Start a revolution if you want…

This post concerns a “conversation” that has been happening within the church for a while called variously emerging church, missional church, emergent and maybe some others. I have been involved in it for a number of years and therefore feel passionate about these issues. If this seems too esoteric and tangential to a theology of food please feel free to skip this post.

Third, I bet you’re not disappointed with Shane Claiborne. That’s because, to this point, Shane has made the very noble decision to live a chaste life, and he has committed his whole self to an irresistible revolution. Meanwhile, most of the founders of emergent are raising children and paying mortgages and coaching YMCA t-ball. Martin Luther King didn’t coach t-ball; neither did Ghandi. Start a revolution if you want, but that’s not a price that I’m willing to pay.

The above is part of Tony Jones’ response to a growing chorus of voices saying they are disappointed with Emergent Village. Just to be clear this is about the organization, not the amorphous movement some call “emerging church” which cannot be attributed to Tony (or anyone else really). Tony has many good and important points to make in response to his critics. In fact, I agree with pretty much everything else he says. However, this paragraph made my jaw hit the floor.

After reading through the comments, it seems that the main issue people have with this comparison to Shane and his book is that it makes them feel guilty and not everyone is called to his radical lifestyle. I have previously taken on this issue in my post Relocation and Reorientation. I don’t think Shane or others in the new monastic movement would claim that all faithful Christians must follow their example. However, I will reiterate that the witness of those living out radical lifestyles (families too by the way) in following Christ both 1) criticizes the complacency and cultural accommodation of the rest of the church and 2) invites us into new ways of being the church in the world.

Far from creating a singular model, these radicals both inspire and challenge us where we are to live out our faith in more radical and subversive ways. Some commenters pointed out that they shouldn’t feel guilty for their lifestyles. I agree that what we do where we are at matters more than what someone says we should be doing.

However, my missions professor was fond of pointing out that “when everything is missions, nothing is missions.” The call to follow Jesus is a radical one and it should question our consumptive lifestyles and the way we allow the culture to organize our lives (including mortgages and T-ball). You can follow Jesus anywhere, but following Jesus means something particular. It does not condone our lifestyles or our culture. It calls us to a new way of being and living that is an alternative vision for the world. This includes a better balance between family and ministry, but it does not mean less radical.

If mortgages and T-ball are really what’s holding us back from embodying the kingdom, then those things need to be sacrificed. We must be willing to pay that price at least.

Too try and tie it back into the purpose of this blog, many young people and families are willing to trade their suburban lives for the farm life. Some have said that we will need 50 million new farmers to create a local/regional food system in North America. We will need people to buy that food and do other things. So, not everyone will become farmers, but many many more must if we are to move forward. The same could be said of the church. Many more will need to live out radical lives like Shane and others to bring the church into balance.

What can the rest of us do where we are to support those with such a call? What can we do to incorporate more radical practices into our lives where we’re at?

The Long and Short of It

Tonight I am teaching at Meadow Oaks Baptist Church where I’ve been a member for about 4 years. I am teaching about my journey and calling toward agricultural missions and understanding the role food plays in our lives, globalization and justice. This is a pretty concise summation of why food is so important, my theology of mission and how food fits into God’s mission for the world. By concise I mean I had to cut a whole lot of important stuff out. Luckily I have a wife who listens to me ramble and tells me which parts to cut and which parts don’t make sense. So this is both very long for a blog post, but too short to say everything I wanted.

The full text after the jump.

Relocation and Reorientation

I will be teaching the Netzer Co-op May 17th on “Relocation to Abandoned Places of Empire.” This is the last installment thinking through what this might mean.

The mark of relocation for new monastics has most often involved downward mobility to urban places that are the places most people least want to visit let alone live. I respect and admire many of these people for their willingness to abandon the excesses and comfort of Empire for the challenge of living with the poor. They are on to something important about geography and place. They commit themselves to a particular place and particular people where they attempt to incarnate the universal gospel. This is absolutely essential to our practice of Christianity.

However, whenever we take a particular way or model of living out the gospel as the only way, we tend to miss the point. For example, what if all faithful Christians decided that this mark was consistent with the gospel and should be followed? There would be a reverse “white flight” of suburban soccer moms to the inner cities. The intruding hordes of guilty middle class families would simply overwhelm these poor neighborhoods and most likely do more damage than good. It would be gentrification with the best intentions. Is this the vision of new monastics or the kingdom? No.

New monastics, as I see it, are living out the gospel in a radical way in order to 1) shed light on the inadequacy of the way we currently practice Christianity and 2) to invite us into a different way of being the church in the world. This is what monastics have always done when the church goes astray. So, not everyone should relocate to the inner city, but the witness of these monastics points us to something important.

I would like to suggest that the mark of relocation really gets at is a reorientation of our lives toward the marginalized and oppressed. When the kingdom of God begins to inform and permeate our lives and perspectives, we are reoriented towards those that society forgets and marginalizes. This does not necessarily involve physically relocating our lives, work and families to a new geographic location. It does mean that we can no longer see our current context in the same way.

As I pointed out in the previous post on abandoned places, everything that Empire (that dominating system that has captured our imaginations) touches becomes an abandoned place. Consumerism leaves us all an empty shell, void of meaning or substance. To take it another step, our suburban lives, while far physically from the poor are as close as a trip to your local grocery store or big box chain to be instantly connected to people in China, Taiwan, Vietnam and the thousands of other places where the things we consume are produced. We don’t have to relocate to take action about the effects of Empire in our midst, but we do have to reorient our lives around the marginalized and oppressed so the veil can be lifted.

Wendell Berry on Innovation

I read Berry’s article on why he is not buying a computer last year. It provoked a lot of thought, as it did debate when it was first published. Jeff Shinabarger recently summed up Berry’s proposed rules for technological innovation.

1. The new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces.

2. It should be at least as small in scale as the one it replaces.

3. It should do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it replaces.

4. It should use less energy than the one it replaces.

5. If possible, it should use some form of solar energy, such as that of the body.

6. It should be repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence, provided that he or she has the necessary tools.

7. It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible.

8. It should come from a small, privately owned shop or store that will take it back for maintenance and repair.

9. It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.

What do you think about these rules? Are they even possible? Are they too idealistic? How do they differ from the way we do things now?

New Blood in the Old Body

Civil Eats has an ongoing series about young farmers and why they farm. The most recent post called Why We Farm, A Young Farmer’s Manifesto ends with these words:

We are the new blood in the old body.

This obviously reminded me of an enigmatic statement someone made about wineskins. The sentiments expressed about how change comes to entrenched institutions reminds me of the incarnation. We enter into the world in all of its messiness, because we are witness to another order, another way of organizing our lives together. This other order has already come, but it’s not yet arrived.

I’ve always wrestled with how change comes. Is it gradually by working within the system? Or do we advocate for revolution, overthrow of the present order? As usual the answer seems to lie somewhere in between. The Third Way recognizes that change inevitably involves some combination of these two. We cannot ignore the present order of things as if it were really possible to simply do away with it and start over. This should not lead us to the conclusion that the way things are is simply the way they will always be. The essence of the Jesus movement is the idea that there is a telos, purpose, towards which history and life is directed, the order of God. The vision of this alternate economy, this new way of living, being and ordering life together in the world is what pushes us forward. The vision of this other way is not simply a progression of the way the world orders things, but in many ways counter to the current state of affairs. The tension between these two is “the new blood in the old body.” This sounds like resurrection. This is the mission of God in the world… and even those who are not followers of Jesus can be part of it.