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Powering Democracy and Replacing Redundant Lighthouses

~ philipamerson

Powering Democracy and Replacing Redundant Lighthouses

Bornholm, Denmark is an island in the middle of the Baltic Sea. Lovely place; a center point for one of the green power initiaitives in this small nation. In Denmark today over 50% of current electrical energy comes from renewable wind and solar power – a marked increase in recent decades. Denmark’s goal is to be 100% free of fossil fuels by 2030! This small nation is showing the rest of us a possible future. What is required for such dramatic change?

Denmark is a nation built out of a web of islands and distinct communities. While language and history, economic opportunuties, war and domination, have woven the Danes together, there is more to the story. There is imagination – an opnness to work together for new approaches to challenges. Currently, on Bornholm island, in order to make space for the windmills, new landfill projects are emering along some of the shore. Hundreds of windmills will be constructed. Has there been opposition? Of course. Still, all this is part of a national effort to, not only supply Denmark’s energy needs, but become a nation that produces its own electric power and sells energy to others. Rather astonishing. Along with thousands of miles of shoreline, the Danes have wind, and more, imagination is at play.

Rønne Lighthouse, Bornholm, Denmark

On some islands, a few former lighthouses, will now be further from shore and less visible to aid those sailing. These lighthouses are being replaced, made redundant. Some would argue that modern satellite GPS systems have eliminated the value of and need for lighthouses altogether; even so, new light sources will be installed.

This would not be the first time Denmark has led Europe, and the world, with imagination for desperately needed change. Little known is the story of the Danish Folk School Movement begun in the early 1800s. In that time, a wide majority of the pesantry living in the region were impoverished. Illiteracy was among the highest in Europe. Only a wealthy few had access to representation in government. The situation was bleak, trust in others to make change was low.

A remarkable man, Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig (1783 -1872), a Lutheran theologian saw Denmark’s future based on the construction of a system of universal literacy and the development of common trust. His vision led to the Folk School Movement. The goal was not to build a stratified society based on test results and university degrees. Rather, he focused on enriching comminities with educational options to nurture the human spirit through song, poetry, crafts, literature. It was a celebrating the giftedness of the people. Gruntvig saw renewal coming from the “bottom up.” Some of the “students” could also teach — they were weavers, cooks, farmers, fishers. Gardening, dance, practical uses of math and science were taught. Yes, there were classes in spiritual matters that were a part of the whole. Grundtvig’s goal was the preparing of persons for more enlightened citizenship and the development of networks of community trust. The folk school movement offered a place where those with limited money and time could learn new and more democratic habits, values and skills that would be needed for a healthy future society.

One hundred years later, by the early 1900s, Denmark enjoyed one of the highest literacy rates in Europe. At the same time a vibrant emerging democracy was electing representatives to the Folketinget, or the house of commoners. A majority of these folks representing districts from across Denmark at the time, had studied in the Danish Folk School system. Today, Denmark has a unicameral government with representatives serving in the Folketing. Not all is, or has been, perfect in this story — there was the Nazi occupation and times of political corruption and turmoil. Still the folk school movement, wind mills and redundant lighthouses can serve as valued metaphors for us and others who seek a way to proceed to a more democratic and literate world.

In many places there is need for the renewal of trust, and a way to learn a new literacy based on a knowledge that is accurate and inclusive of others. It is difficult to think of the situation faced by Denmark in the early 1800s and not compare it to the malaise of our modern time. Distrust of institutions and a sense of brokenness in so many of our communities is evident and threatening to our futures. One measure of this malaise is offered in the Edelman Trusts Barometer https://www.edelman.com/trust/2021-trust-barometer. Across the world, trust in our institutions, and one another, is at an all time low. Perhaps our “democratic lighthouses” are placed too far from our current shorelines. We do not see the light that might offer us a better set of bearings for the future.

Taken as a practical example and metaphor, what might one learn from the Danish experience? A few possible lessons would include:

  1. As to energy independence from fossil fuels, Denmark is showing us that dramatic and rapid change is possible. They have the attribute of wind; others of us have the prospect of, along with wind, adding many more solar power options to our resources
  2. Perhaps some of our cultural, commercial, social, educational, healthcare and religious “lighthouses” need to be moved or rebuilt and re-imagined. How might we relocate the work of the press (news and social media), churches, the schools, healthcare systems, theaters, museums, etc. so that they are closer and more relevant to the journeys of those traveling in the future?
  3. Are there ways to think systemicly about how to move ahead to encourage a more trusting and democratic common life? (In the U.S. I am of the opinion that a program of universal service options for our young would be such an institutional initiative.)
  4. What gifts of the people, across our communities, can be brought to places that seek to enrich the common life. Do we have imagination for such systemic and constructive change? These will be needed to do some Cultural Land Fill work as new ecologies of democracy emerge. I think of the excellent resource of the Tamarack Institute: https://www.tamarackcommunity.ca/?hsLang=en and the Asset Based Community Development projects:https://www.nurturedevelopment.org/asset-based-community-development/.

As a child, I learned an old hymn and often sang it. It was about the importance of lighthouses for people who lacked the light of faith.

The first verse was:

Brightly beams our Father’s mercy from His lighthouse evermore,
But to us He gives the keeping of the lights along the shore.
Let the lower lights be burning! Send a gleam across the wave!
For to us He gives the keeping of the lights along the shore.

Perhaps people of faith can join folks in other arenas to build new light sources for imagination, democracy and spirituality. It seems the church has put too much of its focus for too long, too far from where the light of imaginative faith is needed. We have offered little spiritual light and what is offered is shining in the wrong places. Rather than a faith that builds up trust and community, too much time has spent dividing, excluding and relegating those who differ to another separate island.

For the imagination already offering us hope in Denmark and beyond, I give thanks.

Declaring Interdependence

~ philipamerson

Declaring Interdependence

In a month, our nation will celebrate Independence Day 2022. There will be fireworks, brass bands, speeches — lots of speeches. Sadly, some will use the Day to seek to divide — to insist that individual freedom is the all in all for our democracy. Individualism will be celebrated and in some places the social contract will be given short shrift. Politicians, and others, will suggest their way is the only true understanding of our national experiment. It will be suggested that those who disagree, are not true-blue Americans. Alas.

I have been giving some thought to a Declaration of Interdependence. It is not a new idea. There have been a number of “Declarations of Interdependence” published over the last century and before. Many of our words and practices for the “common good” seem to have lost valance in the chemistry of our body politic. Words like “neighbor, friend, commonweal, community, kinship, congregation, covenant, alliance” have been lost or turned inside out, swallowed up in a wash of self-interest and the celebration of individual freedoms and options. The idea of a social contract seems to disappear — and it is forgotten that we live best when we are in healthy and respectful relationiships with the stranger.

My time spent with farm people taught me that the weeds in one field, unattended, can eventually damage the neighbor’s harvest. Poor soil protection practices can, through water or wind erosion, hurt the neighbor. And further, when a neighbor is in trouble, those around understand that they need to help repair the damaged roof or aid with the planting or harvest of a nearby farmer in trouble.

We have allowed too many weeds to grow unattended in our national ecology. Sometimes the result of the ugly and bashing words in the media, whether on television on in social media, lead to ugly actions and words on the street. In the extreme, angry self-focused individualism results in damage to us all, sometimes it ends in violent actions toward others. The gun violence exploding across our nation illustrates how “individual rights” have been perverted into foolish misdirections. The fact that ownership, registration, insurance and public safety practices are so lax around assault weapons, as compared to owning and operating an automobile, illustrates the distortion that is possible when we singularly declare individual independence and fail to balance this with a declaration of interdependence.

Our nation has faced antisocial and individualistic tides in the past. Hypercapitalism and selfish, exclusive politics are not new. Folks like Jane Addams marked the way respect for the stranger and those who were excluded by reminding us that “Democracy modifies our conception of life, it constantly raises the value and function of each member of the community.”

Jane Addams Memorial Park, Chicago

If I am unable to persuade my senators, congressman and governor to take common sense steps to save lives, whether around guns. Or, if I can’t immediately address environmental, educational or healthcare concerns, perhaps I can take small steps to declare interdependence in other ways. I have been giving thought to what simple acts might be taken to encourage and perhaps mend the dangerous rifts created by radical individualism. Here are a few small suggestions:

  • Write at least one letter (posted in the U.S. mail) at least once a week for the next year.
  • Call a friend, especially one you haven’t seen in a while, every day.
  • Support a local newspaper, especially one that still has some local ownership. Send a letter to the editorial page.
  • Call a school teacher, principal, social worker, nurse or other social servant to simply say “thank you.”
  • Smile and greet the store clerk with a postive word.
  • Offer the fast food worker a tip for her/his work; and/or pay for the person who is in the car behind you at the fast food restaurant.
  • THERE ARE HUNDREDS OF OTHER WAYS WE CAN REBUILD HUMAN GRATITUDE AND TRUST.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who spoke and wrote of a Beloved Community. In his Letter from a Birmingham Jail he writes: “In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be… This is the inter-related structure of reality.” He says it so clearly and simply — “connection is health.”

Wendell Berry’s novels, poetry and essays all provide clear and compelling calls to Interdependence.

In wondering what I might do to take some small step in repairing the fabric of civic life and the building a beloved community, my phone rang. It was a surprising invitation from a friend inviting me to participate in a monthly gathering of men to spend an evening together in conversation and friendship — no big agenda (at least not at first). It was just a small invitation. When the friend asked if I was interested, I laughed and said, “Your call came right on time.”

Jesus at Our Doorways

~ philipamerson ~ 1 Comment

Jesus at Our Doorways

Morning walks are a gift in retirement years. One sees things with eyes that are both old, and new. One remembers, prays, dreams. Today I notice the doorways.

In doorways, along streets were I often walk are folks without shelter. In the early morning light I see them. Many are asleep, a few are up, moving, repacking their belongings. I speak sometimes: “Can I buy you a cup of coffee? Mostly the response is silence or “no thanks.” Today, Ronnie says “that would be nice.”

In my city are dozens, perhaps hundreds, who seek evening shelter at our doorways, under bridges and in wooded clearings. We have shelters and multiple social service programs – some very good ones. Years ago, the church I served in this town made a commitment to seek to make a difference. A fine set of service agencies have resulted. Even so, the number of persons living on the streets keeps growing. They come from nearby towns where resources are few, and, truly, they come from around the nation. Mental health resources, creative responses for addictions and resources to aid severe poverty are insufficient. We look to the mayor, other city officials and social service agencies to make a response and are often disappointed.

As I walk, Revelation 3:20 comes to mind. 3:20 “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in and eat with you, and you with me.” (NRSVUE) The King James Version’s memorable translation begins “Behold, I stand at the door and knock…” The meaning of this passage has been spiritualized by much of American Christianity.

After all, the book of Revelation is “apocalyptic” literature filled with symbols and metaphor like dragons, angels, seals, beasts, earthquakes, rivers and gardens. Revelation is an interpreters paradise. Many a theological shyster has used Revelation for purposes that are contradictory to the messages of the Torah, Prophets or Jesus of the Gospels. Some interpretations naturally move away from seeing real-flesh-and-blood-folks, like Ronnie, who sleep in our doorways.

Revelation 3:20 is often spiritualized to mean that Jesus stands in an individual’s experiece or “the heart’s doorway.” It is a passage used in support of “born again” Christianity to mean that if one “opens the door of the heart” then Jesus will “come in” and that person will then be “saved.”

This is, no doubt, helpful to many. However, what of a wider understanding of this, not just a spiritual awakening, but a true “behold” event? What if the one on the outside seeks shelter and fellowship with the insiders, us?

What if Jesus’ representatives are actually at our doorways? What if these persons are signs of Jesus’ presence today? Over and over in Revelation there is the phrase “I know your works.” The writer of Revelation does not write, “I know your heart experience,” but rather “I know your works.“

In the 8th Century BCE, the prophet Isaiah challenged his listeners to do more than join the institutionalized rituals — the “fasting” on certain occasions. The question Isaiah posed was “what does God require of us?” He answers, “Is it not to share your food with the hungry and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—when you see the naked, to clothe them, and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?” (Isaiah 58:7).

On our streets today, in every city and town, folks sleep in doorways without shelter. More resources are needed. And how much of the continuing challege around this dilemma resides in an inability to “behold” the one at the door as worthy of our response and more? How might these be seen as a part of a larger story — one that requires more of us? Social service agencies can serve as buffers protecting from having to do anything other than donate a few bucks and then look the other way.

Our “programs” and “agencies” can actually allow us to avoid discovering the stories of those who sleep in our doorways. Insufficient resources is a truth. But more resource and programs are not enough. We also live in a culture that looks on the poor as those who are in the situation due to their own personal “moral failing.” Such a perspective limits our imagination and distorts our empathy.

John McKnight reminds us of an even more fundamental complication and reality. Our institutional responses, well-meaning as they are meant to be, can become twisted and upsidedown. Agency programs can fall into virtue cycles, and end up spending more energy on applying for the next grant or designing the next fund-raising event than in listening to, and beholding those in our doorways. Additional government and philanthropic regulations require more staff. Our bureaucratic impulses turn those “being served” into “clients” who are to be “treated” according to an outside formula or “an outcome.” The persons without shelter, or with “mental illness” or suffering an addiction lose their voice and the unigue and powerful stories they bring, These are the very things that might better shape a genuinely effective response to root causes. Public servants can be turned into masters rather than the servants.

Ronnie and I sat at a table outside a shop along Kirkwood Street sharing coffee and a pastry. He tells of losing his job, his spouse and contact with his children. He says, “I have lost everything I love.” We pray. I mention some agencies, services nearby. He already knows them. He looks at me, nods and smiles saying, “This morning the coffee is enough.”

Johnny (and Jill) One-Notes

~ philipamerson ~ 2 Comments

Johnny (and Jill) One-Notes

Bob Greenleaf shared the story of an elderly, reclusive couple living in a small village who seldom ventured from their home.  However, one day the elderly man set out alone on an adventure. He traveled to a nearby city and after some exploring he returned with a battered cello he had found on a trash heap. The damaged cello had but one string. The twisted bow stick had only a few remaining hairs.  That evening and for weeks following, he seated himself in a front room corner and sawed away on the one single open string. Over and over he played one scratchy, repeated note. Day after day he played — his playing droned on increasing his wife’s unhappiness. Finally, able to stand it no longer, she decided to travel herself to the city.

Upon her return, she confronted her husband. “See here,” she said, “I have gone to the city and found people playing instruments very much like yours. The instrument is called a ‘cello’ and should have four strings. What’s more, those who play them move their fingers all along the neck of the cello and play many notes on each string.”  “Even more,” she continued, “people often play these cellos along with many others instruments. The sound is beautiful and powerful when they all play together. I am told such a group is called a symphony.  Why do you sit here day after day playing that one raspy note?”

The old fella gave his spouse a cold look and responded, “I would expect that of you.  Those people you saw are still trying to find the one right note, I have found it!” 

Robert K. Greenleaf, was a mentor to scores of folks; I was privleged to visit with him several times. His writings on Servant Leadership were widely read and practiced. Even in this, Bob knew that there would be the tendancy to turn his ideas into a distortion — a limited understanding — a one-note perspective. Too often it would be focused on “fixing” and “doing” rather than on “listening to others” and “reframing life with wider understandings.” Bob would chuckle at those who used Servant Leadership as a formula and say, “Leadership is a little like playing the cello. If you can’t hear the music maybe you shouldn’t try.” Or, Bob once opined “if you can’t share your playing with others, in a call and response way, then you will likely miss the beauty of the whole.

As I listen to the singular issues expounded in much of today’s social and religious discourse, I think of Bob and the story of the man and his broken cello. One note, one idea, one conviction (or two or three) can capture and predominate. Such behavior is like playing with too few strings on an instrument or giving too little attention to seeing things whole, seeing life and our challenges more comprehensively.

Perhaps you have seen the video of Johnny Mathis who holds one note, loudly, for almost a minute-and-a-half. It is amazing. Mathis is singing Johnny One Note, a song from the Broadway Musical “Babes in Arms” from 1937. (The movie version of this show starred Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney.)

The Free Dictionary identifies the idiom “Johnny-One-Note” as “Someone who repeatedly expresses or maintains a strong opinion on a single or a few particular subjects.” The song Johnny-One-Note and the idiom display the reality that when one person holds one note long and loudly, it is difficult to hear anything else.

Robert K. Greenleaf

Bob Greenleaf died on September 29, 1990, at the age of 86. Some of the wisdom Bob shared seems even more relevant today. He called himself an “institution watcher.” His experiences within large institutions like AT&T and the Ford Foundation led to his insights, his consulting and writing. In answering the question how does one best lead in humane, constructive and effective ways? He wrote “The best test, and difficult to administer, is: do those served grow as persons; do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants?  And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society;  will he benefit, or at least, will he not be further deprived?” (From The Servant Leader, p. 7)

Bob is buried in his hometown of Terre Haute, Indiana after spending much of his working life in corporate headquarters on the East Coast. His head stone captures his sense of humor, and the whimsy of life, with an epitaph he wrote for himself: “Potentially a good plumber, spoiled by a sophisticated education.“

One of his many insights that comes today was his statement that “Whether we get a better society in the future will be determined by how well older people nurture the spirit of younger people.”

Bob Greenleaf encouraged folks to “see things whole;” maybe this is why he liked telling the story of the man and his battered cello.

Sunday School and Poker

~ philipamerson

Sunday School and Poker

Recently I visited an adult Sunday School class in a nearby town. It was, well – unusual, surprising, and helpful to my understanding of some of our current culutural divides. In this class leadership is shared among the members.  Folks volunteer and can schedule their time as “teacher.” Greet Idea with lots of benefits.  You can learn about musical instruments, Buddhism, jogging, or one of the Biblical Prophets.  The class is filled with thoughtful and faithful people. It is in my mind one good model of excellence in congregational life.  It is a place of sharing and care.  One quickly can tell that there is much mutual affection in the group as there is an abundance of teasing and laughter. As John Wesley put it, there is a generous dollop of “watching over one another in love” stirred into the weekly fellowship. All to the good.

It is also a place where the divisions and distortions of our current political situation are offered. Among the many points of view, the many topics covered, sometimes a heavy dose of MAGA partisanship is brought to the lectern by the volunteer teacher.  I visited one Sunday morning when the Gospel-linked understandings of faith got more than a little garbled by Fox News “truths.”

That’s okay, good even.  I knew that there would be open conversation and a range of perspectives in this class.  Here is an opportunity for dialogue and the gentle corrections possible through friendship.  I have often thought that Sunday School classes and post-church-parking-lot-conversations serve as a seedbed for improved democracy.  I saw some of that in the class that day. I also witnessed the ways strongly held beliefs or ideological frameworks can disfigure the core message of Jesus of Nazareth.

I knew that members of the Sunday School class cared for this good man, filled with worrisome opinions and muddled prejudices. They knew of his real-life challenges. They were neighbors to one another. They offered each a place of respect. We all face challenges, whether betrayal, addiction, loss of health or loss of a spouse. We all know the dilemmas of fractures with friends or family. We all face loss of health or opportunity.

The volunteer teacher that morning proclaimed that from his studies, there was no guarantee the scriptures were the authoritative word of God, or that Jesus ever told the Good Samaritan story.  He then offered that the best framework for life is found in a poker game. “Each person at the table is dealt a hand at birth; that is the hand we play in life.” The cards one is dealt limit options, but he said this “will also offer some opportunities. The idea is to play the hand you are dealt as best you can when sitting at the poker-table-of-life.  Trying to help people can only hurt them if they haven’t been dealt the right cards.”

Wow!! Quite a framework. Quite a set of assumptions, all wrapped at the edges in the class-warfare encouraged by the Trumpian politics of our time.  In A Farewell to Arms Ernest Hemmingway writes: “The world breaks everyone and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”  I prefer the answer Jesus gives to the question “And who is my neighbor?”  It begins, “There was a certain man…”

Pondering this in recent weeks, I come to two conclusions: 

  1. There is no coherence to the MAGA movement. It is polyform, a muddle of prejudice, half-truths, wishful thinking, grievance and a struggle for self-esteem. As much as it may claim Christianity as source, it is often (mostly?) untethered from the Gospels.  It is also thickly covered over, cocooned, if you will, by the belief that others are cheating, getting something they don’t deserve. Interestingly, it is a modern Gnosticism, – a belief in a special knowledge each individual may garner by watching the correct rightwing television or a scouring of questionable internet sites.
  2.  Such gatherings at this Sunday School class, and other venues where diversity is welcomed and where all are respected, are all too rare.  These places are a most needed antidote to our current social/cultural/religious divides.

I will plan to return to this class – in part because all the other Sunday School classes I know of near me are filled with folks who all think alike.  I guess this is the poker hand I have been dealt.

The Short, Long Way or the Long, Short Way?

~ philipamerson

The Short, Long Way or the Long, Short Way?

We pray the COVID pandemic is ending. Or, at least moving toward what might be called endemic where, like the flu virus, we can receive protection from a mutating disease with an annual vaccination. Looking back we can see the messy and confused ways our society lurched from stage to stage, denial to denial, and fear to fear in these months.

Our experience reminds me of an ancient rabbinic tale: A traveler attempting to reach a distant city approached a child playing at a crossroads. He asked directions to the city. The child answered, “do you want the short, long way or the long, short way?” The traveler replied, “Well, I wish the short, long way, of course” and the child pointed a direction. After an hour or two the traveler saw the city on the horizon; however, he was soon standing on the bank of a large swirling river separating him from the city.

Retracing his steps back to the child, he said, “Why did you send me to a place where I can see the city, but cannot not reach it without much time and danger?” The child replied, “You wanted the short, long way.” The traveler then took the other path and after several hours finally entered the city, crossing a bridge. (Talmud, Eruvin 53b, Rabbi Yehoshua be Chananiah)

For two years now, many have shought a shortcut bypassing the COVID pandemic, journeying the short, long way forward. One day, I pray we will re-learn, together, that the role of our national agencies, when guided by unfolding science, mutual respect and trust, offer the best “long, short way” ahead. As a child, I remember receiving the polio and small pox vaccines as part of such a national consensus. Millions since have been spared suffering and death. Vaccines, then and now, may serve as a bridge for the long, short journey.

There is another, more pernicious, pandemic that continually rages across our common life — it is the pandemic of racial bigotry and discrimination. It threatens our future, our being our best, and the hope of a just and moral way forward. Many people of good will want to act in ways that are anti-racist. Let me suggest that, here too, one discovers the option of a “short, long way” or a “longer, short way.”

Let me explain. In October 2020 when our nation was reeling form the many tragedies of racism laid bare, as symbolized by the murder of George Floyd, I was asked to offer some advice and teaching. How might we untangle the snares of racial injustice? How will we find a hopeful way forward and begin a journey toward more respectful and loving communities?

Based on earlier research on racism and my life experience, I was asked to lead several Zoom sessions (remember this was during the pandemic) on the seeking of racial justice. Looking back now, I recognize that my counsel was to travel the “long, short way.” There were no easy short cuts. I knew that establishing relationships with those unlike me was central; working together with persons of different racial backgrounds and experiences on addressing places of injustice was needed at a grass roots level as a way to seek racial justice. I said to preachers, “Don’t preach that sermon, until there is a way to build such relationships.” Many preached their finger-wagging sermons anyway. I encouraged persons to read a book on racism, hold conversations, but working together with neighbors who were unlike you was more essential for change. Many read the books and talked but did little else of real substance. As I watched the many efforts at “diversity training” and “book clubs reading about racism” unfold, I was hopeful but knew these might end up being a “short, long way.” We act our ways to new ways of thinking more often than we think our way to new ways of acting. Preachng, reading and talking are good — but insufficient in crossing this swirling river of division.

Since that time, I have watched “Critial Race Theory” and accusations about “defunding the police” or the “1619 Project” used to reinforce divisions by demagogues. Political and media actors make the building of relationships for the common good even more difficult. We are witnessing a pandemic of voter suppression as a way to avoid equal representation. A renewed use of the ‘Willie Horton strategy’ stiring up racial fear and animosity was evident in the hearings of Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson. Sadly, it will take more than churches doing diversity training and reading groups, to respond to the waves of racially-stoked fear in our body politic. It will take more than curricular changes in our schools. It will take even more than this for the church and our society to move beyond our racial brokenness.

There is hope. I see it. It is a Long, Short Way ahead — If you do your diversity training, read those books on racism, please DO MORE. BUILD NEW RELATIONSHIPS. Reach out to those you perceive to be ‘different.’ Listen to their stories, find some small ways to work together. Leave your top-down ideas at home. Be quiet and listen for the signals of how you can best walk beside others. Together discover the long, short journey ahead. Join John Lewis in ‘making good trouble’ by crossing over that bridge.

Lest, I be misunderstood, racial injustice, tribal and ethnic discrimination is a human problem… it is in China, Myrnmar, India, Russia, Latin America, Africa, the Middle East. White surpremacy is playing out during the trigic events in Ukraine just now. In each instance, there will be the temptation to deny or point to the sins of others… or to seek the short, long way forward. Hard questions await for us as to how our responses differ in Ukraine from Ethopia or Syria. For now, we can find a place in our hometowns to begin our own long, short journey.

The piece below as written last October. It is about a friend who helped teach me the long, short way toward racial justice. Her name was LaVerta Terry.

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How to NOT Cure an Illness

This week a note popped up on my calendar dated, October 1st, 2020. It was a reminder to do a little one-year analysis of progress made regarding racial justice in the U.S. It read: “Next year consider if any thing more than reading and talking about racism has been done in your networks over the past year. Let’s check annually.”

I chuckled to myself. Since writing that note I had sat in on a number of conversations. Back in the summer and fall of 2020, following the tragic murder of George Floyd, and several other murders, folks were ready — to talk. I preached a few times. There was much conversation and study. Many church folks joined reading groups. There are many fine, fine books and some good conversation that has taken place. I am encouraged and at the same time dubious that real progress was being made.

If one has a headache, and the doctor prescribes aspirin, is it enough for the patient to sit and read the aspirin bottle label and not take the medicine? If a person is diagnosed with cancer, should the patient only review the research on carcinogens and treatments? Racism is endemic in our nation. We seek to make a difference every generation or so, only to fall back into old patterns of bigotry, separation and discrimination. Ours is a repetitive cycle of two steps forward and then one back. Yes, we are making progress, but we have miles to go and we are only progressing a few yards each decade.

My dear friend, LaVerta Terry once told me that “It’s going to take a lot more than reading and talking for things to change.” She reminded me of the quote by Frederick Douglas, “I prayed for twenty years and received no answer until I prayed with my legs.”

Research done decades earlier, in the 1970s, part of a program named Project Understanding, taught me that church people like to sit and talk. Getting up and doing something is much more challenging. Many like hearing challenging sermons about justice — well, okay, some folks like them, not all. I laugh thinking of folks who would leave worship following a “prophetic” sermon seeming so grateful I had railed against racism or sexism or homophobia. One fella, many years ago, thanked me at the door following such a sermon saying, “That was good, we like it when you talk dirty to us.” Yikes, is that all some these sermons were? Just a scolding? Treating the congregation like a collection of bad adolescents? Are they just a public rehearsal of “oughts, musts and shoulds” that cause folks in the pew to squirm?

My friend, Laverta Terry

Since that research on racism now nearly fifty years ago, I have seen over and again that there is a better way to deal with racism than reading or preaching. In the 1970s we would challenge congregations by asking “Did your church spend more on light bulbs or toilet paper in the past year than on programs in the community supporting racial justice?” Maybe we should be asking that question again. There are ways to engage with persons across the racial lines that continue to separate and harm. There are ways to “walk our prayers into existence.” Whatever your race or ethnicity, we can do more than read — we can ACT, LEARN, BEFRIEND, TOUCH, LAUGH as we PRAY.

Yes, marches for justice are necessary. Yes, passing the voting rights act is essential. We also need to take account of how our institutions spend time and money. What will have changed for us when October 2022 comes around?

My friend LaVerta Terry, died five years ago. She worked with the Black Student programs at Indiana University. More importantly, I now realize that her best gift was as my friend. We laughed often and well. We went to the opera and marched to address racist behaviors or in support of a student who had been excluded or verbally wounded by hateful language. LaVerta would say “The more opposition I faced, the more I decided I could make a difference, but to do this I had to make some people uncomfortable.” We strategized as to how to make changes and not only talk about them. I can hear her still, saying “If all we are going to do at church is talk, talk, talk, I’ll be waiting outside the door to walk, walk, walk.” LaVerta taught me much — talking is good; walking is better; strategize to get up and make a change; make a new friend; and, laughing together can’t be beat.

How not to cure an illness? Just read the label? Okay, what are you planning for next year? Any new friendships in your future? Let’s check in again next October.

Dream This Dream

~ philipamerson ~ 3 Comments 
The lion and the lamb shall lie down together;
The kid and the panther shall play in the sun;
No one shall know the strange word "soldier";
And war shall be a shameful deed that long ago was done.

And rest for the weary, and food for the hungry,
And peace for the comfortless shall not be far to seek;
And beauty in labor, and beauty in laughter,
And beauty in loving shall come to the meek.

Mountain calls to mountain top -
Sinai unto Calvary;
Whispers rise from ancient fields -
They push up through the sod;
        
       "Tell all the children
           To tell their children's children
                To dream this dream for God."

Ernest Cadman "Pomp" Colwell
President, Claremont School of Theology (1957 - 1968)
Dr. Calwell, ca. 1960

2-2-2-2uesday

~ philipamerson

2-2-2-2uesday

Today is a Twos-Day. This, the twenty-second (22) day, of the second (2) month, of the year twenty-twenty-two (2022), has me considering the things that might be “twinned” together. What are two places, two events, or two persons that share something in common.

Briefly then, I write of two persons who come to mind on this day of 2s. I join author John Green in not being a fan of heroizing individuals; even so, I risk it here. The belief that there is some hero in a white hat who will come along and save the day, is a deeply inculcated myth in our culture. It does much damage. One the one hand, some folks chose to wait for the hero to appear, not stepping forward to join others in seeking to address some injustice of shared dilemma. On the other hand some think they are called to act as hero and come up with “the great fix” that will solve whatever problem they perceive to be at hand. One doesn’t have to live long in low-wealth communities to see the damage done by the continuing cycle of “heros” who appear and believe they are going to fixt things, all the while ignoring the gifts of the persons or neighborhoods they were scheming to FIX.

Even so, on this day of twinning, there are some difference-makers who come to mind. They show up in our world to point us to noblier paths. On a day when tyrants, like Vladimir Putin, act as bullies on the international stage, there are other options. On a day when one can, in hindsight, see through the thinly veiled efforts of our former U.S. president to take us out of NATO, and undermine the democratically elected government of the Ukraine, I want to hold up two other persons. If Putin and Trump can be seen as twinned — at least in their preference for autocratic governance, there are two men who have shown a different path forward: Paul Farmer and Jim Wallis.

The news came yesterday that Paul Farmer had died. I only met Farmer once and briefly. Still his life, his writings, and his witness standout. He would not accept that healthcare should limited to only the wealty or privileged neighborhoods in our nation or world. He did his work encouraging the resources at hand — whether with the people by establishing neighborhood health worker corps or building clinics and hospitals using the natural resources and gifts of the communities where they were built. Read more about Paul Famer here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/21/how-paul-farmer-saved-millions-of-lives/.

Farmer was clear and persistent. His calling was to act along with others, to make a difference, to give access to health care FOR ALL. A friend tells of a time Paul Farmer was asked to meet with executives of a large pharmaceutical company in the Midwest. In his presentation, he said he could make a difference in a nation in Africa if a donation of $3 million in specific medicines could be made available. At the close of this talk, the executives quickly huddled, then came back saying the best the company could do was $1 million of these medicines. Dr. Farmer responded that, then, he wouldn’t be able to accept their donation because it wasn’t sufficient to the challenge the people were facing. As he stood to leave, the executives asked for a moment to discuss the matter further. Upon their return to the room, they assured Paul Farmer he would receive ALL the medical supplies he requested. Clarity and Persistence. We grieve Paul Farmer’s early death and celebrate the gifts he shared.

The second man that comes to mind is Jim Wallis. Jim is still very much alive and I give thanks for this. My friendship with Jim has been a long one, beginning back in San Francisco in 1974 when we were both called Young Evangelicals. I was teaching in an urban studies progam and invited Jim to come speak at a conference on the role Christians might play to address discrimination and poverty in our cities. As the editor of a new magazine, The Post American, later to become Sojourners Magazine, Jim was one of several persons who were emerging as important Christian witnesses. Jim would be the first to say he is not a hero; and my years of friendship would confirm his assessment. Like every person I know, he has his blemishes. Still, I suspect, that when a list of the saints of our generation is written, his name will be on that list (or at least he will be in a place of honorable-mention!).

Currently, I give thanks that Jim Wallis’ voice and experience in making it clear that voting rignts for all in the U.S. today is a moral issue: https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/02/18/sojourners-jim-wallis-voting-rights-religious-left/. As Wallis puts it, “For me it’s the first book of the Bible. We were all made in God’s image and likeness. Voter suppression on the basis of skin color is a throwing away of Imago Dei.” Jim has spent more than fifty years giving witness to the ways the Gospel calls us to live beyond the prejudices and discrimination still so prevelant. Clarity and Persistence.

These two men are connected by Clarity and Persistance: 1) they believe every human being is made in the image of God; 2) No matter the evil patterns and powers and persons who seek to exclude and dominate, God’s way of love for all is the preferred way for humanity. Paul and Jim have demonstrated THE BETTER WAY on this Twos-Day.

Along the Way: A Telling False Allegation

~ philipamerson ~ 2 Comments

Steve Harper identifies what I have also seen as a rising effort to narrow the clear-Gospel-call for social holiness, into a narrow and dangerous individualism. Dr. Harper clearly and courageouly points to this sad attempt to re-boot the Evangelical message.  In gratitude, I re-post his thoughts here.

Steve Harper's avatarOboedire

Since the first of the month I have come across a book, a blog, and an article that reveal fundamentalist Christianity has identified yet another “enemy of the Gospel”—social justice. It’s a telling and false allegation.

I have seen periodic references to fundamentalists caricaturing “wokeness” (which includes a resistance to injustice) as a liberal attack on America and the Church, but its only in the past few weeks that I have come to connect the dots and recognize that “social justice” is a code phrase for a concerted opposition to progressive Christianity. The book, the blog, and the article have combined to reveal the bigger picture.

The book…..Owen Strachan has written ‘Christianity and Wokeness: How the Social Justice Movement Is Hijacking the Gospel — and the Way to Stop It’ (2021). Until recently, I did not know about him or his book. And to be fair, he is too extreme…

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Deeper and Wider

~ philipamerson ~ 6 Comments

Deeper and Wider

Recently while sorting though an old file, I found the letter from Professor Gilbert James written in 1970. I had taken a leave from my formal seminary education in Kentucky and was in a year-long intership, teaching at the United Methodist School IPA, in the Republic of Panamá. Professor James at Asbury Seminary and I exchanged correspondence during the year. I was taking a reading course from him while away from campus.

Dr. Gilbert James,
Used Courtesy of the Archives and Special Collections of Asbury Theological Seminary

In the letter I recently discovered, Dr. James asks that I not share its contents because “if expressed openly on campus would be considered high treason.” Hyperbole is all too comon in the academy. However, I think Gilbert was quite serious. His comments in the letter would have created problems and perhaps even censure.

My spouse, Elaine, and I were in Panama. Back in the U.S. Gilbert was confronted with a “spontaneous revival” which had begun at the college across the street. Others have since spoken and written about the 1970 Asbury College Revival in positive terms. There are, indeed, powerful stories of persons finding emotional and physical healing and being restored in their faith.

What were these controversial comments in the letter? Gilbert writes of his dismay watching folks “getting high on ‘mass enthususiasm.'” As a social scientist, educated in both sociology and psychology, what he observed was a religious fanaticism, interpreted with narrow fundamentalist language, and celebrated with “abysmal Biblical ignorance.” Only that!

Gilbert and Esther James with Abbie Christian Establishing a Work in Indianapolis for the Department of
Interracial Evangelism for the Free Methodist Church (circa 1955).
(Used with Permission of the Asbury Seminary B.L. Fisher Archives and Special Collections)

Some saw in the enthusiastic fervor at Asbury College in 1970 a great time of spiritual renewal. Gilbert noted there was good, but expressed concerns rooted in his years of experience with such spiritual awakenings. There is irony in the fact that Gilbert James had spent much of his life as an evangelist, attending and preaching in many camp meetings and revivals. Between 1946 and 1960 he was the Superintendent of the Department of Interracial Evangelism for the Free Methodist Church. He knew the genuine article and celebrated it. In 1970 he also was troubled.

Knowing my teacher as a world class provocatuer, I suspect that his fear of being accused of being a traitor to the faith is correct. He might have been charged with something like “high theological treason” in that particular time and place five decades ago — and in many places still today. He saw some of the fanaticism of the events at the college across the street, spilling over into the seminary. My guess is that during the 1970 Asbury Revival his wife, Esther, had to tone him down each evening; although, I suspect she shared many of his perspectives.

With some discomfort I recall that Gilbert was a revivalist. He believed in seeking both personal and institutional renewal. My discomfort is primarily due to the fact that his breadth of theological vision seems to be in short supply in today’s world. Evangelism has been given over to a narrow set of understandings. It has been limited to only a change in an individual — who is being introduced into thinly disguised social and political understandings. Unlike the revivals in the Second Great Awkening, where a wide array of societal injustices were addressed (poverty, slavery, voting rights for women, etc.), there is scant focus on institutional practices that need transformation, apart from a short list that includes fights against abortion and homosexuality.

Gilbert, the evangelist, believed in personal conversion — in transformation, possible through faith in Christ. Such change is affirmed in the letter — but he knew of an evangelism that was much deeper and wider. And he knew of the threats of individualism and fundamentalism that were at play. There were troublesome signs for him in the events surrounding the 1970 Asbury Revival that I don’t believe have been made public before.

So, here, 52 years later I offer this insight into his perspective of the 1950 Asbury Revival. I have highlighted in bold some passages mentioned above, the underlining was his.

++++++++

Letter from Dr. Gilbert James – March 31, 1970 – Wilmore, Kentucty To: Phil and Elaine Amerson – Republic of Panamá

Dear Phil and Elaine,

            “Thanks for your good letters and your patience with me… “ [Professor James then writes a few paragraphs about a reading course for Phil.]… The letter then continues speaking of the 1970 Asbury Revival.

“I am sure you have read of the revival and all of the excitement around here with teams going out in all directions – classes suspended – and the academic quarter an educational shambles.“

Letter from Gilbert James to Phil and Elaine Amerson, March 31, 1970

“There were some remarkable individual examples and changed lives and I am grateful for every one of them.  There has been, however, I must in all honesty confess, a great deal of shear non-sense that was nothing more than “getting high” on mass enthusiasm.  I have never witnessed in my life more expressions of atrocious theology and abysmal biblical ignorance than I heard from the “witnessing” lips of those college students.  As a result, we underwent the usual “exorcism of demons” at the college until it was suppressed and now we have the most frightful outbreak of “tongues” at the seminary that we have ever suffered. The word is out that Asbury Seminary is the “Mecca” for the tongues movement.  I am just sick about it.  The most remarkable aspect of the whole affair is not that it occurred, but rather that as much good was accomplished as was with all the inane and disrespectful antics that went on with it.“

“Please do not write back to anyone about this, for what I am writing to you, if expressed openly on the campus would be considered high treason.”  I repeat, I am glad for the work of a sovereign God, in spite of man’s ignorance and sinfulness, but I predict it will be years to fully recover from the unfortunate results that have damaged the reputation of Asbury and reflected on the sound biblical basis of her message.“

“I am right in the midst of the elaborate planning necessary for the Chicago program.  We received $50,000 from Lilly for the experiment, and this is our big chance to try to seek some new directions in theological education. After a full day’s consultation with the Minister’s Study Board director of the NCC.  He said, in great seriousness, “This is one of the most exciting and unique experiments in American theological education.  He has agreed to direct our evaluation of the program and we hope to get a monograph out of it.“

“Love to you both – I must close.  Write soon about books you want.  Pray for me – please.“

Gilbert James

++++++++++++++++

Teaching in Panamá, I was thousands of miles away from the spiritual, emotional, psychological cyclone richocheting in and around Wilmore, Kentucky. I was far from the events my teacher, Gilbert, saw at close proximity. However, a “spiritual awakening” was continuing for me at the time in Panamá. There I saw more clearly the injustice, racism and violence of institutions and nations. Gilbert James had been insturmental in alerting me of similar structures in the U.S. in my earlier years as his student. In Panamá, these were brought into even sharper relief. I saw, up close, what it was like to live in a nation suffering under a dictator who was propped up by the U.S. I saw the racism institutionalized in the practices of the Canal Zone and the abuses of so called “aid projects” privileging of wealthy, both in Panamá and the U.S. I saw hungry children dumpster diving to have something to eat. And there was the corruption of young women sold into sexual arrangements as teenagers. Evangelization needed to be wider and deeper than “individuals getting high on mass enthusiasm.”

In my review of materials from the 1970 Revival and from reports I recall receiving from others at the time, there were many testimonies about giving up cheating, lying, gossip, drinking alcohol, smoking, sexual petting, premarital sex or persons having an “insufficient prayer life.” It is almost exclusively about individual sins or a shortcoming of one’s self. Where are the witnesses who say, “We must now speak out against racism, war, poverty or violence?”

I do not agree with all of Gilbert’s perspectives, including some in this letter. That would make him happy… and he would, no doubt, want to have a conversation about where we differ and what we might together learn. Even so, I very much believe his call to an intelligent faith that combines personal and social transformation, informed by careful biblical and theological work was right then, and continues to be right today.

I can already hear some saying, but you must begin with the individual, then “changed persons will change society.” My response: Where is your evidence? It has now been fifty years. If you disagree, please point me to how this “revival” made the kind of difference in our society that came from the revivals of the Second Great Awakening. The Cane Ridge Revival began forty-six miles from Wilmore and one-hundred-and-sixty-nine years earlier.

[Attached is an extended reflection comparing the Cane Ridge Revival of 1801 and the Asbury Revival of 1970: https://documentcloud.adobe.com/link/review?uri=urn:aaid:scds:US:8c3d4bbf-2e81-39c1-bbf9-d054ae64f7ef.

Other “Awakenings” or revivals involved more than an adjustment of personal pieties or individual behaviors and beliefs. For early Evangelicals like John Wesley or John Calvin, institutional changes accompanied personal change. For the Anabaptists, a new personal faith meant a commitment to pacifism and the persecution that ensued. There is the conversion of John Newton who wrote the lyric we now sing as “Amazing Grace.” Newton’s conversion led him to become an abolitionist, after serving as the captian of slave ships. More recently one thinks of the bombing of Coventry Cathedral in England and the ensuing spiritual awakening resulting in international work at peacemaking (See: Fire in Coventry, Varney, Stephen: Hoder and Stoughton Ltd., 1974). Dozens of other examples could be cited; the sadness is that even today Asbury College and Seminary have fallen into the narrow valleys of a tamed evangelism and pursue cultural stances that are more informed by reactionary political elites and shaped by categories of individualism.

Professor Gilbert James and Eugene Carson Blake, General Secretary of the World Council of Churches,
Taize Community, circa 1971. Used Courtesy of the Archives and Special Collections, Asbury Theological Seminary.

Gilbert James was way ahead of me in 1970, and I suspect even now. When traveling with him for a seminary class in Chicago, New York, Detroit or Minneapolis, it was always amazing how he nudged us forward to see the broader ecology and the challenges of ministry in urban settings. It was even more astonishing meeting the people he brought to those seminars. Today I think of Letty Russell, Bill Stringfellow, Bill Pannell, George Riddick, Richard Leuke, Stan Hallett and George Weber, to name only a few.

A 1974 article by Gilbert entitled “The Use and Abuse of Power: A Study of the Principalities and Powers” demonstrates his understandings of the challenges Christians face in urban ecologies. He understood the need to seek transformation that is more than individual renewal (http://place.asburyseminary.edu/firstfruitspapers/15/).

My last visit with Gilbert was, I believe, in the fall of 1978. Having finished my doctoral work, I was asked to cover his seminary classes for a semester. My brilliant teacher was decending into early onset dementia. He would die in 1982 at the age of 66. I traveled to the seminary from my home at the time in Evansville, Indiana.

As I walked down a hallway in the seminary’s administration building, there was Gilbert heading toward the mail room. As he approached, we both began to weep. Then he gave me a hug and said, “I should know but I can’t place who you are.”

Ah, Gilbert, my friend, my beloved teacher, what is truly sad is that too few today remember who YOU are!