Speak

Chair in Empty Room © Arnold Kastenbaum

To speak a word into space -- into blank page or open airwave -- is as terrible as it is awesome.

It's made me wonder if God didn't feel butterflies before he spoke a Word into the void. If the adrenaline and vulnerability of that pregnant moment didn't give him pause. If he didn't close his eyes and breath deep once before speaking the world into being.

It was December the last time I hit publish on something original for this blog. Everything since then was recycled -- thoughts from old papers or my thesis. Half-hacked drafts sit back in the files here and there, but nothing found its way outside a Google server.

The longer the space the more terrible that moment of speech becomes. But troublesome as a void may be to the 'pen,' it's harder still to speak into a world chock full of contentious words. Of course, some say it wasn't a void God spoke into at all. It was Chaos. And through the Word, Chaos was brought to order.

I respect him all the more for it.

But what of the times when speech must be made in places sodden with pain, when every word feels hollow and far too weak to heal? Most treacherous of all, where can we find courage to speak when the roar about us finds agreement in lies or evil? How do we tear free from silence to speak truth to power?

Still, I can remember when my Lord did all these things. And so, for all the possible stumbling blocks and pitfalls, we must speak.

The Christian tells a different story. Like the one we follow, we're those who speak and act to bring an alternate sort of sense to things.

For me, that vocation has grown into a craving to write. Now that all the required lines of school are behind me, the desire to put words together on my own terms lives on. The time feels ripe to turn my itch into a habit -- a discipline. I think I still need to learn how to write, and it's as good a moment as any for that lesson to begin.

That will take a couple forms which will become more clear over time. But, for the present, a few things are plain.

First, I plan to structure writing into every week. That won't necessarily mean that a post gets made every week, but I will consistently work on writing.

The second piece is a change in format. This site will be replaced by a slicker platform. I've secured www.forshalom.com and will be working to make it live over the next month.

Finally, nothing much is accomplished or stuck to without a good BHAG (a Big Hairy Audacious Goal). Mine is to have a book published by the time I'm 30.

The proposals start today.

We'll see where it all goes. For now, I just feel good breaking the silence.

Place and the Bible: From the Thesis

The Sea of Galilee

“The Bible begins and ends with places—a garden to a gardened city” (Bouma-Prediger and Walsh, xv). Strewn between the beginning and end are stories rooted and guided by place: from walking with God in a place called Eden to expulsion toward the East; from Ur toward the Promised Land of Canaan and into bondage in Egypt in a place named Goshen; wandering in the Wilderness until the day the river Jordan was crossed and the people came to dwell in the Land; being “vomited out” of the Land and becoming a people of exile, a displaced people longing for replacement. Place keeps insisting itself in the opening moments of the New Testament. God appeared incarnate as a body, “and bodies can only exist in place” (ibid, xii). Scripture etches the Messiah’s place in intimate detail: hailing from good-for-nothing Nazarus, birthed in the dirt of Bethlehemian squalor, laid in a food trough for animals. The pulse of Jesus’ ministry throbbed with place. Jesus filled his parables with images of soil, vineyards and Samaritans. Each reference is rife with political, economic, cultural, and theological meaning connected to place. The decisive moment of his life on earth came when Jesus turned toward Jerusalem—the place called Zion that became the city of chaos. Our savior agonized in Gethsemane, was crucified on a hill called the Place of the Skull, was buried in a garden tomb nearby, and ascended to heaven from a mountain called Olivet. The book of Acts lists thirty-two towns and cities by name. The Pauline letters were messages to specific places regarding the particular dynamics of those locations. John directed his revelation to seven cities in Asia Minor and communicated his message by dramatizing iconic places: the Whore City Babylon against the Bride City New Jerusalem.

Why were these records of place so scrupulously preserved? Scripture is incessantly reminding us that life plays out on a physical terrain, that this life is primarily a relational matter of fidelity to God and servanthood toward others, and that if God’s driving passion for shalom is to manifest it can only do so in a place. Allen Pred tells us "places are never ‘finished’ but always ‘becoming.’ Place is ‘what takes place ceaselessly, what contributed to history in a specific context through the creation and utilization of a physical setting.’" Scripture is thus the drama of places in process, ever in the materialistic act of “becoming” closer or farther away from the heart of God as communities perform their values into being. In this sense, the bible uses the character of a place as a society’s ethical barometer and compares its character to the biblical vision of shalom for the community of creation.

From the Thesis: Love

If a place acquires its characteristics through the relational ethic practiced within it, then Jesus creates places of shalom through an ethic of love.

“The religion of Jesus makes the love-ethic central,” wrote Howard Thurman. 

It was because of love that God’s only Son came into the world, and it is through love that all things can become “on earth as it is in heaven” (John 3:16; Matt 6:10b). First Testament authors repeatedly assert that justice (mishpat), or the right ordering of things (shalom), was predicated on righteous behavior (sadiqah), or fidelity to the covenantal law. Jesus clarifies what righteousness means by explaining that “all the law and prophets hang on” two commandments: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and the greatest commandment. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37-40). He then removes any lingering ambiguity by teaching his followers to “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44). Why? Because loving enemies is what God does. In the next verse Jesus tells us through enemy-love we mimic God and “may be children of your Father in heaven” (5:45). 

When we love, we model our behavior on the righteous character of God himself and thereby establish justice. “The substance of that righteousness,” Walter Brueggemann explains, “is the well-being of the world.” He goes on to write:

“When Yahweh’s righteousness (Yahweh’s governance) is fully established in the world, the results are fruitfulness, prosperity, freedom, justice, peace, security, and well-being (shalom). Because Yahweh in righteousness wills good for creation, there is a complete convergence of Yahweh’s self-regard and Yahweh’s commitment to Israel and to creation.” (Brueggemann, Theology of the Old Testament, 303).

It is by participating with God as lovers that we join with him as co-creators. 

How to Love

What does the love of God look like? 

The standard and not inaccurate answer prooftexts 1 John 3:16 which reads, “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us--and we ought to lay down our lives for one another.” Incredibly, and less quoted, John immediately follows this line with an economic exhortation: “How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s good and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help?” (3:17). 

This is the word of the Lord, but we should not rush by so quickly that we forget to ask to whom this word is directed. John is encouraging people who possess power and wealth. For them, the love of wealth is their stumbling block to discipleship, their ability to follow Jesus as an instrument of God’s love. 

Theology has largely traded on the assumption that self-interest is the basic, sin-producing human flaw. Reinhold Niebuhr played a leading role in foregrounding this doctrine in modern theology. He believed that sin is primarily caused by the fact that “man loves himself inordinately.” The language used here exposes the theologian’s flaw. Theology, for most of its history, has been expounded by men whose common fault is an inordinate love of self. As women publicly entered theological discourse in the twentieth century, the one-sidedness and damaging power of the Church’s teaching was exposed. A love-ethic as self-denial was taught by men but not practiced by men. Carol Lakey Hess says that, “sadly, it is often the already humble who take the message of pride to heart” (37). She goes on to quote Jacquelyn Grant, who,

“writing to African American women who have taken on the greatest burden of service in our society, speaks even more boldly of ‘the sin of servanthood’ and calls for ‘the deliverance of discipleship.’ ‘A language needs to be adopted or emphasized that challenges the servant mentality of oppressed peoples and the oppressive mentality of oppressors.’” (ibid)

Fortunately, I believe the teachings of Jesus have already masterfully provided us with a language that holds the paradox of love together.

In the closing remarks of a parable in which every worker is paid equitably regardless of their time spent laboring, Jesus says, “So the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Matthew 20:16). Three chapters later, in a tirade against Israel’s religious elite, he exclaims, “The greatest among you will be your servant. All who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted” (23:11-12). Paul picks up on Jesus’ theme in 1 Corinthians 1:27-29: “But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so no one might boast in the presence of God.” 

These verses, representative of a far larger swath of scripture, capture what might be called the dual operations of love. For the oppressed, love offers empowerment and the upward mobility of liberation. For the powerful, love is the downward trajectory of self-sacrifice. The two operations are crucial for the equitable conditions of shalom to be met. Slaves are not more like Jesus by being better servants to their Master. How could they be if what Jesus’ atonement provides is freedom and abundant life? 

The social reordering described in the above passages is not an arbitrary method for God to display his power. It is an act of love that brings his will for shalom into being.

Note that all people still have to exercise situation by situation ethical discernment. In the words of Martin Luther, the line between good and evil runs through every person. In the same way, each person is a composite of privilege and powerlessness, varying from one relational context to the other. Socioeconomically a black man might be quite vulnerable, while at the same time exercising disproportionate power over his family and acting unsustainably with the Land.

For the ultimate Greatest, the perfect act of love was the most disgraceful of deaths. But we should be wary of parceling this trajectory out to every man, woman, child and creature. The goal of Christian love is not corporate masochism. It is communion. Sanctification is the sojourn of disciples from our various social, cultural, economic, ecological, sin-smattered locations to a seat at the table where we can in unity share the bread and wine of Christ's broken body. Both repentance and liberation are prerequisites for the reconciled community.

The Homeless: Part VII - Liberation is Yours

Last April I wrote a paper on homelessness for one of my seminary classes. The recent anti-homeless laws passed in Berkeley (which I talked about in this blog) prompted me to republish it here.

This is part 7.

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Liberation is Yours

In the last blog, we said that the most Christian posture toward the homeless is repentance. But to repent is not merely to feel bad about what you have done and promise not to do it again. Repentance is constructive action toward a different way of life--toward different systems. We do not stop at “sorry,” but offer Jesus the Liberator to the person with their back against the wall. Jesus’ death for the sins of the world is a rich and multivalent fact. When it is reduced to a savior who died to free people from the penalties of their personal sins, we extend a gospel that is stuck in individualistic homelessness theories and has nothing to say in regard to the forces of oppression that actually generate their circumstances. Street folks are the most evangelized people group in any city. Unfortunately, the gospel we extend fails to address their reality and instead unintentionally blames the victim. Good news for the oppressed is to hear that the sin-tainted structures destroying your life have been overcome by the power of the Lamb and he has provided liberation.

However, there are other ways to speak about Jesus with those who suffer. We can talk about how “Jesus’ death exposed the futility and helplessness of the systems of evil, and behind them, God’s ultimate enemy, Satan (cf. Col 2:15)” (Geddert, All Right Now, 5). We can exalt in that glorious moment of resurrection when Sin, Death, Satan and Powers and Principalities were all defeated. We can tell about how sinfulness became enshrined in the structures of our society, how this led to oppression, and how Jesus’ victory provided power for liberation and a new world of shalom.

Through Jesus, the homeless themselves can be empowered as liberators and shalom builders.

“It is this revolutionary cry that is granted in the resurrection of Jesus. Liberation then is not simply what oppressed people can accomplish alone; it is basically what God has done and will do to accomplish liberation both in and beyond history. Indeed, because we know that death has been conquered, we are set free to fight for liberation in history--knowing that we have a ‘home over yonder’”(Cone, God of the Oppressed, 147).

In this sense, evangelism is less a one-directional proclamation of truth than a process of dialogue through which the homeless can better comprehend their spiritual, economic and socio-political situation, rediscover their identity as human beings who can take an active role in shaping their world for justice, and be ‘on-ramped’ into the business of shalom alongside Jesus. [24]

Finally, as Christians we seek to walk with the homeless in solidarity for their liberation. Much has been said on how to be people of genuine value with the poor. Recently, books like When Helping Hurts and Toxic Charity have challenged us to recognize different genres of poverty so that we can respond with the appropriate strategy: relief, rehabilitation, or development. There is great wisdom in these cautions, however major problems occur when we misdiagnose what is in front of us. If Christians maintain individualistic notions of homelessness (particularly of the chronically homeless) then we can easily abdicate our responsibility to provide immediate relief in the belief that this is ultimately crippling, that it will “hurt the poor.” But to be homeless is to be in crisis, no matter how long you have been on the street and how accustomed to its lifestyle you have become.

Recognizing the crisis level of homelessness means acting on multiple fronts at the same time. I normally would advocate to begin a transformational strategy with Freirian techniques so that the marginalized person is positioned for leadership in the developmental process. However, in this case the radical instability of homelessness requires immediate outside intervention in order for relationship and ongoing dialogue to have a functionable environment and effective degree of consistency. In the poignant words of housing advocate Ed Loring, “housing precedes life.” [25] Before someone can hold down a job, they need the stability of a home. Before healthcare systems can effectively improve a person’s wellbeing, they need to get out of the rain and cold. Before someone can get over an addiction, they need a house that can stop the chaos around them and relieve the depression of hopelessness. If the Church is to be the Church, they need to serve the homeless through immediate housing services. Housing must come first. [26]

From housing, followers of Jesus must turn toward effecting transformation of the many systems which collude to produce homelessness. The world is beginning to wake up to the fact that our political economy is failing across a multitude of indicators. Just over a month ago a group of over 400 activists, policymakers, practitioners, business people, and scholars signed a major statement called the Next System Crisis Statement. It named the following:

“Today’s political economic system is not programmed to secure the wellbeing of people, place and planet. Instead, its priorities are corporate profits, the growth of GDP, and the projection of national power. If we are to address the manifold challenges we face in a serious way, we need to think through and then build a new political economy that takes us beyond the current system that is failing all around us. However difficult the task, however long it may take, systemic problems require systemic solutions.”

As a people who can easily recognize the paradigmatic gap between biblical visions of shalom and the homelessness-producing systems of the modern world, the people of God can readily agree with this statement and need to lend all our strength, creativity and worldview insights to this task. Globalized, neoclassical capitalism is not the sanctified, unquestionable will of God. Democracy can function far more robustly than the money-driven, exclusivist, quagmired structures we currently maintain. New systems are needed and we stand at a moment in history when enormous energy is gathering around a movement for change. It is a wonderful opportunity for Christians to collaborate with others for the common good. The point is worth repeating: people will continue to fall onto our streets until the systems change. [27]

Change work has to happen at every scale, micro and macro, local and global. The church can be part of creating alternatives to societies’ oppressive institutions: affordable housing, social enterprises for employment and professional development, financial institutions for savings and loans, co-ops for democratic ownership. We can also help drive the built environment and public spaces like parks toward vibrancy. This is the vital work of community development that creates an equitable world in which such an extreme form of marginalization like homelessness is no longer even imaginable. In addition to development, churches have close ties with the community that give them a strategic place in organizing people together to advocate for change. Through organizing and advocating for systemic changes, people of faith can help change the rules of the game to foster a world in which all thrive.

Finally, Christians are able to play a unique role in a homeless person’s journey from the street back to wholeness. As followers of Jesus, we know that housing is a wonderful first step, but that alone it falls far short of the shalom-homes we believe everyone was created to enjoy. Our goals are far loftier! Kimberly Dovey says: “Home is a relationship that is created and evolved over time; it is not consumed like the products of economic process. The house is a tool for the achievement of the experience of home.” [28] Bouma-Prediger and Walsh go on to explain what a home truly is in its richest form: “Home is, minimally, where they have to take us in, like it or not. Ideally, it is where we are loved and cherished even though we are known. Home is where we have a shot at being forgiven” (66). A home is the place where the stranger can become the host, a place of stability, a place that roots one’s identity, and a place of security. It is a place where relationships are whole, where love and warmth abound. As the Church, we recognize that it is not enough to simply stick someone inside an apartment and call it good. Instead, we know that life is about relationships well lived, and that those who have been excluded and discarded need a loving family to gather around them for the long haul. The systemic solution is not simply housing the homeless--important as that is. It is providing homes for the homeless, in all the richness and familial love implied by that term.

Conclusion

CCDA practitioners pride ourselves on neighborhood-based methodologies. Unfortunately, this focus typically leads us to work a step or two away from hands-on homelessness ministry. This is a shame. Homelessness is an ultimate sign of neighborhood failure. As ministers of the ‘hood, we have to see this connection. Our goal is a world in which no more people live on the streets, where everyone has a home in every shalom-imbued sense of that term.

That is my dream, and it is where I want to end this series of essays to end. But I find my heart unwilling to do so. While history may someday find its completion among the mansions God is building for us, my conclusion needs to stop in the present, not in a dream. Tonight, hundreds of thousands will end this day without a home. Their ongoing suffering does not have an immediate end in sight, and they resist my BS pie-in-the-sky religiosity. Paul’s story in particular stops me short. Paul broke all the stereotypes. He was a former aeronautical engineer who once worked on the air force base east of Colorado Springs. Brilliant and hard working, he still lost his job when his contractor downsized. Not long after his wife left as well. Paul fell into drinking, lost most of his property and eventually lost his home. After ten years on the street, he pulled it together. I met him on the way back up. He came with his ubiquitous jean jacket and mullet to our social service office every day to work on the computer, make phone calls and seek opportunities. He got up at four to get Labor Ready temp work. Then one day, he was approved for a Housing First program and got off the streets. I got to be there when he found out and we celebrated. Several months passed and I did not see him. Then one day, I was helping organize a yearly vigil for the homeless who pass away called The Longest Night. While gathering the names of that year’s deceased, a woman on the other end of my phone said Paul’s name. “Paul?,” I said, “Are you sure? The guy who always wore the jean jacket?” Yes, she said. He died in his apartment a couple months after moving in. 

Even when everything seems to line up, the deck has been stacked against some people for so long that they never get to see the other side. I cried for a good twenty minutes after that phone call, wondering if I might be the only one who wept for Paul. Tears need not be equated to hopelessness. Sadness is too often associated with fatalism. This is not what I am talking about. Lamentation does not need to mire us in cynicism or inaction. Rather it can be the grief of a lover who sets out to avenge their lost one. It is a sadness that produces a holy anger, not toward any person, but toward evil. If we do not lament the pain and loss of our loved ones, we dishonor them. Sadness arises because you love the one who is being injured. Out of love, we will fight for justice in faith that our God has already won the decisive victory. But for this moment, let us lament.

Arise, cry out in the night, at the beginning of the watches!

Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord!

Lift your hands to him for the lives of your children,

who faint for hunger at the head of every street.

Lamentations 2:19

[24] - I would describe this as evangelism as inspired by Paulo Freire. His books Education for Critical Consciousness and Pedagogy of the Oppressed provide a fresh, empowering methodology for evangelism that allows both “teacher” and “learner” to encounter Christ together in conversation, to honor the stories and wisdom of both parties, and to be mutually conversion in that process.
[25] - quoted by Bouma-Prediger and Walsh in Beyond Homelessness
[26] - For Christians, this is not merely instrumental, impersonal sheltering, but implies intimate hospitality. I wish there was space to explore the richness of this theme and its radical implications for everyday life in a world of people without homes! A wonderful reflection on the subject is Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove’s Strangers at My Door: A True Story of Finding Jesus in Unexpected Guests.
[27] - For space limitations, I am not going to go into what these new systems might be, but the reader should know that a wealth of valuable resources exist pouring out of many of the world’s brightest minds. Starting points include: E.F. Schumacher, Small is Beautiful; Daly & Cobb, For the Common Good; Liu and Hanauer, The Gardens of Democracy; McKibben, Deep Economy; Powell, Racing to Justice.
[28] -  quoted in Bouma-Prediger and Walsh, Beyond Homelessness, 57-58.

The Homeless: Part VI - Struggling Toward a Christian Response

Last April I wrote a paper on homelessness for one of my seminary classes. The recent anti-homeless laws passed in Berkeley (which I talked about in this blog) prompted me to republish it here. This is part 6. 

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Struggling Toward a Christian Response

Howard Thurman threw down the challenge of our age by posing this question: “The masses of men live with their backs constantly against the wall. They are the poor, the disinherited, the dispossessed. What does our religion say to them?” (Jesus and the Disinherited, 3). What does our religion have to say for the spat on, the invisible, the dirty, the hungry, the hurting? What good is Christianity for the homeless?

Ultimately only they can provide an answer. No thoughts I offer can be definitive without their voice. As a seminarian, my habit is to talk about non-ontological, relationally based, social psychological theologies of sin. To cast grand visions of shalom from the Garden through the Law and Prophets, to Jesus among the outcasts, to the New Jerusalem. To creatively exegete the culture for contextualized articulations of the gospel. Then roll into a sophisticated, multi-pronged strategic plan for social transformation. All this has its place, I know, but the weathered faces squatting behind a concrete wall somewhere in my head keep staring at me saying, “What the fuck are you talking about?” My homeless friends do not want a technical answer about them, they want an answer that is for them and with them. I must begin phenomenologically to speak into the experience of being homeless: bored, chaotic, fearful, lonely, numb, disturbed...suffering and powerless.

If we are to offer something of value to the homeless, it must be done with painful sensitivity that we speak into the flow of suffering. Shifting the focus from traditional theological matters to the situation of the oppressed, James Cone writes, “Blacks do not ask whether Jesus is one with the Father or divine and human….They ask whether Jesus is walking with them, whether they can call him up on the ‘telephone of prayer’ and tell him about their troubles” (God of the Oppressed, 13). In suffering, a person wants to know if anyone is there with you. Cone goes on to say, “Through Jesus Christ they could know that they were people, even though they were bought and sold like cattle” (31). The discriminated and discarded want to know that they matter, that they have value, that they are human. Finally, those who suffer look for hope, searching for a sign that change can come, that someone is fighting on their behalf, and for the strength to resist their own persecution. On this note, Cone is superlative:

“Yahweh is known and worshiped as the One who brought Israel out of Egypt, and who raised Jesus from the dead. God is the political God, the Protector of the poor and the Establisher of the right for those who are oppressed. To know God is to experience the act of God in the concrete affairs and relationships of people, liberating the weak and the helpless from pain and humiliation” (57).

Though he writes specifically from the Black context, Cone’s words extend to oppressed people everywhere, to all who suffer. In his writing we find the beginning of a meaningful response to the homeless that can be offered as love: solidarity in suffering, an affirmation of worthiness, and power for liberation.

We are With You

At the end of Matthew 9, Jesus looks out on the crowds that have walked beside him and is moved. The passage says, “He had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.” (v37). Compassion, in the sense Jesus expresses, is not merely offering some assistance to those who have less than you. “The word compassion is derived from the Latin words pati and cum, which together mean ‘to suffer with’” (Nouwen, et al., Compassion, 3). To all those who suffer, we offer the God who suffers with. Jesus repeatedly became the “harassed and helpless” alongside the people he loved, and epitomized his solidarity through death on the cross. The fact that Jesus not only ministered among the marginalized but identified himself as the marginalized good news offered from a Savior who is a brother and comrade in the struggle.

His solidarity also serves as a lifestyle to model for his disciples. Richard Hayes takes the cross as an emblematic symbol for ethical engagement in the world; “Jesus’ death on a cross is the paradigm for faithfulness to God in this world. The community expresses and experiences the presence of the kingdom of God by participating in ‘the koinonia of his sufferings’ (Phil 3:10)” (The Moral Vision of the New Testament, 197). Finding ways to empathize and share in the suffering of the homeless is both the truest form of love and the seed for transformation--“but the power of the resurrection is in God’s hands, not ours” (ibid). Those of us who attempt to shift from the dominant culture into solidarity cannot take this transition lightly. We have to accept that our lifestyles have benefited from and contributed to oppression. “Discovering himself to be an oppressor may cause considerable anguish, but it does not necessarily lead to solidarity with the oppressed...Solidarity requires that one enter into the situation of those with whom one is solidary; it is a radical posture” (Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, 49). There is no better starting point for entering in than the simple art of listening. Dietrich Bonhoeffer claimed “the beginning of love is beginning to listen.” [22]

You Are Amazing

When speaking into the midst of suffering, followers of Jesus can declare an unfettered celebration of who a homeless person is. Far more than passive or begrudging affirmation, the Christian declares two sacred truths over the life of the oppressed. First, we know that a human being’s value is not reducible to economic productivity, but rests in the incomparable majesty of the image of God. In the ever-poignant words of Martin Luther King Jr, “The good neighbor looks beyond the external accidents and discerns those inner qualities that make all men human and, therefore, brothers.” (Strength to Love, 25). Justo Gonzalez has also reminded us that human value--even human righteousness--does not correspond with their legality or criminality. Furthermore, when laws are unjust, it is not the lawbreaker who is in sin but the lawmaker and the law itself. [23]

Second, we know the paradoxical truth that the homeless are uniquely glorious among all people for Jesus himself dwells in and among them. It is the shamed who have honor in the kingdom, the poor who will inherit the earth, and the hungry, naked, and imprisoned with whom Jesus chose to identify himself. Following this logic to its conclusion leads to a startling revelation. If Christocentrism is the best point of departure for understanding the universe, and if the homeless are to be identified with Christ, then we are wrong to talk about the homeless as “marginals.” Rather, they stand at the center with Jesus as a window into the true nature of reality. In the final analysis, the homeless are not at the margins for to position them as such permits the oppressive society to function as the appropriate ‘center’ off which all deviants should be measured. From a Kingdom perspective, our work is not among the marginalized, but ministry among the centralized!

A third aspect of human nature revealed in scripture should send the privileged to the underpasses and train yards asking for forgiveness. God’s word exposes the lie of individualism and prophetically denounces societies built on its competitive, self-seeking foundations. In its place, the bible offers a vision of humans as wholly dependent on God and designed for interdependence with the entire community of creation. “If there is to be well-being, it will not be just for isolated, insulated individuals; it is, rather, security and prosperity granted to a whole community….Always we are all in it together” (Brueggemann, Peace, 15). Randy Woodley argues that on the basis of God’s creational intent for comprehensively inclusive communities, “sin, in a very real sense, can be defined as the absence of shalom” (Shalom in the Community of Creation, 23). We are, as the King quote says above, brothers. As brothers, we are responsible for one another. Unfortunately, we have abdicated this call since Cain first asked, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” The answer is yes. As the people of God, the most appropriate postures toward our homeless brothers and sisters is repentance.

[22] - Quoted by Barry Wade, Ministering at the Margins, 211.

[23] - See Justo Gonzalez, Mañana: Christian Theology From a Hispanic Perspective.

The Homeless: Part V - Structural Injustice

This April I wrote a paper on homelessness for one of my seminary classes. The recent anti-homeless laws passed in Berkeley (which I talked about in this blog) prompted me to republish it here.

This is part 5.

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Structural Injustice

While personal lifestyle choices certainly have ramifications, the breadth of possible ramifications and the funneling of certain outcomes into marginalized portions of the population are shaped by our society’s mitigating structures. I have met wealthy alcoholics with multiple homes and homeless people who are sober, and I know many homeless who are far harder workers than myself and most of my seminary classmates.

“We need to abandon the simplistic idea that poverty results from the moral weaknesses, bad behaviors, and inferior abilities of the poor....We need to recognize that the problems of poverty and inequality are inextricably bound to the power-laden economic and political structures. These determine the allocation of resources and opportunities, who gets what and how much” (Royce, Power and Poverty, 2).

Economic, political, social and cultural systems make up the primary macrostructures of human society. Though books have been written on each of these, I will briefly identify some of the features in each that have allowed us to accept, create and even criminalize the homeless.

ECONOMIC STRUCTURES

Income inequality today is back to its highest recorded levels, on par with the depression era’s robber barons. “In 1970, the average U.S. CEO earned 30 times more than his lowest paid workers; in 2005, he earned 411 times more” (Salvatierra and Hetzel, Faith-Rooted Organizing, 5). However, even more damaging than income inequality is the dramatic disparity in wealth. A person’s financial assets represent their personal safety net. For the poor today, this safety net is nonexistent. “In 1997, the richest 1 percent of American families...owned 38.1 percent of the nation’s total wealth. The bottom 40 percent...possessed a miniscule 0.2 percent of total wealth” (Royce, 9). This gap has only mushroomed. A household is asset-poor if their wealth holdings cannot cover basic needs for three months. Unsurprisingly, rates of asset poverty for African-American and Hispanic households, are “over 60 percent [when] measured by liquid wealth” (10). Without even the narrowest margin for error, life without an economic cushion constantly teeters on the edge of homelessness.

Wealth accumulation is, before anything else, a function of income, and income is primarily a function of one’s job. Unfortunately for the poor, good work in the city has rapidly evaporated. Globalization and the shift to a “knowledge worker’s” economy disolved industrial jobs that once provide solid quality of life for the working class. In their place has come low-income service sector jobs that withhold employee benefits and a living wage. No factor has influenced the rise in homelessness since the 1970s more than the loss of good jobs. [15] Wealth is, secondly, derived from inheritance. Thus, any appraisal of present day capital distribution leads us to an historical account of systems that funneled wealth into the hands of white males and away from people of color.

POLITICAL STRUCTURES

Economic inequality funnels up into political inequality. Robert Linthicum reports that the top 13,000 richest families in America “gave 35% of all campaign dollars in recent presidential elections” (Transforming Power, 50). It is not surprising, then, that the political system is stacked in favor of large businesses and the wealthy, and against the poor. [16] Among its many harmful repercussions, three are of note for their direct impact on the homeless. First, the social safety net, which includes government provision of affordable housing, has been scaled back to the point where it no longer meets the needs of those on the street. “If there are more people who are homeless or at risk of being homeless than there are houses, apartments, and rooms to provide them shelter, there is a crisis” (Bouma-Prediger and Walsh, Beyond Homelessness). Furthermore, if the free market is failing to provide this housing (and/or to provide habitable housing as in the case of slumlords) then it is the government’s responsibility to its citizens to close the gap. [17] Similarly, if there are not enough living-wage jobs, it falls to the political realm to generate a remedy. [18] It is not acceptable to wait for the market to produce a solution in its own good time--not while men, women and children suffer.

Second, policy decisions played a key role in creating America’s blighted and abandoned inner-cities that raise and play host to the majority of our nation’s homeless. As Mark Gornik wryly states, “A lack of personal responsibility did not build the inner city” (To Live in Peace, 50). Racialized redlining, disinvestment, destructive transportation policies and highway construction, neglectful education policy, foolish zoning and a host of other progressions overseen by the government create contexts that conclude with homelessness for some residents. Now that the wealthy are returning to urban centers, it is vital for public officials to empower the marginalized residents who have called these places their home with leadership in the future of their city.

This juxtaposition of wealth and poverty in America’s inner-city leads us to the third and most tragically ironic political injustice: the criminalization of homelessness. “The US economy operates systematically in a way that inherently disenfranchises a portion of its citizens, while at the same time society cries foul at those who are the inherent product of its own structures and policies” (Wasserman and Clair, At Home on the Street, 155). Vagrancy laws stack injustice on injustice when they make the oppressed into a criminal for simply living in a space he or she was forced into from the beginning. [19] Conveniently, this situation creates no cognitive dissonance for the dominant culture thanks to their individualistic homelessness myths.

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL STRUCTURES

Many subtle and not-so-subtle elements of American culture and society converge to displace over a million individuals from their homes over the course of a year. These include our previous discussions on rugged individualism and its subsequent poverty myths. Another oppressive force that cannot be over emphasized is our culture of discrimination on multiple bases of race, gender, class, nationality, sexual orientation, and mental-physical health. That discrimination of these people exists is a fact I do not feel the burden to substantiate. Instead, I want to highlight that the corresponding -isms become comprehensively ingrained at every level of our psychological and social worlds, significantly complicating the road to justice. Ideologies like racism constitute a piece of a person’s worldview, and become expressed in the four following forms:

1. Intrapersonal: Discriminatory typologies are internalized into the identities of both oppressed and oppressor.
2. Interpersonal: Interactions between type-casted individuals are shaped to become hurtful, exclusionary, exploitative, reactionary and even hateful.
3. Institutional/Communal: Groups and organizations formed with conscious or subconscious discriminatory worldviews take corporate actions and set group policies that institutionalize the exclusionary actions/attitudes of individuals.
4. Structural: When discriminatory worldviews are held by the powerful, they become enshrined in the society’s macrosystems, as we have been examining. [20]

Once again, there are feedback loops between each level that allows discrimination to built and reproduce. Thus, one can argue that a culture’s worldview is a hidden structure generating familiar injustices like homelessness.

Disconnecting diverse members of the population has concrete ramifications. Social connections are how things get done and how opportunities arise. Social scientists describe these relational dynamics as social capital: “social connections have significant economic consequences…social capital consists of the benefits people derive from their personal interactions and social relations” (Royce, 187, 197). If you are part of a group that has been marginalized through discrimination, educational and vocational opportunities are far more difficult to acquire because these are primarily derived through one’s social networks. If you live in a disinvested neighborhood full of similar people, the odds are exponentially stacked against you. Social capital forms part of the explanation of the disturbing prevalence of former foster children on the streets. Those who lack a strong network of support not only have a much harder time acquiring assets and are thus more susceptible to poverty, they are also in far greater danger when disaster strikes for there may be no one standing by to offer a hand back up.

On the devastating effects of the dominant culture, Bouma-Prediger and Walsh are worth quoting at length:

“Urban decay, rampant poverty, and a society-wide crisis of homelessness may all be rooted in pathology, but it is not the pathology of the victims. If there is pathology to be diagnosed, it is a societal pathology that has diseased the very structures of the economy and the shaping of public policy for the common good. If there is a cultural cause of homelessness, it is not to be discerned in a blame-the-victim diagnosis of a ‘culture of poverty,’ but it can be discerned in a victimizing and excluding culture of economic growth at all costs” (93).

The systems have indeed been stacked against “the other” in our midst. However, it is precisely at the level of culture and worldview that we find the brightest glimmers of hope. Systems theorists demonstrate that because our structures are shaped to conform with our values, changing a people’s values offers the most powerful leverage point for comprehensive transformation. [21] As a worldview with a dramatically upside-down framework from the world’s oppressive, self-seeking ways, this is the time to turn to our faith.




[15] - For a much fuller description of the impact of globalization on homelessness, see Bouma-Prediger and Walsh, Beyond Homelessness, 94-97.
[16] - I just want to acknowledge that that is a strong claim that I am leaving unsupported due to space limitations.
[17] - This is not a claim I make based on contemporary politics, but on the bible’s concept of the role of government. See Moshe Weinfeld, Social Justice in Ancient Israel and the Ancient Near East.
[18] - By this I do not simply mean New Deal-esque government jobs. Creative policy needs to incentivize the business sphere toward social and ecologically just ends. Liu and Hanauer offer a thought provoking model for government in light of new systems science in their book The Gardens of Democracy. Additionally, as I explain below, this is by no means an abdication of the Church’s role in compassion and community development. Rather than detracting from this important responsibility, it highlights the people of God’s call to advocate for justice in the political system.
[19] - The homeless need to follow basic laws of social conduct in public spaces like anyone else and I am not advocating for panhandling (something that has never released anyone from the street). But when someone’s entire life has been banished to public spaces, it is not their fault that they must do life there. If we make it illegal to urinate in public (for example), but do not provide public restrooms, shame on us for criminalizing a victim.
[20] - This framework is partially based on the work of race scholar James A. Powell, and was presented by Deth Im, a PICO national trainer, during the Hope Fresno event Spring 2015.
[21] - See Donella Meadows, “Leverage Points.”

The Homeless: Part IV - At the Margins of the Marginalized

This April I wrote a paper on homelessness for one of my seminary classes. The recent anti-homeless laws passed in Berkeley (which I talked about in this blog) prompted me to republish it here.

This is part 4.


_______________________________

A SYSTEMS ANALYSIS OF HOMELESSNESS

The individualism of the West is based on belief in a world which is at base composed of self-contained atomic units (as in Newtonian physics). Scaled up to anthropology, it follows that humans are best understood in isolation, that rationality best reflects natural law, and that a person’s life-trajectory is their own responsibility. The modern world we are familiar with is a great experiment in applying this worldview.[6] Unfortunately, it is based on faulty science. Over the past century, “a change of paradigms as radical as the Copernican revolution” (Captra and Luisi, xi) has taken place largely outside of the public consciousness. It has precipitated a rejection of mechanistic explanations for the discovery “that the material world, ultimately, is a network of inseparable patterns of relationship; that the planet as a whole is a living, self-regulating system.” (Capra, 3)

Three significant implications emerge from the recent scientific paradigm shift that inform this paper’s reflective point of departure. First, in the words of systems theory pioneer Donella Meadows, “You’ll stop looking for who’s to blame; instead you’ll start asking, ‘What’s the system?’” (34). Locating social problems in individuals is no longer a tenable alternative. Rather, our analysis must attend to the broader contextual forces at work which collaborate to produce the world we are familiar with. Second, modernity’s stern division between facts and values is a farce. “In reality, scientific facts emerge out of an entire constellation of human perceptions, values, and actions...from which they cannot be separated” (Capra, 11). Social systems designed for maximizing mechanical efficiency regardless of the “waste” products produced along the way can no longer stand above reproach by reference to natural laws. The waste of these systems has too often included human lives. Our systems are products of our culture, and therefore must stand trial before people of conscience. Third, “from the new science’s perspective, “the only viable solutions are those that are sustainable for life” (Capra and Luisi, xi). This is convenient for Christians and makes our voice particularly relevant in the new milieu for we have words of great sophistication to offer in regards to systems that cultivate abundant life.

Of course, this approach is not new. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote the following over half a century ago: “We’ve got to begin to ask questions about the whole society. We are called upon to help the discouraged beggars in life’s marketplace. But one day we must come to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring.” People of faith have intuitively believed this for some time, but having the most progressive science to back up our claims gives us newfound legitimacy in the public square. In the spirit of these principles, let us now critique a few major systems that have stolen life from the homeless before moving on to God’s vision of life-giving shalom and methods for reconstructing society toward this redemptive end.

At the Margins of the Marginalized

The first thing that must be noted in reconnecting homelessness to the broader context is that it is--along with death--the cul de sac at the end of every marginalizing road. When society rejects someone, their journey of exclusion culminates in a functional ejection from society to the street. And in many ways, to fall out of society is to no longer be a member of the human race.

From the poor to people of color, from LGBT youth to the formerly incarcerated, disproportionately large percentages of marginalized people groups find themselves homeless. It was this overwhelming correlation that led me to choose this topic for my final paper. The following are only a few examples:

• Over a third of the homeless were at one time a ward of the state or in foster care compared to only 2% in the general population.

• Of homeless youth, over 40% identify as LGBT. Not only is this disproportionate to the overall youth population, LGBT individuals are often further rejected by so-called faith-based homeless shelters.

• 40% of the homeless are African Americans (compared to 11% of the general population); 11% are Hispanic (compared to 9% of the general population); and 8% percent are Native American (compared to 1% of the general population). 

• As high as 70% of the homeless have spent time in jail. Conversely, being homeless vastly improves one’s chances of eventually becoming incarcerated.

• It is not redundant to remind the reader that the poor make up 100% of the homeless.

Marginalization begets further marginalization. In systems theory parlance, this is referred to as a reinforcing feedback loop, “a vicious or virtuous circle that can cause healthy growth or runaway destruction…[that] are found wherever a system element has the ability to reproduce itself or to grow as a constant fraction of itself” (Meadows, 30-31).

Advantage or disadvantage quickly compounds on itself. Children who grow up in poverty often do not receive the same care and training during the first few years of their life. They show up to kindergarten already behind their middle and upper class peers, and without significant intervention often never catch up. Each time a traumatic event happens in someone’s life, another chip of disadvantage is stacked on the scales against them. Bearing in mind the agency of human beings and the complexity of their environments, these factors are not deterministic, but clearly all do not play on an even field. Our history and context have significant bearing on the likelihood each of us has to live on the street. At the same time, genuine efforts to combat homelessness mean moving upstream to the sources of oppression and injustice in all their forms.







[6] - Since this is such an aenemic explanation of all the complex sides of modernity, here are a couple suggestions for further reading. The best philosophical analysis I have seen is Charlene Spretnak, “Chapter 2: The Rise and Fall of Modern Ideologies of Denial,” The Resurgence of the Real: Body, Nature, and Place in a Hypermodern World. Her critique comes from an ecological perspective, which allows her to move past deconstructionism and offer something fresh. Euro-American explanations always fall short, however. We are too much inside the water to fully explain it. Walter Mignolo's The Darker Side of Western Modernity brings the perspective of the marginalized to bear like a tidal wave that drags all a city's trash out into the street. His book make the convincing argument that colonialism is at the heart of modernity, that these are two sides of the same coin, one unable to be understood without the other.