Questions from a yogurt Container

Last night my six housemates and I were sitting around the dinner table pulling questions from a recycled yogurt container which we had all contributed to anonymously.  The first question was asked by our only Minnesota resident which required  a light comment on what we thought was the most interesting fact or experiences pertaining to the state of Minnesota. Although, this questioned was interesting and conversation did develop out it I am, here, more concerned with the second yogurt container question: What would you be like without faith and a conviction to social justice? 

The answers to this question along with my own thoughts regarding faith and social justice have inspired a post.  Faith and social justice were dialectically connected for many of us.  To all of us it had seemed that there was always a sense of incompleteness, of unfishedness.  Even as active participants in spiritual community–part of youth groups, college groups, vocation programs–there a sense that something was missing.  Our faith seemed incomplete. 

Many of our stories were similar, we became cynical, gave up on faith, or became awash in our college party scene. None of these solutions were the ultimate answer to the innate Socratic questioning of our own lives.  Our stories combined described that the failure of our faith to offer fullness in our own lives was its absence of solidarity with the poor, the hungry, the invisible, and the oppressed.

We all seemed to understand that our faith was dialectically connected to liberation of those who were enslaved by the dehumanization of their cultural situation. We understood that our own humanity could not be fully manifest without the affirmation of the humanity of all.  During our round table discussion we became aware that faith as we knew it before–as the contentment of our souls in a consumer driven society–would never be enough for us, it would never silences our drive to be faithful.

We also recognized that this drive, this faithfulness, would require a great unsettling, a challenge, a journey into history of which we only contribute a verse then we pass away and hope that another has the courage to continue the poem. Isn’t that the predicament of humanity? To figure out what it means to be human between whom and Tome . What does it really mean to deal with the mess, the confusion, we call, life.  I think last night we began that difficult question, we began that unsettling socratic questioning, the examining of our lives, so that they are worth the living. 

We embarked on a journey that we will be on well after this year of service. A journey that, if we continue to have the courage of faith, will take us into untold greatness. Greatness? Along this journey we must always remember that greatness is solidarity with those who are not so great. Indeed, “whoever wishes to be great in this world let him be a servant”

Good, Goodbye.

On August 11th at 6am I will be flying out of bloomington IL to Washington DC to begin my year in a volunteer program called the Lutheran Volunteer Corp.  After on week of orientation I fly to Oakland California, where I will live for, at least, one year.  I will be working with the Alameda country food bank as the education assistant (or something like that). 

I have always believed that faith is requires action.  Paul Tillich makes the connection to faith and action; “[F]aith can result in action. . . . because it implies love and because the expression of love is action.”1  In this sense faith and works, which have had a seemingly dissociated relationship, are connected by love.  

I say that to say I feel as if this is my opportunity to put my faith and love into action by begging to find a sense of solidarity with hungry.  By feeding the least of my brothers and sisters. However,  I am leaving all I know and love–My family, friends, home, and state.  This departure, although exciting, is also saddening.  It reminds me that faith and love in their physical manifestation as action take courage.  The courage to try and to fail, to leave the known for the unknown, to move away from loved ones in the pursuit of new loves–this truly is the courage of faith 

To those whom have loved and whom I have loved…. I will never forget your love nor will i stop loving. 

My stomach’s always been a liar- I’ll believe it’s lies again!

I think that the Christian community, throughout history, has often been silent and, thus, complacent with the status quo.  Martin Luther King Jr. makes this point undoubtly clear; while in Birmingham, Alabama King was jailed for participating in civil rights demonstrations and he wrote, “So often the contemporary church is a weak, ineffectual voice with an uncertain sound. So often it is an archdefender of the status quo. Far from being disturbed by the presence of the church, the power structure of the average community is consoled by the church’s silent—and often vocal—sanction of things as they are.” While there are notable exceptions, it seems that the overarching history of the Christian community has been overtly complacent, often vocally, with the economic, political and social norms. 

Visions of salvation, I contend, are the foundation of the Christian communities content and complacency with the status quo.  How does one become “saved?”  More importantly, what does being “saved” look like in our daily and social lives?  Here I want to combine the thought of two of the great sociological theorist of the last two centuries—Max Weber, and Karl Marx.  Weber examined the protestant work ethic and how it played into the growing acceptance of capitalism in Western Europe in the early to middle 20^th century.  Weber extensively examined Calvinism one of the largest and fasting growing protestant movements of the time.  Calvinists believe in the Augustinian tradition of predestination—“the uncertainty of one’s eternal fate as a member of the elect community or the damned, true believers sought a sign that they were favored.”

 In other words, before one’s birth God chose their eternal fate; their decisions and actions on earth had no standing in their divine status.  Many sought signs to help them know if they were part of the elect community.  Some of these signs were the material worth and possessions the individual could attain. The spirit of capitalism had been dialectically combined with the soteriological concerns of the Protestant ethos.  The sign of salvation, then, had become the social mobility and socioeconomic position of the individual. Weber explains the juxtaposed relationship of capitalism and the Protestant ascetic:

For wealth in itself was a temptation. But here asceticism was the power ‘which ever seeks the good but ever creates evil’; what was evil in its sense was possession and its temptation. For, in conformity with the Old Testament and in analogy to the ethical valuation of good works, asceticism looked upon the pursuit of wealth as and end in itself as highly reprehensible; but the attainment of it as a fruit of labour in calling was a sign of God’s blessing.  And even more important: the religious valuation of restless, continuous, systematic work in a worldly calling, as the highest means to asceticism, and at the same time the surest and most evident proof of rebirth and genuine faith, must have been the most powerful conceivable lever for the expansion of the attitude toward life which we have here called the spirit of capitalism.

 Protestant asceticism and the individualistic ethos of capitalism had been combined to form a soteriological understanding which justified the worldly occupation and gain of capital as a divine calling and as a sign of ones salvation into the elect community.  The poor, the imprisoned, and the oppressed were no longer the focus of the Christian community.  Jesus’ mission, the announcement of good news, the proclaimed release of prisoners and freedom for the victimized, has been forgotten, and in its place the pursuit of profit. In other words, the focus shifted to the individual’s pursuit of capital, to show his community and to prove to his own psyche that he was a member of the elect community. The pursuit of commodities and capital becomes superimposed on the doctrine of salvation. 

Karl Marx nuanced the idea of capitalism with theological and soteriological concerns of the individual.  Unlike Weber, Marx contended that the commodities produced by the capitalistic system had soteriological properties in themselves.  Marx believed that the commodity and the fetishism of commodities (which is the very survival of the capitalistic system) would become a salvific event in itself.  Marx explains this magical property of the commodity, “A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.”  While Weber understood that the Protestant ascetic would always oppose the temptation of gaining wealth as an end, I contend, with Marx, the commodity or wealth would eventually become a soteriological end in itself.  Personal relationships and soteriology revolve around the lowest common denominator–a “cash nexus.”  While the majority of the Christian communities still warn of the love of money; as the comfortable life of “needs” tends to become more demanding, the warning is usually left in the pews. 

The Beginning

In my early youth I found the message of the church calling me, pushing me towards the alter of “salvation.”  The narratives of Christ and the early church had seemed, at the time, to be real in my life.  I know such a conviction could be linked to my sociological position and upbringing.  Born and baptized into the Lutheran tradition I recall a sense of the divine presence at a very young age.  My family left the Lutheran church before catechism and I went, at the invitation of a friend, to Pekin First Church of God.  First Church of God, a sect, which sprang from the Southern Baptist tradition, maintained the evangelical and fundamentalist, structure and message.  I cannot speak for the entire congregation at Pekin First Church, but I would explain my experience as part of the “Christian Right.”  My political concerns were overly moral issues—abortion and gay marriage were both seen as morally degenerate.  The political message coming from the church of my adolescence did not focus on the structural problems (the structural “sins”) of classism, sexism, hetero-realism, or racism, which pervade our daily lives.  For the most part the message at First Church leaned away from structural and political issues.  However, the use of military and warfare metaphors—being a warrior for Christ— was very much a part of the message at First Church.  The apolitical message at Pekin First drew me passionately towards it.  I was one of the leaders of the youth discussion on Wednesday evenings and in Sunday school.  I recall my emotions of youth conventions and Bible camps, the fun—running wild through the hotels and campgrounds.  I also remember my conviction at the nightly services, which often pointed out that my peers and I were not living up to our “Christian” calling.  Those services produced both wonderful and terrifying emotion for a sixteen-year-old boy.  My tears, which accompanied those emotions, not unlike the tears witnessed in “Jesus Camp,” shaped my life in high school.  The anxiety and fear, which I was told was the Holy Spirit, still haunt me today.   

Nonetheless, I took this calling, the evangelical message of Christ, more to heart than my youthful and hormone crazed counterparts.  I found pride in my identity as the “Christian” and the “good kid.”  Indeed, at the young age of sixteen I found that I had a conviction and talent at speaking in front of others.  I was only sixteen years old when I gave my first sermon on a Sunday night service in front of a congregation that was much older than myself.  I loved it.  The older folks in the church loved it also.  I became a household name at Pekin First Church of God.  The rush and nervousness of speaking was exactly what I longed for, especially, when such speaking, I was taught, were the “words of God”.    Moreover, I spoke at the Bible Camp in front of my peers with great conviction and passion. I was the poster-boy for Evangelical Christianity.  

However, there was a foundational doubt within me.  The idea of being born again was always too abstract.  What does it mean to be born again?  I had been attempting to convince my peers, parents, and total strangers that the message of Christ would truly change their lives.  I could not, however, see in what way it would change their world.  Thus, in college I attempted to answer this deep and foundational question. While at college, these questions became much larger and much more pervasive. The failures of my faith, to answer deep structural questions became problematic.  How was I going to maintain my faith in Christ and God if they did not answer my questions, if they did not help make the world more just?  Does my converting people to Jesus make the world more justice? Does Christianity work towards ending inequality and exploitation of my fellow countrymen and women, and also on a global level?  If it does not, could it?  What is the foundation of religion and spirituality? What does it mean to follow Christ? To be “born again”? 

Congrats to Mr. Obama

Today (or technically yesterday) Hillary Clinton conceded from the presidential race, leaving Barack Obama as the presumptive Democratic Nominee.  As I watched the small clips of Hillary’s concession speech I was glad to see how she handled the endorsement of Obama.  She had the task of unifying the democratic party and she did it beautifully as she proudly declared Obama’s tag line of political change.  

The Obama campaign still has quite a fight ahead of him. McCain will be a worthy opponent and there still exists within the United States deep, often unconscious, racist sentiments.  I believe the United States is ready for a change and I seriously hope the American people prove me wrong. 

Theology

Theology, the study of God and how one acts as a servant or disciple  of God, is, and must always be, equivalent to critical reflection.  That is, a theology that does not review our lives critically, a theology that does not critique the status quo, is not theology at all.  Indeed, theology has always been viewed as a source of self-reflection.  Saint Augustine critiqued his life, and his reliance on physical pleasures, to the extent that he would not accept the Christian identity until he became celibate.  I am not suggesting, however, that we must all come to the same conclusion, on the other hand, I find Augustine’s critical analysis of his life to be, precisely, what theology is on a personal level.  However, I believe that Augustine, while focusing on the personal aspects of a the “sinful nature” (or natural desire), completely overlooked sin in its social form. Friedrich Schleiermacher did not overlook this aspect of the nature of sin and said of “’original sin’ that it is ‘not something that pertains severally to each individual and exists in relation to him by himself, but in each the work of all, and in all the work of each.”  It is in this form that sin is the most implicit. The social, economic, and political life that sin enjoys is almost entirely neglected.  Of course, the average suburban, upper-middle class church makes a fuss about, so called, political-moral conundrums–like abortion and gay marriage.  It always strikes me odd, however, that the same Church seems to legitimize or justify the growing poverty rates in the US or the illegitimate and unjust war that is being fought in our name, and in the name of our God.  It seems odd that the Church, that theology, does not critique an economic system which privileges hubris and competition over altruism and corporation.  Therefore, here we shall always view theology as critical analysis, anything less is an abomination to the message Jesus gave his life for.  Much of the conversation that happens here will be economic in nature, indeed, Jesus spoke often about money and the evils it can spawn.  I conclude with Gustavo Gutierrez, who said, ” Theology as critical reflection thus fulfills a liberating function for humankind and the Christian community, preserving them from fetishism and idolatry, as well as from a pernicious and belittling narcissism.” 

Who am I?

I just graduated college with a BA in sociology.  I know what your thinking–for the question is  notorious–”What are you going to do with that?”  I applied for a volunteer organization called the Lutheran Volunteer Corps, who bring in volunteers, with faith based convictions, and redistribute them to non-for-profit organization who are engaged in the struggle for social, economic, and political justice. I do not yet have a placement, but I am interviewing with 3 organization next week: the Sound Alliance in Tacoma, WA, TakeAction Minnesota, and a food bank in San Francisco. Any of these placements would a blessing and, as many blessing are, a challenge. I am excited about the future and hope that my existence will make someone else existence, at least, a bit better.