Seeing Systems: Resources

Posted this on FB, but thought I'd capture it over here too. Blessings yall!

Lots of political, economic, social, cultural type posts flying through my feed recently, lots more from my Christian friends than I'm used to seeing.

I'm feeling very grateful for that, actually. 

It implies that we as a people are beginning to see more clearly that belief systems (ours included) can never be isolated to individual piety -- the way we act in the world and the societies we create come out of the paradigms we hold. 

But reading the world is incredibly challenging. News outlets share and react to events, but rarely penetrate much deeper. So, even people who believe similarly often come out on different sides of issues. We're stuck asking, "What the heck is actually going on and what does being a follower of Jesus have to do with it?" The tendency is to focus in on these events and the individuals who are involved in them, pin blame somewhere, and try to solve problems that way. Unfortunately, most of us realize that isn't really making any progress...

With that in mind, I thought I'd share some resources on systems thinking that have been very helpful to me in attempting to think through what's going on in the world. The iceberg model below will get you started.

creds to the Donella Meadows Institute

If you are interested in learning more about how almost everything that matters in the world is composed of interrelated systems, here are a few helpful links:

1) Exceptional series of talks by systems guru Donella Meadows, this links to the first of four (she comes in around 6:00):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMmChiLZZHg

2) Article by Meadows on identifying leverage points in systems (i.e. how to we figure out how to create change on a systems level? the iceberg pic below is based on this article)
http://www.donellameadows.org/…/leverage-points-places-to-…/

3) The Center for Ecoliteracy has some helpful, straightforward systems explanations:
http://www.ecoliteracy.org/article/systems-thinkinghttp://www.ecoliteracy.org/…/seven-lessons-leaders-systems-…

4) Our minds are a system...here's how they work, and how to think more clearly about the world:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sfiReUu3o0

5) PBS partnered with some great folks to create a K-12 systems literacy program filled with videos and resource...tons of gold here
http://opb.pbslearningmedia.org/collection/systemsliteracy/

DISCLAIMER: The root word in radical--radic--means, you guessed it, "root." Systems thinking is a process for getting down to the root of things. When you do that, people will think you are a radical. And you might be, but if you do so in commitment to following Jesus yours will be a radicality of love, one that seeks the good of others, lifts up the marginalized and lays down self. 

5 Maps to Contextualize Discipleship (Part 2)

In the last post, I voiced my conviction that we cannot think about being Jesus' disciples outside of the concrete contexts we inhabit. I then introduced two "maps" to help us imagine our world. This post explores three more ways to view our contexts so that we can more faithfully follow our Lord and Savior.

3. Discipleship in the Three Dimensions of Social Location

How do we think of ourselves as a person in relation to any other person? Have you ever thought about that question? If you were to map humanity, how would you do it? Well, I'm sure there are a million ways to go about it, and many that would reveal things my graph does not. That said, I would like to propose one way I find helpful.

In the social matrix above, we can see that everyone has three different major characteristics.

1) Diversities ('x' axis):  In no particular order, we can list all the combinations of different kinds of people by gender, ethnicity, religion, age, etc.
2) Vocational Involvements ('y' axis):  Then we can list people by what they do and who they associate with. This could include organizing people by the sectors (public, private, nonprofit, community) they work in and/or volunteer with. It could also include the a persons social groups. Basically, we are trying to plot who a person's major areas of social connections.
3) Power ('z' axis):  Finally, everyone has different degrees of power in society mostly based on their job, economic status, relational connections, and/or political clout. Those with significant influence are plotted higher on the spectrum while those who are socially powerless would lie toward the bottom.

Why would we want this kind of social map? How, as Christians, do we evaluate what it shows us? We'll explore this in greater depth someday, but for now I will make two quick points.

First, Jesus radically reverses the way power works in our world. In the Kingdom, the poor inherit the world and the least servant becomes the greatest. Most dramatically, before the cross there is no power difference from one person to another. We are all equally in need of forgiveness and salvation. So, as we observe growing economic and political inequality, we have to throw up a red flag. Something is wrong with this picture.

Second, we have been tasked with the ministries of shalom and reconciliation. We are to heal the brokenness of the world and draw alienated people back into relationship with one another. As disciples who own this mission as ours, we can use this map to help us avoid becoming isolated in one narrow quadrant. Seeking peace in a divided world means connecting with diverse people and helping them connect compassionately with one another. The possibilities revealed in this little picture thrill me every time I look at it!

(though he moves in a slightly different direction, this graph was inspired by John Paul Lederach's amazing book The Moral Imagination: The Art and Soul of Building Peace)

4. Discipleship in the Body of Christ

I started to draw a couple different pictures for this one, but wound up poking so many holes in my own theories that I decided to not even try. Suffice it say that as a disciples, we do not follow after Christ alone. We journey with a community of other followers. Like Jesus, these partners walk with us at varying degrees of intimacy. Jesus had the disciple "whom he loved," the inner three (Peter, James and John), the twelve, others like Mary, Martha and Lazarus who were his close friends, the seventy two, and even the masses. This will be case for our own journeys as well.

Today, we typically have our local church community that we do life with, but there are also many other Christians in our local area. These too are our partners in the practice of faith. Particularly when we consider how to seek the peace of our neighborhoods and cities, we must do so in collaboration not competition with our brothers and sisters. Outside of our local geography, there is the global church community in all its diversity. We must consider what it means to be a disciples within a church of many theological traditions, denominations and cultural expressions.

Someday, we will come back around to pondering this context of discipleship. But I must admit, it is one of the most difficult for me to comprehend. Just who is the Church? What is she supposed to be like? How do we do life together? How do we relate to those outside our communities? Where are we all headed? These are hard questions that should perhaps not be answered too confidently.

5. Discipleship in Time

Everything we have looked at so far attempts to capture what the world is like right now, in the present. This present is represented in the vertical axis in the picture above. But all people and places have a past and a future.

Our world is shaped from top to bottom by the actions and ideas of those who came before us. The plot of land my little apartment sits on was once a large raison-grape orchard. The landowner's mansion is now the administrative building for our seminary. How were the field workers treated on this property? Before it was cultivated, this part of the California Central Valley was run by Basque sheep herders. Prior to that, it was a grassland home to the Mono nation of Native Americans. How were these people treated when their land was colonized? How did events here lead to southwest Fresno becoming known as the "poor part of town where Latinos and Southeast Asians live?" How did the agricultural past of this valley lead it to be such an environmentally damaged land, starved of water and clean air?

Justice and the holy worship of God in the present has to deal with the sins of the past.

Not only do we have to deal with the sins of our fathers, we have to understand that the way we experience the world today emerges from a long series of previous events. My theological ideas sit on two thousand years of Christians wrestling with what it means to declare that there is one God who incarnated, lived, was crucified and resurrected in Jesus. My whiteness is a socially constructed concept that developed out of--among more positive things--several hundred years of white people exerting unjust power people of color. Simply stated, the history of our world matters if we are to understand and act appropriately in the present.

Finally, history is full of the saving action of God. Christianity is unique in that our faith is not based on a direct revelation of truth, but on God's actions throughout time. We see God active for his people and for justice in the "salvation story" of Israel. And, of course, we see God in history most clearly through the life of Jesus. For followers of Jesus, our present only makes since in terms of God's past activities that reveal his heart and liberating power.

However, the present is only partially understood through the past. As Christians, we have hope that this whole world is headed somewhere. There is an end to history--known as the "eschaton"--that brings meaning to our roles in this moment. It is a day when Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead. When we will be divided into sheep and goats based on our service to "the least of these." It is a day when our prayers shall be answered, because all shall be "on earth as it is in heaven." It is a day when the great and beautiful city will descend and all the nations of the earth will worship God in their own language, when every knee shall bow to the true Lord, and every tear will be wiped away. It will be a day of shalom.

The end reveals to us what God values, what he will recreate the world to be. As his followers, we share his values and live a life of love which inaugurates the eschatological New Creation today.

(this picture was inspired by Paulo Freire in Education for Critical Consciousness)

---

These five maps provide the best representation of the many contexts within which our human stories play out that I have been able to come up with. I hope you found this introduction helpful. We'll go much deeper in the days ahead. For now, as I continue to unpack my concept of following Jesus, I would encourage you to think about how each element of discipleship plays out in your personal places, environments, social worlds, stories and faith communities.

5 Maps to Contextualize Discipleship (Part 1)

Two weeks ago, I introduced this model of discipleship that is helping me think about what it means to be a follower of Jesus. But before I continue unpacking it, I want to pause.

I have been trying to develop a series of ideas on this blog that are progressing in the following order:

the gospel --> discipleship --> contextualizing discipleship

However, while my blog will move through them in that linear order, they are best understood as an action/reflection cycle. Liberation theologians refer to this as a Praxiological Circle. It begins when we encounter the world around us and the Word of God. As we reflect on how these relate to each other, we begin to act in the community upon our understanding. As we act, we fine tune our ideas and approach by reassessing the context and the Word. This process never ends. It is the manner of attempting to live faithfully in the world.

Therefore, it is essential that we reflect on our specific worlds as we think about discipleship. Our individual walks all happen within multiple overlapping and intertwined contexts: communities, places, systems, cultures, etc. So, how do we picture ourselves within this complex world? If we desire to genuinely embody, advocate and build toward a world of shalom, we have to understand how the world works.

I have been working on a series of "maps" to help us see ourselves within the wide web of life. Explaining my thoughts on all these might take a really long time...probably through the rest of 2015. However, I think these maps provide a vital backdrop for the life of discipleship. So, in brief, let's begin to plot out these ideas.

1. Discipleship in Places and Systems

Place matters.

We struggle to remember how true this is because the past several centuries have done so much to liberate us from the confines of our human particularity. With rationality and the scientific method, modern philosophers believed that universal principles could be discover that would free us from local contexts. Currently, we live increasingly digitized lives. Technologies allow us to connect instantly with people and events around the world, while simultaneously ignoring the person sitting next to us. Since we spend so much time disconnected from the physical places we live in, my generation is the most transient yet. We spend our time glued to screens and moving every few years, then wonder why no one is caring for the environment and why our cities seem so plagued with injustice.

If we want to know God, if we want to form our own identities, if we want to faithfully seek shalom we have to do escape our tendency to make these things abstract and spiritualized. Real stuff like bodies, nature and place matters to God and form the concrete contexts of our discipleship. When we follow Jesus, we do so with others in a particular, local place. The people, geography, cultures, aspirations, felt needs, assets, and histories of that place provide the the specific content of our life as Jesus followers.

The picture above attempts to show at least 3 things:
1) We follow Jesus with others in our particular locations. For many of us, that means a specific neighborhood.
2) Particular places exist within broader places. To understand this better, we'll look at systems theory and explore how each place is a "nested system" within a broader system. The dynamics of each of these domains interact with one another and create complex forces that must be reckoned with if we are to be strategic in the work of shalom.
3) Each place we inhabit is governed by three major, interlocking systems: the religious (or value-creating institutions), economic and political. As we begin to understand how the structure of these systems lead toward or away from shalom, our capacity to act strategically in our contexts is vastly improved.

Exploring the enormous implications in all that will be a lot of fun down the road!

2. Discipleship in the Environments

The places and systems described above provide a foundation that can be overlaid on this second map. At least five interwoven, interdependent and mutually influencing (as represented by the arrows) environments make up the milieu of our discipleship journeys. Let's look at each element in the picture above.

The Social Environment:  Though a picture needs to be provided for each of these, what I mean by this element most needs to be seen to be understood. The diagram below was developed by Dr. Randy White and Dr. H. Spees to explain the various institutions that collectively make up the organization fabric that gets stuff done in our civilization. The primary sectors it represents are the public, private, nonprofit/service and neighborhood/community.  It is particularly useful when trying to understand a social problem. It allows us to ask, "What institutional policies in one or more of these sectors contribute to this issue?" "What partnerships could be created across public, private and non-profit lines to address this issue?"

The Built Environment:  It has been a long time since we as a culture paid attention to the design of the places where we live. But we are discovering more and more that the design of the world we humans build has an enormous impact on the quality and content of our lives. The built environment includes all our buildings, homes, side walks, streets and public spaces like parks. But just as much, it  is about the way these things relate to one another. Consider these pictures of two differently designed cities. How would life differ from one to the other? How might shalom--reconciled relationships and just systems--be benefited or damaged in each context? What would community be like in each?

Cultural Environment:  Every place has a dominant culture, minority cultures and niche cultures. People usually inhabit more than one. Our culture shapes what we think is right and normal. It shapes our goals and how we have fun. It shapes our family life, how we worship and how we work. It shapes how we view the world. It shapes how we value (or devalue) those around us. Each person has their own cultural makeup, but we also live in places with diverse cultures and do life with and around other people with their own cultural perspectives. If we're going to be reflective disciples, we have to be culturally savvy. We have to become aware of the water we swim in and learn to see the world--to whatever degree possible--from other peoples perspectives. There are lots of ways to frame culture, but here's a fun one...the cultural iceberg!

The Natural Environment:  When most of our meals are passed through a car window and our days are spent between brick, mortal and asphalt it is easy to forget that we are not only dependent on the natural world, we are a part of it! In God's first command to humanity, he called us to steward his creation. Unfortunately, we haven't done such a great job of that. In fact, the distorted Christian doctrine that believes our world is just going to be burned up when God comes back has led us to treat nature as our slave instead of a gift from God to be cared for. As we seek to follow Jesus, our stewardship with the natural world is fundamental. When we take our relationship with creation serious, it reconnects all sorts of seemingly mundane activities to serving God like eating, flipping on the light switch and taking care of our yards. For a people who treasure a meal of bread and wine as a sacrament, this mentality should not be such a difficult leap. On a local level, the natural environment we interact with is called our 'watershed' or 'bioregion'. The picture below helps us imagine the landscapes we live in. "'The land is mine,' says the Lord" (Lev 25:23). When we love it, we love our God.

The Spiritual Environment:  What I do not mean to imply by 'spiritual environment' is that the four previous environments described above are not part of the 'spiritual' world. God is present and active in the real, physical world we all inhabit! So is Satan and the principalities and powers. In fact, Paul describes the political, economic and religious institutions of our world as a kind of quasi embodiment of spiritual powers--for good or evil. What I do mean is that there is a world beyond the physical stuff we can see, and it has a significant (though often difficult to discern) impact on all the other environments. How do we picture the 'spiritual environment'? I have no idea. But I believe it is real and must be considered a vital context of our discipleship journeys.

The black bar in the center of this map is supposed to represent a sideways view of the discipleship model. The point is that our discipleship happens smack in the middle of all these. Faithfully following Jesus means doing so in a manner sensitive these many contexts.


Thanks for reading Part 1! I'll post Part 2 on Wednesday with the next three 'maps.' 

Following Jesus

For a few weeks in January and February, I explored five meanings of the gospel of Jesus: humanization, worldview reorientation, community building, shalom spreading, and present/future hope. These hold enormous implications for the status quo, but their impact is only really felt once people decide to embrace Jesus' gospel as their own and follow him wherever he may lead. If we desire a world where every human being's value is expressed and treasured, a world ordered around and comprehended through the radically loving example Jesus, a world where the violence and inequities dividing our relationships--with God, self, others and creation--are restored, a world of peace and justice, a world that is transformed for the common good before our eyes even as we await the day when all will be made new...if we desire this kind of world it will require people who are will to follow Jesus as his disciples. 

If there is one major stumbling block in the Christian tradition that trips up our journey into discipleship, it is the baggage around the words 'faith' and 'works.' Somehow through the reformation's struggle to undo abuses in the Church of the time, we reduced both of these terms to opposite methods for acquiring eternal salvation. In that process, their fundamentally inseparable natures became divorced from one another and from the everyday life of people trying to be Jesus' disciples. The result is that we have a wide conceptual gap between 'having faith' and 'being faithful.'  

"Following" brings these ideas back together in embodied practice. The choice to follow Jesus is based on some fundamental beliefs about who he is. For the original disciples, following emerged from their faith that he was a Rabbi with a new authoritative teaching of hope (Mark 1:27), that he came to enact the long awaited Jubilee--liberation for the oppressed (Luke 4:18-21), and eventually the convictions that he was the chosen Messiah (Mark 8:29), Lord (Phil 2) and God himself (John 1). To focus on "following" also frees us from believing we ever have Jesus figured out--that we have the right and comprehensive faith vs those other people. Just as the disciples set out after Jesus even though they would not comprehend who he was until after his death, our belief in Jesus is always a journey of ongoing discovery. Jesus continues to surprise us day after day!

Following Jesus meant that the disciples had to drop their nets and embark on a new life modeled after Jesus. To drop the nets was to relinquish a way of life, with its securities and familiarities. Whatever our beliefs are, they form the bedrock for how we live our lives. Believing that Jesus is the stuff listed above (among other things) initiates a holistic transformation of ourselves that does not stop with a shift in eternal destination.

One of the best explanations I have read that reconnects the two sides of belief and action comes from a non-Christian named Paulo Freire, a Brazilian educator and activist, who wrote the following on the true meaning of knowledge:

Knowing, whatever its level, is not the act by which a subject transformed into an object docilely and passively accepts the contents others give or impose on him or her. Knowledge, on the contrary, necessitates the curious presence of subjects confronted with the world. It requires their transforming action on reality. It demands a constant searching. It implies invention and reinvention...In the learning process the only person who really learns is s/he who appropriates what is learned, who apprehends and thereby re-invents that learning; s/he who is able to apply the appropriate learning to concrete existential situations. On the other hand, the person who is filled by another with 'contents' whose meaning s/he is not aware of, which contradict his or her way of being in the world, cannot learn because s/he is not challenged. (Education for Critical Consciousness)

Unfortunately, there are many self-described Christians who function more like receptacles for information. Though they profess Christian sounding doctrines, they have never genuinely encountered these beliefs as a challenge to their "way of being in the world." Such people claim a faith which has never been allowed to actually transform them. But true knowledge--in the sense that Freire describes--of Jesus as one's Lord and Savior is inherently transformative. It necessitates that a person reformulate their point of view and way of life. It is like learning that the building you are in is on fire, or that the person you have secretly been in love with loves you back. Such knowledge simply has to be acted on by its very nature.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer provides a famous account of the Christian life of belief and obedience:

But since he is the Christ, he must make it clear from the start that his word is not an abstract doctrine, but the re-creation of the whole life of man. The only right and proper way is quite literally to go with Jesus. The call to follow implies that there is only one way of believing on Jesus Christ, and that is by leaving all and going with the incarnate Son of God...only he who believes is obedient, and only he who is obedient believes. (The Cost of Discipleship)

Jill Shook provides an example that hits close to home for many of us:

Luke's gospel emphasizes God's passion for justice for the poor. But that passion involves love for the rich as well. The involvement of the rich with those on the margins of society will be part of their own salvation, not a salvation of works, but of repentance, conversion, and forgiveness that results in justice for the poor. Wealth often stands between us and God. We who are privileged--and that includes almost all of [the readers of this blog]--may think we are knowledgeable and free, but we don't realize how we are blinded by greed and imprisoned in our affluent lifestyle, as in the story of the rich man and Lazarus. (Making Housing Happen: Faith-Based Affordable Housing Models)

In the first weeks of this blog, I spent a lot of time talking about contextual awareness. Why? Because we are so deeply enmeshed in our culture that we often cannot figure out where it diverges from the way of Jesus. We assume that because we listen to Christian music, do not say curse words and are opposed to abortion, we are swimming upstream from the culture. But it is almost never that simple. As Shook points out, this is particularly difficult for those in the majority (often called the "dominant") culture. The culture works for us. It is what has provided us with such an enjoyable lifestyle, so to critique it can be excruciating.

There is no faith and works tension. For Christians, there is only following Jesus which automatically implies both. The first Christians saw this clearly. They recognized that to follow Jesus was to testify to truths which had immediate implications for their lifestyle. This is why in the same breath we read in Acts that "those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. and they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need" (Acts 2:41-45). To believe was to inter into a worshipful lifestyle. It was to live in community with the body of Christ. And, often overlooked, the Jubilee Jesus preached about immediately became the socioeconomic lifestyle of the new Christian community as soon as their worldview was transformed through belief in him. 

It is true, we will act in accordance with whatever our deepest commitments are. This is why we are reminded that cannot serve two masters. We cannot follow both Jesus and whatever career path will provide the greatest financial stability. We cannot follow both Jesus and the American Dream. We cannot follow both Jesus and a particular political party. We cannot follow both Jesus and whatever it takes to find true love. We cannot follow both Jesus and follow whatever our culture tells us is good. These agendas are not always contrary to one another, but anytime we have a "Jesus + ____" approach to life, the ____ inevitably leads us astray. As a disciple of Jesus, nothing can supersede our allegiance to the true King, there can be no complimentary motivation and no secondary pursuits. We must be willing to follow Jesus alone and trust that that is enough. 

Does that sound scary? It's ok. Jesus knew it would as soon as he said it. That's why he offered us encouragement:

Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither so nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how the grow, they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ...will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith?...But seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." (6:25-33ish)

Do we believe that these are the words of God? Then "fear not, for behold, [it is] good new of great joy that will be for all the people!" (Luke 2:1)

To see my drawing of the whole discipleship model, click here. 

Discipleship: A Model for People of Shalom

What does it mean to be a disciple of Jesus? And what is the stuff of that discipleship? What type of identity does a disciple have? What do they do? What is their life like? What are their goals?

I am grateful for a story that led me into wrestling matches with these questions at a fairly early point in my life. My answers have probably changed a good deal--more out of expansion than replacement--over the past five years or so, and I hope that continues. Writing is always a strange experience, because muddy thoughts caught up in paradox and uncertainty magically become solid when ideas hit a page. Once those written words are "published," they are transformed into the writer's opinion. That's a scary proposition, because I will probably disagree with most of what I have written on this blog in a few years. And I know many readers will definitely disagree, and transfer their disagreement with magically institutionalized ideas into disagreement with me. That's scary, but it is the inherent and necessary risk of authorship. 

Well, I'm going to launch into a long series based on the theme of discipleship and my current thoughts on that topic. In that process, I'm going to traverse across all kinds of themes of theology, human nature, and approaches to the transformation of society. I am going to offer my perspective on the questions posed above, and I am going to do it with the help of a simple picture I drew. For better or worse, that picture is of a very solid looking temple. This was the image that popped in my mind and helped me organize and integrate my thinking. However, it gives off a much more established ethos than I would ever claim. [for example: Since I drew the picture a month ago, I already regret using the word "Proclamation" on the banner. I wish it were "friendship" or dialogue. Probably the first of many...] 

This is going to be work in progress, and hopefully a journey embarked in conversation with you and others. 

So, with those many qualifiers, I hope you enjoy the posts that spin out of this little picture over the coming months. May they bless, encourage and inspire you as you follow the Man from Galilee. And where they lead you astray, set it aside or let me know so that we can both draw closer to him who is making all things new. 

Shalom, 
Nathan

Book Recommendations: Looking at Our Contexts

I've talked a lot over the past few weeks about contextual awareness and the importance of thinking theologically about our contexts. So, today I thought I'd throw out a few book suggestions that can take . This will be the first time of many that I share book recommendations, so if you're into that sort of thing, get excited. Today I have six for you, each in a different genre. Every one of these has helped me for peel back the layers of my own identity and the nature of this complex world. Enjoy :)


Being White: Finding Our Place in a Multiethnic World,  Paula Harris & Doug Schappe (Christian ethnic studies)

Most white people I know who have struggled with "our place in a multiethnic world" pass through a few stages in this journey, moving from ignorance, to shock, to highly self-critical, and hopefully at last into a stage of rebuilding. This book was a significant gift to me when I was trying to move through these last couple stages and recapture the good in my white identity. 

Harris and Schappe wrestle with what it means to be white when it is white people have been the perpetrators of much of the world's colonization, exploitation and oppression over the past several centuries. What does it mean to have this history and yet be made in the image of God? What things must we leave behind about our heritage, and what things can we celebrate? Their treatment of these questions and others is splendid--a very healthy blend of the prophetic and pastoral.



A People's History of the United States, 1492-Present,  Howard Zin
(History)

The English historian Thomas Carlyle claimed that history is the biography of great individuals. Zinn disagrees. He thinks that it is not history itself, but the stories of history we have been telling about history that are about so called "great individuals." And it's time we tell better stories. 

A People's History tells each era of America's past from the perspective of the powerless: the indigenous peoples, African slaves, women, Chinese immigrants, and so on. It is often a sobering account, revealing how expansive the oppression that sullies our nation's history actually is. But they are stories we need to hear in order to honor those who have been trampled by "great individuals," to gain a more accurate and less romantic view of the United States, and to fight against repeating these injustices in our generation.



Churches, Cultures and Leadership: A Practical Theology of Churches and Ethnicities,  Mark Lau Branson & Juan E. Martinez
(Multicultural Christian Leadership)

Branson and Martinez lay down a substantial challenge to church leaders. They call us to consider what the call of the gospel is for the Body of Christ that has been fractured for so long on ethnic, cultural and socioeconomic lines. They do a great job of melding theological reflection with the social sciences in the effort “to help men and women in our churches to see differently and to gain the skills and competencies needed for multicultural contexts.”

I was particularly helped by their identification of the founding myths of American culture. As the authors point out, “majority-culture evangelicals do not have the proper tools to understand the dynamic of race relations in the United States.” This book is a powerful effort to make up that gap, not only through its own contributions but also through the wealth of outside resources they point to.




Encounter God in the City: Onramps to Personal and Community Transformation,  Randy White
(Christian Community Development)

Randy White is one of my professors at seminary--a large part of why I chose the seminary that I'm at--and someone to whom I am greatly indebted both personally and educationally. In this book he challenges his readers to "see" the city with new eyes, to see it with the love of God and to acquire God's vision and hope for its future. 

One of the best parts about this book, and the reason why I am including it on this list, is actually in the appendixes where White lays out a comprehensive strategy for assessing the characteristics of urban contexts. No matter how long you have lived in a place, follow his steps and learn more about the world around you than you ever imagined exists.



The Gospel in a Pluralist Society,  Leslie Newbigin
(Missiology)

This book is amazing. Newbigin--who is famous for returning from years as a missionary in India and taking a missionary's eye to Western culture--accomplishes more with greater brilliance in each chapter than in most books I've read. I took it one a solo camping trip last May, staked up by a river and totally lost myself in his writing as my paradigms were blasted over and over.

Part contextual analysis, part philosophical treatise, part apologetics, part theological system, part missiological imperative for the modern church--buy, steal or borrow it and learn something amazing.

Learning About Theology from the Third World,  William Dyrness
(Contextual Theology)

For most of the Church's history, theology was written within the fairly culturally homogeneous confines of Western Europe by white men. Over that time, the generally accepted sources of theological reflection were scripture, tradition, reason and religious experience, weighted in that order within Protestantism. As the Christian faith has spread to every nation on the planet we have had to realize that culture has a significant impact on our interpretation of the bible, allowing us to "see" or miss various messages from the same stories.

 This book has contributed to my beliefs on how to "do theology" (which I talk about here) more than any other. Dyrness identifies four different ways that people use Scripture and context together to generate theology, and offers what I have found to be a highly insightful approach which allows us interweave the two while still giving a healthy prioritization to the text. The end result is a theological process that offers critique to both cultural forms that err from the ways of Jesus and overly parochial theologies that fail to speak into the lifeworld of particular peoples.  

Success-ism

In her typically poignant way, Mother Teresa said: "We are not called to be successful, but faithful." 

That's powerful stuff, but when I hear that from her I want to say, "Ok, Mama T, that's good and all, but you still ended up being a pretty dang big deal. Even though you might say you weren't successful because Calcutta is still in rough shape and all, you have personally been canonized as a saint and are basically a celebrity. I'd call that pretty darn successful."

I have all the love in the world for Mama T, but this quote meant more to me when I heard it restated by a ninety year old pastor who had ministered in obscurity among the poor of Bryan, Texas his whole life, at times preaching to no one but his wife and kids on Sunday mornings. Speaking about himself, he admitted that, "I am called not to be great, nor to be successful, but faithful."

Honestly, that's the harder piece for me. I can accept that I may not be successful in accomplishing my goals (eradicating all pain and injustice is honestly a bit out of my pay grade), but so long as people know who I am and think I'm awesome I would be fine. Being thought of as great is all the success I need. At least that's what insecure Nathan thinks. And unfortunately I'm not that unique. 

We live in a world where from the time we're a baby (see picture) we are told that not succeeding is failing and if you're failing you're worthless. If the company's profit margin doesn't expand you're out of a job. If the nonprofit doesn't have huge numbers to show the funding dries up. If the church doesn't grow the doors might as well close. If you're single you're obsolete. If your kids don't get A's you must be a terrible parent. And in these and too many other ways our culture shames us. 

One of the problems with a focus on success is that it tends to grow out of a need to appear impressive. We are constantly comparing ourselves to the next person and terrified they won't think we are special. 

My fiancée went to Yale where she made some VERY impressive friends, by most any standard. They work everywhere from Wall Street to Capital Hill, and honestly do some awesome stuff. Every time we are about to meet one of her friends, I'm terrified. I go into Mr. Inadequate mode and start stacking myself up against them: grew up in small town Nowheresville, went to a state school, grades were only so-so, haven't worked anywhere anyone's ever heard of, broke, etc. These folks are consistently as sweet as could be, but because American culture tells me they have been more successful than me, I usually just want to crawl in a hole. 

Worthiness--that sense of deep acceptance and love for one's self--is a precious commodity in our culture. Few of us have it and most are fighting to attain it through the misconceived notion that it lies "out there" somewhere. But it doesn't. It is right here, present in the beauty of who God created us to be and in the unconditional, unshakable love he has for us. We are already worthy but are terrified to live into it, wounded too many times by those around us who can't see this glorious reality.

It's not hard to see why leadership gets messed up when we're constantly on the lookout for our next best shot at feeling worthy. Steven Covey said great public leadership begins with the intentional leadership of one's own life. A life led by insecurity, always driven to gain acceptance, be enough, fit in, and gain respect or love simply can't discern the correct decisions that will provide long term benefit for others. If we want to lead toward shalom, we have to accept the paradoxical truth that success is not our goal. Following Jesus is.

The cross--God's strange strategy to allow his own murder so that the world he so loved would be saved--is the greatest critique ever leveled at a life strategy aimed at greatness or success. Read the opening verses of Philippians 2 again and think about how success as our culture defines it jives with the example of Jesus:

If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 

who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. 

Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

I'll conclude by throwing a few quotes your way from Father Greg Boyle*, a man who continues to walk through life alongside gang members in LA:

"Salivating for success keeps you from being faithful, keeps you from truly seeing whoever's sitting in front of you...If you surrender your need for results and outcome, success becomes God's business." 

"Can we stay faithful and persistent in our fidelity even when things seem not to succeed? I suppose Jesus could have chosen a strategy that worked better (evidence-based outcomes)--that didn't end in the Cross--but he couldn't find a strategy more soaked with fidelity than the one he embraced." 

"Sr. Elaine Roulette, the founder of My Mother's House in New York, was asked, 'How do you work with the poor?' She answered, 'You don't. You share your life with the poor.' It's as basic as crying together. It is about 'casting your lot' before it ever becomes about 'changing their lot.' Success and failure, ultimately, have little to do with living the gospel. Jesus just stood with the outcasts until they were welcomed or until he was crucified--whichever came first." 

*quotes from Tattoos on the Heart

Being a better Evangelical and/or Better than being an Evangelical

I love Evangelicals. Truth is, I are one. It's an identity I cling to because of those core truths it represents, even while those who represent the name are often folks I have no desire to align myself with.

Some of the things I love about Evangelicals' beliefs are:

• God has priority in all things...he is sovereign and a relationship with him is the essential ingredient of their life and faith
• the Bible is believed to be the authoritative word for all areas of life and knowledge
• their general quest to be authentic disciples



Dennis Oppenheim, "Device to Root Out Evil"

• the culture of mutual spiritual encouragement

In so many ways, I am deeply grateful that this is my heritage and affirm each of the above. It has instilled in me values for family, hard work, education and kindness to others. My parents demonstrated an abiding, personal love for Jesus and taught me the same. However, as I said before, no culture is above the need to be remade by the gospel.

What must be critiqued in Evangelical culture if we are to be effective agents of God's shalom? Asked another way, how has this culture warped us out of the image of God and how might we need to re-posture ourselves as followers of Jesus? These are significant questions emerging from my own autobiography, and questions that I believe are far more relevant and far to infrequently asked by many of my Christian brothers and sisters.
My critiques aren't exhaustive, nor are they universally applicable to all Evangelicals, but here are the three points I'd like to express today... 

Continual Narrowing 

Evangelicalism has gone the way of most tribes in America by drawing its lines of inclusion/exclusion in ever narrowing circles. These days, many question if you can truly be called an Evangelical if you are not also a neo-Calvinistic, penal satisfaction atonement proclaiming, eternal torment for the damned affirming, dispensationalist eschatology believing card carrying member of the club.

Personally, I have major problems if not outright denials for every one of these positions.

We must stop working so hard to draw the boundaries which define who is in and who is out. Instead, it is time to point to Jesus as the center toward which we all desperately need to move. Jesus--the entire story of the true God who became a real human being to save the world--cannot be captured in our doctrinal statements. Doctrines are not God and we build idols when we treat them as such.

Evangelical theology has produced far too many instances in which we come riding in on our imaginary white horses, waving around a gospel that made sense to us but is all but irrelevant to people of other cultures--particularly those who are oppressed.

When was the last time you listened to a podcast, read a blog or a book by someone who isn't a white Evangelical? That might be a great place to start.


Unquestioned Ignorance of Privilege in White Evangelicalism 

Ok, first I need to caveat what I have already said. I do not have really Evangelicalism as a whole in mind. I have white Evangelical culture. This is the context I was formed in and with which I have the greatest familiarity.

Emerson and Smith’s significant book Divided by Faith opens with a haunting wake up call: “This book is a story of how well-intentioned people, their values, and their institutions actually recreate racial divisions and inequalities they ostensibly oppose” (1). The people they are referring to are my people.Our approach to social/cultural leadership is unfortunately epitomized in movements like the “Moral Majority,” a fundamentalist lobbying organization that attempted to use power to impose so-called Christian beliefs and ethics through the American political system. We don't use this strategy much anymore mostly because we aren't the majority at this point and it doesn't work.  While I still cling somewhat anemically to an Evangelical identity, any theological ethic of leadership that lovingly addresses the contemporary context will be a break from these historic patterns. In an age when inequality is as race based as ever, transformation in this category is imperative.

One look at Jesus' approach to making change happen reveals another way. We could begin by asking how Jesus used power. By amassing lots of it and forcing his agenda on others? No. He became the least, the servant of all, the one who refused to use his limitless divine resources and instead sacrificed himself on a cross. 

It is time to acknowledge that as white people, our society has (unjustly) endowed us with great power. Stop saying that people are poor or in prison purely based on their personal choices and lack of positive will. People exist within systems that have profound influence on their personal possibilities. This is something we must address. 

As people with power, we must ask what the model of the crucifixion means for us in real life.


Uncritical Politics

From the first moment Jesus opened his mouth to begin his ministry, he was political. Evangelicals know this at some level, though they would rarely say it that way. They must or they would not be so unified in they desire to end abortion (An important issue, for sure, even if the approach has often been flawed. Mother Teresa set the best Christian example here when she put herself on the line by telling people to give their unwanted babies to her.)

But Jesus was political in ways radically different from Rush Limbaugh. For Jesus to say that the Kingdom of God had arrived, or for the early Christians to declare that "Jesus is Lord" was a direct counter to the claims of Rome and its empirical assertion that "Caesar is Lord." 

This goes back to the first point. We think that as Evangelicals we pretty much have things figured out. But time after time, we are saying "Jesus is Lord" while still giving our allegiance to the ways of Caesar. Everything has to be reconsidered through this lens. The best questions we can ask sound something like this: "If Jesus were running things, what would they be like? What would happen here?"

I have been guilty of this more times than I'm comfortable admitting. What I am having to learn to do is to be passionately about convictions but hold them with open hands, recognizing that I might be wrong and need to retain a critical posture toward everything, testing against the model of Jesus' life.

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For too many people, being an Evangelical means getting it right. 

Friends, be better than just an Evangelical who thinks they are right. Please don't allow this to be your primary identity.

Be a follow of Jesus the Christ. Seek his ways. Be conformed to him and no other.

The world desperately needs you to do so.