Category: Uncategorized

As a follow-up to my last post on John Perkins, founder of the the Christian Community Development Association . . . This week (September 11-14) the CCDA is holding its 25th annual conference in New Orleans. The theme is Cultivate: to foster growth; to tend, prepare and improve. Among the featured speakers are Michelle Alexander, Leroy Barber, Father Greg Boyle, and Barbara Williams-Skinner.

Here’s their description of this year’s event:

For a quarter of a century CCDA has proclaimed this passage by word and deed. Men and women across the country and around the world have been given grace, and in turn, together offer Good News to the poor. We live in under-resourced neighborhoods, challenge racism, represent and present the love of Jesus, and involve ourselves in issues of justice. As a result, life is cultivated in the hearts of the poor and in devastated places “bestowing crowns of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of despair.” Isaiah 61:3

The cultivated ones – “the planting” – who are identified as “Oaks of Righteousness”, display the splendor, beauty, grace, and power of the Lord. They are being renewed by the Spirit and are endowed with spiritual power to further cultivate hope and change, reclaiming our wasted cities.

We must cultivate these “Oaks of Righteousness” because Isaiah 61:4 is clear, “They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated; they will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.”

John Perkins, known in the early 1970s as a “a Bible-believing fundamentalist for black power (which overstates things on both ends), has enjoyed a successful career as a mentor to urban workers. Among other things, he founded the thriving Christian Community Development Association. Check out an interview with Perkins here and here.

For more on Perkins, see Chapter 2 of Moral Minority. Here’s a short excerpt from the book:

After witnessing his brother’s shooting death at the hands of a white deputy marshal, Perkins and his wife Vera Mae moved to California, vowing never to return to the South. After a conversion in 1957 to evangelical Christianity in a black holiness church and then growing prominence as an evangelist in the mushrooming evangelical subculture of southern California, Perkins felt an irresistible call to return to the rural areas surrounding Jackson, Mississippi, to evangelize poor blacks. When he returned in 1960, Perkins, concentrating on building a new congregation, at first dismissed the emerging civil rights movement. He had come, after all, to save souls, not stamp out Jim Crow. But as he toured poor black areas like “Baptist Bottom,” “Sullivan’s Holler,” and “Rabbit Road” in a beat-up old Volkswagen wearing ragged blue jeans, faded sports shirt, and dusty black shoes, Perkins noticed the “desperate physical needs of many of our people.” He discovered that “real evangelism brings a person face to face with all the needs of a person. We had to see people not just as souls but as whole people.” Perkins adjusted his approach, and by 1965 he had built a thriving mission which included a day-care center, a gym, a playground, and a cooperative farming store in addition to a church.

As Perkins addressed the spiritual and social needs of his parishioners, he could not escape the obvious link between economic degradation and the southern caste system. His view of the civil rights movement accordingly softened, and Perkins allowed activists to stay at his Voice of Calvary mission during Freedom Summer in 1964. Though his reputation among civil rights activists was mixed in the mid-1960s, Perkins shifted further toward activism after suffering a beating in the late 1960s from white policemen. Faith was politics, Perkins subsequently began to argue. “’New birth in Jesus,” he said, “meant waging war against segregation just as much as it meant putting the honky-tonks and juke joints out of business.” “Racism,” in fact, “is satanic, and I knew it would take a supernatural force to defeat it.” By 1970 Perkins’ active pursuit of racial justice had gained him a reputation as “a Bible-believing fundamentalist for black power.” The emerging evangelical left chronicled his exploits in community development and evangelism, and he eventually became a minor evangelical celebrity, befriended by evangelical luminaries such as Carl Henry, Billy Graham, and Nixon hatchet man-turned-prison evangelist Charles Colson. Senator Mark Hatfield called Perkins “a modern saint.” Starting in the early 1970s he spoke at Billy Graham crusades, political prayer breakfasts in Washington, and InterVarsity’s Urbana conferences. He wrote in the pages of Sojourners, Christianity Today, Decision, Campus Life, and Moody Monthly. His autobiography Let Justice Roll Down became a bestseller, ranking fourth for a time in the 1970s in the sale of religious paperbacks. All the while, whites in Jackson treated him with hostility and indifference, a reality that stunned northern student volunteers who traveled south to work with Perkins.

At the beginning of each semester, I ask my students to call me David, not Dr. Swartz. Part of the reason I ask them to use my first name is because my religious tradition trained me that way. Raised a Mennonite and nurtured on the language of the “priesthood of all believers,” we never called our preachers “Reverend” but instead addressed them by their first name. We didn’t balk at titles of endearment (like Schnookums), mostly just those of hierarchy.

There is a pedagogical reason as well. I want to create an environment of collaboration. Sure, I know more history than my students, and sometimes (!) I even lecture. But getting them to talk back encourages them to think empathetically, process narratives critically, and view history as an interpretive, not a factual, project. I want my students to see me as an intellectual guide more than an all-knowing god. More than once, I’ve observed students who seemed comfortable in their own skin move suddenly to obsequiousness when I’m introduced as “Dr. Swartz.” It seems to shut down conversations.

Pop sociologist Malcolm Gladwell has written about the potential dangers posed by deference to authority. In fact, he devoted an entire chapter of his book Outliers to this phenomenon in trying to explain the dismal record of Korean Air in the 1990s. Numerous times co-pilots, who were taught to be incredibly deferential toward their superiors, did not correct a pilot in error, which resulted in crashes. He cited the Wall Street Journal, which contended that at least one crash “involved Korea’s authoritarian culture, reflected in a hiring and promotion policy that favors former military fliers over civilians. Too often, the effect has been friction that hampers the pilot teamwork needed to fly Western-built jets.” This example is perhaps overdramatic, but it does point to how hierarchy can impede real dialogue.

There is also the biblical case against titles. The trajectory of Scripture heads in an egalitarian direction, from a set-apart class of religious leaders to a priesthood of all believers who are instructed to use the non-hierarchical terms “brother” and “sister” when addressing co-religionists. This is a compelling argument to students at the Wesleyan college I teach at, at least the ones who aren’t Anglican.

Not all of my students—especially those from the Deep South who were reared to use titles as a sign of respect—can bring themselves to call me by my first name. (Christine Heyrman is helpful in understanding why.) But most of them, especially the blue-collar staff on campus and the large numbers of students who come from lower-middle class homes in the North and Appalachia, grow to really like it. They use my first name tentatively at first—and then enthusiastically as they become more comfortable and invested in classroom discussions.

After six long years in a doctoral program, I remember the minor thrill of being called Dr. Swartz by my first students. To be sure, the Ph.D. was an important marker of my intellectual growth and professional development. But was it really necessary to remind students of my credential every. single. time. they addressed me? About two years in, after the thrill of my new credential wore off, I decided that I would try to strengthen my professorial identity with a little less hierarchy and ego—and a little more emphasis on scholarly rigor and creative teaching. I think my classroom is more engaged and humane as a result.

*** Cross-posted at the Anxious Bench ***

Follow.Jesus.2013’s final meeting, a Sunday morning church service, was striking. It followed a Friday evening roast of Ron Sider, the 40-year face of Evangelicals for Social Action, and Saturday’s more academic consideration of the organization’s legacy. The service was a glimpse of moderate evangelicalism’s future: a woman (Heidi Unruh) presiding, a black worship band leading music, and the new faces of ESA—Al Tizon and Paul Alexander (the pair who will be leading the organization using a “consensus model”)—leading communion.

The new look was made all the more striking when the beloved Sider, a middle-aged buttoned-down, low-tech, Swiss-German white guy, commissioned his successors. Tizon, a Twitter-using Filipino-American, and the pony-tail-wearing Alexander. Tizon, an ordained minister in the Evangelical Covenant Church, has extensive experience as a missionary and community organizer, primarily in the Philippines with Action International Ministries from 1989 to 1998. From 1993-98, he served as the founding director of LIGHT Ministries, a Filipino community development organization committed to”empowering churches to empower their communities in Christ’s name. He is the author of Transformation after Lausanne: Radical Evangelical Mission in Global-Local Perspective (Regnum 2008).

Alexander emerged from less likely origins. A child of God-and-country Pentecostalism and a graduate of Baylor, he has tried to move his tradition toward an agenda of peacemaking. He helps lead Pentecostals & Charismatics for Peace & Justice and serves on the editorial board of Pax Pneuma. He may have lost his God-and-country vibe, but he sure hasn’t shed his tradition’s charisma. He speaks with a bouncy cadence and carries himself with breathless enthusiasm.

It needs to be said, however, that the new ESA also represents significant continuity. In their mini-sermons, Tizon and Alexander both talked a lot about Jesus, justice, and peacemaking—all long-standing emphases of Sider. Even the theme of globalization is not very new. After all, Ron Sider did write a pretty important book called Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger! Still, the intensity seems to be ratcheting even higher. Talk of the rise of the Global South abounded. The many references to my esteemed co-blogger Philip Jenkins seemed too many to count. As Alexander, who has rebuffed the superpatriotism of his Pentecostal childhood, and Tizon, who embodies a kind of global reflex, presided over the communion service, the persistence of ESA’s global dimensions was palpable.

Significantly, the global mood is not limited to progressive evangelical circles. Andy Crouch, who works for Christianity Today, said it well at a recent Evangelical Immigration Table event:

• “Churches and institutions have been enriched by generations of immigrants from every part of the world. A lot of pollsters like to break out the opinions of “white evangelicals.” But as you see from the group of leaders gathered here, one of the most remarkable features of evangelical Christianity in the United States is its ethnic diversity. [I venture to say that in any American city, if you look at churches founded in the last twenty years, the vast majority are evangelical or Pentecostal, and a great number are founded by immigrants or the children of immigrants.] And the more you are a leader in this movement, the more you become aware of the strength of that diversity and how much of it comes from recently arrived residents and citizens.”

In many cases, some of that strength comes in the form of livelier—and longer!—worship services. As the morning service wound down, Tizon noted the late hour. He then grinned and said, “Welcome to the multicultural church!”

*For a sample of Alexander and Tizon’s multicultural approach, click here.

Progressive evangelicals would tend to find this sacralization of the corporate order a bit sacrilegious. If you’re not progressive or evangelical, feel free to buy your own print here.

Many readers of this blog teach and preach. Here’s a helpful article on how to make eye contact with all your students, even the ones you ignore because of ocular dominance.

Here’s a taste:

Learning to sweep your gaze from side to side in a large class is part of connecting with all of your students, yet many of us will naturally favor one side. Becoming aware of your ocular dominance and working with it, rather than against it, can help you teach with greater ease and effectiveness.

Here’s your daily dose of Christian kitsch: the Jesus Toaster. An inspirational way to consume your daily bread.

A few posts ago I noted a letter signed by 200 evangelical scientists urging strong action on climate change. Over at Religion & Politics, one of them, Dorothy Boorse at Gordon College, now discusses in more detail the urgency of the matter–and relates it socioeconomic justice. Here’s a taste:

Climate change makes hard things harder, and harms the poor first. In heat waves, low-income people are less likely to have access to cool areas, are more likely to suffer respiratory distress, and more likely to die. Around the world, the poor suffer disproportionately from many of the other effects of warming such as extreme weather events, sea level rise, increase in diseases, and changes in food availability.

Over at How to Talk Evangelical, Allison Vesterfelt discusses consumerism and justice in the West. She and her husband Darrell undertook a year-long experiment:

We decided to buy nothing new for a whole year, only used or second-hand. Instead of going to Target or IKEA to furnish our new apartment, we went to Goodwill and Salvation Army. We found furniture, trash cans, and even a used mattress. When my husband broke his iPhone we didn’t go replace it. When we needed a power strip, or warmer clothes for our new (freezing) Minnesota climate, we browsed the racks at thrift and second-hand stores until we found what we wanted.

Here’s what they learned:

First, we laid down our privilege and admitted how “rich” we really were.

Second, it forced us to take a consumer “pause” to think about our purchases.

Third, it reminded me I have choices.

Fourth, it reminded me I am not what I own.

As the retirement gala for Ron Sider, the founder and president of Evangelicals for Social Action (ESA) for the last forty years, got underway last weekend, emcee Tony Campolo lamented the difficulty of the task at hand. “How do you roast a peace-loving, simple-living Mennonite?” he asked. There just isn’t a lot of material. A long list of luminaries—including Wes Granberg-Michaelson, Jim Wallis, Tom Sine, David Gushee, Dean Trulear, Rabbi David Saperstein, and Heidi Unruh—tried. And a few of them landed some blows to the pacifist Sider, most of them having to do with his decidedly non-pacifist fishing habit and his penchant for wearing brown suits purchased at thrift stores. (In fact, gala invitations instructed attendees to wear “Ron Sider Casual,” which meant your thrift store finest). But most of the roasts “devolved” into paeans to Sider’s integrity, kindness, and love for Jesus. At the evening’s conclusion, Sider confessed to being a sinner with feet of clay, but the love-fest suggested that the man was a saint with angelic wings.

As a historian of progressive evangelicals, I found the roast—and accompanying conference called Follow.Jesus.2013—utterly fascinating. I met four surviving original signers of the 1973 Chicago Declaration. I heard about a new book that lays out future directions of ESA (more on this in my next post). I observed a surprisingly large contingent of younger evangelicals who are continuing Sider’s legacy of evangelism and social justice (in his closing remarks, Sider noted that white evangelicals of the 1970s needed to hear about justice. In the future, he mused, they may need to hear more about evangelism). I led two workshops that contemplated the legacy of Evangelicals for Social Action—and discovered that the man (Wes Granberg-Michaelson) sitting to my right was the star of the cover of my book!

The tone of the conference was equal parts wistful and celebratory. Wistful in that the evangelical left’s great rivalry with the religious right had been a rout—not in ESA’s favor. One of the running jokes of the weekend was how bad Sider has been in supporting winning presidents—starting in 1972 with his leadership of Evangelicals for McGovern. In terms of electoral politics, right-wing organizations and individuals such as the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition, Jerry Falwell, Jim Dobson, and Pat Robertson have swamped moderate wings led by Sider, Wallis, and Mouw.

The celebratory tone came from the recognition that Sider’s legacy is significant. Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger has now sold nearly half a million copies. And while ESA has remained small and Sider has been laboring for decades with little help on issues of poverty, women’s rights, and inequities in the global economy, the evangelical left seems to have anticipated contemporary evangelical concerns. Sider’s views are rapidly becoming standard among moderate evangelicals. For the Health of the Nation, which was released in 2005 by the National Association of Evangelicals, reads like a consistent-life tract that progressive evangelicals might have written back in the 1980s. (Ron Sider in fact co-chaired the committee that drafted the document.) In a statement that sounded like a description of Sider himself, historian Mark Noll remarked, “This document is, in unusual measure, compassionate, well-balanced, thoughtful, remarkably comprehensive, humble, well-informed, noncombative, irenic, and wise. Believe me, in over thirty years of lecturing and writing about the history of evangelical Christianity, I have very rarely been able to use all of those adjectives all at once about the same thing.” There may not be many card-carrying members of the evangelical left (my least favorite joke when I told people I was writing my dissertation on progressive evangelicals was: “The evangelical left—all three of them?), but their legacy is not insignificant. The steady, often saintly, leadership of Sider is one reason why.

*** Cross-posted at The Anxious Bench ***