natalie's narrative

A new vision of family

“I'm starting to get the creeps every time I see the word ‘family.’ I say we get rid of it.”

Via Jesus Politics, I came across this comment in a post at StreetProphets.com a while back. Being pro-family isn’t necessarily bad, right? The idea that keeping families together and supporting children is the reason I have a job right now. But I wonder if we as Christians have used the idea of family as sort of an exclusive tribalism. I don’t mean this in the sense of my last post, where those who are not in a couple or traditional family don’t fit well in the church/society, but rather that we have elevated our idea of family at the expense of other issues.

Recently I’ve been reading Shane Claiborne and Anne Lamott. A theme in both of their books that I’ve read centers on family—but a different and broader sense of family. Both mention Jesus’ (and Gandhi’s) teachings—that to be saved means to see everyone on earth as family. Claiborne, in The Irresistible Revolution, talks about a “vision of family that is larger than biology or nationalism” (163). Evangelicals like to use the term “born again.” What a great way to think about being born into a global family! Claiborne asks what it means to be born again into a family where our brothers and sisters are starving to death. In the “dysfunctional family of Yahweh,” what does it mean for churches to spend insane amounts of money on maintaining/building church buildings when our family members are going without? A good biological father would never let his children starve while he fancies up his house. Allowing people to go hungry, without decent housing, or without healthcare would be difficult if we thought of them as family.

In Scripture, the ever-subversive Jesus doesn’t really come across as pro-traditional family. He offers a new way to think about family, one that transcends geographical and biological lines. Wasn’t it he who said that he’s come to turn people against their fathers and mothers? Didn’t he say, “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Mt. 10:37)? Jesus asked who were his mother and brother, then he answered his own question: “whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” (Mt. 12:50). And in Matthew 19, that big stumbling block of a chapter, Jesus says, “everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.”

Claiborne is careful to point out that Jesus’ intention is not diminishing love for our biological families, but rather extending love for those who are not biologically related to us. He is stretching our usual idea of family. Claiborne notes:

“Biological family is too small of a vision. Patriotism is far too myopic. A love for our own relatives and a love for the people of our own country are not bad things, but our love does not stop at the border. We now have a family that is much broader than biology, that runs much deeper than nationalism. Jesus is telling us that we have family in Iraq, in Afghanistan, in Palestine. We have family members who are starving and homeless, or dying of AIDS, or in the midst of war” (202).

How hard would it be to invade the country and homes of our family members? Writing off a death or injury as “collateral damage” would be difficult if we considered Iraqis or any other group to be our sisters and brothers, mothers and fathers, or our children.

And I’m really trying to remind myself of this broader idea of family, not only those that I think are exclusive or who are overlooking “family members.” President Bush, as much as I disagree with him, is supposed to be my brother. Anne Lamott says it better in Plan B: Further Thoughts on Faith:

I know that Bush is family, and that I am supposed to love him, but I hate this—he is a dangerous member of the family, like a Klansman, or Osama bin Laden. Maybe I can’t exactly forgive him right now, in the sense of canceling my resentment and judgment. But maybe I can simply acknowledge what is true, spiritually—that he gets to come to the table and eat, too; that I would not let him starve. In heaven, I may have to sit next to him, and in heaven, I know, I will love him. On earth, however, when I consider that he is my brother, and I am to live him, I’m reminded of the old Woody Allen line that someday the lion shall lie down with the lamb, but the lamb is not going to get any sleep. So I will pray to stop hating him, and that he will not kill so many people, today (144).

A faith on the rise

The fastest-growing segment of Christianity in the world, Pentecostalism, is featured in Sunday’s NY Times. The article focuses on a small, Dominican storefront church in New York City, dubbed “The Ark:”

“Though Pentecostalism, a strain of evangelical Christianity, was born a century ago in Kansas and is often associated with the stereotypical ‘holy rollers’ of the Bible Belt, it has made deep inroads in Asia and Africa. In this hemisphere, its numbers and growth are strongest among Latinos in the United States and in Latin America, where it is eroding the traditional dominance of the Roman Catholic Church.

Experts believe there are roughly 400 million Pentecostals worldwide, and this year, the number in the city is expected to surpass 850,000 — about one in every 10 New Yorkers, one-third of them Hispanic.”

[…]

“That growth could have profound implications. The Ark and other storefronts are already draining Catholic and mainline Protestant churches of the urban immigrants who have long filled their pews. Their striving members could refigure the political calculus of New York or even the nation, turning a historically liberal Hispanic population into a force for conservatism.”

[…]

“Pentecostals became the city’s largest group of born-again Christians in the mid-1990s, and within a few years, a new storefront church was opening every three weeks in the South Bronx…”

Immigration-not an evangelical issue?

Two things I've read today about immigration and evangelicals: First, a spokesperson from Focus on the Family was quoted in a Wall Street Journal article: "Focus [on the Family], known for Mr. [James] Dobson's popular radio show, has decided that immigration isn't "something that defines an evangelical," spokesman Stuart Shepard says. But my boss sent me an article by Andrea Althoff from the University of Chicago's Divinity School Sightings newsletter. Latin Americans who immigrate to the US bring a new dynamic to American Christianity. The "missionary work," so to speak, is moving from the south to the north:

While some immigrants bring their faith with them from their home countries, a lively proselytism is taking place in the United States by and among immigrants. Indeed, empirical evidence drawn from my own research in Chicago indicates that the number of immigrants who arrive as Pentecostals and Charismatics is small in comparison to those who convert once in the United States. One report shows that "there are now more Latino Protestants in the United States than Jews or Muslims or Episcopalians and Presbyterians combined. In total, there are 12.2 million (37 percent) Latino 'born-again' Christians in the United States, of whom 9.2 million are Pentecostal or Charismatic. In short, 28 percent of all Latinos are Pentecostal or Charismatic" (Espinosa, Elizondo, Miranda, "Hispanic Churches in American Public Life," 2003).

And Dobson should take note: The article mentioned the "conservative doctrine" of many Latino Christian immigrants, "with its emphasis on nuclear family values."

Reading the Bible through hungry eyes

Philip Jenkins gave a lecture on campus the other day. Jenkins is a professor of history and religious studies at Penn State and has written many books, including The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. Predictably, I was really excited about his talk, because I have been reading Next Christendom, and have been very intrigued by some of the statistics that he provides. A main theme is that the church in the global south is very conservative, which will cause some conflict in the coming years. In fact, we are already beginning to see the struggles, especially with the Anglican Communion and the ordination of gay bishops.

Jenkins started out with some fascinating numbers: by the year 2050, there will be 3 billion Christians in the world, and 1/5 or 1/6 of those will be non-Latino whites. Already we can say that a mention of an average Christian should conjure up an image not of a white European or American, but an African. When we say the word “church,” then, we should be careful what the image in our mind is.

So the overwhelming majority of Christians will be in the global south, people with a Christianity characterized by Biblicism, literalism, and immediacy. Dare I say fundamentalism, as well? Jenkins used that word. It has a negative connotation here in the US, but the truth is that many Christians in the global south are very conservative. Jenkins focused on Africa during his talk, specifically the ways that African Christians use the Bible, as compared to mainstream American Christians. Conservative is the mainstream in Africa. Theologians and church leaders are not naïve about changes or additions to the text, but nevertheless regarding Biblical interpretation the motto is: the church hears it, the church believes it; therefore, it is authentic and authoritative (also a very communal way of reading scripture). In addition, in Africa there is no Marcionism. The Old Testament is a major source of authority, and when it conflicts with the New Testament, the OT usually wins.

The OT describes African society (but one of my issues with the talk was Jenkins’ generalizing of all of Africa) very well. Many know firsthand about polygamy, nomadism, sacrifice, shepherding, and placing a high value on kinship. Evangelicals in the US sing about the power of the blood, but how many have actually seen the blood of a lamb? Many Africans have, and such a situation illustrates the immediacy of the text. Hebrews reads like it is written to modern Africa. One prominent African theologian, in a chapter about Hebrews in one of his books, calls Hebrews “OUR Epistle.”

Imagine an atmosphere that combines explosive church growth with dire suffering, poverty, and disease. Imagine reading the Bible through hungry eyes, and noticing very much how many references there are to food. The story of the Prodigal Son has a lot of food-imagery. An African living in extreme poverty reads that story and knows that heaven is where everyone is filled. The best thing to happen to a hungry person is to have a fatted calf killed in your honor—and a feast! We affluent Christians miss out on that aspect of scripture. Imagine praying for God to give us this day our daily bread. Imagine taking communion, partaking of the bread of life. Jesus is literally the bread of life to many.

In light of the statistics that he shared, as well as the emphasis on the conservatism of much of the global south, Jenkins also pointed out that numbers aren’t everything. Theology/doctrine is not determined by majority vote, but then again, numbers aren’t meaningless, either. The fact is, the gulf is widening between north and south. The north needs to become more aware of our neighbors, and break away from our insularity (Jenkins’ discussion in Next Christendom of the ignorance, both scholarly and popular, of the south by the north is embarrassing!).

In light of all this talk about poverty, too, I thought Jenkins’ discussion of the relationship between poverty and reading scripture/being a Christian was significant. Imagine how Christian communities are shaped by the suffering that exists in Africa. Jenkins mentioned that a church leader in central Africa, Archbishop Malango (sp?), has never done a funeral for less than 12 people. The ravages of AIDS, poverty, and death are a very real thing to a lot of Christians around the world—shouldn’t that be yet another motivation for Christians in the north to take action, to help our fellow members of the body of Christ??! Rather than mobilize against “secular humanism” (more on that later…after reading this I have some crazy, crazy stuff), why not mobilize against extreme poverty?

"I have other sheep"

I just started The Global God: Multicultural Evangelical Views of God, which is a collection of essays from various cultural points of view edited by Aída Besançon Spencer and William David Spencer. The task of each author is to select the attribute of God most emphasized in her or his culture, as well as to supplement what other cultures have missed concerning that attribute. Seems pretty appropriate to my theme I try to have going here.

The book already promises to be perspective-challenging and -broadening. In the preface, the Spencers quote John 10:16, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” They use this as an image of the diverse body of Christ as we know it in the 21st century, mentioning that this book is “the sound of other sheep.” It was a challenge to the Jews to include the “other,” the Gentiles, as likewise it is a challenge to include, for many white Americans, British, and Europeans, our “other.” Perhaps our other is Hispanic, African-American, Chinese, and many more? The Spencers point out that the other is continually revolving, “like a rotating compass dial.” We have set ourselves as “north,” and the other is pointing away from us.

And just because no culture fully “gets it” about God doesn’t mean that our culture is bad, so we should try to be acultural. The Spencers employ a helpful analogy:

To be totally acultural is like proclaiming oneself against the air. The air may be polluted, but without air we cannot live. You either clean the pollutants out of your environment or move to another location with, what you perceive to be, cleaner air, but no human lives without breathing in the air. No human lives without a culture. The person who claims to be against culture often ends up uncritically accepting some alternative (often romanticized) culture as definitive. But all cultures have pollutants or ideas that are not pleasing to God, as so many reformers and utopians have come to realize. However, very few cultures have no concepts pleasing to God...(19)

I'm sure there will be more to come...

Speaking of prophetic voices...

Speaking of prophetic voices, the Rev. Soong-Chan Rah has been on campus this week. I credit him as one of the people who has opened my eyes to new dimensions of the faith—incredibly important ones that are difficult to discuss and have called for much confession and repentance. Today, especially, he spoke to some things in my life that I need to change. He discussed the issue of racism as sin, not because it’s the popular thing to do nowadays, but because it’s what scripture says (resonates well with evangelicals, eh?). Rah acknowledged that “racism” is a loaded word, because everyone denies they are racist. So, he encouraged us to use the word “racialization,” which is what Emerson and Smith use in their book. Anyway, he defined racism-as-sin in a relevant context (considering not many fly the Confederate flag or use overt racial slurs). He defined it as one ethnicity having hegemony over another; or taking it further, one ethnicity representing Christianity.

Look at the demographics of American evangelicalism, in relation to the global context. Christianity as a whole is no longer one of the north and west, but rather, it is shifting south and east. In the States, there are more nonwhite Christians than there are white, and some have projected that by the year 2020, the US population will be half nonwhite, half white. Also by the year 2020, only one in five Christians on the planet will be white.

Now, looking at US churches, less than 3% of evangelical churches are integrated with even 80% of one ethnicity and 20% of another. At the same time, immigrant churches in the US are experiencing explosive growth. Rah commented that the real “emerging” church is not white postmodernists, but rather the global south and US immigrant population. America is the most diverse nation in the history of the world—why then is a church that is emerging an overwhelmingly white one? We can apply these statistics to other institutions, especially ones like Wheaton. Many Wheaton students can go through here in 4 years without ever having a nonwhite professor, and that’s not even getting into the demographics of the student body. You would be hard-pressed to find a nonwhite worship style at events on campus—the norm is a guy with a guitar and another guy with a djembe. We dim the lights, and we all raise our hands, which is a distinctive white way of worshipping, compared to other worship styles.

Rah stressed that white culture isn’t bad, it’s just that it shouldn’t be the hegemony in American (and global) Christianity. European systematic theology is an incredible contribution, but it’s not all there is to theology. We would do well to consider what “other” voices have to say, especially since the “other” is in fact the majority. The white perspective is one among many; it’s not the norm. Appearances say otherwise, though.

Jim Wallis echoed this theme when he responded to an international student who feels alone here at Wheaton since he is opposed to the war in Iraq. Wallis pointed out that if you’re against the war, looking at things in a global context, you are not alone. Every church body outside of the US is against the war: European, Asian, African, Latin American Christians. In the US, every church body except the Southern Baptists does not consider the war to be a just war. That puts things in perspective.

Well, I certainly have been guilty of not listening to perspectives outside of my own culture. If I consider who I have been having conversations with about faith lately, I realize that the vast, vast majority are white people. Pretty pathetic for someone who likes to quote Andrew Walls…

How do we ever understand the Bible, ever

More insight from classes…

I am taking a class called anthropology of language and culture, and of course, our readings so far have dealt with how language affects the way we think and behave (our culture)—and vice versa.

English speakers have a vastly different view of time, space, and matter than do, to use the example that my reading uses, speakers of the Hopi language. For example, English speakers are able to group days into plural periods of time, because of our cultural notion of past, present, and future. Hopi speakers, on the other hand, cannot conceive of using the phrase “five days,” because they have a different conception of time. To the Hopi, time is a relation between events, as compared to the English notion of “length of time.” English is very linear, and when we think about a phrase like “five days,” usually in our minds we have those five days lined up in a row.

Also relating to conceptions of “day,” the Hopi language demonstrates the cultural belief that days are not separate, that a new day is not another day. Rather, Hopis view a new day as a returning day, as our reading expressed it: “a little older but with all the impresses of yesterday” Of course, English speakers do not view days in this way, but as components, as illustrated above, that can be added up.

Words like “summer,” “winter,” “morning,” and “sunset” are nouns in English. It’s hard for an English speaker to wrap his or her mind around these words as something other than nouns. In Hopi, however, these words are adverbs in a way. Hopi instead has phrases like, roughly translated, “while morning-phase is occurring.” Like “summer,” etc., English speakers (and most of these examples apply to other European languages/cultures, as well) tend to noun-ify concepts. Think of time, again. We “spend time,” “waste time,” “manage our time,” do or don’t “have time,” think something is “worth our time.” Time is precious. Time is money.

In English, we take for granted the concepts of “substance” and “matter.” We instantly accept these categories; they are common sense to us. To talk about masses like “water” or “air,” we use just that: “water” and “air.” But we also differentiate between the mass and other, smaller forms of the substance, such as “cup of water” or “pool of water.” In the Hopi language, a speaker would just say, “water;” no distinction like “cup of” or “pool of” is needed, because different variations of the word “water” exist that denote whether it’s a cup or a pool, etc.

Now that I have learned a bit about different linguistic conceptions of space, time, and matter, I wonder what the implications are regarding our interpretation of Scripture. How do we ever correctly understand what the Bible is trying to communicate? For example, Genesis 1 deals with space, time, and matter, but the author came from a specific culture—one that is vastly different from ours. And what about the other languages/cultures that are wrapped up in the rest of Scripture? That’s where scholarship comes in, I suppose, but then I still wonder about our own linguistic/cultural assumptions that we bring to Scripture—ones that we may be unaware of.

More on liberation theology...

My paper about liberation theology for my Spanish-American literature class is almost done, which means I have more thoughts about this way of thinking. Which reminds me, I recommend One Day of Life by Manlio Argueta. What a heartbreaking, jarring, eye-opening, and challenging account of the injustices that occurred in El Salvador. A good companion to this book is the also-challenging film Romero, the true story about a Catholic priest who fought for justice for the Salvadorean people.

First I want to respond to a comment that Todd made. It was good to remind us of the limited perspective we each have when discussing systems like capitalism. Those who criticize one system have the disadvantage of living within another. With all due respect, I feel as if something isn't quite right with criticizing those who "spend a majority of time castigating another's perspective having never lived here and not subject to it." I don't think the playing field is equal when it comes to criticizing systems. The context in which liberation theology grew, thus the critique of capitalism, is one in which indeed the people were subject to the system of capitalism. No, they have never lived here in the US, but the way we vote and what we buy most certainly affects them. Gutierrez points out that the status of the poor countries is the fruit of injustice and coercion by the rich countries. We are not separate groups working and living independently of each other. Therefore, liberation theologians most certainly have the right to criticize, because horrible injustices have occurred as a result of capitalism. It's not just another perspective among the many. Rather, the voice of the oppressed should be amplified ten times over.

So, other thoughts: when reading A Theology of Liberation for my paper, some sections struck a chord with me. I have been thinking a lot lately about the exclusively personal nature that evangelicals have made the gospel. Gutierrez's thoughts on the "private life" seem to relate:

In the past, concern for social praxis in theological thought did not sufficiently take into account the political dimension. In Christian circles there was—and continues to be—difficulty in perceiving the originality and specificity of the political sphere. Stress was placed on private life and on the cultivation of private values; things political were relegated to a lower plane, to the elusive and undemanding area of a misunderstood ‘common good’ (48-9)

Therefore "there came the insistence on the personal and conciliatory aspects of the Gospel message rather than on its political and conflictual dimensions" (49). Gutierrez encourages us to rethink the Christian life and examine how such personal, private emphases have shaped the Church. He asserts that it is not possible to think about or belong to the Church without considering the political dimension.

Becoming Sinners

Yesterday was the last day of my global Christianity class, and I am oh-so-sad about it. I feel like I learned so many valuable things from that class, and actually what will probably be one of my more memorable experiences at Wheaton occurred in this class.

Last week, we had our final discussion of one of our readings, Becoming Sinners: Christianity and Moral Torment in a Papua New Guinea Society by Joel Robbins. Basically, it's about a society called the Urapmin who are evangelized by Australian conservative Baptist missionaries. Robbins details the cultural change that results, especially regarding the effects of dispensational theology and a strong emphasis on sin. The brand of Christianity that the Baptists brought was, according to Robbins, "harsh" and "morally demanding." In Urapmin culture, "moral transformation is the overriding preoccupation." Robbins' conclusion: The Urapmin are troubled. Living up to the moral standards and having a sin-free life weighs heavily on the Urapmin.

Seeing conservative Baptist Christianity in a Urapmin context helped me understand my own background better. In some ways, I feel that I too have been "troubled." The burden of sin weighs me down so much, as it does with a lot of Christians coming from this background. Why? Don't we preach grace? Perhaps not really. In my Christian Thought class, we have been learning about the doctrine of salvation. Dr. Treier emphasized that regeneration is not adding a "new" nature to the old "sinful nature." It is not making you into a two-natured person. If it were, we would be schizophrenic and fundamentally divided within ourselves. The question becomes, "Which nature will you feed?" In the end, this belief puts all the emphasis on yourself, a belief that is common among many evangelicals, i.e. Campus Crusade and John Piper.

I say Piper because, coincidentally, his "Freshwords" email recently dealt precisely with "the battle between the divided self." When I began reading it, I thought he was critiquing such a belief, but no, he was encouraging it. Piper does give a brief nod to grace in his closing thoughts, but most of the space is dedicated the idea of a divided self, such as:

The very concept of "self-control" implies a battle between a divided self. It implies that our "self" produces desires we should not satisfy but instead "control." We should "deny ourselves" and "take up our cross daily," Jesus says, and follow him (Luke 9:23). Daily our "self" produces desires that should be "denied" or "controlled."

I've been baptized twice. I know a lot of people who have been baptized multiple times. For some reason, it seems like the message of grace never really gets across to us. Once we hear a sermon about "which nature do you feed," and we realize we don't measure up, it's back to the baptistry, just to make sure.

What does this have to do with my memorable experience? Well, most people in class did not have the type of background with a truly Reformed emphasis on grace. After we discussed a bit what grace really is, and after praying for us troubled Americans and for the troubled Urapmin, I looked around the room at my fellow believers. There were sniffles and hardly a dry eye. It was sort of a freeing moment, when we truly "got" the meaning of grace. We're never going to get to the point where we always "choose the right nature." We're sinners, but there's grace for us. I--and it seems like quite a few other Christians--need that reminder a lot.

Hybridized

In light of the reading I've been doing for a paper about liberation theology, I have been doing a lot of thinking about capitalism and the American church. I was raised to believe that capitalism is the only way to go. I never knew until recently the grave injustices that occur as a result of this system. Why is that? Shouldn't the church be the place where the voiceless have a voice, where we get energized to fight for justice?

A friend here at Wheaton who is from Barbados (meaning she has a valuable perspective on Christians here in the US) pointed out something very interesting about the American church. We were discussing in class what is hybridization of cultures, and my friend sees hybridization occurring with US Christians. A large part of the Christians here so embrace capitalism (and democracy for that matter), that it seems almost sinful to have another view--even to discuss another view at times. For many, being a Christian is equivalent to supporting capitalism and democracy. There's no other option.

But Shane Claiborne, of The Simple Way, challenged us in chapel today to see our conversion experience--being "born again"--as a rebirth that demands redistribution. Yes, Jesus said you must be born again. Look at how evangelicals have latched on to that phrase. Jesus also said sell your possessions and give to the poor. Why haven't we latched on to that phrase, too? John the Baptist preached repentance. He also said whoever has two tunics should share with someone who has none, and likewise with food. Let's see, capitalism to me seems like gettin' a bunch of tunics, and if someone doesn't have any, then those with a lot of tunics say they are lazy and should instead work hard and reap the benefits of our wonderful system. Claiborne quoted Dorothy Day: If we have 2 tunics, we've stolen one, because there are those going without.

I've not had a good response from some of my fellow affluent Christians when I try to bring in a perspective like liberation theology. How did capitalism and Christianity become so intertwined? How did the gospel become "hybridized" with a system like capitalism?

From Bruderhof's Daily Dig:
"Men pray to the Almighty to relieve poverty. But poverty comes not from God’s laws—it is blasphemy of the worst kind to say that. Poverty comes from man’s injustice to his fellow man." --Leo Tolstoy