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?

“I Need You”

During my last semester of seminary I picked up a book that was sitting in the hall for the taking. I’m a sucker for free books. This one was called Sacred Parenting. I thought some reading on parenting might be good since I have an infant and a 2 year old. Judging the book by its cover, however, I would guess it to be the fluff found filling the shelves of Christian big box bookstores (yes, we have them too). So far, though, it’s a good read.

The basic premise of the author is that parenting is formative for parents as much as it is for the children. Parents have the options of choosing how to react to circumstances and situations, whereas children are necessarily products of their environment. In this way it makes sense that parenting should be viewed as a spiritual discipline that forms parents as much as children.

I won’t try to impress you with my parenting. I would soon be exposed as a charlatan. However, I do try to heed Jesus’ words about having the faith of a child. So, I try to pay attention to my kids, who they are and how they see and engage the world. One thing I noticed the other day about my kids is that they have no pretension of being self sufficient. They know they need their family and the ones they love. They are dependent and not afraid to show it. We expect that of infants, but we can find it annoying in toddlers and older children. We make sure to instill in them the time honored American values of independence and John Wayne-ism ™.

But when my son comes out of his room at night crying for whatever reason, he holds his arms out to me and through tears and scrunched up face and says, “Hold you me, daddy.” He knows he needs me. The question is whether I know that I need him.

This is why I’m writing about this realization on a blog about food. The way we produce and consume food assumes that it doesn’t have anything to do with anyone else. The truth is that we depend on other people whether we like it or not. It is when we live as if this is not true that we design our own destruction.

In Search of Life

I blame the election and all my conservative friends for distracting me from my passionate pursuit of a theology of food. As numerous people suggested at Slow Food Nation ‘08 the issues of this election and agenda of both candidates (health care, economic reform, and climate change) will all inevitably run into the issue of food. So, perhaps those conversations should have been happening over here.

If you care, here’s an update on my journey towards my ethical food fetish. If not… move on. Nothing to see here.

My wife and I continue to wrestle with our plans for the future. I graduate from seminary in December. Our goal is to somehow live at the World Hunger Farm for a year as interns to gain practical skills and knowledge, as well as connections, for our future. However, this internship comes only with a place to live and food to eat (very good food mind you). We own a house and have two kids. It quickly becomes apparent how easily we all become embedded in the American way of life without a second though to its implications.

For us this is about living out the gospel as we understand it in the most holistic way possible. The process of trying to save money for a year, downsize our material possessions and prepare to sell our house has been enlightening to say the least. We have become acutely aware of our “stuff” and how much of it there is. It also brings out all of our assumptions about what is necessary and what is luxury. Just because we have a particular standard of living in this country, (single family detached housing, two cars, etc.) does not make it necessary.

On top of all of this I just finished reading Missions and Money for a class and was very challenged. While the Bible does not condemn people just for being wealthy, it certainly judges those who live in affluence strictly for their use of that wealth. Jesus goes so far as to say that it would be easier for a camel to saunter through the eye of a needle than a wealthy person find God. And why should they? They don’t really need God, do they? What pierces the heart is realizing that I am the wealthy whether I like it or not.

To bring it back to food… A lot of people don’t want the solution to our problems with food and economics to involve sacrifice. We can simply spend our way out of the problem. Or we can harness the power of the consumer and economic self-interest. The truth is that our problems (like most) cannot be solved without sacrifice. This is the way of the cross. This is the way I hope to live out the gospel with my family.

Make Money By Simplifying Your Life

So my wife and I are leaning towards interning at the World Hunger Farm for a year. They teach sustainable agriculture and development from a Christian perspective. We would gain some skills that would help us get involved with organizations doing this kind of work around the world.

There’s a catch though. This internship is not paid. That means a family of four living on a farm for a year with zero income. So we’ve been going over the finances and subsequently increasing our stress levels and blood pressure. This is where I find it hard to figure out the difference between stepping out in faith and making a bad decision.

As I’ve been trying to figure out possibilities for extra income and how to make this work, I realized that the best solution so far is ridiculously simple.

Be a full-time stay-at-home dad.

It blows my mind that we would make more money by reducing our expenses than by adding income. It costs more to send two kids to day care than any job I can get on short notice to make some extra money. This is the problem with our mentality about finances and life…this includes food. We have a one track mind that asks, “How can I make enough money to fund the life to which I’ve become accustomed?” We (even me) forget to question the lifestyle to which we’ve become accustomed.

It turns out we also have a lot of junk that we could sell for some pretty good cash, like camping gear and nice bikes that we rarely use. I’m going to be putting a lot of this stuff on craigslist soon. I will post links for those of you with lots of disposable income and time to use the gear collecting dust in my house.

How have you or could you make money by simplifying your life?

Waste Not: Clean Your Plate!

No sooner had I posted on wasting food, including both this NY Times article and a reference to the admonition parents often give about starving children somewhere, than I found this interview with Marion Nestle from Eating Liberally on the exact same thing. Weird huh?

I filed it under the heading of “let’s blame the world food crisis on wasteful Americans.” I don’t buy it. Americans have been wasting food for years. We can afford to. If we couldn’t, we wouldn’t…Once again, the blame goes on personal responsibility, not policy. The world food crisis is your fault. If you personally didn’t waste so much, children in Haiti and Africa wouldn’t go hungry? Wouldn’t that be nice? Of course we should all be careful not to waste so much, and now that food prices are going through the roof, my guess is that we won’t.

She then gives a laundry list of reasons for the food crisis with waste at the bottom of the list. It’s a good list, but I’m not sure Dr. Nestle answered the original question…

Moms have been chiding their kids to clean their plates for decades on behalf of starving children in ________(insert deprived region of your choice). And, for decades, kids have wondered what eating those last bites of brussels sprouts could possibly have to do with some poor malnourished kid in Kenya. Is there a connection between America’s overloaded plates and empty bowls elsewhere in the world?

Now, I agree with what she said about blaming individuals and ignoring policy. BUT it seems obvious to me that there absolutely is a connection between our plates and the economic lives of people around the world.

It does raise an interesting parenting issue that might provoke some discussion. How do you deal with wasted food at meals? The starving children tactic has its pros and cons. Pro: It addresses the fact that what we do with food affects others and is an issue of justice. Con: It may encourage unhealthy eating based on guilty feelings and lead to an unhealthy relationship with food.

I’m kind if up in the air on this one. We don’t (yet) make our 2 year-old clean his plate through guilt or coercion, but we do use incentives to get him to eat more and eat things he doesn’t like. Invariably there is food left on the plate that gets scraped into the trash. Composting would solve that (Post coming soon on that).

So, what do you think about the starving children method? Is it true and does it work? And what do you do to encourage less waste, healthy relationship with food and a better understanding of food issues with your kids?