merefaith: discipleship in the ruins of empire

After having unusually cold and snowy weather for a while, we broke out into an unusually warm and sunny weekend! I understand that a recent Tom Friedman column in the New York Times spoke of "Global Weirding" and I think he's right!

Winter really does feel like a creeping, quiet hibernation time when one is both a) a southerner who looks at the first snowfall each year and thinks to himself, "Huh...I wonder just what is this stuff??" and b) a day-dreaming newbie gardener almost ready to rip up the whole lawn and homestead his heart out. So today I got out and made the most of this break before the temperatures drop down a bit again in the coming days. It was long and hard work, but by the late afternoon I could sit my tired self down and celebrate a new garden bed running down the gentle south slope from our largest oak tree. Part of this evening was spent in devotions with a nursery catalogue, selecting candidates for the latest mini-ecosystem at our house.

This is now my fifth straight season of gardening and the third in the current residence. I have no doubt that I am still quite the beginner in this experience. But this has been enough time of reading and practice for me to learn a few things along the way that may be worth sharing, especially for friends who have also started to take up gardening as practice or at least as hypothesis. Maybe you know all this already or maybe this will be helpful. Either way, I'm going to keep typing.

1. You will not achieve your miracle garden overflowing with luscious vegetables, all-season long, in the first season. In fact, I haven't achieved anything close to that yet. Developing a good garden takes time, especially if you make the effort to pursue ecological harmony instead of the "easy" way out of Miracle Gro, fertilizer and pesticide. Gardening is perhaps ultimately about reaching a genuine sense of place so that your little hamlet of the natural world becomes "home" in a very true sense. You get to the good garden because you know your soil, your climate, your critters, your sun and your shade. And you don't know all of these things your first season, or your second. Moreover, just when you think you know them, something new is added to the mix. Creation is always flowing in the flux that the good Lord intended, so you can't become complacent. Observation is critical, and I should know because I'm not good at it. But once you have good knowledge of your garden place, both empirical and intuitive, then you have the baseline that helps you adjust readily to ever-changing circumstances.

Plus, good gardens create communities of plants (not zombiefied monocultures like on agribusiness farms) and it takes time to know what communities work each year (for annuals) or to establish strong communities year-over-year (for perennials). Sometimes you really just have to grow into a good garden. Again, I'm not there yet!

2. With good planning and principles in hand, a lot of the hard work comes up front but tapers off after that. This at least is true if one is trying to garden according to the permaculture ideal. In other words, it's back-breaking labor first to build those garden beds, plant those fruit trees, and so on. But once a pretty good garden has been established then it's supposed to be a matter of letting nature doing most of the work and then cooperating with that. If good soil has been formed, plants have been placed well, birds and bees and butterflies are showing up, and there's no severe drought, then you can have less of the hard labor and more of the sheer enjoyment. But this means ignoring a lot of "conventional" gardening - i.e., organizing plants in rows and tilling the soil each year. You'll find out that not only is this way of doing things ecologically irresponsible, it's also very tiring.

3. Don't get ambitious about feeding yourself and your family with your vegetable garden and expect to have other enjoyments or a job. Besides, self-sufficiency isn't a Christian virtue. Go the farmer's market or co-op grocery. Sign up for a share with a local CSA. I think a best practice is to look at your diet, look at what local farmers offer, and think about planting the missing ingredients, if possible. Don't think that your garden is the lifeline to survival if you lose your job, get slapped with heavy medical bills, or Western civilization collapses. A stable, sustainable garden will certainly help your resilience. But it won't keep you alive - especially if you don't have the space to grow the protein-rich stuff like grains or lots of potatoes. I should know - I have a lot that's nearly half an acre and, based on reading my copy of Small-Scale Grain Raising, we'd probably need to turn just about every inch of sunny lawn over to grain to have, in potential, enough survival bread for a good chunk of the year.

4. If you're serious about a resilient, sustainable vegetable garden, don't buy the super-cheap seed packets at the box stores. Suppose you wanted to save the seeds from your bell pepper you got at Lowe's and plant them next year? Good luck with that one. Almost all the seeds in the stores are hybrids and so their descendants will not return "true to type" but start deviating into unpredicable varieties from which they were bred, which will span the range of edibility (or lack thereof). If you want to save seeds, buy heirloom varieties from places like Seed Savers Exchange. You'll be promoting biodiversity and preserving all kinds of endangered tastes and colors that have been pushed aside by agribusiness uniformity. And you can do this at the same time as you save yourself money and enhance your resilience - who knew? Keep in mind, though, that you need to either plant a LOT of a variety to keep the gene pool broad and healthy, or get involved in the actual exchanging part of groups like SSE.

5. Compost, compost, compost. It's the miracle drug of gardening. Don't even think of skimping on this part. And upgrade to composting with worms! I haven't done this yet, but everything tells me I need to get on board soon so my plants can get a really super hit of the good stuff.

6. Don't make the garden just about you. As suggested above, the birds, bees and butterflies are your friends. Birds eat bugs, especially a lot of the ones you don't want around. Bees and butterflies make a lot of plant sex happen, which will be good if you're planting heirloom varieties and want to save seed. So be sure to build so-called "ornamental" beds, or beds that mix food crops and those with other purposes. Get plants that flower, bear fruit that you may care little about eating, or that are known for generating seed that birds love.

7. Go native! A lot of the plants that are even at your friendly, local garden center are exotic species that may look pretty but are not best suited for your region. They may be poisonous to certain animals or invasive species that destabilize natural habitats. Or they may just need more attention to grow well in places foreign to their evolved dispositions. Even non-native species that serve some useful purposes are out-done by the home team. For example, we bought a butterfly bush last year to do you can guess what. But the butterfly bush, while pretty and helpful in attracting butterflies to feed, has a distinct limitation. Butterflies here in the eastern US will not lay their eggs on the butterfly bush. But there are pretty, native plants that offer food and suitable circumstances for hatching and larval development. Why settle for less?

8. Don't ignore your garden in August because it's hot. This brings us full circle back to number one. Don't stop thinking about your garden in January either. It is a practice of constant observation, reflection and action. Make this a year-round commitment or just stick to growing a potted tomato plant on your porch each summer.

For what it's worthy, these are my thoughts on what fellow beginners should know as they set out. Feel free to share what you think are other important bits of advice.

Labels: Discipleship, The Pleasures of Life

Posted by Chris Schelin at Saturday, February 20, 2010 | Permalink | Comments

A brother said to Abba Poemen, "If I give my brother a little bread or something else, the demons tarnish these gifts saying it was only done to please men." The old man said to him, "Even if it is to please men, we must give the brother what he needs." He told him the following parable, "Two farmers lived in the same town; one of them sowed and reaped a small and poor crop, while the other, who did not even trouble to sow, reaped absolutely nothing. If a famine comes upon them, which of the two will find something to live on?" The brother replied, "The one who reaped the small poor crop." The old man said to him, "So it is for us; we sow a little poor grain, so that we will not die of hunger."

Labels: Discipleship

Posted by Chris Schelin at Tuesday, April 14, 2009 | Permalink | Comments

One thing I don't like about the time change is getting up while night is still with us.

One thing I do like, however, is watching the Sun emerge behind a stand of trees at this moment.

Contradiction? You bet.
Wanna watch me turn this into a metaphor?
It will either be really lame or totally awesome...take your pick. No middle ground.

When crisis appears to be looming in the future, "waking up" to it early, before others do, means that one will feel surrounded by utter darkness. It's coming - there's no hope. Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.

But this awakening also gives one the privilege of seeing the opportunity hidden behind the crisis, of perceiving how a new dawn could be possible.

Commence the rolling of the eyes!

I wouldn't be so bold to claim any real prescience. Environmentalists, climate scientists, Catholic economists and social thinkers, and neo-agrarians have sounded alarm bells for years. Nature and economy are interconnected and we manhandle both in consequential, unsustainable malpractice. I think I'm only "early" in the sense that the large majority of Americans still believe we can get back to "business as usual" in a year or so, climate change is a relatively low priority that we can push to the back burner for now, and we can go on living pretty much the way we supposedly "always" have. And I'm "early" because of a steady stream of braver and more thoughtful voices than my timid, wavering self.

The Australian environmental business adviser Paul Gilding calls it The Great Disruption. Thomas Friedman has just written an op-ed in the New York Times calling it The (near?) Inflection. Physicist Joe Romm at climateprogress.org calls it a global Ponzi scheme. Maybe we could go back to the old use of the word "consumption" for tuberculosis, because our situation looks something TB did - the body eating itself up.

All three express what I would say is my own guarded optimism. I think our future will be better, although our scales of measurement may look different. And there will probably be plenty of rough turns on the road in the near future.

Labels: Agrariana, Discipleship

Posted by Chris Schelin at Monday, March 09, 2009 | Permalink | Comments

I've been around the block for a while reading web sites with various opinions about the concept of "peak oil": that is, the eventual (and inevitable) period in time when either global production of petroleum physically plateaus or global demand exceeds production. Given that some established fields are declining, and that large numbers of people in countries such as India, China and Brazil are becoming more affluent, the peak may come at the convergence of these forces.

On the one side, you have doomsday prophets. Many of them declare that oil production has already peaked or that it will within just the next few years. Some in this camp frequently postulate conspiracies of disinformation from elites who know all too well what is coming (or has come). Various blogs and web pages by the doom and gloom crowd paint apocalyptic portraits of our near future and, quite morbidly, speak of the need for a tremendous "die off" of the vast majority of the human population for a sustainable future to exist. They are all agreed that our current standard of living is on its way out.

At the other end of the spectrum, peak oil debunkers believe that new field discoveries, technological advances, and the expansion of alternative energy sources will ensure a smooth transition to a largely post-carbon future. They argue that current rates of production will remain steady or even increase for several decades. The end result will be a prosperous future, perhaps even more abundance and a greater tech-heavy standard of living than we have now.

Since quantitative measurements of petroleum deposits and predictions of future energy consumption both involve a fair amount of guesswork, it doesn't seem to me that either side can claim an objective, factual certainty. Rather, both perspectives take the data in hand and then filter it through distinctive anthropologies and views of history. The doomsayers have a dimmer view of human nature - corrupt, short-sighted, selfish. They highlight periodic collapses of civilizations through history and intepret the past several decades as an interruption in typical patterns of human existence. The optimists view human nature and possibility in a very positive light - industrious, adaptable, intelligent. They tend to interpret history through a progressive framework.

As in so many matters, I tend to think the truth is somewhere in the middle of this spectrum. Peak oil theorists are right to question the technocratic assumption that we always have the tools, or can quickly invent them, to make a pleasant, unchallenging transition to an economy and society independent of oil. Debunkers, meanwhile, show how simplistic predictions of doom wrongly portray human beings as little more than passive observers of their fate.

I approach this issue in light of our experience with the Y2K bug: the problem was real, very real. It appears an ephemeral dream to us now because individuals, businesses, and countries took the threat seriously and responded. Some had predicted an inevitable collapse of society and were planning for it (like Christian reconstructionist Gary North). And indeed, bad things would have happened, although now we have the pleasure of not finding out how bad. But it would be wrong to say that nothing would be different if inaction was our collective course.

Of course, the problem of oil production is more systemic and more critical to the way the world works than Y2K was. Maybe we will fail to make a relatively smooth transition. But that failure is not inevitable. On the other hand, if we do not take this transition seriously and act responsibly, then we will fail.

To put this another way, Jesus told us not to worry about tomorrow for today has enough trouble of its own. We know that Jesus was talking to a largely rural populace of subsistence farmers. Farming has plenty to do with thinking about the future - when to plant, harvest, rotate crops and so on. I don't think Jesus told his audience to stop the responsible planning that was integral to their survival. But he did tell them not to worry. God is sovereign even if it's a crisis.

So I will try not to worry about what tomorrow will bring but I do want to be responsible in light of its potentialities. I will focus not on what might be torn down but on what might be built up. What are the opportunities for faithful living, integrity, and shalom even among the possible challenges and sacrifices of such a future? What good will God make of that which others will assume an unmitigated disaster?

Such are ongoing questions to reflect upon. But for the moment, how responsible do we need to be in thinking about, and preparing for, such a future? The International Energy Agency, and the major petroleum companies, all used to predict a peak of conventional oil production around 2030. They also said that production from unconventional sources such as tar sands and shale could offset this plateau or decline. However, a couple of related factors make this unlikely. First, the lengthy global recession and concomitant collapse of oil prices means that companies are not making the investments in exploration and technology that had been figured into peak calculations. Second, the unconventional sources are more expensive, more difficult to extract, and release more carbon dioxide emissions. Inevitable government restrictions on emissions may curtail, if not eliminate, the use of these sources.

Consequently, an IEA economist suggested last month that production could plateau in just 11 years. If, as some argue, that the IEA is inherently conservative in its estimates, then peak oil could occur a good bit sooner than that - see here and here. It should also be noted that while the IEA was setting 2030 as a target, it acknowledged that "there can be no guarantee that [oil resources] will be exploited quickly enough to meet the level of demand projected."

Whatever the future holds, we do know some things for certain. Oil is environmentally unsound. It's price will rebound in the near future to where it was in the first half of last year. And supply will eventually fall below demand. Our lives should not pretend otherwise.

Labels: Discipleship

Posted by Chris Schelin at Friday, January 30, 2009 | Permalink | Comments

Given the comments friends have made to recent posts, I thought I would share from my own experience of getting started in gardening. Living into a biblical agrarian practice doesn't require 40 acres and a mule. It might not require leaving a developed area at all. In fact, from the theological end of things, Ellen Davis intends in her final chapter, "The Faithful City," to tease out an Old Testament view of city-country mutuality. From the practical end of things, one may consider perusing Path to Freedom, the online account of one urban household (in Pasadena, of all places), that produces up to 6,000 pounds of food each year from a 1/5 acre lot. That certainly got me wondering about my comparatively extensive .42 acre property!

I account this coming spring as Garden 4.0. My first attempt, in Spring 2007, sprang out of a zeal not according to knowledge. Having read hardly anything about gardening, I simply worked in some Miracle Grow into a patch of soil in a fenced-off area of the back yard (to protect it from my roommates' dogs) and planted herbs. Several sprang up...but then the dogs made their way into that space and trampled pretty much everything. What was left died a slow, hot death under drought conditions while I worked at Koinonia Farm. In Spring 2008, the dogs were gone, and I used cinder blocks for miniature raised beds in which I planted lettuce. Again, I used a soil-Miracle Grow mix. Some of the lettuce endured my neglect as I turned to finishing school and getting married, and even lasted into the summer. Very little was harvested, however.

Finally, with space and relatively free weekends, I established my first bed in the summer and planted onion, parsley, chives, okra, corn, pepper, mint, and a tomato plant. The garden started strong but several varieties succumbed to disease or pests. I got the strongest showing from the herbs and green onion tops. I currently have some lettuce that I have a faint hope will overwinter, but otherwise the garden is bare.

Both I and Craig, my generally silent partner on this blog (grin), garden according to the very easy, perfect-for-beginners "Square Foot" method. You don't have to know much anything about gardening and you don't need a lot of tools to get started this way. I can tell you that SFG is one form of a family of intensive-raised bed gardening methods, but you don't even need to know that, either! You do want to know its advantages:

• You can locate the bed pretty much wherever you want as long as it gets enough sun.
• No digging or tilling of soil required (in the updated version).
• You get about the same yield for 1/5 the space, which conserves a lot of water.
• Weeding is much reduced and nearly nonexistent.
• The book helps you figure out how to plant for a relatively continuous harvest of food.
  

SFG was started by a retired civil engineer, Mel Bartholomew, a few decades ago. The basic premise: build a frame of whatever size suits you and your needs, measured out by square feet (Mel prefers 4x4 boxes). Tack weed cloth on the underside. Create "Mel's Mix" for your soil (1/3 mixed compost, 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 vermiculite, all available at Lowe's or Home Depot) and fill the box. Plant your seeds and off you go. After you harvest a plant, just spade in a little compost in its place before planting again.


And there are variations on this. You can go to the GardenWeb forum and learn about how different people modify the method and the mix. If you have pretty good soil at your house already, you might just dig it up and mix it with Miracle Grow or compost instead of buying bags of peat moss and vermiculite that will end up being more expensive.

There are two disadvantages I can see to starting with SFG. They don't outweigh its ease of use that can welcome anyone into gardening, but they should be kept in mind for the future. First, Mel's book doesn't have any real insight about organic responses to pests and disease. You'll need to get your hand on other resources for that. Second, giving your bed a "floor" such as weed cloth (or even wood for portable beds that Mel mentions) prevents your garden's full participation in the ecology of its place. SFG is organic and environmentally-friendly...with the one great exception that your garden will not contribute to the building up of a rich, healthy soil structure. Consider learning about other raised bed methods (see here and here) and applying that information in the future. Also, invest in a couple of other gardening books. Here are the ones I currently own and read:

Four Season Harvest: Organic Vegetables from your Home Garden All Year Long

Gardening When it Counts: Growing Food in Hard Times

Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners

My plan this spring is to continue SFG essentially as is with perhaps four 4x4 beds in the yard, to be supplemented with some trellis crops along the south-facing wall of the house and some shade-friendly plants in a small, soil-bound bed along the north wall.

Oh, and you can teach yourself some of the broad context for sustainable food production with the Internet program Agroinnovations. No digging required for this one, either.

Labels: Agrariana, Discipleship, The Pleasures of Life

Posted by Chris Schelin at Thursday, January 29, 2009 | Permalink | Comments

Ellen Davis, Old Testament professor at Duke, is going to tell me why I should go live on a farm....

...okay, maybe not quite. But she is going to confirm my bias toward renewing a closer relationship with the land (in my case, beefing up my garden!), supporting local agriculture and economy, increasingly avoiding the mess that is industrial agriculture, and finding grounds for it all in the Bible to boot. Green acres is the place to be - i'chaim!

Labels: Biblical and Historical Studies, Discipleship, Theology

Posted by Chris Schelin at Saturday, January 24, 2009 | Permalink | Comments

I wouldn't be so sure about it, except a new book tells me that it's possible. Recently on the local NPR station's daily show The State of Things, host Frank Stasio interviewed Durham couple Stephen and Rebekah Hren. Possessing a precocious desire to live an alternative lifestyle back in their high school sweetheart days, the Hrens spent 10 years remodeling their first house (which is right here in Person County) into a successful, self-sufficient villa that they removed from the energy grid. Several years ago they moved into a 1930s-era house in Old North Durham and repeated their success - only now they remain connected to the grid to sell excess power back. The Hrens have written a how-to book for those who wish to emulate them: The Carbon-Free Home. I must admit - I ordered the book before I even finished listening to the interview. I doubt I'll go quite so far as they have, but I would certainly like to take on at least a few of the 36 projects they list in the book for making an ordinary (even rather old) home into a "greener" and more efficient place to live.

Labels: Agrariana, Discipleship

Posted by Chris Schelin at Saturday, January 17, 2009 | Permalink | Comments

Congratulations to Mr. Obama for his accomplishment. If Peter could call his countercultural, nonviolent, persecuted brethren to "honor the emperor" (1 Peter 2:17), then I cannot refrain from praying for the president-elect and wishing him well. There is much to be honored. While I would have a hangover right now if I played a drinking game centered on the use of the word "historic" in the media, the word is indeed apt. Racism, in its personal and institutional forms, is far from finished in America. But whatever our opinions on the candidates or the issues, or even the structure of the system itself - flawed, broken, but with cracks of light as in most places - this is a hopeful sign that our ongoing and difficult conversation about race can lurch forward towards redemptive paths. And while our flawed democracy also remains largely the purview of wealthy elites playing together the interest-group game, Obama's community organizing past (which may have some affinities with the exhibition of radical democracy by Hauerwas and Coles), seemed to have filtered into a presidential campaign organization that was more flexible and more engaged with grassroots participation.

All this to say that I don't mean simply to be a curmudgeon or a cynic. I am prepared to congratulate Obama when it seems his leadership coheres with what the Church discerns about the gospel. But I am also prepared to speak against his leadership when it doesn't. Such is the tension of the Christian witness.

As the partisans of politics dance with jubilation or mourn with despair in the aftermath of the election, Christians who attended morning prayer offered up prayers of perspective - prayers that remind us that the political sphere is not the ground of being. Most daily office readings included Psalm 72, which is a royal psalm that presents quite a positive take on Israel's kingship. It is asked that he rule a vast reign and be blessed with wealth. Nevertheless, his subordination is made clear in the first verse: "Give the king your justice, O God!" The king is still obligated to judge and rule with righteousness and compassion.

In morning prayer at St. Mark's Episcopal Church, however, we read a psalm with a more explicitly subversive outlook. I wish it were the one read in every daily office this morning, for then its timing would seem quite providential. At least it was for me. Psalm 146 offers a sharp rebuke to those who place their hope in men:

Labels: Discipleship, Liturgy

Posted by Chris Schelin at Wednesday, November 05, 2008 | Permalink | Comments

I'm sitting in my office at the church, so this will be brief.

I've ruminated a lot lately on politics, transformation, and Christian discipleship. Just a few weeks ago I completed (it's a pretty quick read) Electing Not to Vote: Christian Reflections on Reasons for Not Voting. I have recognized for some time now that the ritual of voting in American democracy, and the infrastructure supporting it, are both deeply problematic. From a variety of perspectives (black, white, and naturalized; Mennonite, Pentecostal, Baptist, and Catholic) the contributors of this volume have demythologized voting as "the solution" or as "speaking your voice" and have raised a series of important questions that the people in the pews should hear and consider.

I want to be a part of real solutions, however, and not just a self-righteous megaphone or a muttering cynic. With that in mind, I have spent part of this Election Day reading Romand Coles and Stanley Hauerwas' Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary: Conversations between a Radical Democrat and a Christian. Hauerwas, as most visitors of this blog are aware, is Duke's infamous and iconoclastic Christian ethicist. Rom Coles, formerly of Duke as well, is a political scientist and community activist. Through the agency of their students they became friends and then began a conversation and co-taught a class which served as the basis for this book. Together, they invite us to consider a politics of radical receptivity that will challenge our current deficient system, which they identify as a "politics of death." I hope to learn much from their conversation on radical democracy and radical ecclesia.

In the meantime, I may have to settle today for pointing out the bold and ultimately blasphemous claims made by the idolaters who bow before the altar of the political process as it currently brokers power relationships. It seems that voting has become, for Americans, a modern Pelagian soteriology and eschatology. What will our collective "efforts" (pushing a button or filling in an oval is the barest of political acts) accomplish? Why, they will change the world. It's not just reporter Christiane Amanpour who is breathless with anticipation over the redemption of Zion. Spend some time scrolling down and read the messianic theologies contained in the readers' comments. "We wait for the new dawn!" writes one.

Not that I dispute there are notable differences between the candidates. Nor do I pretend that the winner will surely make significant decisions as president. And, finally, while I wince at Obama-worship, I am even more disgusted with the (implied or explicit) racist imprecations hurled against him.

But God help Christians, whether their conscience led them to vote or abstain, to soundly declare our faith and confidence that the dawn has come, the world is changing, and it's because we submit to the King who reigned from a tree. How pitiful it will be if Christians in America invest more emotional and spiritual energy into this day than they will twenty-six days from now, the beginning of Advent. The light has come into the world. Thanks be to God!

Labels: Discipleship

Posted by Chris Schelin at Tuesday, November 04, 2008 | Permalink | Comments

Been busy at the church with various and sundry items: budget time, new children's Wednesday night program, fourth quarter youth schedule. Not a lot of free time lately. Meanwhile, here's a stirring quote from Menno Simons:

Therefore, oh you people of God, gird yourselves and make ready for battle; not with external weapons and armor as the bloody, mad world is wont to do, but only with firm confidence, a quiet patience, and a fervent prayer...The thorny crown must pierce your head and the nails your hands and feet. Your body must be scourged and your face spat upon. On Golgotha you must pause to bring your own sacrifice. Be not dismayed, for God is your captain.

- The Cross of the Saints

Labels: Discipleship

Posted by Chris Schelin at Wednesday, September 10, 2008 | Permalink | Comments

Over the past week I have been reading a book I found in the library called Love Thy Neighbor: A Story of War. Written by the journalist Peter Maass, it is a memoir of his experiences in Bosnia during the first year or so of its devastating civil war (which are placed in context by references to history as well as events in the years following his departure). As one may expect, most of his anecdotes, whether personal or secondhand, are depressing in the least and disturbing at the most. There is much cause for dismay - neighbors driven to turn against each other through fear and political manipulation, rampant rape and murder of civilians, and egregiously false justifications for the bloodshed that were put forth principally by the Serbian leadership.

While the whole list causes me to cringe, the last element is particularly galling. Maass keeps pointing out how the repetition of lies was enough to convince the rest of the world to sit on its hands and excuse its passivity with the declaration, "It's the Balkans. They're all just crazy." Few believed Milosevic and Karadzic when they claimed that the Bosniaks wanted to establish an Islamic republic that would force all women to wear burkhas, commit genocide against Serbs (an ironic charge!), destroy churches and crush Orthodox Christianity. Maass provides ample testimony of just the opposite: the Bosnian Muslims were perhaps the most secular Muslims on the planet. They drank ample liquor and ate pork. They rarely attended mosque. And perhaps as many as a quarter of all marriages in Bosnia were mixed. Maass remembered watching such films as The Blues Brothers and Blazing Saddles on government television in Sarajevo. He wryly remarks, "If the Bosnian government was, as its enemy shouted, trying to establish an Islamic republic, it was moving very slowly in the audiovisual department." On the other hand, Serb paramilitaries destroyed ancient mosques and pretended they never existed and forced Muslims to deed over property while claiming they moved voluntarily. Yet the lies were repeated just enough to convince the rest of the world that it couldn't sift through the evidence and determine who shared the greatest blame.

The U.N. was a key force for blundering, incompetent neutrality. Over time, however, its policies wore down the commanders that it dispatched to Sarajevo. For the first one, as I see it, the break came when circumstances forced something of an "incarnational ministry." Philippe Morillon, the charming French general who was first called upon to carry out the U.N.'s distantly-planned policies, lived quite opulently in Sarajevo in a residence known as the Delegate's Club. He would sit to eat in a dining room decorated with a Persian rug, graced with a mahogany table, and detailed with linen napkins and crystal wine glasses. "Outside, Sarajevo was dying," Maass reminds us.

The first crack in Morillon's armor of neutrality came after Serb soldiers assassinated the Bosnian deputy prime minister while he was sitting inside a United Nations vehicle. Somehow the colonel in charge of the convoy to and from the airport thought it was okay to open the door to the personnel carrier to let the paranoid Serbs see the U.N. wasn't transporting mujahadeen. Morillon was shaken as journalists probed his failure to keep alive a man under his protection.

Two months later, the eastern enclave of Srebenica was on the verge of falling to Serb forces. Morillon put together a convoy of personnel carriers and flatbed trucks of food and medicine and took to the road. When he reached the front lines, the Serbs accused him of delivering weapons to soldiers. Morillon had to surrender his cargo and he arrived in the besieged city with only a small detachment of U.N. soldiers.

"Srebenica was one of the most desperate places on earth," Maass writes. Thousands lived outdoors because many buildings had been shelled to rubble and the rest were jam-packed. The residents fought each other desperately for parachuted food and then over the parachutes because they could be turned into blankets and clothes. But when Morillon arrived, the Serbs stopped shelling the city. 75,000 Bosnians knew Morillon was their only hope of escaping death, so they blocked his vehicles and refused to let him leave.

But after two days, Morillon himself wanted to stay. He went to the balcony of the local post office and addressed a gathered crowd. "I have now decided to stay in order to clam your anguish and try to save you," he announced. "I am here, and here I stay." The U.N. flag was raised over the post office. Maass writes, "If the Serbs wanted to conquer Srebenica, they would be forced to do it over his dead body."

Morillon became a news sensation instantly. The Serbs backed off, allowing some food and medicine in and refugees out. Eventually they agreed to the deployment of U.N. troops in Srebenica and the regular delivery of aid. But soon the Serbs started shelling the city once again. Two years later, they captured the supposed U.N. safe haven and executed over 8,000 men. As for Morillon, he was dismissed from his post shortly after defending Srebenica. He had bucked U.N. policy, and the United Nations "had no need for heroes in Bosnia."

The general after Morillon, Francis Briquemont, resigned after six months. He had come to love Sarajevo and its people and could not hold steady while enforcing U.N. policy.

Policy is usually decided by armchair intellectuals at a safe distance from the sights, sounds, and smells of war. Ministry is improvised contextually and practiced face-to-face and eye-to-eye. Living in community with people in their joys and their pains turns one from a paternalistic humanitarian to a servant of the servants of God. Morillon's experience, while not identical with Christian commitments, offers a stunning reminder that we cannot offer the transformative grace of God if we are not ourselves transformed by intimate encounter. The gospel is discovered and embraced not among mahogany tables and crystal but cracked asphalt and dirt mixed with blood. God lead us to be converted!

Labels: Discipleship

Posted by Chris Schelin at Saturday, August 23, 2008 | Permalink | Comments

I just found this in the Biblical Recorder, the newspaper for the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina:

Lutherans to apologize for Anabaptist persecution

(Religion News Service)

The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) is preparing a statement asking forgiveness from Anabaptists - Mennonites, Amish, and similar believers - for 16th century persecution, which included torture and killings.

The decision to prepare the statement was made by the LWF council, the world body's main governing agency, which met in Tanzania in June.

[snip]

Much of the Lutheran persecution of Anabaptists was based on writings by key figures in the Lutheran movement such as Martin Luther and condemnations in Lutheran confessional writings such as the Formula of Concord and the Augsburg Confession, which are still considered authoritative for Lutherans today.

The statement seeking forgiveness is expected to be ready for the LWF's 11th Assembly, in July 2010. The LWF represents 68 million Lutherans in 141 member churches in 17 countries, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

Labels: Discipleship, Ecumenism

Posted by Chris Schelin at Monday, August 04, 2008 | Permalink | Comments

It's not just a good idea for individual health, it's a necessary shift in thinking for humanity's collective future. Yes, we Americans need to eat less meat. A lot less meat.

This article from the Christian Science Monitor points out how growing affluence in other areas of the world is raising the demand for meat in people's diets. This diverts more grain for livestock, raising prices and leaving less for the poor. If everyone ate meat as much as Americans do, well...everyone can't. Our average diet is simply unsustainable.

A couple of years ago I made it a personal goal to eat meat only a few days of the week. I haven't succeeded yet, but I'm definitely going to try harder!

Some snippets from the article:
*****

One-third of the world’s arable land grows food for livestock, and about 36 percent of world grain becomes animal feed. The problem, say experts, is the inefficiency of converting grain to meat. A pound of beef takes 7 pounds of feed to produce. For pork, the ratio is 1 to 3; and for chicken, 1 to 2. (Cold-blooded fish, which don’t need energy to maintain body temperature, are farmed more efficiently.)

[...]

The average American eats about 275 pounds of meat per year, says the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Each American, in effect, consumes 1,765 pounds of grain yearly, says Lester Brown, author of “Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization.” Only 220 pounds of that is consumed directly in foodstuffs like bread, pasta, and breakfast cereal. The rest is through animal products.

If everyone consumed grain at this rate, says Mr. Brown, today’s 2 billion-ton world grain harvest would feed only 2.5 billion people – two-fifths of the world population. If the world ate the way Italians do – 882 pounds of grain per person yearly – we’d feed 5 billion people. And if we all ate the way largely vegetarian India does (11-1/2 pounds of meat per person yearly, or 440 pounds of grain), our grain supply could feed 10 billion.

[...]

“There’s no need for hunger in the world,” says Polly Walker, MD, associate director of the Center for a Livable Future at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Md. “There’s an equity issue here that should give us pause.”

Labels: Discipleship

Posted by Chris Schelin at Saturday, July 19, 2008 | Permalink | Comments

The prayer corner in our house contains a hodgepodge of materials. I understand that the Eastern Orthodox refer to their devotional spaces as icon corners because they are dominated by the display of these beautiful "windows of heaven." I prefer the designation "prayer corner," because, well, that's the focus of such a space anyways. Our three little icons from Egypt couldn't exercise hegemony over the corner as it is! But we do have several crosses and a couple of prayer beads. Ultimately, being Reformation-rooted Western Christians, and because we're such bibliophiles, the real center of our corner is the short shelf of devotional literature. Naturally, a couple of Bibles remain in place, as well as a few classics of evangelical piety. Oswald Chambers' My Utmost for His Highest takes its place here - as, by the way, it also does on occasion during morning prayer at the local Episcopal Church. The regulars take turns giving short homilies (since we've become regulars, Kelly has been assigned next week), and one of them insists on using Chambers during his time. Just another tidbit of grassroots ecumenism. But I digress.

We love prayer books and, as a result, they constitute the bulk of the literature in that space. And, given the history of different traditions' typical practices, the prayer books stem from the "high" churches and the magisterial Reformation - Presbyterian, Lutheran, Anglican and Catholic. The reasons that the Radical Reformation churches have generally shied from such resources are well known: intentional focus on the primary study of Scripture and suspicion of "rigid forms" over "heart worship." Among some early Baptist churches, notably the "founder" John Smyth and, later, the General Baptist Thomas Lambe at the Bell Alley Church in London, even the text of the Bible was set aside after being read at the beginning. This was done so that the "spirit" of the words could be focused upon during worship. I also suspect a third reason for the lack of prayer books: many of the Free Churches either focused their evangelism upon, or had the greatest success, with less-educated and impoverished populations. Even today, Pentecostalism, now the most successful Free Church form, spreads most readily among those who have less share in the things of this world and so long for a greater share of the Spirit.

But there is nothing inherent to the baptistic project that precludes drawing upon the resources of a prayer book, while there is much that commends such practice. I have already mentioned how the origin of the Anabaptists was a kind of generalization of monastic practice. Meanwhile, if the original communitarian vision held by Baptists is to reassert itself, the one that speaks of the Church as God's gathered assembly, then there is every justification for praying in step with others and for taking up aids to piety and worship outside of one's own thoughts or ingenuity.

I am, of course, not the first person to understand this. Not by a long shot. Gathering for Worship, the British Baptist service book that I have praised previously, is the third in a line of worship aids stretching back over several decades. This wonderful resource has now been joined by another from our theological cousins the Mennonites. Last year Herald Press, the publishing arm of Mennonite Church USA, released Take Our Moments and Our Days: An Anabaptist Prayer Book, Ordinary Time. Given that there will be latent suspicions about "forms," one may not be surprised that this book is only so ambitious. As the title suggests, the prayer cycle it creates is intended for the season between Pentecost and Advent (however, a second volume for the high seasons is apparently in the works). Being Anabaptist, it thoroughly focuses on the life and example of Jesus Christ. The four-week plan focuses on the Lord's Prayer, then the Beatitudes, then the parables, and finally the miracles. The prayers are "Scripture-saturated" (as any good prayer book should be, I think) and the pattern of themes takes on an "Anabaptist coloration." At the same time, its publication exemplifies a catholic spirit of engagement with the broader Christian tradition. It should be arriving in the mail today and I look forward to making personal remarks about its contents later.

In the meantime, here are a couple of reviews from the Herald Press web site:

"It is a blessing to have a prayer book rooted in our common Christian tradition of morning and evening prayer. It is unabashedly Anabaptist while employing the best elements of Christian prayer from other ancient and contemporary Christian sources. The layout is simple and clear and holds to a consistent pattern." - Father Andrew D. Ciferni, O.Praem., Daylesford Abbey, Paoli, Pa.

"A superb prayer book! The editors have done an outstanding job choosing texts and hymns and writing prayers and forms to establish substantial patterns of prayer. Their language is that of the universal church, so this publication knits its users to Christians throughout time and space. I pray that this volume will be used widely and well." - Marva J. Dawn, author of Reaching Out without Dumbing Down.

You can also read another Roman Catholic reader's comments here at the Bridgefolk web site.

Labels: Discipleship, Ecumenism, Liturgy

Posted by Chris Schelin at Thursday, July 17, 2008 | Permalink | Comments

Most Americans will spend this day celebrating the mythos of liberty won at great cost. For my part, I'm content to reflect on the great cost of crucifixion that won my eternal liberty. Yet I am indeed thankful that, when it comes to the practice of the gospel, America is at least more redeemed among the powers than most. Too bad we have so often squandered that redemption by buying into the seductions that America the power presents us. Nevertheless, there are Christians around the world who have much worse to contend with than we, and for them we should pray, for they face persecution in response to the freedom they have already found in Christ.

*****

Hamid Shabanov, a Baptist pastor in Aliabad in the Central Asian country of Azerbaijan, was arrested on Friday, June 20.

Elnur Jabiyev, General Secretary of the Baptist Union of Azerbaijan (BUA), reported that the “police claim to have found an illegal weapon in his home.”

Denying the allegations against Shabanov, and suggesting that the weapon was planted by the police, Jabiyev stated that the arrest “was a provocation by the police,” and that it was “a deliberately targeted action.” The BUA leader asserted that “the police's aim is to halt Baptist activity and close the church in Aliabad.”

BWA president David Coffey stated that “the BWA will do all we can to publicize among the world family what has happened in Aliabad” and that “the global family” will be praying for the Shabanov family.

General Secretary Neville Callam expressed his disappointment at the arrest. “We are registering our grave disappointment at the denial of religious freedom that is evident in Azerbaijan,” the BWA leader said. “Our Baptist brothers and sisters in Azerbaijan should be completely assured of the BWA commitment to pray for them as they struggle in the context of oppression, and, as an expression of our historic commitment to personal liberty, freedom, and justice, to make representation on their behalf.”

Labels: Baptists, Discipleship

Posted by Chris Schelin at Friday, July 04, 2008 | Permalink | Comments

Just a year and a half ago I was more afraid. Afraid of the unknown behind next the corner ready to jump out and attack. I can remember on more than one occasion coming home to an empty apartment from school and wondering if it had been broken into and who would be waiting. I cannot even begin to tell you how irrational that fear was in a Metairie apartment. We lived in a "dangerous place" or so we were told by my wife's more affluent coworkers. What made it "dangerous" was that the street consisted of some older apartment complexes which were occupied by a racially mixed blue collar population, taxi drivers, medical workers, grocery clerks and the like. Living in a gated apartment complex only helped to encourage such stereotypes. In reality the people who we lived around were normal nice people, many with children, most who were probably more afraid of losing their jobs and their livelihood than my wife's friend's were of them. Needless to say nothing ever did jump out at me other than my own shadow and the occasional mosquito.

I cannot help but think back to that fear now as I sit in my den in our home on a lower income, mixed race, blue collar, West Bank street after the events of last night and this morning. Around 1am last night Christina awoke to a loud thump. She tried to get me to wake up by pushing on me and telling me she heard a noise. I had just been woken up by our beautiful 17 month daughter just an hour before and was not too interested in waking up again before our 5:40am alarm clock started singing its usual morning lullabies. My first still asleep response to Christina was to start mumbling. After a few more prodding I began to make comprehensible words, "I don't want to get up. I'm not getting up." But she told me to go check the noise, so begrudgingly and half asleep I started stomping around towards the kitchen mumbling about how it was not right to have to get up at this ungodly hour. Upon seeing nothing in the kitchen I promptly returned to my pillow. The next morning after I got out of the shower, Christina came into the bathroom with a somewhat confused look on her face asking me if I had left the window open last night. To which I said no. I went to check the window in the den and sure enough the blinds were pulled half way up and the window was open and there was a foot impression with tree bits on our couch. Nothing was taken however so we called in the attempted break-in to the police. It seems the would-be-intruder got startled by my loud mumblings and decided he did not want to come in after all.

After the events of this morning I spent most of my free time today thinking on the incident. What should my response be to this event? In some ways we had been violated, our sacred and secure place called home had been entered without permission. I immediately dismissed the option of having no response at all and to just ignore what happened. So this leaves me with two choices in my mind. I can ask the question how can I protect myself and my family more and close in on myself, take extra security precautions, buy bars for my windows, become paranoid about the stories I hear, etc. Or I can ask how is this calling me to love, to be Christ to my neighbor, to love my enemy. While the first option has some immediate attraction, similar to my fear from just a year and a half ago, I cannot see myself as being honest with myself and my family if I choose it. The second option seems to go against what I was raised to think, protect yourself and your family at all cost. The easiest way to help others is to throw your money at them and occasionally work in a soup kitchen. I want to protect my family. But not at the cost of their (or my) salvation. The grace that my fatherhood and husbandhood channel comes from my being Christ to and for them. If my family cannot see Christ in me what value does my fatherhood or husbandhood have?

Who was he (or her)? What did he want? Was he looking for money or a place to rest? Did he have a home? Does he live around here? Is he a victim of the vicious cycle of poverty/drugs? How could I have helped him? How could I have loved him? What more should I be doing in my community?

Christ you ask so much!

Labels: Discipleship, violence

Posted by Craig Baker at Tuesday, April 08, 2008 | Permalink | Comments

The 40th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's martyrdom is two days away. Here's some brief bits from one of his late sermons, "Remaining Awake through a Great Revolution":

But I say to you this morning, my friends, there were those depressing moments. How can one avoid being depressed when he sees with his own eyes evidences of millions of people going to bed hungry at night? How can one avoid being depressed when he sees with his own eyes God’s children sleeping on the sidewalks at night? In Bombay more than a million people sleep on the sidewalks every night. In Calcutta more than six hundred thousand sleep on the sidewalks every night. They have no beds to sleep in; they have no houses to go in. How can one avoid being depressed when he discovers that out of India’s population of more than five hundred million people, some four hundred and eighty million make an annual income of less than ninety dollars a year. And most of them have never seen a doctor or a dentist.

As I noticed these things, something within me cried out, "Can we in America stand idly by and not be concerned?" And an answer came: "Oh no!" Because the destiny of the United States is tied up with the destiny of India and every other nation. And I started thinking of the fact that we spend in America millions of dollars a day to store surplus food, and I said to myself, "I know where we can store that food free of charge—in the wrinkled stomachs of millions of God’s children all over the world who go to bed hungry at night." And maybe we spend far too much of our national budget establishing military bases around the world rather than bases of genuine concern and understanding.

Not only do we see poverty abroad, I would remind you that in our own nation there are about forty million people who are poverty-stricken. I have seen them here and there. I have seen them in the ghettos of the North; I have seen them in the rural areas of the South; I have seen them in Appalachia. I have just been in the process of touring many areas of our country and I must confess that in some situations I have literally found myself crying.

*****

One day we will have to stand before the God of history and we will talk in terms of things we’ve done. Yes, we will be able to say we built gargantuan bridges to span the seas, we built gigantic buildings to kiss the skies. Yes, we made our submarines to penetrate oceanic depths. We brought into being many other things with our scientific and technological power.

It seems that I can hear the God of history saying, "That was not enough! But I was hungry, and ye fed me not. I was naked, and ye clothed me not. I was devoid of a decent sanitary house to live in, and ye provided no shelter for me. And consequently, you cannot enter the kingdom of greatness. If ye do it unto the least of these, my brethren, ye do it unto me." That’s the question facing America today.

I want to say one other challenge that we face is simply that we must find an alternative to war and bloodshed. Anyone who feels, and there are still a lot of people who feel that way, that war can solve the social problems facing mankind is sleeping through a great revolution. President Kennedy said on one occasion, "Mankind must put an end to war or war will put an end to mankind." The world must hear this. I pray God that America will hear this before it is too late, because today we’re fighting a war.

Labels: Discipleship

Posted by Chris Schelin at Wednesday, April 02, 2008 | Permalink | Comments

Martin Luther's religious life centered in the worship and practice of the Order of St. Augustine until his excommunication. Five years later, he married Katharina von Bora, a former nun. They made their home in a former monastery.


Henry VIII of England received the appellation "Defender of the Faith" from Pope Leo X for writing a book that denounced Martin Luther. After pulling England out of Rome's ecclesiastical orbit, he closed the monasteries and confiscated their lands.

Protestant reformers attacked priestly celibacy as an unnecessary and unbiblical doctrine. They rejected its communal institutionalization in the form of convents and monasteries as a distraction from the real work of proclaiming the gospel. Much of the history of so-called "Protestantism" has carried forward this bias against specialized Christian communities.

Yet early in the Reformation a movement of Protestants implicitly seized upon the monastic ideal as the proper character for local Christian gatherings. The continental "Anabaptists" engaged in laicization: while medieval Catholics had distinguished between the requirements demanded of the "laity" and of the "religious," these radical reformers universalized the rigor of the latter as the high calling of all Christians. The church was not primarily the place where one went to receive the sacraments (although the dominical sacraments remained important for the Anabaptists, and they even elevated a few of their own practices to a central role) but where Christians covenanted together in a community of equal disciples who would share common work and leadership.

Other renewal movements have risen in the Church since that time. John Wesley preached the practice of social holiness and gave it a mechanism through his methodist class meetings. Lay monasticism in the Roman Catholic Church appeared in the last century when Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin chose to live in community with the poor and founded the Catholic Worker Movement. Clarence Jordan, a Baptist minister, founded Koinonia Farm so that one community of Christians could demonstrate the vision laid out in the Book of Acts.

Although Baptists themselves emerged in the religious turmoil of 17th-century England as a movement centered upon radical discipleship forged in community covenants, we are more generally known throughout contemporary Christianity as radical individualists who divide over competing claims to spiritual competence. Many among our number even celebrate this reality. Only in very few contexts would anyone consider that to be Baptist and also to be communitarian, even monastic, is not a contradiction in terms.

But the ecumenical New Monastic Movement of our time possesses deep similarities to the vision of the early English Baptists and continental Anabaptists, who themselves echoed the Desert Fathers and Mothers that fled the growing cosmopolitan Christianity of the fourth century. Absent the neo-Platonic prejudice against human sexuality and the medieval hierarchy of superior and ordinary piety, these modern intentional Christian communities exhibit a devoted way of life that no Baptist should find objectionable on the grounds of Scripture or traditional Baptist commitments. Baptists should make good monastics!

And some of them have in fact done so as individuals. Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, a New Monastic leader and founder of Rutba House here in Durham, is a member of a local Baptist church. Other Baptists have been a part of Rutba House and Iredell House while also worshiping with Baptist congregations. Yet each house is openly ecumenical and specifically non-denominational in its inception and structure. I do not in any way cast aspersions on these communities because of their broad identity. But any participation by self-identified Baptists can be easily dismissed as incidental to their formative tradition; that is, some may say these Baptists are living in intentional community in spite of the fact that they're Baptist and not because their own theological heritage has provided the resources to envision this way of discipleship.

But what if, in fact, the Baptist tradition has done just that? During the New Baptist Covenant meeting in Atlanta I attended a breakout session on peacemaking directed by Glen Stassen, a professor of ethics at Fuller Seminary, and Paul Dekar, a professor of evangelism and missions at Memphis Seminary. Paul Dekar is a Baptist who has been practicing intentional community for some time. I learned that although he is an American, he has participated in the creation and ongoing work of Holy Transfiguration Monastery in Australia. Are you ready for this? Holy Transfiguration - believe it or not - is an active and tithing member body of the Baptist Union of Victoria. The community fully embraces and remains grounded in its Baptist origins. At the same time, it is also vigorously ecumenical, attracting members from various Christian traditions who, once they join, do not feel compelled to consider themselves Baptist. The community's ecumenism extends to its embrace of traditional monastic and liturgical forms, such as the Christian year, the daily offices, and even religious habits.

After attending the session, I purchased Paul Dekar's brand-new book about the monastery, entitled Community of the Transfiguration: The Journey of a New Monastic Community. I look forward to reading their story in what little free time I may have for this book. My prayers go out to HTM for their witness in Australia, and I hope that their example may be an inspiration for Baptists and for all Christians who are discerning how to live more faithfully.

P.S. - According to this blog, HTM is one of two Baptist monasteries in the world. I wonder what the other one may be...

Labels: Baptist Catholicity, Baptists, Discipleship, Ecumenism

Posted by Chris Schelin at Sunday, February 03, 2008 | Permalink | Comments

For much of my semi-adult life, economics has stood out in my mind as a discipline that is, in its very maddening way, simultaneously practical and relevant but also opaque and confusing. The stock market is only now starting to make sense to me...well, I think. Perhaps I shouldn't put too much money on that. Or should I say, I won't invest in that option. Who knows?

But ever since participating in a wonderful Manna and Mercy retreat at Duke upon the conclusion of my first year of study, I have been burdened by the sense that Christian theology and discipleship must shape me to take economics seriously. I realized that most of us who claim Christ's Lordship have not asserted it adequately when matters of GDP or personal finance arise. Sure, we believe in simple and accessible virtues such as generosity and moderation in our consumption of the world's goods, but economics appears too complex to us for us to attain systematic and articulate rigor. So it seems we adopt slogans from our trained positions on the political spectrum without really knowing what they mean or if they're true. That is, a Christian who tends to be politically conservative may talk of trickle-down economics and will assert that "a rising tide lifts all boats." A Christian who tends to be politically liberal speaks the language of class warfare and "two Americas."

Imagining that the free market and socialism are the only viable options for a sensible economics that will generate wealth and prosperity, we quickly find ourselves stuck. Soviet-style economies fell apart in the twentieth century and the countries that still carry the socialist banner are plagued by poverty, corruption, and authoritarian rule. Yet unmitigated capitalism is spiritually corrosive. Here in the United States, we are increasingly plagued by materialism, socioeconomic divisions, and monetary evaluations of success and happiness. Meanwhile, our sense of community and place is shattered by our status as a mobile - and upwardly-mobile - culture. And we're not any happier for our outstanding wealth.

Does the Christian tradition offer an alternative to this catch-22? I am growing more hopeful that it does - and that this alternative is sensible and applicable and not merely an otherworldly utopianism. I do not believe that a Christian take on economics is going to win the day anytime soon, or perhaps anytime ever - but I think it calls for us to present a critique to our prevailing social and cultural assumptions when it comes to money and resources. This is part of what leaders in the "New Monastic" movement call living on the fringes of Empire. What are some of the voices that give me hope?

1. Catholic Social Teaching and "Distributism." - I first learned about distributism this past summer while living at Koinonia. It all began when a fair-trade coffee roaster who operates out of Americus, GA, spoke one evening at the church where I worshiped. When asked about living an alternative economics, he suggested we read Small is Beautiful by E.F. Schumacher. The book appeared nearly thirty years ago and was a critique of traditional assumptions by a major economist in Britain. Google searches on Schumacher led to the discovery of a group of generally traditionalist Catholics who speak favorably of him, as he was a convert to Catholicism and his economic ideals reflect their own thoughts. The distributists take their cues from a set of papal encyclicals written around the turn of the twentieth century and from the writings of G.K. Chesterton, among others. In short, distributism favors the broad distribution of property and capital and encourages the development of fairly self-sufficient local economies.

See The ChesterBelloc Mandate for one helpful and thorough distributist site.

2. Neo-Agrarianism - I'm a born and raised city-slicker, and so when I first heard the term "agrarian" the natural suspicion of my kind bubbled up in my thoughts. I imagined nostalgic idealists who romanticized farming and who ignored the educational and economic difficulties of rural living while despising the cultural and social opportunities afforded by cities. This shallow critique can be readily found anywhere one may turn, but ultimately it's just not true. Yes, agrarians like Wendell Berry highly value farming as a cultural and even spiritual practice, but their goal isn't to empty the cities and destroy professional vocations that don't involve hoeing weeds. Rather, the main objective is to reorient our cultural terrain so that everyone - rural, urban, and suburban - appreciates and values our undeniable dependence upon, and connection with, soil and air, flora and fauna. Of course, agrarianism goes deeper than this, with concrete interest in renewing agriculture, conserving land, and reconstructing community life. I've recently discovered that the agrarians and the distributists are essentially on the same page, even though they may have somewhat different emphases. The agrarians, for example, give more attention to restoring family or community farming.

I recommend reading The Essential Agrarian Reader.

There's more that could be said, but since I haven't posted anything in a while, I'll just go with this and introduce more as I keep learning, studying, and reflecting.

Labels: Discipleship

Posted by Chris Schelin at Wednesday, January 02, 2008 | Permalink | Comments

Here's an encouraging story from the news page on the web site of the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia:

*****

One more Break-away congregation comes back

On June 24th a special service took place at the First Baptist Church in Stalin’s home city of Gori. This particular congregation had spent 7 years in separation from the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia. The split was caused by the undermining activities of fundamentalist groups in Germany namely Friedensbote represented by somebody called Viktor Rogalski. They had stirred up the congregation against Ecumenical movement of which Evangelical Baptist Church is an active part.

The congregation was founded in Soviet time. It was the second Georgian speaking Baptist Church to be established in Georgia. For a long period of time the church was led by the Revd Vladimir Songulashvili, later senior pastor of the Cathedral Baptist Church and Bishop of Tbilisi region.

A statement signed by all the members of the congregation was read before the service started. It said: “After seven years of estrangement we come back to the Evangelical Baptist Church of Georgia and admit that it was wrong and sinful to break away from the Church for which we seek forgiveness both the Lord and the Church of Georgia. We would like to forget the past and think of the future...”

The Archbishop and the President of the EBCG re-consecrated the church building and than anointed all the members of the congregation with oil as a sign of the renewal of the church. At the end of the service the Archbishop Malkhaz celebrated the Eucharist in con-celebration with the President and representatives of the regional clergy.

In Georgia everything ends with a party. At the party the toast-mastership was carried out by Revd Sulkhan Murmanishvili, a newly appointed interim minister of the Gori congregation.

Labels: Baptists, Discipleship

Posted by Chris Schelin at Wednesday, November 14, 2007 | Permalink | Comments

In worship we discover that we are engrafted into the story of God. It is in worship that we acquire the skills to recognize who we are - sinners. In Trinitarian worship, we also acquire the skills to discover and live our identity as priests, an identity centered in blessing and offering, or receiving and giving. We receive the forgiving and sacrificial love of Christ, and are enabled to extend this to others through intercession and service. Paul Fiddes describes this ecclesial identity well when he states that the church as a priestly people has the 'power to serve, to focus the presence of the Spirit and to mediate blessing only because it is caught up in the life of the triune God'. To be caught up in the life of God is most certainly a gift of God's grace, one mediated to us through the material Body of Christ. With Schmemann, we need to emphasize that in the church the sum is greater than the parts, not because of human effort but because of the presence of the risen Christ who freely uses 'the created order in the work of redemption, particularly the gathering and building of the church'. The priesthood of all believers is not an internal, spiritual phenomenon, but an ecclesial form of life, sustained by the faithful worship of God.

- Elizabeth Newman, "The Priesthood of All Believers and the Necessity of the Church," in Recycling the Past or Researching History?: Studies in Baptist Historiography and Myths. Anthony R. Cross and Philip E. Thompson, eds. Carlisle: Paternoster, 2005. Final italics mine.

Labels: Baptists, Discipleship, Theology

Posted by Chris Schelin at Wednesday, October 17, 2007 | Permalink | Comments