Tag: justice

Dual Citizenship in 21st-Century America

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We are living in wild times. Our current president–one who was voted into office with the overwhelming support of evangelical Christians–is a man whose disregard for the lives of women, immigrants, people of color, and Americans who live in poverty is being codified into national policies and laws which have real and brutal effects on the lives of the most marginalized in our society. The hundreds of families being separated at the border, the denial of refugee protection to women fleeing domestic violence, and the erasure of women from influential positions in government  are just a few of the most recent, glaring examples of this.

Bombarded as we are with one situation after another in which the laws and actions of our government come into conflict with the teachings and example of Jesus, David Crump’s book, I Pledge Allegiance, strikes me as a timely read for American Christians. Crump boldly grapples with the ethics of how to live faithfully as followers of Jesus under the earthly governance of a nation state–and explores the limits of our allegiance when the Kingdom of God and the United States of America come into conflict.

Last month, I reviewed Crump’s book for the Englewood Review of Books. Here’s an excerpt:

I grew up Southern Baptist in a small town in Texas. I still remember singing the fight songs of each branch of the military during patriotic worship services celebrating the Fourth of July or Veterans’ Day, and pledging allegiance to both the Christian and American flags that hung in the sanctuary. According to David Crump, this display of Christian nationalism demonstrates that rather than being immersed in the gospel Jesus preached, I was instead awash in the kind of dangerous “civil religion” that characterizes much of the American church today.

In I Pledge Allegiance: A Believer’s Guide to Kingdom Citizenship in 21st-Century America, Crump sets out to write an ethics book that addresses “the social issues confronting today’s church,” roots “its analysis in biblical interpretation,” and takes “the teaching of Jesus as its starting point” (5). The result is a hard-hitting treatise on faithful citizenship in the kingdom of God that addresses the meaning and political implications of that kingdom…

You can read the rest over at the Englewood Review of Books.

Glimpses of the Kingdom

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This is the second week of Advent, the season of waiting for Christ to come to us in the midst of our darkness. Having spent the last several years getting to know people in poverty and on the margins of society, I am pretty much constantly aware of that darkness, and it is sometimes easy to lose sight of the light altogether. That’s why I want to hold onto any glimpses I catch of the kingdom slowly but surely breaking in, and I want to share a few of them here.

I recently completed a three-month volunteer training with Battered Women’s Support Services here in Vancouver, where my fellow trainees were a group of brave women with beautiful, compassionate hearts. Most of those women don’t identify as people of faith, but I felt the presence of God in the midst of the safe and loving community we built together. That strong sense of community was absolutely vital during the twelve intense weeks we spent staring injustice and violence in the face and sharing some very raw pieces of our own stories.  Exploring the ugliness of the world with a bunch of people who are committed to doing something about it helps keep my hope alive, and reminds me that there is strength in our shared vulnerability as human beings.

I’ve now begun fielding calls on the crisis line. From police to hospitals to courts, it’s been sobering to realize how often the systems that have been set up to protect the vulnerable actually let people slip through the cracks–or worse, further traumatize and isolate them. Sometimes, people struggling with mental health issues are given criminal records instead of help. Sometimes women are arrested for defending themselves against abusive partners while the men who batter them go free. I know this now, not only through statistics or reading articles or listening to experts talk about it, but from speaking to these women on the phone.  All too often, factors such as race, income level, and immigration status determine whether or not a woman will get the help she needs.

Volunteering with BWSS has been a steep learning curve, and the stories of violence and abuse that I have been hearing over the phone are heartbreaking. Yet I also feel an overwhelming sense of gratitude for the chance to support these brave, resilient women in resisting violence and pursuing lives of dignity and safety.  I am humbled by their tenacity in working against staggering odds to reclaim their own identities and the lives and to heal from trauma.

In other news, I’ve just landed my first paid job in Canada! Yesterday, I accepted a position working directly with refugee claimants: people who have fled their countries of origin because of violence or persecution based on their race, religion, nationality, political opinions or membership in a particular social group. In contrast to privately-sponsored or government-assisted refugees, refugee claimants undertake their dangerous journey without knowing whether or not they will be granted asylum when they reach their destination. They often face detention upon arrival, and the months-long refugee claims process that follows can be a stressful and scary time while claimants struggle to navigate an unfamiliar system, gather evidence for their case, and wait for their fate to be decided by the powers that be.

My job will bring me into contact with families at all stages of this process, but my main responsibility will be to support those whose refugee claims have recently been approved, journeying alongside them as they begin the process of integrating into the local community and helping them to find employment.

I start tomorrow, and I can’t wait. In the face of all the violence and hateful rhetoric lately, I am beyond thrilled to be able to extend the welcome of Christ to refugee claimants from around the world—Muslim and otherwise—who have come to this country seeking safety. I look forward to all of the beautiful people I will meet, and to all the ways they are sure to challenge and humble me and force me to grow, causing me to see more (and differently) than I did before.

I give thanks for every step a woman takes towards freedom and safety. I give thanks for every refugee’s safe arrival, and every successful application for asylum.  I celebrate every small victory for justice in our world, and I recognize Christ’s coming in our midst. Still, I wait impatiently in the dark, willing these pin-prick stars to turn into daylight.

God, be born in our hearts. In our fractured world, let us be the midwives of goodness and truth coming into being.

What American Christians Get Wrong About Israel

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banksy graffiti on the wall

Graffiti art by Banksy on the dividing wall between Israel and the Palestinian Territories

Over the past month in Israel, violence has been ratcheting up towards the possibility of all-out war. I’ve noticed that Christian friends on social media have begun voicing support for Israel, or commenting on the inherent violence of Muslims. In bewildering circumstances like these, it’s easy to cling to simplistic ideas of good versus evil, typecasting individuals and societies as villains and victims. But until we deal with our unconscious biases and ignorance, we will not be able to see clearly what is happening, and we will not be able to respond effectively. A wise and faithful response to the crisis requires us to educate ourselves about the history and wider context of the conflict. As American Christians, what assumptions or beliefs may be obscuring our view?

We Equate Modern Israel with Biblical Israel

In Genesis chapter 12, God tells Abraham, “I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you,” which many Christians interpret to mean that believers have a responsibility to offer unconditional political support the modern nation-state of Israel. This is an inaccurate assumption because in reality, there are important differences between the twelve tribes mentioned in the Old Testament and the nation-state of Israel. Ancient Israel was a theocracy, governed by priests based on direct revelation from God; modern Israel is a secular democracy, established through the actions of the British colonial government and the United Nations in the 1940s. Furthermore, the nation of Israel is not synonymous with the Jewish people. Not only is there a global community of Jews who have lived outside of Palestine for thousands of years, but within the nation itself, 20% of the Israeli population is Arab, and Arab Christians and Muslims across the Middle East also trace their ancestry back to Abraham.

The belief that Christians are commanded to “bless” modern Israel tends to imply a divine stamp of approval for particular Israeli policies or military actions. But instead of unconditionally supporting Israel or any other nation, we as Christians should be evaluating a government’s laws and actions through the lens of the Kingdom Jesus taught: do they result in freedom for the oppressed, or protection for the vulnerable? Do they result in the naked being clothed, the hungry being fed, and the homeless housed? Or do they result in the opposite?

We Misunderstand the Abrahamic Covenant

The Abrahamic Covenant is God’s promise to guide and protect Abraham and his descendants, and to give them the land of Canaan; they are commanded to be circumcised as a sign of faithfulness to this covenant (Gen. 15, 17). God not only promises Abraham that his descendants will become “a great nation,” but declares that “all peoples on earth will be blessed by you” (Genesis 12:3). So, the Jewish people are chosen not as a special ethnic group who are more important to God than all other people, but as a conduit of blessing for the whole world. In the Old Testament, non-Jews like Ruth and Rahab join the covenant community through faithful action, and Jesus mentions Gentiles who were cared for or healed by God even when Israel was in distress (Luke 4:25-27).

Jesus fulfills this promise by widening the covenant to include not only people of Jewish descent, but anyone and everyone who joins the family of God through faith. As the apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 2, Jesus has made Jews and Gentiles “one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations.” Paul goes on to say in Ephesians 3:6 that “through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.” God’s loving plan for the whole world has been revealed in Jesus.

We Ignore the Occupation

Israel invaded Gaza and the West Bank during the Six Day War in 1967, and continues to occupy these territories today. Having their homes demolished, losing their land, facing mass incarceration without trial, and denied equal protection under the law, many Palestinians are losing hope of things ever changing. Gaza’s 1.8 million residents live in poverty, unable to access adequate food or safe drinking water, experiencing 40% unemployment; in the West Bank, Palestinians’ water supply is often cut off or destroyed by Israeli settlers. Crossing into Israel for work, Palestinians spend hours each day waiting at security checkpoints, and in emergencies, this restricted movement sometimes means that people die before they can reach a hospital. Palestinian Christians have voiced their belief that conflict will not end until the occupation ends, and they are calling on the international Christian community to hold the State of Israel accountable for its illegal occupation of Palestinian territory.

The occupation creates an unequal society in which Israelis hold the vast majority of power, wealth, and land, and in which their safety and well-being is maintained at the expense of the safety and well-being of Palestinians. The segregated inequality in which the two groups live generates the fear, resentment, and hatred that breed violence in the first place, and the occupation is a barrier to peace because it depends upon exclusion and violence for its very existence.

We Forget about the Church’s Mission of Reconciliation

Jesus says, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they are called children of God,” and the apostle Paul makes clear that a large part of the Church’s mission in the world is reconciliation. Forgiveness, enemy love, and creative nonviolence are all things that Jesus modeled and taught, and throughout history there are numerous examples of this kind of “Kingdom living” bringing peace and healing in situations of conflict. God is the source of true peace, but He brings peace into the world by working in and through human beings.

Working for peace does not mean being neutral, but it does mean that we move past tribal alliances with the people who are most like us. Peacemaking means that we stand on the side of compassion, of life, and of justice, no matter whose government or ideology we find ourselves standing against.

The truth is that the only way for either Israelis or Palestinians to achieve the freedom and safety they want is for them to recognize the humanity in each other, to understand that their well-being is tied together, and to work towards a future in which all are respected and included, regardless of their religion or ethnicity.

The New Testament makes clear that our allegiance as Christians is not to any earthly government or ethnic group, but to God and his Kingdom (Matt. 6:24, Acts 5:29). So, I don’t stand with Israel. Neither do I stand with Palestine. I stand with every human being who is angry and afraid, and I stand against the occupation which blocks their shared future.

Choosing Love Over Fear When It Comes to the Refugee Crisis

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Palestinian refugees in Damascus at Yarmouk camp, 2014

Yesterday I wrote a blog for the Huffington Post about what it means to respond as Christians to the plight of Syrian refugees.

This week, I’ve continued to read news stories about the refugee crisis–a crisis which had been unfolding for quite sometime before the Syrian civil war produced enough refugees and enough shocking images at one time to awaken our collective conscience. I attended a town hall meeting here in Vancouver last Tuesday where I learned that despite that bloody civil war and the expanding empire of ISIL, the vast majority of the world’s refugees still come from Africa rather than the  Middle East. At Kinbrace, I’ve also spent time talking with refugees and refugee claimants from Ethiopia, Nepal, Iran, Afghanistan, and other countries, and their stories remind me that even in places that don’t make the headlines, millions of people fear for their lives every day because of oppressive government regimes and armed conflict.

These stories fill me with sadness, but also with frustration and anger over the way that many of us in the West have allowed fear to prevent us from extending compassion to those who are in urgent need of our help. Hungary has now closed its borders to Syrians fleeing the conflict, and the government is arresting those who deem an illegal crossing their best bet for survival. Refugees continue to drown in the Mediterranean as “Fortress Europe” deliberately refuses to help as a matter of official policy, in order to deter further immigration. But those who are desperate enough to risk the lives of themselves and their children on the rag-tag dinghies of human smugglers will not be deterred from making these deadly voyages, because they clearly have no choice. These journeys are their last hope: either they risk losing their lives, or lose them for sure by staying where they are.

Many in Europe are afraid that the influx of Muslims will threaten the “Christian identity” of Europe, but as Giles Fraser so starkly pointed out in an article for the Guardian newspaper on September 4, the Christian identity of Europe is threatened not by Muslims, but by Christian politicians who refuse to live out the Biblical mandate to welcome the stranger and care for the oppressed.

And what about North America? Canada welcomed 19,233 government assisted refugees in 1980, but that number has plummeted to just 6,900 in 2015. Furthermore, despite the government’s promise to accept 10,000 Syrian refugees over 3 years, Canada has settled just over 1,000 Syrians so far. Meanwhile, the United States has taken in fewer than 1,000. So far, we North Americans haven’t shown ourselves to be any more hospitable than Europe.

Another security concern that has been raised is the possibility of terrorists slipping in amongst the flood of legitimate refugees seeking asylum. Security experts have already addressed the unlikelihood of this happening. Yet few people have talked about the way that welcoming refugees from Muslim countries actually offers our nations an opportunity to address the root causes of terrorism: poverty, lack of opportunity, traumatization and loss of loved ones in conflict zones, and hatred of the West due to foreign policy and military interventions which negatively impact Muslim civilians in the Middle East. This is a chance to show genuine love and concern to our Muslim neighbors, and to provide a secure future for exactly the kind of children who might otherwise be at risk for radicalization by opportunistic terrorist organizations who prey upon those who are impoverished and discontented.

As citizens of a world increasingly interconnected by economic ties, military involvement, and technology, the refugee crisis is not some distant issue from which we can pretend to be entirely separate. The current situation forces us to confront our political and military contribution to the crisis, and challenges those of us who follow Jesus to live out some of the core tenets of our faith.

What Jesus Can Teach Us About Confronting Racism in Ourselves

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Racism is obvious to us in hateful individuals who may utter racial slurs or openly support groups like the KKK. Unless we are willing to look more closely, racism is less obvious when embedded in the day-to-day operations of the criminal justice system, or when subtly continuing to shape the socioeconomic landscape of our country. But the most difficult place to see and acknowledge racism is likely within ourselves. Today I’ve written an article for Sojourners about what we can learn from Jesus on that difficult path of self-exploration. Strange as it may sound, even the Son of God had to conquer ingrained prejudice. Here’s an excerpt:

Many whites balk at the suggestion that their views and assumptions might be racist because they know themselves to be moral people who live decent lives and maybe even have some black friends. They certainly don’t hate anybody, and they aren’t supporters of the Ku Klux Klan. Because they understand racism on an individual rather than systemic level, it seems impossible to hold together an image of oneself that contains both “good person” and “racist.”

Yet individual guilt and hatred often have little to do with white America’s unwitting participation in the institutional racism of our society. We can’t avoid bearing a resemblance, warts and all, to the culture that raises us… (read the rest) 

This is the challenging, humbling work of repentance. If we desire to see the Kingdom come in the world, we must first be willing to clear the way for it to break into our own souls.

what Jesus can teach us about confronting racism in ourselves

Who’s paying for your vacation?

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vacation

photo credit: womansday.com

Summer is prime time for vacations. School is out, and the warm weather is perfect for outdoor adventure, or just lounging at the beach or the pool. For many of us, vacations are a way to relax, recharge, and escape the stress of everyday life, but we often don’t realize the implications of our vacationing practices for the people and places we visit.

Back in June, I wrote an article  for a magazine called Christ and Pop Culture about how to vacation without checking our ethics at the door. The magazine offers their readers a digital subscription for tablets and iPads, so the article has been behind a pay wall until now–but today it’s being featured on the website for free. Here’s how it starts off:

          “From royals relaxing at summer palaces to wealthy Americans seeking out natural surroundings for the sake of health during the Victorian era, vacations have historically been a privilege of the social elite. It wasn’t everyone who could afford a second house by the sea or a trip out to the wilderness to escape the cramped conditions of cities. Yet both rest and connection with nature have always been basic human needs whatever your station in life.

          These days, the world’s cities, cultures, and natural landscapes are often marketed as prepackaged commodities available for consumption to anyone who can pay the ticket price (which still includes people with money, and excludes people who are poor). But this purely materialistic understanding of vacation is a destructive oversimplification of God’s creation. As consumers, we are encouraged by industry executives and advertisers to narrow our focus to the monetary cost of our trip. But as followers of Jesus, we are called to be concerned about the rest, health, and wholeness of the places and people we visit as well as our own…”

 

Click here to read the rest of the article, in which I examine the unsavory specifics of cruises, all-inclusive resorts, and air travel, and offer practical advice for vacationing in ways that are just and compassionate.

ethical vacations

Things that happened while I was gone

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flags

Over the weekend, Andy and I celebrated our five year wedding anniversary. We were out in the woods on a small island off the coast of BC, building small cabins that will serve as “hermitages” for people on silent retreat who need a place for deep solitude and prayer. It felt good to do some manual labor, to see tangible progress as we worked, and to feel good and tired by the end of the day, in a sore-muscle rather than a screenburned-eyes or overwrought-mind sort of way. Our motley construction crew was made up of people from all over the place, some in their teens and some in their fifties, and it was fun hanging out with people of all ages—that doesn’t happen very often outside of family reunions, and intergenerational friendship is one of the things Andy and I had enjoyed so much about living in India. After spending a long Saturday on the work site, we enjoyed a brisk swim at an isolated beach. There were Canadian geese sitting on the water around us, so it definitely stretched my idea of what summer at the beach looks like!

Apparently while we were hammering away in the woods and sleeping in rustic cabins without electricity and running water, a lot was happening back in civilization, and particularly in the country of my birth.

There was the courageous act of protest by a brave woman named Bree Newsome, who scaled the flag pole in front of the state capitol building in South Carolina to take down the symbol of white supremacy and racial violence that had flown over the seat of the state government there for more than a hundred and fifty years. Civil disobedience is intended to show the moral absurdity of laws through breaking them and willingly suffering the consequences of one’s actions. Bree’s action did exactly that: South Carolina police (including a black officer) were forced to arrest a peaceful black woman, who quoted scripture aloud as they handcuffed her, for the “crime” of removing a banner under which black Americans have been enslaved, raped, murdered, beaten, intimidated, and systematically oppressed for over a century. No scene could have more pointedly demonstrated the righteousness of her cause: the law was against her, but justice was certainly on her side. She now faces up to 3 years in prison and a fine of up to $5000 for her heroic act. All of us who follow Jesus can learn from this woman’s sacrificial example.

Also over the weekend, President Obama delivered a eulogy for Clementa Pinkney, a black pastor who was among the slain in Charleston on June 17. I don’t know what opinion you hold of Obama as a person, or a politician—I can’t think of him without remembering the countless drone attacks he has authorized against innocent civilians in the Middle East—but his eulogy for Pinkney is one of the best sermons I have ever heard, and is probably THE most powerful speech I have ever heard from a head of state. Perhaps the fact that, as President, he has made important public decisions with which nearly every one of us has disagreed at some point or another makes him exactly the kind of flawed, imperfect human being who can speak with authority about grace. Seriously, if you haven’t yet listened to the speech, please, please do. It is a heartfelt lament of the ways that we have deeply wounded one another in America, an inspiring reminder of the resilience and love that have continued to grow even in the midst of violence and oppression, and an eloquent call for us to move forward together as a nation towards forgiveness and justice, extending God’s grace to one another in every facet of our lives.

“Justice grows out of recognition of ourselves in each other,” he remarks at one point. “My liberty depends on you being free, too.” One can hear in these words the echoes of both Jesus’ call to love our enemies, recognizing our neighbor-hood with them, and MLK Jr.’s assertion that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

The other big national news of the weekend was the legalization of same-sex marriage across the United States. The reactions of many American Christians have already become an embarrassing adventure in missing the point, but I still hold out hope that we as a Church will be able to let go of our fearful siege mentality and recognize this opportunity to love and extend grace to people who may not share our sexual orientation or our theology. I’ve always been confused by the political kerfuffle over trying to legislate a Christian lifestyle into the laws of the state, since God has never called the Church to control the government. We have been given the task of modeling the Kingdom in our own lives, creating a community that images God’s hospitality and love, and inviting others into freely-chosen, loving relationship with God.

Using legal means to force non-Christians into choices and behaviors that Christians have specifically chosen as disciples of Christ seems not only pointless, but controlling and counterproductive to our true mission in the world. If we send the message to the people around us that we are more concerned about policing their sex lives than about caring for them as people, then we’ve not just lost the “culture wars”—we’ve lost the respect and trust that would have laid the foundations for any relationship with people outside the church to grow. We’ve lost our credibility as God’s ambassadors of love. We’ve lost our purpose as a community.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t be involved in wider culture—we certainly should. But even in the realm of sex and relationships, why not concern ourselves with the destructive forces of pornography, trafficking, sexual abuse, and domestic violence that are destroying vulnerable individuals and families and marriages? Which will give a clearer picture of God: a Christian reacting with fear-mongering and angry statements in protest of same-sex marriage, or that same Christian instead demonstrating a mature ability to be gracious with people who disagree with them, whose lives and choices are different from his own? Some Christians have compared homosexuals with Hitler, referred to them as “Gaystapo,” or likened the court’s ruling to the 9/11 Terrorist attacks. Regardless of what we believe about homosexuality, angry antics like these should offend our consciences as Christians. Would Jesus be stirring up fear and hatred at a time like this? Or would he be inviting a same-sex couple over for dinner to hear their story and get to know them as people, refusing to reduce the complex beauty of their humanity down to a single political issue or life decision? I get the sense that he’s probably prompting us to do that right now.

supreme court ruling on same sex marriage

The Charleston Church Shooting Is Nothing New

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grief

photo credit: nola.com

Two days ago, a young white man gunned down nine African Americans at a church in Charleston, South Carolina.

When confronted with such a brutal, violent act, it is tempting to dismiss the killer as an anomaly—mentally ill or emotionally disturbed, perhaps—instead of recognizing the roots of his behavior in the shared history, culture, and institutions of our society. But viewing these murders as an isolated incident obscures their connection to a larger pattern of racial violence that is as old as the United States of America.

I recently read the memoir of a lawyer named Bryan Stevenson who spent years working to free innocent men on death row, and advocating for children and individuals with mental illness or intellectual disabilities who are serving life sentences or awaiting execution. His book Just Mercy is a heartbreaking look at mass incarceration and extreme punishment in America, and his decades of personal involvement in the criminal justice system reveal the blatant influence of race in determining how Americans are treated by police, courts of law, and prison authorities.

Stevenson illuminates the concrete effects of racism on the lives of black Americans by explaining “four institutions in American history that have shaped our approach to race and justice”:

  1. Slavery. African Americans were considered property rather than human beings with rights.
  1. The “Reign of Terror” between Reconstruction and World War II. After 9/11, it was common to hear news anchors and politicians alike referring to this attack as the first time Americans had experienced terrorism within our own country. But as Stevenson explains, the fear of violence was nothing new for African Americans who grew up in the South between the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement. As one man told him, “We grew up with terrorism all the time. The police, the Klan, anybody who was white could terrorize you. We had to worry about bombings and lynchings, racial violence of all kinds.” Stevenson argues that “America’s embrace of speedy executions was, in part, an attempt redirect the violent energies of lynching while assuring white southerners that black men would still pay the ultimate price.” Today, the pairing of a black perpetrator with a white victim still results in the death penalty more often than crimes involving a white perpetrator or a black victim.
  1. Segregation and human rights violations under “Jim Crow.” The Supreme Court didn’t strike down laws against interracial marriage until 1967 in Loving v. Virginia, but marriage between whites and blacks remained illegal under the Alabama state constitution until the year 2000 (and even then, 41% of Alabama voters cast their ballots in favor of upholding the ban). In 1945, Stevenson points out, “the Supreme Court upheld a Texas statute that limited the number of black jurors to exactly one per case,” and after the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, many southern states continued to exclude African Americans from serving on juries at all.
  1. Mass incarceration today. The United States has the highest rates of incarceration of anywhere in the world, and the vast majority of the 2.3 million people currently in prison are black or brown. People of color are often arrested and sentenced for the kind of nonviolent drug offenses that white teenagers and college students engage in without consequence, and frequent police harassment increases the likelihood of black and Latino teenagers developing criminal records. Stevenson argues (as did Michelle Alexander in her 2010 book, The New Jim Crow) that mass incarceration functions to control and disenfranchise African Americans in much the same way that Jim Crow did in the past. Some states permanently take away the right to vote from anyone with a criminal conviction, which means that there are now several states in which a higher percentage of African American men are barred from voting now than were disenfranchised before the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

These institutions stretch from the birth of the American nation down to today, showing that racism is not an imagined problem, a historical phantom long since put to rest, or the extreme ideology of some fringe individuals in society. Racism is embedded in our history, our culture, and our civic institutions. It’s not something that will fade out automatically—it’s a glaring problem that all of us need to confront as a nation and in our own hearts and minds.

Recognizing our fears or ignorance about people who are unlike us does not make us bad or hateful people. If we want to walk in the truth and to love our neighbors well, then we must be willing to acknowledge the ways we subtly buy into untrue assumptions about people of other races, or support policies and institutions which negatively impact their lives. An ongoing process of critical self-reflection is necessary for anyone who wants to live a just and compassionate life, and it is especially important for those of us in the racial majority who have never experienced discrimination.

In the wake of yet another tragedy, I am grieving with the families of the slain. But grieving is not enough. White America has two choices: we can continue to look away from the festering wound of racism in our society, or we can confront our past and our present in order to pursue a different future on the basis of truth and reconciliation.

Runaway Radical

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I have mixed feelings about this book. On the one hand, Jonathan Hollingsworth and his mother Amy tell a very important story about spiritual abuse–one that exposes the secret pain of so many in the church who have been hurt by manipulative pastors and other leaders who maintain their own power with legalistic interpretations of scripture. On the other hand, the book seems to zero in on counter-cultural expressions of living out Jesus’ “hard teachings” as the root of the problem, rather than the toxic individuals and theology that resulted in a traumatizing outcome for Jonathan.At this stage in my life, it was necessary for me to leave the slum to begin working through my personal baggage. However, I have close friends who were able to sustain healthy lives in that same context for nearly twenty years, raising their children in the slum and building deep and meaningful relationships with their neighbors. I know others who have done the same thing in the slums of Cambodia, and Manila. My former pastor at a church in inner-city Los Angeles is also living a difficult, sacrificial, rewarding life with his family–hearing gunshots at night isn’t “safe,” but they have counted the cost. There are thriving communities of people across North America who have chosen “radical” paths of service and solidarity, and who have learned together how to sustain themselves emotionally and spiritually in the midst of that.

The word “radical” is often conflated with the word “extreme,” but the meanings of the two words are distinct. “Radical” comes from the Lain word for “root,” and when we speak of the radical call of Jesus, we are not talking about going to extremes, but about getting down to the roots of something. The Way of Jesus is not concerned with outward action for its own sake, but with healing the heart: his message of compassion, forgiveness, and sacrifice addresses the roots of injustice in our world, and the roots of dysfunction in our own hearts. But sometimes the decisions and actions we need to make in order to dig up the roots of greed, fear, hatred, or indifference in ourselves and in our world may look extreme–especially to a culture and a society that has founded its prosperity and happiness on things remaining exactly as they are.

Reflecting on my own spiritual journey towards grace and my experiences with pursuing justice, community, simplicity, and solidarity with the poor,I have written a review of the book for Sojourners. Click on over to check it out.

Naked Empowerment: Why redefining beauty doesn’t go far enough

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The Huffington Post reported Sunday morning on a photographer who is fundraising for “A Beautiful Body Project” to show real women’s bodies—nude or nearly nude—along with inspiring stories about their bodies and their lives, in order to encourage healthy self-esteem. I understand the benefits of women getting to see what other normal, un-photoshopped bodies look like so that they have realistic expectations for their own. I understand the danger of being exposed to countless images of flawless models who embody cultural ideals and who exercise/starve themselves for a living. Most of the time, we don’t see bodies that we can relate to: the bodies of other women working, studying, raising kids, or generally just living life without the supervision of a personal trainer and a nutritionist, or the “luxury” of working out during half of their waking hours. I remember a very liberating and helpful experience during university when the primitive village stay conditions during our semester abroad meant that many of my female friends and I had to live in very close quarters and take “bucket” showers in the same room together. Seeing each other naked resulted in all of us becoming a little less self-conscious and little more accepting of our own bodies as we saw a broad range of body types and physical quirks that were apparently normal, despite never being featured in mainstream media.Still, I have my doubts about this photography project. There’s a big difference between private, interpersonal interactions and public, impersonal displays.

The intentions behind it are good, but after looking through some of the photos, I thought, “This is still women putting themselves on display for the public to scrutinize and discuss. It still feels like female bodies being treated like public property.” Men don’t have to pose naked for photo projects in order to be seen as more than just sex objects, or to have their worth affirmed to them by others’ approving gaze. Maybe trying to reclaim our portrayal in media—by replicating the very kinds of images which have exploited us all along—is not an effective tactic. Maybe the problem with how women are treated in our culture goes deeper than redefining beauty—it goes right down to questioning why it is so important for women to be beautiful in the first place.

There have been photography projects depicting breast cancer survivors (naked), and mothers with their post-partum bodies (naked), but my question is why any of these women need to take off their clothes and have the public declare their bodies beautiful in order for them to feel valued, or in order to be able to accept themselves? Ironically, these campaigns seem to reinforce that the most essential part of one’s being—or of a female’s being, at any rate—is her body. Can we not recognize and honor the whole person without seeing them naked? Does seeing them naked bring us any closer to seeing the most unique and intimate parts of who they are? I’m not convinced that the fascinating complexity of a woman’s mind and heart, all of the experiences and decisions and determination and courage and vulnerability and creativity and whatever else makes her who she is, can be captured in a photo—with or without clothes. I worry that these photo shoots are not empowering enough because they do not question the socially-constructed idea that women must be physically attractive to be happy.

I’m still waiting to see the naked photo shoots of men who have survived prostate cancer, or dads whose bodies have changed due to stress, sleep-deprivation, and missing their morning workouts because they’re busy being parents. Actually, I have no desire to see those photos, but the point is this: I highly doubt that any of these campaigns are forthcoming, because men don’t have to be deemed physically attractive (within a narrow, cultural definition or otherwise) in order to be taken seriously in society. No one assumes that a man will have lower self-esteem because of his sagging chest or pot belly or graying hair or wrinkled jowls. Though I realize that many men do struggle with physical insecurities in the hyper-sexualized advertising wasteland we all inhabit, they do not face the same blunt message that women do of needing to be physically attractive to matter.

That is why, although I applaud the spirit behind what this photographer is doing, these bare-all campaigns to redefine beauty will ultimately fall short of garnering respect for women as whole people. They fail to bring us closer to gender equality because they play along with the unchallenged assumptions that physical beauty is a prerequisite for female self-esteem, and that it’s the most important aspect of a woman’s identity.