I need to go to bed so I am not a zombie tomorrow, but the evening ended with the presentation of the movie which took away all of my gadgets, Amazing Grace, the William Wilberforce Story. The movie was pretty good, if longish, and a bit hard to follow at times with all of the flashbacks. It definitely takes some swipes at the current American political landscape with politicians branding their opponents as treasonous in a time of war. But more broadly, it is an encouraging movie about a man who took his relationship with God seriously and was inspired to bring justice to his country in many ways.
One interesting thing about the movie is that they are going to launch a campaign corresponding with its release to push for the elimination of modern-day slavery. According to their stats, there are 27 million slaves in the world - more than even during the time of the slave trade. It’s something to look out for and participate in when the movie is released in February, and it sounds like a great thing that believers of all political stripes can rally around. How much controversy can there be in ending slavery (am I being naive)?
Good night.
Richard Rohr’s talk was a bit harder to follow for me, and my chickenscratch was even worse by then, but I still came away convicted.
He started his talk by discussing how many cultures have initiation rituals for boys which involve powerlessness. It is only when they experience complete powerlessness that they are able to be trusted with power as men.
Next he talked about the fact that religion and politics are corrupt without each other, but even worse, religion has become corrupted by the “bad power” of politics. This bad power, unaccountable power, distorts morality. The gospel is in the business of reforming the world, yet middle class American Christianity is unable to critique power.
This inability to critique is seen in both politics and religion. On the political side, there are certain questions politicians simply cannot ask because their special interest task masters will not allow them. Likewise, in the church, there are certain issues which cannot be addressed for fear of losing the church’s financial base. An example of this was the war in Iraq, where only 3 percent of churches had any criticism before the war began.
He then asked the question - how did we get here? His answer is that for the past century, the church has become concerned with belonging systems. The “almost perfect crime” took place, and the gospel was replaced with identity religion. In identity religion, the group becomes the substitute for inner experience with God.
Next came the crux of his talk for me - belief systems in any church are there to get us started in our faith. But once we mature, our inner authority must take over and help us to follow Jesus more simply. In his words, the truth really boils down to only 2 or 3 things, not the long list of doctrines that every church has. But for many of us, we couple those belief systems with our external power and use it to justify ourselves at the expense of others. The point, though, is that only by giving up our external power can we have internal power.
This giving up power to gain power cannot be proven, but only known by going on the journey of transformation and even suffering. But on the flip side, in his words, saints don’t burn out because they know they are being used. It’s not about their own worthiness, but simply about their participation in God’s plans.
The danger is that religion seeks power by seeking moral superiority, a well disguised narcissism. He calls it “Jesus wallpaper” - using our self-righteousness to put people in their place, spiritually.
Finally, he summed up by discussing the 3 types of power the scriptures caution us against. When Satan tempted Jesus, he asked 3 things:
- Change stones to bread = misuse of economic power (i.e. politicians lowering taxes and thereby giving immediate gratification)
- Throw yourself from the temple = misuse of religious power (i.e. using religion to maintain control over others)
- Bow down and gain kingdoms of the world = misuse of political power (i.e. seeking the perpetuation of power and worshipping the political system itself - selling out)
His final point was that we must reframe our world view and develop practices which will help us sustain them. This conference is about giving us the tools to keep our reframed worldview.
Okay, enough griping. Jim Wallis and Richard Rohr each spoke for what seemed like much longer than their 20 minute allotment, but in both cases were excellent. Coming from a reasonably charismatic faith background, I anticipated that this conference would be significantly more head-focused than spirit-touching. But after Wallis’ talk, I was pretty sure that if there were a ministry time after the service, I would have been in tears. So much for me putting God in a box. My spirit was definitely touched.
He started by talking about the premise of the conference - the connection between spirituality and social justice, and that connecting those two was what the world was waiting for. He discussed his own faith journey from a 6-year-old kid told his parents would be taken away and he’d be left all alone if Jesus came back that day; to a 14-year-old who started to see the inconsistencies between the gospel as preached and as lived out in racially and economically segregated Detroit. And finally his reconnection with God after time spent serving the civil rights movement.
He then discussed William Wilberforce, the protagonist in the movie we were about to see. His mentor, John Newton, was a former slave ship captain who after his conversion wrote Amazing Grace and worked toward abolition himself. <aside>Knowing this definitely makes the hymn that much more powerful.</aside>
Wilberforce’s attempts at getting the slave trade abolished were defeated 9 times in parliament before finally passing in 1807, and his attempts at full abolition of slavery in the British empire were defeated 30 times before finally passing in 1833, 3 days before Wilberforce’s death. <aside>This is actually encouraging - so much of the time the problems of the world seem impossible. Yet Wilberforce was able to see the institution of slavery destroyed within his lifetime.</aside>
Next, Wallis talked about the fact that he felt like a “19th century evangelical” - and that Charles Finney was one of his favorites. He mentioned that the alter call was Finney’s invention, and it was meant not only to save people’s souls but to enlist them to join the abolitionist cause. <aside>Have to fact-check this one.</aside> Wallis’ point here is that faith doesn’t mean much unless it is put into practice in the world.
Finally, he got to the crux of his talk, at least from my perspective. When we search for spirituality without a desire to serve the world, we enter into narcissism. In other words, it’s about what Jesus can do for me, not through me. And this leads to burnout, anger, cynicism, and even violence. <aside>I can definitely relate to the first three of those.</aside>
But it’s not all doom-and-gloom, he is convinced that another Great Awakening is about to happen in this country. What we have to do is get out of its way and let it happen to us and then to society.
Finally, he talked about the fact that politicians cannot address the big issues of our time. And the biggest, in his eyes, is poverty, which he calls the “new slavery.” In fact, poverty has led to the actual enslavement of more people now than 200 years ago at the height of the slave trade.
He ended by mentioning that Sojourners was going to start having “new altar calls” - justice revivals meant to sign people up to apply their faith in the pursuit of justice.
My thoughts: I was most convicted by his characterization of the American church as narcissitic in its faith. I think that’s right on. Too many times, it’s just about getting inner healing, having good prayer times, and enjoying our worship times. While none of those are bad things at all (they’re very good), if it ends there, is it really faith at all?
The prayer service which opened the conference didn’t exactly float my boat. First it was the peace-rally feel of the Byrds’ Turn Turn Turn being used to bookend the prayer service (which was really mislabeled - it was more of a recital of the deeds of various folks who worked for justice in the past). I also took a bit of an issue with the presentation of Jesus as just another social reformer like Gandhi and Cesar Chavez. But I guess my theology is open enough to put up with a little more ecumenicalism than you would find in your average evangelical church.
And finally, getting my cell phone and laptop forced off pretty much spoiled the mood. Do I sound bitter? I need to lock myself in the basement and do some forgiving, I suppose.
The intellectual property police were out in force for this first session due to the screening of the not-released-until-February movie, Amazing Grace, the William Wilberforce Story. First they prevented people from bringing cell phones into the theater (<snark>because, you know, we might pirate the movie using our 320×240 camera phones</snark>). Then they even prevented the use of laptops - so I’m composing this all well after the fact rather than liveblogging it. Hopefully I will be able to read the notes I scratched down - it’s not like I actually write much anymore.
In any case, I can somewhat understand the phone prohibition, but the laptop restriction was ridiculous. Like I couldn’t just convert my written notes for publication, which, incidentally, is exactly what I’m doing. Furthermore, you would think that any publicity would be good publicity. Hopefully this paranoia was simply due to the movie screening - if it was not, then it seems like a mistaken policy. For many people my generation or younger, taking notes on a laptop is much more efficient than scribbling them down, and if they’re trying to build a movement, it would seem that they would encourage folks to blog during the show.
But whatever, it’s their show. I suppose I can overlook these annoyances if the conference is good. And so far, it is off to a good start. More in the next entry.
If this is true, it saddens me:
The director of ABC’s controversial “Path to 9/11″ docudrama has ties to an evangelical Christian group whose goals include “transform[ing] Hollywood from the inside out,” according to research by readers of prominent blogs.
“Path” director David L. Cunningham is also involved in “The Film Institute,” an offshoot of the Hawaii-based global evangelical group, Youth With a Mission.
I have friends who have been involved and are involved with YWAM and it is a good organization committed to doing good things around the world. But the “Path to 9/11″ docudrama appears to have significant distortions of the truth which make it little more than a propaganda movie. Mr. Cunningham’s involvement with this project gives a good organization a tremendous black eye.
Unfortunately, in too many cases today, Christians have decided that it is better to win the political argument than to adhere to the truth, to show kindness, and to love mercy. Forsaking the gospel for the sake of political gain is a losing bet. I can only hope that the church in this country figures that out before it leads itself to ruin.
