways of life and how they can enrich our own, and we fail to see that our attempts at connection–washing feet at prayer rallies or building homes on reservations–do not address core structural problems. 

The structural disconnect between the dominant Western Christian culture and indigenous peoples ties in with the ways in which the mainstream Evangelical community generally tends to bypass structural evil. In chapter two of Consuming Jesus, mention is made of Dr. John M. Perkins’ baseball game analogy, which is used to illustrate the dominant culture’s blindness to structural problems. Two teams are playing a game of baseball–a white team and a black team.  After seven innings, it is discovered that the white team has been cheating the whole game. The score is 20 to 0, and the cheating team apologizes. The white team then wants to move forward and finish the game. However, there is still a major problem: the score hasn’t changed; it is still 20-0. This story illustrates Twiss’ own frustration with dominant culture Christians’ washing Native people’s feet at reconciliation events and then retreating back to their “big houses” in affluent communities. I remember clearly his frustration as he lamented this state of affairs: “meanwhile, we are stuck here on our reservation with clean feet.” Just as in Perkins’ analogy, the cheating team apologizes and then mistakenly functions as if everyone is now functioning on a level playing field. These overarching, complex, societal and structural ills are often being addressed with a quick-fix, charity mentality, but nothing more. 

I am convinced that until we learn to need one another–existing in true community and solidarity as Christ’s body across racial and class divides, we are simply a nuisance to one another. We are only getting in one another’s way, if we don’t understand our mutuality as children of God. I believe that our Western individualism, affluence and lifestyles of privilege fuel partial ministry attempts to “reach out,” making Native people’s feet clean for a night, while never addressing the heart of the matter: seeking after our own hearts and hands’ cleansing for a lifetime. This is where a challenge to the dominant culture church arises: we must change this state of affairs by truly bearing witness to the trans-cultural gospel we profess by holistically and urgently addressing these complex social ills. But it takes time–a long time, and it takes not only acknowledging the long history of disadvantage and racialization, but will also require a slow journey ahead of entering into indigenous people’s lives and cultures, whereby there is mutual learning, respecting, and valuing of one another’s lives and cultures. Only then can we truly move forward–together.

I came away from Twiss’s talk at New Wine’s conference with a more missional twist on missions: the dominant Western Christian culture of which I am part has so much to learn about ministry among Native peoples–repenting of the past that impoverishes Native peoples in the present, as well as being enriched by the worship experience of our Native brothers and sisters. Lord, wash my dominant Christian culture’s feet, our hearts, and our hands so that we can be beautiful instruments of peace for your Gospel.

By Kelsi Johns with Paul Louis Metzger 

In the March newsletter for New Wine, New Wineskins (http://new-wineskins.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/090401-new-wine-newsletter.pdf), I explored the profundity of two different cultural art forms (Bach and African music) being brought together to produce something entirely different: ballet. I would like to explore this theme further, specifically in terms of how it speaks to our dire need for cultural diversity and multi-ethnic representation in the church. 

That ballet performance involved the creation of something beautiful out of two or more different and separate cultural expressions. This inspired in me a longing and sense of need: I long for the church to be a community where we truly sense our need for one another in the diversity of our cultural expressions, involving rather than negating cultural and ethnic tension. “Tension” in the sense that I do not believe that diversity in the church “just happens,” or is necessarily comfortable (especially considering the unequal footing from which we are currently working in America in regards to race relations and divisions).

We must intentionally work to understand, engage and respect one another–accounting for our different backgrounds and ethnicities. These differences must not be undermined, but rather engaged and celebrated. When this happens, something beautiful and new emerges.

It frustrates me that the phrase “celebrate diversity” is often labeled as taboo in Christian circles. I believe that the call to “celebrate diversity” is one of the most profound and significant aspects of our spiritual lives as Christians! The way I see it, the lack of appreciation for diversity fosters passive racism and homogeneous units in our social, educational and churchly spheres as believers. True, we are not to herald religious and spiritual “relativism” as such, but this is not what I am addressing.

It perplexes me that diversity is often dubbed as synonymous with spiritual and religious relativism. But diversity–different colors, voices, perspectives, thinkers, feelers, cultures in the body of Christ? This is something to be celebrated. Rather than stopping at celebrating diversity, my desire is that we celebrate the one Christ in diverse ways in the church.

I am convicted that to move forward, we must be brutally honest with ourselves about our faith. We, as believers, have been part of a movement that throughout its history has at times celebrated cultural diversity and yet at other times has shamefully oppressed diversity, including minority and non-Western cultural expressions of the faith.  If we as the church are to move forward as the embodied presence of the liberating and compassionate Christ whose glory is revealed in manifold and diverse ways, then we must come to celebrate diverse cultural expressions as central to our worship gatherings and daily Christian existence.

It is my desire that we make beautiful music out of the prism of differences in the world, music that inspires and liberates the church to be a diverse people centered in Christ. Just as Albert Schweitzer combined his Bach performances with the lively and colorful sounds of Africa surrounding him (which eventually inspired a beautiful ballet performance by the Oregon Ballet Theatre in Portland), I believe we too are designed to combine, to harmonize, so to speak, with different communities and peoples.

What would that eventually produce? Who thought Africa and Bach would inspire a ballet? I believe we, too, could produce something unexpected, unique and utterly beautiful. Something that resonates with and echoes the symphonic melodies of the kingdom of God. I desire to see something of a ballet emerge from the body of Christ: a collision of diverse expressions creating something entirely new and profound, accompanying the divine drama of the reconciling Christ.