Giving Jesus New PR

Last week, after finding out I passed my thesis defense, and finishing lesson plans, I excitedly rented a red Nissan Versa from Hertz Rent-A-Car on Saturday morning, and headed down to downtown Austin.

When I first moved to Waco, I was incredibly excited to realize how close I am to Austin, TX, and consequently, two fantastic music fesitvals: South by Southwest (SxSW) and Austin City Limits (ACL). Without a good monetary justification (ie, I was raising money for India) in September, I was unable to attend ACL, but, I found myself well funded and with enough free time, to make it down for the second to last day of SxSW.

What is SxSW, you ask? Basically, it is one of the largest indie music and film festivals in the world. Lasting about a week, hundreds of bands from all over the country (and world) converge on Austin to meet with record labels, showcase new music, and, well, party. Films are also premiered during this week - this year MacGruber, the newest SNL based movie, was the big premier, last year was (500) Days of Summer (one of my favorite movies, ever). Basically, it's a big festival, meant to create conversations on what is happening in the business of entertainment.

My only previous experience with major music festivals is Life Light, the largest free Christian music festival in the United States. Life Light is squeaky clean, polished evangelical Christianity. No smoking. No swearing. The teenagers there are often respectful, and the merchandise tent was chock full of Jesus memorabilia, what a lot of "insiders" in Christian pop culture would call "Jesus junk." Like I said, squeaky clean, packaged, safe, Christianity.

A large part of my life for 8 years, Life Light shaped a lot of my views toward art and music in general. Unfortunately, I have spent much of my higher education life reworking a lot of that view. A book I began reading today, Rapture Ready! by Daniel Radosh, examines Christian pop culture from an outsider (in fact, Jewish) perspective. He states that a lot of Christian rock musicians are considered primarily ministers first and musicians second, which creates an odd tension between how much they evangelize, and, sometimes, how many times they mention Jesus in a song, and whether or not they're producing worthwhile music. For a very long time, it didn't matter what the quality of music was - it just matter whether or not they were "praising Jesus!"

I feel like I have been in musical therapy in erasing that mindset.

I still feel a little cringe of guilt when I skip over KLOVE when scanning through the radio, though I no longer have a problem listening to David Bazan, who is known for such lyrics as "God bless the man who stumbles, God bless the man who fails, God bless the man who yields to temptation" and "...you were too busy steering the conversation toward the Lord to hear the voice of the Spirit, begging you to shut the f--- up."

Going to SxSW, it seems, was another part of that therapy.

Now, I don't want you to get the wrong message here. I am not saying that I am any more enlightened than my more conservative counterparts who attend Life Light and listen to KLOVE. What I am (let's put a name on it) testifying to here is a change in my personal spiritual life, not something that is necessarily true for all people, though I believe it is reflected in a large part of my generation.

Some people are fine and happy listening to music that is all worship, all the time.

I am not. And it has taken me years to realize that.

For years, I listened to what I was told was good because, frankly, I didn't know any better. I couldn't make myself listen to music with curses in it - during a particularly righteous phase my freshman year of college, I deleted all the Green Day off of my computer because some of the songs had swearing. If the song wasn't immediately about Jesus - or wasn't a peppy clean song I could dance to, like something from The Beach Boys - I didn't listen.

6 years later (my goodness, it's been that long?!), I find myself standing at the back of a bar in Austin, TX, dancing along as Frightened Rabbit performs "Keep Yourself Warm," surrounded by drunk or getting there people, and not caring.

Is this enlightenment? No, not necessarily. Is it an improvement? I think so.

I texted a friend from back home on Saturday, telling him that SxSW was like Life Light, only 4 times big, and with copious amounts of alcohol, smoking and cursing. And free food. SxSW is, for the most part, unabashedly unChristian. Bands swear from stage, smoke and drink backstage, and as the movie A Knight's Tale put it quite nicely, "committing all the oldest sins in the newest ways."

While I was frequently surprised by what I saw - Austin is a really weird town, truth be told - I appreciated it as well. I actually really enjoyed myself because not only was I seeing some bands I happened to admire (She & Him, for one), but there was a sense of realness about a lot of the bands and people. People walked around basically unashamed of themselves and their own personalities, not afraid to let opinions fly (especially from the stage) regardless of whether they offended or not. They were often original, real, and strikingly unique.

Part of what enrages me about Christian popular culture is the number of things that I find that are simply co-opts of secular culture, often done in poorer quality. A few examples of this include "All the Holy Ladies," "Christians in da Club," and "I Can't Believe It" (now with autotune!). We are so concerned with creating something squeaky clean that we have forgotten about making something genuinely good.

Now, I'm not writing this blog to simply poke fun at all the "Christian" versions of secular culture because, as Radosh points out, imitators appear in secular culture as well (think of the way similar bands tend to come out at the same time: Britney and Christina, Good Charlotte and Simple Plan, John Mayer and Jason Mraz, Vanessa Carlton and Michelle Branch). It would be far too easy to just spend my time poking fun at these imitations, and not look at the outlying ramifications from Christianizing an already existing form of art.

Think about a painting.

Let's take, for example, one of my favorites: Van Gogh's Golden Wheat Field:

It's a beautiful, original work of art, beautiful in part, because of the way the Creator knows his work, knows his art, and sought to do something original. Van Gogh sought to portray his own image of this particular field, at this particular time, and as a result, we have a beautiful, bright, enchanting piece of art.

Now think of what an imitation would look like. It would be someone trying to make Van Gogh's style, but something would be missing. It wouldn't have that originality, that panache, that original sense of beauty that the first one has. It might be, technically speaking, a very good replica. But there is something intangible missing in the masterpiece.

It is merely a replica, and not the real thing.

This is how I feel about a lot of Christian art. A lot of it feels like someone took an original idea from secular culture, dipped it in a vat of Jesus cleanser, and came up with their own version. And that is how a lot of non-believers see it as well. When a band comes out that is marketed as "the Christian version of Linkin Park," they end up creating a name for themselves as an imitator, not as an artist in their own right.

As I walked from party to party on Saturday, trailing my friends Althea and Will - both fellow India travelers, and both, incidentally, non-believers - I realized that what we in Christian culture need to do is not to sanitize secular culture so that it is "Positive and Safe for the Whole Family!" but create something so wholly compelling that it expresses to the non-believer a realness about ourselves.

Blogger and author, Matthew Paul Turner, writes of this in the opening chapter to his newest book, Hear No Evil. He overhears a conversation in a coffee shop in Nashville between a new Christian musician and a record executive, discussing an upcoming showcase. In the course of the conversation, the musician - with spiked hair, punk rock clothing, and a distinctly fake aura - comments about how they need to create something real and honest in their stage show, so that they can be appear vulnerable to the audience. Turner writes: "So many of us Christians are all about being vulnerable, especially when we're on stage, dressed up in a costume and wearing makeup, putting on a performance we consider 'a means to an end.'"

Bingo.

We have let our desire to convert, our desire to sanitize, Christianize, and Jesus-ify everything we do that we have forgotten the most important part of the Gospel: heart. We have forgotten to be real about ourselves, about our struggles, about our problems, about the times that we don't believe, because, for some reason, we think we'll be judged by not only outside culture, but by our own brothers and sisters as well.

Throughout the day at SxSW, I was hanging out with Althea, Will and Althea's boss, Chris. Chris didn't know me from Eve, but was still kind and friendly toward me, offering to buy me a drink to celebrate my thesis, and giving me his coat when he noticed I was cold. After about 3 or 4 hours of hanging out, the topic of faith finally came up, and Althea told Chris that I am a professing Christian. Instead of saying, "Oh, I never would have guessed!" or "Wow, what are you doing in a place like this?" Chris opened up about where he's sitting in his faith - he openly and honestly told me that he attends church for his children, and doesn't really have a faith of his own.

My 18 year old self (one who probably would have ditched SxSW three hours before), would have taken that opportunity to rattle off the gospel, tell him he needs a personal relationship with Jesus and that's what he needs to do to save his soul.

My 24 year old self...listened. As we walked down the street, I nodded in agreement and told him I understood, and that everyone is at different places in their faith walk, and sometimes, doing it for someone else is, well, what we do.

Because I didn't try to take his culture and subvert it into my own, because I was willing to come to his area and love what he loves and experience what he experiences, I feel like I was more real. I didn't come away from that conversation wondering whether I should have evangelized, beating myself up for not having a tract on me. I just came away hoping that I had given him a little slice of a Christian who's not a ranting and rambling evangelical who cringes at every swear word and yells at anti-abortion rallies. A Christian who is, surprisingly, like him. Just with a different outlook.

I believe that we all need to strive for authenticity. And I am not holding myself up as a paragon of this - I fail a lot in being real, but I believe I'm getting better. If we drop the idea that there are separate worlds, and that we somehow need to create a safe culture for ourselves, we'll find ourselves marketed differently - as real, authentic, loving people, not just caricatures in the media. We can be a real Jesus to a real hurting world, simply by stepping back from our own sanitizing cleanser and getting our hands dirty once in a while.

We can give Jesus new PR.
________________

The following are some examples of bands I feel are doing a good job of giving Jesus new PR. This is by no means a comprehensive list, but merely a starting point if you want to get some new ears for original, authentic music.

mewithoutYou
Derek Webb
The Civil Wars
David Bazan
Switchfoot
Sufjan Stevens

And I must give credit: Matthew Paul Turner is where I hijacked the whole giving Jesus new PR idea. Follow him on Twitter @JesusNeedsNewPR.

Obamacare: An Attempted Christian Response

I said I don’t comment on politics very often, and I try not to, mainly because I lean liberal and don’t want to put any one off with my political views. I have had both conservatives and liberals agree with things I’ve said on this blog, and I want to keep it bipartisan in an effort to bring people together under the banner of Jesus’ love and for learning ways we can act as a church community and individuals in the here and now, rather than devolving into party line bickering. As a result, I’ve refrained from direct political commentary in a lot of respects, though, after reading several of my blogs, one would probably get the sense of some of my political stances.

There is one debate that is on the lips of every (even remotely politically active) person as of late, as a result of the House of Reps’ actions on Sunday night. At this point, since 1. A few people have asked me my opinion and this is the best format to create and display my argument, and 2. I feel like I cannot refrain from commentary on this issue, especially since Christians on both sides are heavily and emotionally divided, I have decided to post. Therefore, consider this my comprehensive post on what is colloquially called “Obamacare.” I have tried to cover every aspect of the debate that I have encountered, and therefore this entry is extremely long. I trust, however, that you will take the time to read and consider what I have to say on each of the issues (the specific ones of which I have put into headings).

Brew yourself a cup of fair trade tea, sit back, and try to have an open mind to what I have to say.

What Do We Want in a Debate

There has been a lot of mud and poop flung by people on both sides of the health care debate, along party lines, along the rich-poor gap, along age and gender lines as well. This morning, as I sat down to my devotions, I thought about my goals in debating. Having been a debater in high school, and a naturally competitive youngest child – the only sister to two older brothers – my goals in debate are not usually to find the truth. I will be honest about that. In the shower this morning, I turned the health care debate over and over in my head, thinking of different ways I could win, different arguments I could put down on page that were, prima facie, logically sound and hard to beat. Rather than searching for truth, I found myself wanting to win.

And it is something many of our representatives in Congress need to realize as well. I think we have stopped looking at this issue as “how to make this better” and instead started looking at it as “how I can win this debate. Both sides seem to have forgotten the common ground that this debate began with: That the health care system needs reform. There are 30 million (that’s 1 in 10) Americans uninsured, which results, often, in preventable and unnecessary death, rising health care costs, and what is generally agreed to be a broken system. Believe it or not, both sides agreed on this, in the beginning.

What the true disagreement is about is one of philosophy: how involved should the government be in fixing the problem? Essentially, if I may water down the debate to simple terms, conservatives tend to be in favor of a free market system which doesn’t have government infringement on company policies and balks at governmental regulation of industry. Liberals, on the other hand, see the government involvement as necessary in order to protect the people from being trampled on by big business.

As a result, one side sees government regulation/involvement in the health care industry as a necessary solution, and the other as an unnecessary infringement on basic human rights.

I have struggled for a long time about where a Christian, especially a social justice advocating Christian, fits into this spectrum of belief. In recent months, I’ve heard tossed around the saying: “When I feed the poor and help them, you call me a saint. When I ask why they are poor, you call me a communist.” While trite, I think what this statement does is sums up a lot of the feeling on the liberal social justice end of things, and happens to be where I fall.

A Kingdom Orientation

Let me explain for a moment. Jesus, when he came to earth as the Incarnation of the one true God, did not merely heal the poor, though it was a large part of his ministry. He also spent much of his time calling out church authorities that helped create the poor in the first place. He questioned the structure, which, at that time, was heavily integrated with the government. Keep in mind that when the Jewish authorities wanted to get rid of him, the issue did not merely remain as part of the church, but went to the governmental authorities of the area. While Jesus said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s,” he also spoke up against oppression by particularly church authorities, and reigning governmental authorities.

Jesus spoke continually of the “kingdom of God” or the “kingdom of Heaven,” using phrasing that called into the minds of his followers not a violent overthrow of the government that posits Jesus as the bloody Caesar ruling over all, but a following of peacemakers that has kingdom of heaven priorities for the oppressed and the poor. That doesn’t mean entirely separating oneself from the government as a Christian, but instead, acting not to oppress others with one’s theology, but speaking out against those strictures that create oppression in the first place.

This is how I try to view politics. I question those structures which create oppression – in this case, the current insurance system, which allows the child born with asthma to not get coverage – and do what I can to reform them, or, if need be, peacefully fight against them. Martin Luther King, Jr., writes in his Letter from a Birmingham Jail:You deplore the demonstrations taking place in Birmingham. But your statement, I am sorry to say, fails to express a similar concern for the conditions that brought about the demonstrations. I am sure that none of you would want to rest content with the superficial kind of social analysis that deals merely with effects and does not grapple with underlying causes. It is unfortunate that demonstrations are taking place in Birmingham, but it is even more unfortunate that the city's white power structure left the Negro community with no alternative.” He saw, at the heart of his mission, the need to question the overall structure that oppressed his people.

As a follower of Jesus, the poor are my people, and I have to question a structure – whether it be government or Big Insurance – that oppresses the people.

Hopefully the preceding clarifies some of my view. I see it as perfectly within (and eventually an obligation of) the rights of a Christian to question government tactics, and to question the systems in which we live, especially if they are systems that create oppression. This is something I hope Christians on both ends of the political system can agree with – we have a right and obligation as Christian to respond to oppressive authorities, whether that be governments or insurance companies.

Health Care Reform Itself (Click for a brief summary of what is actually in the bill!)

In a vote late Sunday night, the House of Representatives passed one of the largest and most gigantic pieces of reform legislation of recent years. Obama and his staff/Congress have been debating heavily about this issue essentially since the day Obama was sworn into office (and before, during election season).

In the course of the debate, Republicans made a singularly disastrous move: They refused, from the beginning, to compromise, to deal with the Obama administration on what should go into Health Care Reform. It was a decision made strictly along party lines, and essentially destroyed any possibility that this would be a [relatively] smooth process. Instead, the debate became embroiled in slurs, name calling, poor characterization of opponents on both sides, and imprecations of character.

The debate divided along party lines and became much more about winning than finding a solution.

In that sense, this was the wrong time to attempt health care legislation, or at least a package so large. With the amount of misinformation, internet rumors, and yelling and crying pundits, this would have been a battle at any time, but to have it be the first major piece of legislation for a president, in war time, during a recession, was a poor decision. In my opinion, Obama should have made moves to end the war in Iraq, and establish himself as a peaceful president, rather than embroiling himself in a health care battle right out of the gate.

That said, I don’t have a lot of problems with the legislation itself. The current system of privatized health insurance leaves millions uninsured, unable to pay for necessary medications, and often suffering unnecessarily. “Pre-existing conditions” result in health care costs being hiked up, or people unable to find good coverage because they are already sick. Pharma companies make people pay $600/month for medication that costs $10 to make.

The current system is built around making money, around the profit margin, and not around serving people or helping them in their illness.

This is a problem. When a system becomes more concerned about a material object – making a profit – than it is about human life, there is a problem. As Christians, this is a fundamental flaw in our capitalistic system I believe we need to question: It’s all well and good to exercise your inventiveness, your cunning, and your skills as a businessman. I’m fine with that part of capitalism – I think it’s great and right to encourage people to be the best that they can be. But, as a Christian, I have a problem with a system that naturally oppresses those who are not good enough. Those with skill should turn around and help those without. Instead, American capitalism has become about whether or not I can make a dime off of your suffering, to put it bluntly. At least, that’s how it is in the insurance industry works (and numerous insider testimonies corroborate this idea).

In this sense, the health care reform recently passed by the House is a good idea. It will eventually (by 2014) eliminate the problems of pre-existing conditions, put caps on what insurance companies can charge, and stops insurance companies from dropping you from their coverage when you get sick.

Now, is all this government involvement a bad thing? Again, this brings us back to a debate on philosophy: Should the government get involved in the regulation of the free market? Well…the American health insurance industry is one of the few industries NOT regulated by the government. Think of it this way: the insurance company puts out a product – insurance coverage for medical care – and the government is seeking to make sure that is safe for the American consumer. In the same way, there are government regulations on our food, on the cars we drive, on the toys we give our children, and on public education. Government involvement, then, is nothing new. This is simply regulation of a business that has, in many respects, gotten out of control.

BUT IT TAKES AWAY MY FREEDOM!

This is where (if it hasn’t already), this debate is going to turn heated. I’ve heard a lot of yelling and crying about how “this legislation is going to take away my freedom!” “We’re going to be no better than those socialist countries over in Europe!” and “It’s positively un-American!”

First, I want you to walk away for a moment, take out a sheet of paper and write down all the things you think America is about. This is a big question, but it needs to be asked: What, precisely, do we mean when we say that something is un-American? What, exactly, is an American way of doing things?

Have you done that? Do you have a good idea in your head about what is or is not American? Can you picture that in your head, with a red, white and blue flag waving behind it, stars and stripes forever, etc.

Now think about America as it is.

Does your picture include executives lining their pockets with money from soaring insurance premiums?

Does it include the mother who has to take her asthmatic child to the ER because they couldn’t afford a simple inhaler?

Does it include the 23 year old involved in an accident with a drunk driver who is now going to be in debt for years to come because of medical bills?

Regardless of what we want America to be, this is what America is. We have let insurance companies who are concerned mostly about profit take our money and hold us in a tight grip of worry about our prescription coverage, our ER visits, and our preventative care.

Does this fit with your picture of a free America?

Now, I know the counter argument: Governmental health care is no better – it takes away my freedom of which doctor I can visit and when, etc. It’s on a slippery slope to socialism.

I’d like you to scroll back up and read through the Reuters summary of the HC legislation again. If there is a point where it requires you to leave your private insurance plan (probably provided by your employer) in order to take the so-dubbed governmental Obamacare?

It’s not in the bill.

As much as Glenn Beck, et al, would like us to believe, this plan, while large, is far from a socialist take over of the government. The major tax hikes come on the optional service of tanning beds (because they up peoples’ chances of getting skin cancer immensely), on people who earn $200,000 or more a year, and redistributes tax dollars to subsidize a governmental health care plan for those who are fall under 400% of the poverty line (for information on the federal poverty line, look here).

Ahaha! REDISTRIBUTION! That’s SOCIALIST! AND SOCIALISM IS BAD.

Not quite.

Let’s take a look at our definitions of socialism. Socialism is an economic policy mandating that any wealth one makes be taken by the government and given to the poorer neighbor, commonly referred to as redistribution of wealth. Socialism and Communism have frequently been conflated (much thanks to Glenn Beck and compatriots for that one), but the first is an economic system, and the second is a governmental system. While they do, frequently, go hand in hand, neither is occurring with this legislation, nor will occur. The redistribution of taxes merely pushes the money that was already coming into the federal government in a different direction. It doesn’t, except for the wealthiest, take necessarily any new money in.

You’re already subsidizing someone else’s health care costs on the current system. The only difference is it’s through a private business that is concerned about making money, rather than through the federal government that is concerned, one would hope, about the health of its people. If I am uninsured, get sick, and am unable to pay for care, the hospital passes that cost along to other insurance companies, which then pass along the cost to you, the consumer, by way of higher premiums and less coverage. You’re already subsidizing the cost of the poor and uninsured through the premiums you pay to insurance. NPR’s This American Life did a great podcast about this a few weeks back – have a listen.

But what about the requirement that you have health care? That’s heavy governmental involvement! The requirement that each person be on health care, whether or it be the governmental plan, which is determined by necessity of income level, or through private plans (which are NOT eliminated as a option, contrary to popular opinion), is a definite mark of government involvement in one’s life.

But I ask you: how is this different than mandated minimum coverage on your car? The reason the state mandates that is because, if you get in an accident and you aren’t covered, the cost of those repairs gets passed on to other people (ironically close to the current health insurance system, eh?). Governmentally mandated auto insurance ensures that the cost and penalty for failure to have basic coverage will remain with the individual responsible, rather than passing the cost along to someone else. Hmm, sounds a lot like “personal responsibility” to me…

Why do we care more to insure a material possession than the health of our bodies, something ultimately much, much more important?

Okay, okay, I hear the counter argument now: Governmentally mandating this coverage is wrong. If that’s wrong, than you have to be willing to argue that governmental regulation on ANYTHING is wrong. That means you have to be okay with handing your child a toy that hasn’t been inspected and doesn’t meet safety standards. You have to be okay with eating food that hasn’t passed an inspection and doesn’t have a governmentally mandated expiration date. You have to be okay with attending a college or high school with teachers who haven’t been certified to teach, and may tell you completely wrong information.

Extreme examples? Sure. But they are examples of governmentally regulated industry in everyday life. This bill simply extends already existing governmental regulation to health care and the health insurance industry. It’s good to know that, even if I fall in dire straits after I have children, my kids will still be covered, even if it is by a governmental plan.

But, but, ABORTION?

Ah, we have finally reached the source of much controversy and problems. Are my tax dollars going to pay for abortions?

In the new exchanges market set up by the bill – a plan that allows one to select which insurance policies to buy or not (private plans vs. governmental), and allows people to shop around more – there are two policies that are offered: one with abortions and one without. The new language inserted into the bill this weekend mandates that those who choose the abortion policy, even if it is the plan subsidized by the federal government, must pay a small surcharge, with funds that are kept separate from the overall policy. So yes, the plan allows abortions – that’s a debate that won’t be settled any time soon – but with the new language, the money is kept in separate areas. It might be a “bookkeeping exercise,” as some Republicans have called it, but it’s an important one.

Your federal tax dollars do not fund abortion, something that Obama is drafting an executive order to insure (see above link). It’s been pretty well settled.

Conclusion?

After 7 pages (typed in MS word) of my coverage on this bill, it’s a little hard to sum up, but I’ll try.

Essentially, it goes like this: [1] The Republicans cut themselves off from having a reasonable voice when they declared they wouldn’t compromise. [2] This was probably the wrong time to launch the bill, but what’s done is done. [3] The current system is broken and oppressive, something that Christians on either side need to realize and act upon. [4] Governmental regulation is nothing new. We are not on a slippery slope toward socialism. This plan is not a governmental take over of health care. Private plans are still offered and available, and will hopefully be, in fact, better. [5] Socialism is not going to be the result. Indeed, socialism has been used mostly as a way of scaring a lot of the older generation, but when the specifics of the bill are examined, there isn’t much that one could point to as socialist. [6] Your federal tax dollars are not going to fund abortions. Period.

I don’t support the way the Dems went about getting this legislation out there (it created much more divide and part of the blame for the lack of compromise lies squarely on their shoulders as well), and it will be interesting to watch it be implemented, but I am, overall, excited that 30 million people are going to be able to get affordable coverage now, and that the insurance industry will be reigned in.

It is not perfect, but it is not going to destroy America either. If anything, it will make us better because it will show that we do, indeed, care for the least of these, and that, indeed, is admirable above all.

Special Announcement

I know, I know, I've posted a lot this week.

But if you'll allow me a post to be slightly self-indulgent, I would like to celebrate some recent events in my life with you all!

For those of you who didn't already know, I am in my second year of a Master of Arts program at Baylor University. This is a thesis-track program, meaning that instead of a large test, I write a long paper. Much like a dissertation on a smaller scale, the thesis requires review by a committee, ending in a nerve-wracking event known as a thesis defense. I've spent the semester thus far writing 90 pages of academic critique on Harry Potter.

Yes, you read that right. Harry Potter. My thesis is titled "Harry Potter and the Search for a Church: Spiritual Community and Sacrificial Love in J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter Series." Basically, I propose that the wizarding community functions like a church, with love as the higher power. I had a great time writing it, and if you want to read it, I'm perfectly happy to send it along - it won't be available online until about September.

On Monday of this past week - yes, on the Ides of March - I had my thesis defense. I was extremely nervous going in - I think one of my tweets from right before it reads "I'm going to throw up" - but soon relaxed and had a good time answering questions about my work. I enjoy talking about Harry Potter more than almost any other book (though I do love my Cormac McCarthy, too), and, as you know, I love talking about theology, so discussing the Trinity, church community, sin, etc. My defense was actually...fun!

Judging by that reaction, you can bet that I passed. Indeed, tomorrow, I am going over to the graduate school to turn in the last forms that I have to in order for final approval for graduation. May 15th, 2010, I will be walking across the stage to receive my MA.

WOOHOO!

Also, I received my contract for my Japan job, which makes that even more official than it already was. Now it's just the visa process, airplane ride, and packing/etc. Goodness.

I lead an absolutely insane life. Period.

Interview with a Trafficker

One thing abolitionists like myself frequently wonder is what it would be like to talk to a trafficker, to hear their side of the story, what could make them enslave one of their fellow human beings, terrifying them and subjecting them to some of the worst terrors. A new documentary has given us that opportunity. Here is a section that is an interview with a trafficker from South Africa who is on the run, not from authorities, but from his own old trafficking ring. What he has to say about 1. The church's role, and 2. The demand created by the World Cup, is important and sobering.

I apologize that parts of it are hard to read, but it's captioned with a weird font and it moves quickly, so you may have to pause occasionally to keep up with what he's saying. It's 7 minutes worth watching. Also, warning: somewhat graphic descriptions of violence are used. Not for the faint of heart.

Glenn Beck and Social Justice

I occasionally pay attention to what Glenn Beck has to say. My reasoning for doing so, I admit, more often than not, is of a less noble quality than one could expect. It is often a "know thine enemy" kind of keeping my eye on him, more than anything else.

I frequently find his rambling and thoughts on politics rather incoherent, but that could also be chalked up to the fact that I don't like to listen to his fear-mongering - a calm, reasoned, steady tactic could make what he says seem much more reasonable. I often feel that he is trying to scare people into agreeing with him by conflating thoughts of the Democratic party with Nazism, Communism, and everything his Cold-War generation audience finds "evil." This continued flippancy toward reasonable discussion has caused me to write him off altogether, something I admit should not be done by people who sincerely want to find common ground between two sides (translation: I'm not always the best as trying to find common ground).

This week, however, he said something that forced me to pay attention. [For audio of the clip, look to the bottom of the previously linked article]. Basically, he tells Christians who watch his show to leave their churches if they have a social justice agenda.

Now, something like that has to be taken out of context.

Nope. Unlike what happens to a lot of pundits (both conservative and liberal) in this soundbite culture, his words were not taken out of context. He really said and meant that he wants people to leave their churches.

Now, I haven't done a whole lot of commenting on political things for a reason - I believe Jesus is apolitical (Democrats and Republicans are inventions of the 20th century, and therefore can't be applied to a first century prophet and the divine Lord). But Beck is stepping into my arena, here, and I feel forced to come out of the corner and fight back.

I've often said that social justice is the end result of taking Jesus' command to "love your neighbor" into action in one's life. One cannot respond to what Jesus calls "the second greatest commandment" (the first being "love the Lord your God") without possibly taking steps to make the lives of those around you better.

Now, in this current political climate, I will admit that this makes me a liberal. But I am liberal only in the sense that I believe the staid conservative stance on the poor, on the homeless, on homosexuality, on the death penalty, on war, and on capitalism to be diametrically opposed to what I believe is right. The conservative stance of "it's your own damn fault" (what is often termed "personal responsibility") is not something I necessarily deny -- I do admit that there are often cases when the person in a problematic situation is there because of poor choices that they have made in their life.

But our reaction to that, our response to people who are in hurting situations, needs not be a pointing of the finger, and telling them to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Our reaction, like Jesus' to many of the people he met in his time, can say to them that "I don't care where you come from, but I do care where you are headed now. And I will help you with that." Jesus looked at the Samaritan woman at the well without judging her, and offered her the water of eternal life. Jesus looked at the tax collectors, the lepers, and the prostitutes and welcomed them into the kingdom, regardless of their past. It's kind of, y'know, the point behind the gospel: "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8, emphasis mine).

"Social justice"/"Economic justice" is at the heart of this gospel. Loving your neighbor means not judging them for the decisions they have made, and if they need a cloak, handing yours over. Loving your neighbor means helping them get food if they have none to eat. Loving your neighbor means listening to their story, letting them feel like a person again. Loving your neighbor may mean, every so often, voting for a policy or a politician who has helping the hurting at heart - even that means that s/he has a "D" or an "I" by his/her name.

Glenn Beck has transplanted his politics into the church scene, much like the ridiculous project Conservapedia, when it should be the other way around. Taking the idea of loving your neighbor - which, at its heart, begins with Jesus - seriously and deeply means that, fundamentally, things change. It's not so much that I am voting for Democrats, but much more that I am voting against policies that work to trample our neighbors under our feet more and more.

Glenn Beck, your advice is beyond ridiculous. For Christians to abandon churches that preach social justice means for them to abandon the purpose of the church itself. And anyone who can do so at the cry of a pundit yelling in front of a chalkboard on one of several 24 hour news networks is more in need of a right-minded church than anyone preaching social justice. It saddens me and disheartens me that you would bring politics into something that is so far beyond the small world you have confined yourself in. You are a small man yelling at the wind, a King Lear standing naked before the storm, and I feel deeply sorry for you. I hope that the church can learn to respond to you in a way that loves our neighbor, in precise dichotomy to your "preaching."

Church, we have a great chance to respond here, to show the heart of the gospel for what it truly is. Angry letters and hate mail will only convince him that he is more and more right. Our response needs to reflect the love of Christ, the love that he showed even to his enemies, crying from the cross: "Father, forgive them." We have great opportunity here to clarify that, yes, this is what the church is about. This is what the entire ekklesia is built for. This is what we, as people made in God's image are made for - to love in great community, in hope, and in reconciliation.

Our nation is an interesting juncture, when the church has a great chance to become more than a fringe conservative movement. Let's step out and show the world what it means to "love thy neighbor as thyself."

___________

EDIT: For those of you looking to read some interesting further discussion of how Christians should respond to Glenn Beck's words and the philosophy behind them, and don't mind wading through message board forums, and some inane things, check [link removed] out. Beck also responded today, calling social justice "a perversion of the gospel." I must admit I am angered, frustrated, and saddened by the potential ramifications of his words. All Christians need to work out what they believe about the connection between the church and state as it will affect the future of our nation. The relation of church and state is not an esoteric problem, not one that can be simplified without undermining the issue at large, but a problem facing each and every American individual.

Are we going to let our government be a tool of oppression? Or a tool of good tidings? Are we going to let the government do what the church should be doing? We cannot have it both ways. We cannot say that the church and state should be separated and I should be allowed to practice my religion as I want, and then not pick up the torch of social justice. If the church does not do its job for the poor and suffering, then the government will, and we have forfeited our right to complain about "big government" if our complacency has allowed such tools of oppression as corporations (who use sweat shop labor), war, and lasseiz-faire (which functions based on the oppression of the poor and the rich getting richer) to proliferate. There is a link between our complacency about taking care of the poor in our world and governmental involvement in our lives.

If the church was doing its job, "big government" would not be a problem. There is a middle ground, but it requires members of the church to stand up, realize that parts of the system are wrong, and to FIX them. Beck's words at this point are entirely counterproductive - if we leave churches that are doing this work, if we weaken them, then big government ends up being the answer. And that's not what Glenn Beck wants, and, ideally, it is not what I want either. The church needs to stand up, take some "personal responsibility," and be willing to act as the eschatological, ecclessiological, salvific, reconciling body that it is. And until I see the church doing that on its own and effectively, I will continue to vote Democrat, continue to support legislation that takes care of the poor, and continue to support laws that protect the damaged against oppressors and demand peace, even if it means that "free enterprise" gets reined in and my taxes get a little higher.

For summary, this is a selection from one of the posts on the board I just linked to:

Just a few days ago I read an excerpt from Ron Sider's speech to the Mennonite World Conference in 1984, and in it he spoke about a particularly upsetting conversation he had with a respected Anabaptist minister. This minister, apparently, believed all that you and I do, in terms of Christians not being involved in the military, government, etc. However, he also apparently believed it was a good thing that the United States had nuclear capability, even to the point that he felt the US (at the time) should have stepped up this capability to meet the Soviet Union's! Sider implied sadness at this kind of thinking, as do I. It's similar to the kind of sadness I felt when I read an Anabaptist article criticising Martin Luther King for demanding civil rights for African-American people. To paraphrase his words in that excerpt I read, it's not enough for us to simply say that violence is wrong for Christians and okay for the state. We need to be unequivocally against violence in all its forms, and sometimes that does mean crying out against the empire for its abuses of human rights and dignity.

I think there comes a time, then, when Christians can't afford to disengage with Caesar and pretend that he isn't there, but I don't believe that necessarily equates to legitimising his authority. To look at it in a different way: just like pacifism demands some form of engagement with the oppressor, so does it too does the Christian political ethic demand some form of engagement with the state. The former scenario does not condone the violence which is waged, and so neither does the latter.

an edukation in passion

I've been watching a lot of movies lately. Partially on purpose, partially out of procrastination. Often, when I finish a large project, the first thing I want to do is veg out, not do anything for a couple of days, and relax. As a result, I spend a lot of time on the couch, watching movies and playing around on the internet.

Last night, I finished my thesis. I'm contemplating going back in and adding one more piece of evidence from book six in my chapter four, but besides that, it is essentially ready to send out. I defend in 11 days (on the 15th) and Spring break starts tomorrow. As a result, I, for once in my graduate education, have absolutely no pressing obligations on my time.

On Tuesday, I watched Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, the newest in the Harry Potter series (which reminded me of the section I need to add to my thesis), and last night I chose a foreign film called The Edukators.

The Edukators, or Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei, is a German film that takes place in modern day Berlin. Jan, Jule, and Peter are all anti-capitalist revolutionaries who call themselves "The Edukators." They spread their philosophy--educate people--by breaking into mansions in Berlin, rearranging the furniture, and leaving a note that says "Your days of plenty are numbered," or "You have too much money." They don't steal anything. They don't really break anything. They just give them the eerie feeling of someone else having been in their house, watching them, and watching how they spend.

It's an interesting concept, and while I can't condone breaking the law, even if it is in order to achieve a righteous end, I have to admit their philosophy and mine, to some extent, do align. That's what intrigued me the most about this movie--it broaches the idea of revolutionaries for social justice, and how well they can keep their passion going, their fire stoked.

Passion can sustain you for some time. It's good and right to be passionate about a cause, and to know that you won't waver, and that passion can inspire others to move with you. But as you try to mold your life more and more around that passion, as things begin to change, the weight of the system--capitalism, the Western culture, the selfish concern for money--can wear you down.

Suddenly you realize that you have to pay back your student loans you borrowed pursuing your love of art.

You realize that getting married and living with the love of your life means making your decisions as a team, having to compromise some things, and probably settling down in one place.

You have kids and love them dearly and want to give them the best life possible, so you start savings funds: you get a job that pays you the money you need even if the corporation's philosophy doesn't fit the one you espoused.

You realize that you've changed. You've played the game. And though you never wanted to, you are now one of the large capitalist pigs you had spent the days of your youth protesting.

This is precisely the progression of passion that the Edukators encounter. Through a series of mishaps, the group ends up hiding out in the mountains in Bavaria with one of the "rich men" they had attacked. In spending a week together, this man who has played the game, who makes $3.4 million Euros a year, tells them of his days back with the revolutionaries, reading Marx, smoking dope, and experiencing "free love." He knows that young passion all too well, and knows what it feels like when it fades, when you wake up in the morning and realize that you are the bourgeois you once protested.

The movie takes interesting twists and turns, so I'm not going to spoil it for you, but this idea of passion is what I want to discuss.

It's easy to get fired up about a cause.

To stay fired up is harder.

It's easy to hold up a sign for a day, to write an impassioned paper, to switch your buying habits for a couple of days.

To keep going, to sustain that movement forward, especially when it's a kind of "side project" is harder still.

It's easy to say, "yeah, we should love and care for the poor!" every day.

To believe it wholeheartedly is the hardest of all.

This is why I believe social justice to be one of the hardest things to maintain, why so many nonprofits start up and fail in the same year, why we're not hearing about Haiti anymore, and why the earthquake in Chile was greeted with a shrug. Why, after 9/11, we were so patriotic, so impassioned, so willing to reign in our culture, to be more modest, more careful, more loving...and also why now we seem to be back to the way we were. Why I see my friends switch from one cause to another like trying on clothes.

Passion is a sly mistress, and one that is not so trustworthy.

If you are relying only on your personal passion for an issue, your anger and rage at an injustice, your fight will not last long. All three of the Edukators are angry, enraged at the injustice that a rich man can wantonly ruin a young girl's life, that the system we work within is so broken that it crushes people under its great wheels. But when they're faced with problems, with things that threaten them, they make poor decisions, they run, they put themselves in dangerous situations.

Running on passion is like running on fumes - it sustains just long enough for you to make it to the next distraction.

Running on passion terrifies me.

The idea that, when I get older, and have a steady job, and am making enough money to pay the bills and (hopefully) have a husband and possibly kids, that I could lose my passion, that I could start justifying things...well, that's a very real possibility. And it scares me because I don't ever want to lose my passion for the disenfranchised, for the broken, for the poor, for the hurting. But it is, unfortunately, a reality that faces us 20-something, new to the real world, bright eyed, idealists.

The one thing I've learned so far is that your anger will fade. You will get desensitized to the issue. Like adjusting to living with bars on my windows here in Waco, you get to the point where you don't even notice it anymore. The trick is, before you get to that point where you don't notice the suffering, to turn your passion into conviction.

It's easy to inflame a passion because it's surface level. Now, I may be working with a definition of passion that you, my readers, are unfamiliar with - basically, what I mean by "passion" is that outrage, that initial emotional response that gets at the pathos of the issue, that responds with deep emotional love for one's neighbor. That's swell - one should always start off in passion because passion is what motivates us to change in the first place. There are times and places for outrage, but if one attempts to sustain a social justice career merely on anger, it will not last long.

A career sustained on love, however, love that extends out of a deep conviction of should and ought, not "feel like it" - that, my friends, is long lasting.

Let's redefine love. Love has become far too fluffy, far too dependent on how I feel today. Love is not that which is fleeting, it is not that sad pity that makes you hand the homeless man a dollar, it is not that anger that envelopes a discussion of white people sitting around and talking about the system.

Love is that motivation that says, "Even though I am late for this meeting, I will make sure that you have some food." It is that conviction that says, "I will vote in a way that helps alleviate the suffering around me, and not which saves me money." It is that deep, rumbling passion that never leaves us, that is always in the back of our mind saying each morning, "How will you respond to me today?"

There is a reason the Gospel message talks of loving your neighbor, and not of getting outraged on their behalf. There is a reason that Jesus only showed anger a couple of times, and was a loving servant to his friends hundreds of times. There is a reason that Paul, the apostle, tells us to look to love others first and foremost. There is a reason that James says that faith will develop into works, because once one has taken deep, gracious love and turned it into a conviction, it is impossible not to respond.

The Edukators were running on passion. Seeing the possibility of the future terrified them, and for a time it terrified me. But instead of choosing to trust in my outrage, in realizing that my passion may not always inflame others to act, instead of reacting emotionally to everything and relying on that to sustain me, I choose instead to act in the conviction that love can and will change things.

Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. - Romans 12:9

Note: in the above picture, the painting on the wall reads, in German, "Every heart is a revolutionary cell."

Meatless Mondays (And Tuesdays. And Wednesdays. And...)

"Lisa! I could never be a vegetarian! I like the taste of death too much!" - Bart Simpson

I tried to put on an old pair of jeans today, and realized that, without a belt, I would soon be exposing myself to the world. Knowing that the world probably didn't want to see that, I opted to switch them out for another pair of jeans that are a size smaller.

I've evidently lost a little weight. Just under two weeks ago, I started a new diet - vegetarian. I haven't had meat (except on Sundays) for the last two weeks, and it's been an interesting adjustment.

I'll be honest, the first week, I felt terrible. I felt like I just couldn't get full, and at one point, I would have given my left eye for any sort of meat, even a Big Mac. And I *hate* Big Macs. I sent out a plea to my vegetarian friends, and after (an already planned) trip to Austin that included a stop at a Co-Op near UT to get some vegetarian and vegan products, my diet has balanced out.

Instead of eating mostly carbs - which was all I had - I've now added apples, salads, carrots and veggie-burgers/nuggets to my diet. As a result, I get to eat things that taste like meat, but are probably more nutritious for me. And on Sundays, I've been having delicious meat curry dinners (for the last two Sundays at least), so I've been ensured of protein nutrition on my days off.

But I'm not writing this blog to tell you about my woes and trials as a new vegetarian, though I could probably spend a lot of time talking about it. Not eating meat is such a new thing for me, but thinking about how my food gets to my plate is much more important.

Coming from South Dakota, I'm reasonably more familiar with the farming industry than most of urban America. I have a group of cousins who run a family farm just outside of Sioux Falls, and they are my family's main source of meat. Indeed, I don't think my family buys any beef products at the store anymore, because the bottom half of our large freezer (it's one of those large enough to fit a body in) is always lined with packages of steak and ground beef from my aunt Dianna and uncle Dave (and yes, I'm named after her).

In our late teen years, my farmer cousin who is two weeks older than me started his own little "crop" of chickens, raising them to eventually butcher and sell. From what I understand, he had a neat little business going, and it was a good skill for him to learn.

Family farmers are fast fading from the food market in America. In favor of efficiency, our farms have become bigger, and more resembling factories than they old image of the family farm anymore. What we see in the grocery store when shopping is hardly a representation of what actually happens.

In contrast to my cousins' farm, which holds pleasant memories of outdoor activities, cows roaming about within their pens, eating grass, and large fields of grain and corn, I also have the background image in my head of the John Morrell's factory on the Northeast side of Sioux Falls. Just north of Sioux Falls' famous Falls Park (which contains the city's namesake, the waterfalls of the Big Sioux River), the big white building has been a major employer of Sioux Falls residents for years and years. On days when the wind is right, the smell of meat can waft over a lot of the city, and often makes one want to cover his or her nose in disgust. I grew up with both of these images of the way of getting food, but never connected it to what I was putting into my body. This was probably because my parents' (along with most Americans) policy was just not questioning it.

I'm finally beginning to do just that: question. In thinking about how my clothes got to my closet, I'm also thinking about how my food got to my fridge. In going through the supermarket, we're presented with these images of farmers gazing over amber waves of grain, probably knowing each cow by name, and slaughtering them in the most humane way possible. I think if we really saw how our meat got to be boneless, skinless and HUGE, sitting in a neatly wrapped plastic tray in the frozen food section, we probably wouldn't like what we saw.

NOTE: Over the last few weeks, I've been reading Eating Animals by J.S. Foer, a book about factory farming and the stories we tell ourselves about our food. And last night, I watched "Food, Inc.", a film about the business of our food. If you want more information, pick up/watch either of these two things.

There were two things I learned in watching "Food, Inc." last night that I found particularly striking.

First, we've overproduced on corn. I'd heard of farmer subsidizing before, but never really knew what it meant. Essentially, the government has paid farmers for overproduction of crops, and corn is now being used and molded into thousands of different products everyday, high fructose corn syrup being the most common. Producing so much corn allows farmers to sell it at less than the price of production, creating an American corn market that does better than any other market in the world. When the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was signed into law, Mexican farmers couldn't compete with the cheap price of corn, and therefore were pushed out of jobs. Over a million Mexican farmers lost their farms to competition with the stronger American corn market. These leads me to point two:

The way the American food economy is run encourages human trafficking.

Follow me on this. When the Mexican farmers lost their jobs, lots of meat processing plants started advertising for jobs in America. Meat processing is one of the most dangerous jobs in existence today: the worker does the same action day in and day out, with sharp implements, and with high risk of injury. At the dirt cheap wages they are paid, and because they are not necessarily skilled, an injured worker can easily be replaced, like parts or cogs in a machine. In other words, it's a job perfectly primed for someone already off the radar, and thus with few legal rights -- the illegal immigrant. Some meat processing plants even set up a bus service to get immigrants to their factories from Mexico.

The most shocking thing I learned, however, was that the Smithfield pork factory (think Smithfield Hams, a longtime Christmas staple), apparently has a deal with local immigration authority to allow 15 worker arrests a day so that no major raids are conducted that hurt the production line.

The people bringing in the illegal immigrants are not being punished.

The people who are literally trafficking in workers for the factories go unpunished. We are subsidizing trafficking with the food that we eat. Why do these factories use undocumented workers? Hey, if the worker is undocumented, they have no rights to unionize, they don't have to provide insurance because the worker has no legal right to sue, and they can be paid what is easiest for the company, not what is best for the person.

All in the name of efficiency and cheap prices for the consumer.

I'll be honest, I'm not too big on animal rights. You'll never see me standing on a corner with a PETA sign, yelling about fur coats that people are wearing. I am, however, big on human rights, and, in the food industry, the two are interlocked. Farmers are under the thumb of corporations to keep their mouths shut about the food they produce. Undocumented workers are slicing apart the meat for your plate. Our market is causing fledgling markets in developing countries to collapse because it actually costs less to get food flown over from America than it does to buy local crops. There is a direct correlation between poverty and obesity in America because the cheapest foods are the most fattening, due to the overproduction and efficiency of fast food empires. Diabetes is on the rise, and showing up earlier and earlier.

So this morning, when I realized that my size 10 jeans no longer fit properly, I felt okay about that. It meant that my eating habits were probably getting healthier. I also noticed today that I feel better. Yesterday, I was able to concentrate for 3 hours on editing my thesis, and this morning, I graded three papers in a row (then took a break to write this). My energy level is already improving, and I feel a lot healthier.

Granted, the downside of this is that my grocery bill has gone up. What is normally about a $20-$25 trip shot up to $53 this last week, because I added veggie burgers, carrots and lettuce/salad dressing, along with a few other new items, this last week. The pricing as it stands is skewed toward the more unhealthy foods. It would be a lot easier to just buy 5 frozen pizzas at 90 cents each than it is to go select a good head of lettuce and some tofu.

I don't know how I can go about solving this problem, but not eating meat has already taught me a lot of different things, and I look forward to sharing more of them with you.