Biweekly $7.95 15, 2018

Thinking Critically, Living Faithfully

PUTTING DOWN ROOTS

Small-town pastors who stay THE ANNUAL CHRISTIAN CENTURY LECTURE

7 p.m. | November 8 A THEOLOGY OF Reception to follow Arts Club of ACCOMPANIMENT $35.00

“I was a middle-aged lady, set in my ways, when I decided to be baptized. And when that water poured over my head, I realized the big problem with my new religion: God actually lives in other people. I couldn’t be a Christian by myself. I couldn’t choose who else was my brother or sister.

“That’s a really different story from the one that’s sold to us every day, which

insists each one of us is individually PhotocourtesySaraMiles of responsible for managing our own economic and political salvation.” SARA MILES

Journalist and author Sara Miles served as director of ministry at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco for ten years. She is an organizer for Faith in Action Bay Area, training congregations to accompany immigrants at risk of deporta- tion. Her books include Take This Bread, the story of her adult conversion to and her involvement in food min- istry at St. Gregory’s, and City of God: Faith in the Streets.

To register, visit christiancentury.org/event From the publisher

Peter W. Marty

California law permits anyone to apply for a The wedding experience one-day permit to become a deputy commis- sioner of marriage. In states like Colorado and ear Pastor Marty: I have been asked by my Wisconsin, a couple can solemnize their own Dfriend to become ordained so I could marry wedding, which sounds plenty efficient. In her and her boyfriend. I am honored and delight- Maryland, any adult can sign a marriage license ed to do this. I was wondering, do you know how as long as the couple getting married agrees that I can become ordained? Thanks much, Trisha he or she is clergy. Sizing up someone for that role strikes me as funny, though I shouldn’t Hey Peter, I’m going to be the officiant for my laugh. My own parishioners be making sister’s wedding in a couple of months. Do you assessments in their heads on a weekly basis as have a prayer or something I could use? I’d love it. to whether or not I qualify to be their pastor. Chris A sharp drop in church weddings corre- sponds, of course, to the growing absence of Ten years ago, email requests like these from formal religious practice. Part of me admires friends and parishioners didn’t exist. Last year I couples who don’t pretend to have spiritual received six of them, resembling the two samples interests on their wedding day and so don’t end above. My customary reply doesn’t take long to up treating church as an inconvenient stop on write: “Congratulations! I don’t have brilliant the way to a party. Another part of me laments suggestions to offer. You might try Google.” the implications of this shift. Pumping signifi- The percentage of weddings that take place in cant energy into a spectacular wedding event churches has plummeted in the last decade. Other only serves to draw attention away from the kinds of venues, such as barns, beaches, wineries, preparation for long-term marriage realities. parks, and hotel ballrooms, now host over 75 per- Liturgies of sacred meaning easily disappear cent of weddings in America. As weddings shift into highly sentimental experiences. away from ecclesiastical settings, the emphasis on I love being with couples who take God and providing the ultimate guest experience seems the craft of marriage seriously. I don’t like func- only to grow. Photo booths, wine tastings, selfie tioning as a prop in a mostly pagan show. The stations, sparklers, games, and magicians are now $72 billion wedding industry has little interest a regular part of many wedding ceremonies. in helping prepare people for marriage. There’s State laws vary widely as to who can perform no money in that. Besides, who would encour- a wedding. Increasingly, a friend or family mem- age a couple to sit through counseling sessions ber ends up doing the favor—an arrangement on family, forgiveness, anger, joy, and balance in that many couples find cheaper, easier, and life when there’s a beach wedding to plan? If more personal. A few clicks online are all it the chairs were to tilt awkwardly in the sand or takes to get ordained. Sites such as the Church sand flies were to swarm the moment, there’s of the Latter-Day Dude or the Universal Life no telling what might happen to that marriage. Church, which claims to have ordained more One can only hope Google would come than 20 million people, stand at the ready. through.

3 Christian Century , 2018 August 15, 2018 Vol. 135, No. 17

Publisher Peter W. Marty

Executive Editor David Heim

Associate Editors Amy Frykholm Steve Thorngate

News Editor Celeste Kennel-Shank 6 Letters Books Editor Elizabeth Palmer Desire and fulfillment

Poetry Editor Jill Peláez Baumgaertner 7 America needs allies The Editors: Moral realism in an interdependent world Editorial Assistant Rachel Pyle 8 CenturyMarks Advertising Manager Political distractions, pastoral examples, etc. Heidi Baumgaertner

Art Director Daniel Richardson 10 connection John P. Burgess: U.S. evangelicals’ strange alliance with Production Assistant Diane Mills Russian Orthodox

Director of Finance Maureen C. Gavin 12 Church in a parking lot Hillary Frances: Pastor Mandy Sloan McDow Marketing Consultant Shanley & Associates 22 Pastors who stay Contributing Editors M. Craig Barnes Debra Bendis Brad Roth: Small-town churches and the ministry of abiding Walter Brueggemann John M. Buchanan Jason Byassee Martin B. Copenhaver Lillian Daniel Beverly R. Gaventa 26 Separated at the border Adam Hearlson Philip Jenkins Terra Brockman: One family’s chaotic road to reunification L. Gregory Jones Richard A. Kauffman Thomas G. Long Robin W. Lovin Thomas Lynch Bill McKibben 30 Imagining the biblical story Kathleen Norris Stephanie Paulsell Emily Zimbrick-Rogers: Opening scripture for children Dean Peerman Kathryn Reklis Barbara Brown Taylor Grant Wacker William H. Willimon Ralph C. Wood Carol Zaleski

Cover photo © Ian McDonnell / Getty NEWS 14 Muslim candidates run in record numbers; Study links extremism to local expressions of anti-Muslim prejudice; 22 Luther Seminary will experiment with offering 24-month M.Div. program; Law declares Israel the “national home of the Jewish people”

I N R E V I E W 36 Books Chad M. Bauman: Jesus in Asia, by R. S. Sugirtharajah Edward J. Blum: Anti-Blackness and Christian Ethics, edited by Vincent W. Lloyd and Andrew Prevot Timothy Brown: Sacred Signposts, by Benjamin J. Dueholm Christina Bieber Lake: All the Names They Used for God, by Anjali Sachdeva

44 Media Kathryn Reklis: Be like Elastigirl

47 Art Heidi J. Hornik and Mikeal C. Parsons: The Sacrifice at Lystra, by (Raffaello Sanzio) (1483–1520) 12 COLUMNS 3 From the publisher Peter W. Marty: The wedding experience 20, 21 Living by the Word LaDonna Sanders Nkosi 35 Faith Matters Samuel Wells: Untidy truth POETRY 26 13 James Crews: Fireflies 24 Sarah Rossiter: Palimpsest

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Desire and fulfillment

n “Sex and the single life” () faith, unless we consider love as a Kutter Callaway posits that we all defense. Come to think of it . . . Ihave a deep-seated drive for intima- Walter Everett cy which we obsessively and unsuccess- Lewisburg, Pa. fully attempt to fulfill, often with sex; that even the marriage relationship is “pro- foundly unfulfilling”; and that we will Arab neighbors . . . have to wait for the resurrection for the loving intimacy we were created to expe- egarding “Our cycle of denial: A rience. For now, every Christian relation- Rletter to my Palestinian neighbor” ship is an occasion for directing our (), by Yossi Klein Halevi: I con- desires along the lines of self-giving love. tinue to be surprised when Israelis I question whether everyone pursues lament the fact that they are surround- A podcast intimacy as obsessively as Callaway de - ed by Arabs. Arabs were inhabiting the scribes. I am particularly concerned that area for centuries before Zionists first his emphasis on self-giving love may tried to encourage Eastern European about movies inappropriately mislead those with code- Jews to settle in Palestine/Israel rather pendent tendencies, as when he asserts than in some other location. Israelis and ministry that “like any human pursuit, sex is fully chose to go there. And while the Israeli realized when it is about giving, not get- area is small geographically, its econo- Technicolor Jesus is a ting,” as if one can truly give in a success- my is a powerhouse compared with podcast about movies and ful ongoing sexual relationship without neighboring countries. In addition, of also getting. course, is the $10.8 million of support ministry for pastors, preach- Mature human relating is learning paid to Israel by U.S. taxpayers every ers, and Sunday school teach- how to please another while also enjoy- day. ing the activity. Your pleasure is part of I’ve heard plenty of harsh history ers. For each episode, hosts what you give. I think the finely balanced recalled by Israelis as well as by Matt Gaventa and Adam interpersonal principles in Philippians Palestinians. But above all, neighbors 2:3–4 express this understanding of lov- don’t steal land and water and don’t Hearlson invite a guest to sug- ing each other by prioritizing another’s restrict access to jobs, health care, wor- gest a movie relevant to the needs in relation to one’s own. When this ship, and education. work of the church. Their con- is experienced in a marriage, there will be Elizabeth Neubert Myers times when one or the other partner’s Scottsville, N.Y. versation begins with dis- needs prevail by mutual consent. In any cussing the film but often case, it is a mischaracterization to suggest that the Christian ideal is that “it is about Learning from Tamar’s story . . . expands to questions about giving, not getting.” who the church is—and who it Jim Johnson nna Carter ’s “Listen ing to is called to be—in this time Pittsburgh, Pa. ATamar” (Aug. 1) is a valuable con- tribution to the discussion about sexual and place. If you can recognize abuse, assault, and harassment. If this the power of film to inspire Defending the faith . . . text had been preached to Andy Savage, Frank Page, Paul Pressler, Paige Patter - our theological imaginations, ohn Fea notes in “The fear sweep- son, Bill Hybels, and others like them, the Technicolor Jesus is for you. Jstakes” () that many Chris tians sexual misconduct crisis might have been saw Trump as the one who would defend avoided. Maybe if there’s more discus- christiancentury.org/ them and stand up to their enemies. I sion, matters can improve. technicolor-jesus don’t remember Jesus ever talking about A. L. Locasio his followers needing to defend their christiancentury.org comment

Christian Century August 15, 2018 6 August 15, 2018 America needs allies s he insults U.S. allies and undermines long-standing alliances, President Trump displays not only his natural love of disruption but Aa reductive, self-defeating view of international relations. He seems to regard his relationship with every country (except ) as a competition in which the must somehow dominate. He can’t recognize that structures of cooperation—whether the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the United Nations, the G7, or regional trade agreements—are, at their best, enlightened forms of national self-interest. The concept of shared investment for the sake of mutual benefit eludes him. The theologian never tired of reminding idealistic Christians not to expect nations or other collective entities to be altruistic; they will always pursue their self-interest. But he was equally adamant that groups can be wise or ignorant about the scope of their self-interest. In an interdependent world, a nation’s well-being is tied to that of people in distant parts of the world. Cooperating with other nations on shared goals is simply an expression of moral realism. Niebuhr thought it could also be a rough worldly approximation of loving one’s neighbor. It was this insight that led Western democracies after World War II to create international organizations to help guarantee security, promote economic sta- bility, and defend political liberties. Niebuhr and other lead- ers were important champions of that project. In 1942, while the war was still raging, a meeting of church leaders was convened by the Federal Council of Churches to outline terms of a “just and durable peace.” At the heart of their recommendations was a call for the United States to take the lead in creating transnational agencies that could foster economic equality and advance politi- cal freedom. The editors of the CENTURY regarded these proposals as so impor- tant that they printed the official text and offered an accompanying study guide. It’s clear in retrospect that the high hopes of that era for enlightened world governance were overly idealistic. The transnational organizations that exist have proved to be far better at providing security for the already powerful and prosperity for the already prosperous than at addressing inequalities around the globe or even within Western nations. The populist movements that have arisen in the U.S. and are to some extent a protest of that failure and of the inequities of global capitalism. Cooperation with other nations is an Nevertheless, the instincts of those ear- lier mainline Protestant leaders were expression of moral realism. right. And their witness made a difference. Historians like David Hollinger judge that mainline Protestants helped trans- form insular and isolationist worldviews. They were decisive in rallying American support for the UN and putting issues of human rights on the inter- national agenda. They showed that building trust among nations, working to formulate standards of behavior, and embodying these commitments in insti- tutions is a necessary political task in an interdependent world. As inadequate as existing institutions are, turning against them as the pres- ident does will create a world far more chaotic and dangerous.

7 Christian Century August 15, 2018 SECOND CHANCE: After restaurant Her family is part of Zero Waste, a world- Democrat. Two Catholic convictions owners Rob and Diane Perez lost 13 wide movement that tries to avoid plas- shape her approach to politics: every employees to addiction over ten years, tics and other disposable products. When human being has profound dignity, and they opened DV8 Kitchen in Lexington, Thole, a graphic designer who lives near all humans are interconnected. A foster- Kentucky, which hires addicts in treat- Montreal, studied her own trash, she real- care mother, she is particularly interest- ment for opioids and other substances. ized that most of it came from food pack- ed in improving the state’s foster-care The business hires employees directly aging. Now she buys her food at farmers’ system (Crux, ). from treatment centers. Cooking is ther- markets and bulk food stores, belongs to apeutic, especially bread making, and a farm cooperative, and carries her own SANCTIFICATION: A room ful of the restaurant business encourages bags and other containers with her when despairing theologians asked social camaraderie. Employees are held to she shops. She also makes many of her philosopher René Girard what should be high standards. Tips are pooled and then own products that she once bought in done in our apocalyptic times. “We might added to paychecks so that workers stores, from butter to toothpaste. begin with personal sanctity,” he said. aren’t tempted to use the cash for drugs. Americans create 258 million tons of This was a typical Girardian comment, Only five of the 25 addicts hired have trash each year (Washington Post, ). observed Christopher Shinn; it was mod- relapsed (New York Times, ). est, yet grandly challenging. “The most POLITICAL THEOLOGY: Holly Taylor important thing we can do in the face of WASTE AWAY: Tippi Thole can fit her Coolman, who teaches theology at catastrophe is to look at ourselves, try to family’s weekly trash into a two-and-a- Providence College in Rhode Island, is understand our own violence, and half inch Mason jar with room to spare. running for state representative as a become better. Could anything be sim- pler, or more difficult?” said Shinn (Los Angeles Review of Books, ).

PASTORAL EXAMPLE: Girls who have had a direct example of clergy- women in childhood grow up with high- er self-esteem, better employment records, and more education than girls who did not, according to research by Benjamin Knoll and Cammie Jo Bolin. When girls have had female clergy at least some of the time growing up, their later reported levels of self-esteem are consistently just as high as men’s, even though generally women report lower levels of self-esteem. In the survey, a gender gap in psychological and eco- nomic empowerment is present only among those whose religious congrega- tional leaders growing up were exclu- sively men (RNS).

PARANOID STYLE? Political scientist Andrew Bacevich warns that liberals are exhibiting what Richard Hofstadter, in a classic 1964 essay, called the paranoid

CARTOON CREDIT TK style in American politics. Bacevich

Christian Century August 15, 2018 8 thinks much of what President Trump says is ignorant and clownish nonsense. There’s only so much you can eat. There’s only so big Nevertheless, the G7 still exists and will a house you can have. There’s only so many nice trips not likely welcome Russia back as a you can take. I mean, it’s enough. member anytime soon; the United States “ is committed to NATO; and international — Barack Obama, speaking in South on the 100th anniversary of the birth of Nelson Mandela (Time, July 17) sanctions against Russia for its interna- tional offenses are firmly in place. People ” should not be distracted by President Communism and fascism were the outgrowths Trump from other issues, such as global of societies in which the distribution of wealth and warming, inequality between rich and poor, and wars in which the U.S. is still opportunity“ were massively unequal, and the postwar engaged (Boston Globe, July 17). architects of European unification and social safety nets knew that reducing inequality was the essential ALCOHOL’S EFFECT: Since 2009 the prerequisite for social peace. As governments cease death rate from cirrhosis or scarring of the liver has increased among all seg- to keep their part of this bargain, they invite citizens ments of society. That trend is particular- to cease to keep theirs, and in such a context, no ly pronounced among those age 24 to minority (and perhaps no democracy) will be safe. 35, according to a report from the — Peter Hayes, Why? Explaining the Holocaust (W. W. Norton) Centers for Disease Control. The study doesn’t prove causation, but the cause is likely related to the increased consump- ” tion of alcohol. A separate study con- firmed that young adults are especially “Study after study has shown that public preacher with her own women’s center at risk for starting and developing prob- libraries more than pay for themselves,” in Riyadh. She has 5 million followers lematic drinking habits. A recent drop in wrote the Harris County Public Library in on Twitter, close to that of popular male American life expectancy is attributed to Texas. “In Texas, for example, for every $1 clerics. Female religious scholars are alcohol abuse, along with drug use and of taxpayer money spent on public adding the feminine Arabic suffix ah to increased suicide (Time, July 21). libraries, public libraries return $4.64 to turn male nouns into feminine ones— the economy” (Guardian, ). such as da’yiah (for preacher) and ON THE EDGE: A Reuters analysis of muftiyah (for legal expert). To encour- U.S. households shows that the bottom BEHIND THE VEIL: Saudi women age women to consult female scholars 60 percent of income earners have want more say in religious matters, and about religion, an online directory lists accounted for most of the rise in spend- female religious scholars are calling for Saudi women qualified in shari’a law ing over the past two years. Normally more equality. Nawad al-Eid is a (The Economist, July 13). the top 40 percent fuels growth in con- sumption. At the same time, lower- According to U.S. Census projections, by income people are paying a price for COLORCHANGE the year 2043 a majority of Americans their economic activity. Their wages are stagnant, and they are borrowing more will be nonwhite. and saving less. Credit card debt and The percentage who think this will be a POSITIVE change: auto loan delinquencies are on the rise. An increase in interest rates, gas prices, ALL AMERICANS 64% or cost of goods due to tariffs could be devastating (Reuters, ). Republicans 43% Democrats 85% LIBRARY BENEFITS: When an article Hispanics 78% in Forbes magazine suggested public Blacks 78% libraries cost taxpayers too much and Whites 56% should be replaced by Amazon book- shops, librarians responded vociferously. The percentage who think this will be a NEGATIVE change: They argued that libraries provide social White evangelical Protestants 52% benefits that could never be replaced by a White mainline Protestants 39% private company. While benefiting entire Catholics 32% communities, they provide access to criti- Religiously unaffiliated 23% cal resources for the disenfranchised.

9 Christian Century August 15, 2018 U.S. evangelicals’ strange alliance with Russian Orthodox Moscow connection by John P. Burgess

WELL BEFORE special coun- Russia and internationally. Metropolitan zation), after which he attended Billy sel Robert Mueller started investigating Hilarion, the church’s top diplomat, Graham’s 96th birthday party and met possible illegal collusion between the recently asserted that Russian Orthodox with Tim Keller, the evangelical pastor Trump campaign and the Russian gov- believers and Russian Baptists agree on of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in ernment, American evangelicals had the need to preserve “traditional New York City. formed an odd alliance of their own Christian values and the institution of with leaders of the Russian Orthodox the family.” At a gathering of religious he alliance between the Russian Church. American evangelicals are led leaders in last year, Patriarch Orthodox Church and the Billy to make common cause with Russian Kirill appealed for a united effort to TGraham Evangelistic Association Orthodoxy—and with Donald Trump counter the “oppression” of “power has been especially significant. In 2015, and Vladimir Putin—because of a deep groups” that propose ideas “incompati- Metro politan Hilarion invited Franklin and shared suspicion of Western liberal ble with the traditional views of Gra ham to Moscow, where he had pri- elites. Christian morality. . . . Christians in vate audiences with Patriarch Kirill and Evangelical leaders in the United Europe must strive to defend their val- Putin. Graham later thanked the patri- States and Orthodox hierarchs in Russia ues on which the continent was built.” arch for the Russian Orthodox Church’s have accused the Western liberal estab- This language echoes that of John Paul II “strong voice in the defense of moral val- lishment of being secular, antireligious, and Benedict XVI, who also called for ues” and lauded Putin for defending bib- and committed to undermining tradi- preserving the Christian foundations of lical values “from the attacks of secular- tional religious and moral values. In Europe. ism.” Graham further asserted that many recent years, Barack Obama’s comments Metropolitan Hilarion has traveled Americans wished that someone like about “bitter” people “who cling to guns regularly to the United States to meet Putin could be their president, and he or religion” and Hillary Clinton’s dis- not only with Orthodox counterparts but praised Russia for passing antigay prop- missal of the “deplorables” backing also with conservative evangelical and aganda laws. Trump have added fuel to the flames. Catholic leaders. On a 2011 trip, he deliv- The visit bore more than rhetorical Sexual and gender politics have generat- ered a speech at the Catholic University fruit. Graham announced that Samari - ed the most heat, but “traditional values” of America, perhaps the most conserva- tan’s Purse, a ministry of the Billy have also included patriotism, respect for tive of America’s large Catholic universi- Graham Evangelistic Association, would the military, and the celebration of his- ties, and then at Dallas Theological Sem - cooperate with the Russian Orthodox toric religious national identities, as in inary, one of the country’s most promi- Church in providing material assistance “Christian America” or “Holy Russia.” nent conservative evangelical institu- to people fleeing violence and war in In both countries, evangelicals and tions. While in Dallas, he preached at eastern Ukraine, where Russia has sup- Orthodox have actively opposed legal- Highland Park Presbyterian Church, a ported an insurgency against the U.S.- ized abortion and have called for protec- 4,000-member congregation that has supported Ukrainian government. tion of the “traditional” family. They since left the Presbyterian Church In addition, Franklin Graham and have turned to leaders who support their (U.S.A.) over its liberal social stances. Metropolitan Hilarion agreed to orga nize causes—American evangelicals to the Metropolitan Hilarion also met pri- a World Summit in Defense of Per secuted Republican Party and now Trump; vately with politically conservative Christians. Among those whom they Russian Orthodox hierarchs to Putin. Texan business leaders and visited for- wished to defend were Chris tians in Syria, On this basis, for more than a decade, mer president George W. Bush on his where Orthodox Christians, historically Russian Orthodox hierarchs—especially ranch near Waco. In 2014, Metropolitan 10 percent of the population, have felt rel- Patriarch Kirill and Metropolitan Hilarion returned to the United States atively secure under the regime of Bashar Hilarion—have explored cooperation to speak at a conference of Christian al-Assad, whom the Russian government with American evangelicals and other leaders organized by Franklin Graham has strongly supported, despite his mur- conservative religious forces both in (now head of the organi - derous policies against his political oppo-

Christian Century August 15, 2018 10 AP PHOTO / CLIFF OWEN CLIFF / PHOTO AP nents. The Russian Orthodox have an acute sense of their own persecution under Soviet communism, and the church has canonized nearly 2,000 “new martyrs and confessors.” Graham has said that “no church in modern history has suf- fered more than the church in Russia.” The summit was originally scheduled for Moscow, but in the summer of 2016 Franklin Graham announced that it would be moved to Washington, D.C., in response to new Russian antiterrorism laws that severely restrict the kind of public proselytization that Protestant evangelicals (including those in Russia) consider essential to their faith. Graham added that the summit was all the more ANTISECULAR ALLIANCE: Vice President Mike Pence addresses the 2017 World important as a means of lifting up perse- Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians as Franklin Graham watches. cuted Christians in today’s Russia; indeed, in 2017, the Russian gov- may not yet suffer physical violence for continue. During the World Cup soccer ernment banned the Jehovah’s Wit - their faith, they increasingly experience tournament, Russia allowed dozens of nesses, a move that the Russian Ortho - social opposition and even discrimina- evangelical churches to open their doors dox Church did not publicly support but tion because of their positions on abor- for the equivalent of Super Bowl parties, also did not protest. Russian evangelicals tion, sexuality, and euthanasia. a move that encouraged American evan- worried that they could be next. Presi - When Billy Graham died eight gelicals. At their meeting in Helsinki on dent Putin and Russian Orthodox hier - months later, both Patriarch Kirill and , Trump promoted his friendly archs had their own reasons for moving Metropolitan Hilarion sent official let- relations with the Russia president the summit to Washington: to protest ters of condolence. Metropolitan Hilari - against the advice of most foreign policy West ern sanctions against Russia, which on noted that Billy Graham commanded experts in the U.S. Evangelicals continue have only intensified since the election “respect in the Orthodox Church and in to support Trump, just as the Russian Orthodox Church remains firmly behind Putin. Evangelicals and Russian Ortho - Evangelicals and Orthodox find common dox leaders are likely to continue to make common cause in defense of tradi- cause in the defense of traditional values. tional values and persecuted Christians. During the Cold War, the World Coun - of Trump and which, along with low oil the whole Christian world by his uncom- cil of Churches represented one of the prices, have depressed the Russian econ- promising stand for the truth of Christ.” few international forums in which West - omy and posed a potential threat to pop- “Whereas many in the West began to ern and Russian Christians could regular- ular support for Putin. reject the biblical view of marriage and ly meet. Today, Franklin Graham and The summit took place in May 2017, morality, Billy Graham always boldly Metropolitan Hilarion maintain the most with the Billy Graham Evangelistic and resolutely asserted it on all possible significant ecumenical contacts between Association spending $4 million to gath- platforms.” In addition, the Russian American and Russian Christians. They er 600 Prot estant, Catholic, and Orthodox Church sent a representative believe that their relationship can help Orthodox participants from 136 coun- to the funeral service in Charlotte. the U.S. and Russian governments bridge tries. The oddities of the Trump, Putin, Since the world summit, U.S.-Russian their divides. But such alliances always American evangelical, and Russian relations have deteriorated further in come at a cost. In the Cold War days, Orthodox alliance were on full display, several respects. Mutual expulsions of Russian Orthodox delegations consistent- with the Russian Ortho dox delegation diplomatic staff have hurt the processing ly but hypocritically praised their govern- staying at the Trump Inter national of visas, especially for Russians, who now ment for protecting freedom of religion Hotel. Vice President Pence ad dressed wait as long as six months for an appoint- and pursuing peace. They never spoke of the summit on the first day and met pri- ment at the American embassy in Mos - its abuses, nor did WCC leaders. vately with Metropolitan Hilari on on the cow. The two countries are still squaring Maintaining the relationship, they sidelines. In his keynote address, off over Ukraine and Syria. Metropolitan Hilarion connected “tradi- But the unlikely alliances between John P. Burgess teaches at Pittsburgh Theological tional moral values” and “persecution,” Trump, Putin, American evangelical Seminary and is the author of Holy Rus’: The warning that while Christians in the West leaders, and Russian Orthodox hierarchs Rebirth of Orthodoxy in the New Russia.

11 Christian Century August 15, 2018 claimed, was the first priority. Billy estants and Catholics are not quite rather called them back to the mercy, Graham took a similar approach when he Russian or in American evangelical sus- compassion, and love that all Russians, conducted evangelistic in the picions of Muslims. according to the church, share by virtue Soviet Union in the 1980s. As one com- The greatest peril that the churches of their Orthodox heritage. mentator has said, Graham wanted to use face in forging these alliances is political The Russian Orthodox Church cur- whatever space he had to be an evangel- co-optation. While the historical influ- rently demonstrates little ability to public - ist, and being a prophet would have ence of Christianity on both American ly challenge Putin’s moves to eliminate closed that space. and Russian culture has been profound, meaningful political opposition in Russia the gospel is not first of all about stabiliz- and his failure to protect opposition fig- hether the current evangelical- ing national identity or securing national ures such as Alexei Navalny from physical Russian Orthodox coalition pride. As Georgii Orechanov, a promi- violence. Conservative evangelicals have Wrests on anything more than nent Russian Orthodox priest, wrote avoided confronting Trump about his abu- political expediency remains to be seen. recently, the Orthodox Church has too sive language and demeaning behavior On the Christian side, the language of often cozied up to the state and failed to toward people with whom he disagrees, traditional values is slippery. While there secure freedom of conscience. In con- even within his own administration. may be much that Christians through the trast, the church has been at its best The great 20th-century Swiss theolo- centuries have been able to agree upon, when it “strengthened what [is] best in gian regularly asserted that issues of sexuality, gender, and war the Russian people—humility, the capac- Christians will generally “swim against require ongoing theological reflection ity for sacrifice and for enduring inhu- the stream” of dominant social ideolo- and clarification—and evangelicals and mane living conditions, [and] the ability gies, whether liberal or conservative. Orthodox start from very different to show heartfelt compassion and to for- Both American evangelicals and Russian places. Moreover, appeals to traditional give enemies.” These too are traditional Orthodox hierarchs could do much more values tend in practice to marginalize values and, indeed, values that the to resist the unjust policies and totalitar- non-Orthodox religious groups in Russia Russian Orthodox Church has lifted up ian tendencies of their respective presi- and nonevangelical believers in the by honoring those Christians who in the dents and to move their nations—and United States—as in the all too common 1920s and ’30s refused to see their churches—to self-examination, humility, Orthodox attitude that Russian Pro t - Bolshevik persecutors as enemies but and repentance.

Pastor Mandy Sloan McDow Church in a parking lot PHOTO BY JACKSON FLEMMING by Hillary Frances

AFTER Mandy Sloan McDow be came gain access to college. Without a building of pastor of the First United Meth odist Church its own, the congregation had met for wor- been meeting informally in a multipur- of Los Angeles, the oldest Protes tant church ship in a senior housing facility it helped pose room of an affordable housing facil- in the city, the congregation started holding build. The church’s remaining piece of prop- ity. On that day, I asked the congregation its worship services in a parking lot. The erty is a parking lot, which generates regular to pick up everything—chairs, altar table, church had sold its historic building in the income that is used to support ministry. candles, cross, , and baptismal early 1980s and used the proceeds to sup- font—and outside to the tent I had port affordable housing units, create an How did your congregation start wor- set up in our parking lot, the church’s endowed chair of urban ministry at shiping in the parking lot? only remaining property. I told them that Claremont School of Theology, and launch My first Sunday was , 2017. Prior the history of the church and its min- the Urban Founda tion, which focuses on to that, First Church didn’t have an istries, especially its commitment to pro- helping first-generation Hispanic students appointed pastor. The congregation had viding housing, conveyed a powerful

Christian Century August 15, 2018 12 message, but no one was going to hear it ing minorities, immigrants, and refugees market-rate housing as well as a beauti- if we stayed inside an obscure building. and of doing subversive social justice ful space for the church to hold worship. “We are not going to hide our light actions because they believed it was For me, the highest ideal would be to cre- under a bushel,” I said; “we’re going to right. It is an incredibly resilient church ate a theologically centered co-housing take our light into the world.” I was pret- that has done all that it can to sink its community that people could afford, one ty nervous about what they would do and resources into the community. This is not where residents would be expected to if they would participate. I didn’t warn a church that has to be urged to do the give back to the community, and take them ahead of time. They did it with joy. right thing. care of one another, just as it’s demon- strated in Acts 4. What has it been like to meet outside? What’s the point of meeting in the park- For example, someone could give ten Terrifying. It feels especially vulnera- ing lot? hours a month to babysit a neighbor’s ble to be the weird lady standing outside Los Angeles has a rampant housing kids, or so that neighbors could have a preaching sermons. It is remarkable, crisis: there are 58,000 homeless people free date night. Or someone could agree though, to see who comes. living in our city. So this is one of the to make a pot of soup for a sick neigh- ways that our land gets to be an expres- bor. Everybody would have their own Who comes? sion of our theology. We will remain private space to accommodate their fam- About 80 percent of the people who unhoused as a church in solidarity with ilies, but for the most part people would come are straight Filipino ladies, and 20 our houseless neighbors, until we can agree to do things in common. They might have a meal together once a week. Our church would hold worship services in the building. The church would also “Homeless people are some of our most provide opportunities for people looking consistent attendees.” for ways to help the neighborhood. If we invert the model of church, so that we’re building what people are ask- percent are members of the queer com- build something that will provide hous- ing for (affordable housing), then the munity. We have people come by who ing for them and for the church. We’ve church no longer has to panic about peo- are just curious. We see a lot of home- listened to the prayers of the people for ple coming inside its walls. We will have less people. They come in and out of stability and access to housing. We listened to the call of the gospel to sell services. Frankly, they’re some of our believe that the barrier to worship with what we have (in our case, the parking most consistent attendees. They know us is much lower when we meet outside. lot revenue), and share it with those in where to find us now, and we show up in need, so that no one has to worry or go the same place they do. We do blessings, What comes next? without. I am hopeful that we can build a and we make sure we have healthy food We are considering transforming the faith community that reimagines what it to share with them. There’s coffee; parking lot into a site for permanent sup- means to be church, living out its faith in there’s water. Take this communion, portive housing, workforce housing, and the world. take this time. Please take all that we have. On a recent Sunday a guy wandered over and plopped down in the front row during the prayers of the people. He Fireflies shouted out a few semi-intelligible things. Right after the prayers of the peo- Some insights come like lightning— ple, we do the passing of the peace. I blinding and fierce—while others arrive watched as the congregation approached as firefly-flashes that brighten only him and shook hands with him. They an inch or so of air around them. treated him as if he was already one of Yet even these can gather power them. They asked his name, invited him over time, like the summer night to sit down, and he stayed for the whole I woke and stood at the window worship service. It was really moving to to watch all that pulsing outside— me. like thousands of prayers flaring up above the houses, saying here Why did you think this move would and here and here, as I made my way work? down the stairs using only the light The church has a history of welcom- of those small bodies to guide me.

Hillary Frances is a freelance writer in Colorado. James Crews

13 Christian Century August 15, 2018 Muslim candidates run in record numbers

hen Tahirah Amatul-Wadud groups, the Fraternal Order of Alt- for lower-level offices such as seats on heard about Alexandria Knights and the Proud Boys, have staged planning boards and school committees. WOcasio-Cortez’s upset over armed protests at her campaign events. In Michigan, at least seven Muslim Rep. Joe Crowley in New York’s “We have to face this rhetoric,” Abboud Americans were on the ballot in the Democratic primary, the first-time candi- said. “We can’t ignore it or pretend like August primary. date saw parallels with her own long- it’s a fringe element anymore. We have to In Minnesota, the decision by Keith shot campaign for Congress in western let the ugly face show so that we can Ellison, the nation’s first Muslim con- Massachusetts. decide if that is us.” gressman, to run for state attorney gener- The 44-year-old Muslim civil rights As many as 90 Muslim Americans al has set off a race for his congressional lawyer is the lone challenger taking on were running for national or statewide seat that includes two Muslim candidates, Rep. Richard Neal, a 30-year congress- offices this election cycle. Recent pri- both Democrats: Ilhan Omar, the coun- man and ranking Democrat on the House maries have whittled the field down try’s first Somali American state lawmak- Ways and Means Committee, in the to around 50, but only about a dozen er, and Jamal Abdulahi, a Somali state’s Democratic primary 4. ran in 2016, said Shaun Kennedy, American activist. Encouragement, volunteers, and dona- co founder of Jetpac, a Massachusetts But historic wins in those and other tions have been pouring in. nonprofit that helps train Muslim races are far from assured, cautioned “We could barely stay on top of the Amer ican candidates. Geoffrey Skelley, a political analyst at the residual love,” Amatul-Wadud said. “It Nine candidates for Congress are still University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. sent a message to all of our volunteers, in the running, according to Jetpac’s tally. Omar’s chances of emerging from a voters, and supporters that winning is At least 18 others are campaigning for field of five Democratic candidates in very possible.” state legislature, and ten more seek Minnesota’s primary were bolstered by a Muslim Americans are running for offices such as governor, mayor, or city recent endorsement from the state elected offices in numbers not seen since council member. Even more are running Democratic Party, but in Michigan El- before September 11, 2001, according to KRUPA CHARLES / PHOTO AP Muslim groups and political observers. Still, the path to victory can be tougher for a Muslim American. Some promising campaigns already have fiz- zled out while many more face strong anti-Muslim backlash. In Michigan, Democratic candidate for governor Abdul El-Sayed continues to face unfounded claims from a GOP rival that he has ties to the controversial Muslim Brotherhood, even though Republican and Democratic politicians alike have denounced the accusations. In Rochester, Minnesota, mayoral candidate Regina Mustafa has notified authorities of at least two instances where anti-Muslim threats were posted on her social media accounts. In Arizona, U.S. Senate candidate MUSLIMS IN POLITICS: Tahirah Amatul-Wadud (left) greets residents of an apart- Deedra Abboud received a torrent of ment complex while campaigning for Congress on June 18 in Springfield, Massachusetts. Islamophobic attacks on social media in She is one of around 90 Muslim American candidates for national or statewide offices July of last year. Two right-wing militant in this election cycle.

Christian Century August 15, 2018 14 Sayed is an underdog in his gubernatori- Google made available to potential al race, Skelley said. Study links extremism advertisers, the researchers superim- Other Muslim American candidates posed U.S. Census data and other sur- might fare better in Michigan, which has to local expressions of veys to determine the amount of ethnic one of the nation’s largest Arab Ameri - diversity in each area. The census doesn’t can populations, Skelley added. anti-Muslim prejudice ask about religion, but researchers were There, former state representative able to identify ethnic backgrounds. They Rashida Tlaib has raised more money A new study takes a novel approach also measured the overall volume of than her Democratic rivals in the race to to studying the rise of violent extremism. searches for the term halal—used for succeed Rep. John Conyers, who re - The findings suggest that it may be con- food that meets Muslim dietary restric- signed last year after accounts of sexual nected to ethnic, racial, or religious dis- tions—within each county. misconduct came to light. crimination. The authors suggest their findings Former Obama administration offi- The study, published in Science may also explain cases of domestic ter- cial Fayrouz Saad is also running as a Advances, finds an association between rorism in which extremists do not identi- Demo crat in the race to succeed Repub - local forms of anti-Muslim hate and sus- fy with , such as the killing of nine lican Rep. David Trott, who isn’t seeking ceptibility of Muslims to joining extrem- black worshipers at a church in reelection. ist groups. Charleston, South Carolina. The terrorist If either of the Michigan candidates or Sociologists at Duke University and a in that case, Dylann Roof, worried that Amatul-Wadud in Massachusetts were to statistician from the University of white men were becoming an imperiled win, she would become the first Muslim California, Berkeley, examined Internet minority. woman elected to the U.S. Congress, which search data provided by Google in 3,099 The authors acknowledge that not all has had two Muslim members: Ellison and counties across the U.S. Specifically, the people who search for “how to join ISIS” Rep. André Carson, an Indiana Democrat researchers looked at average monthly are would-be extremists. They may be seeking reelection. search data to see if people in the same law enforcement officers, journalists, or Saad, 35, who served most recently as geographical areas searched for phrases other people interested in figuring out director of Detroit’s Office of Immigrant such as “Muslims are violent” and “how the group’s recruitment process. Further, Affairs, broke from the conservative to join ISIS.” many ISIS recruits have been known to Republican politics of her Lebanese The findings, collected between join through social media, which the immigrant parents following the Sep - August 2014 and July 2016, suggest that researchers didn’t examine. tember 11 attacks when she saw Arabs sympathy for the self-described Islamic Google no longer allows search range and Muslims being unfairly targeted. State is most prevalent in communities estimates for phrases such as “how to “I felt the way to push back against that also show high levels of anti-Muslim join ISIS,” potentially limiting further that was to be at the table,” said Saad, sentiment. study of Internet searches. Still, the study adding that her parents’ political lean- “One interpretation of this finding may be the first to show an association ings have also since moved to the left. is that violent extremism results from between religious discrimination and “We have to step up and be voices for the failure of ethnic integration,” said violent extremism at the county level. our communities and not wait for others Chris Bail, a sociologist at Duke and the “I’ve never seen a cross-national to speak on behalf of us.” study’s lead researcher. “People of im- study showing any correlation between In San Diego, 37-year-old congressional migrant background experience a dis- racial discrimination and radicalization,” candidate Omar Qudrat is one of at least connect between their family heritage said Aziz Z. Huq, a law professor at the three Muslim Republicans running nation- and their receiving society’s culture and University of Chicago who has studied wide this year. He declined to comment on thus become vulnerable to extremist counterterrorism policies that target how Islamophobia has impacted his cam- narratives.” Muslims. This study comes closest, he paign. Instead, the political newcomer pro- The researchers also found that anti- said. vided a statement highlighting his main Muslim prejudice is particularly high in The results, he added, fit other evi- campaign issues as he faces Democratic communities where most people are dence that suggests it’s not economic Rep. Scott Peters in November: addressing white. worries that lead people to support anti- San Diego’s high number of homeless mil- The authors note that studies about immigrant policies and politicians but itary veterans, improving public education, radicalization are notoriously difficult to rather cultural anxiety about religious or and expanding economic opportunities for undertake since few would-be extremists ethnic minorities. city residents. are likely to identify themselves as such “We know Europeans massively over- “Running for public office is about in surveys. People who hate Muslims also estimate the proportion of people in advancing the interests of your con- may not betray their true feelings. But their country who are Muslim,” Huq stituents and the American people,” the anonymity of the Internet can pro- said. “It’s not the objective fact of ‘demo- Qudrat said in the statement. “Nothing vide researchers with a more objective graphic threat.’ What it is, is that the else.” —Philip Marcelo and Jeff Karoub, measurement. presence of the first few outsiders will Associated Press After gathering the data, which often trigger a large response.”

15 Christian Century August 15, 2018 The researchers acknowledge addi- he wanted to give in a sustainable adjusted for inflation,” Steinke said. tional factors in violent extremism that way.” “Half of our students graduated with no other studies have suggested, such as Elizabeth A. Eaton, ELCA presiding debt. The bad news was the average level feelings of powerlessness or financial , said in a statement that “identify- of debt was still $40,000.” struggles. ing, inviting, equipping, and supporting Luther also found that a lot of congre- “We are not saying ethnic integration leaders is one of the highest priorities for gations could not afford first-call pastors is the only predictor of violent extrem- our work in the ELCA.” and pay them a livable wage. ism,” Bail said. “It’s almost surely the Luther Seminary is currently in the The goal of the M.Div.X pilot is to be case that violent extremism has multiple first year of planning, including looking innovative in educating leaders who are causes. Our contribution is another brick at curriculum changes that they plan to free “to lead in ways that might be coun- to a building that many different scholars propose to the Association of Theo - terintuitive,” Steinke said. “It’s really are building.” —Yonat Shimron, Religion logical Schools in the spring in the hope hard to figure out what God’s Holy News Service of receiving accreditation for the pro- Spirit is doing in the world when you’re gram. The first cohort of 30 students trying to make your next student loan would arrive in fall 2019, with additional payment.” —Celeste Kennel-Shank, cohorts of 30 beginning in the two con- CHRISTIAN CENTURY Luther Seminary will secutive years following that. Luther plans to spread the knowledge experiment with offering gained from the pilot and assessments throughout the five years. Law declares Israel 24-month M.Div. program “We want to share this with anyone that has ears to hear,” she said. the “national home of Luther Seminary in St. Paul, Minne - Some students will continue with the sota, has received a $21.4 million dona- usual three-and-a-half-year M.Div. pro- the Jewish people” tion for a five-year pilot of an accelerated gram while the M.Div.X pilot is taking Master of Divinity program. place. In the wee hours of , Israel’s Students in the program, M.Div.X for “That’s part of why the cost is so parliament, the Knesset, approved a law short, will finish their degree in 24 high,” Steinke said. that explicitly defines Israel as the months, studying full-time year-round. High costs for seminary education “national home of the Jewish people.” The congregational internship will have been a concern at Luther for some The law passed 62–55 during a heat- occur throughout the two years, rather time. For 15 years, Luther has been pro- ed session that revealed the deep divi- than in a separate year as is currently viding financial coaches for students and sions within Israeli society over the re quired by the school. And students trying to keep student debt for graduates religious and democratic character of will not have summers off—a custom down. what many have long called the Jewish that was based on an agrarian calendar, “The good news was we had reduced state. according to Robin J. Steinke, Luther the level of indebtedness of graduates, “We engraved in the stone of law our

president. SEMINARY LUTHER OF COURTESY PHOTO language, our anthem, and our flag,” Dean Buntrock, the founder and for- Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu mer CEO of Waste Management, Inc., said. “We have enshrined the fact that and a supporter of Lutheran higher edu- Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish cation, made the donation, which will people. Long live the state of Israel.” cover full tuition and some living expens- First introduced in 2011 and amended es for students, costs for a year of plan- many times before being approved, the ning, and resources to add faculty and law states that Jerusalem is Israel’s “unit- staff. ed” capital. It also recognizes the Jewish “This pilot project is designed to in - Shabbat as the official day of rest while spire and support innovative leadership allowing non-Jews to observe their own development churchwide,” Buntrock said sabbath. Independence Day is now an in a statement. “It is also my hope that official holiday, and Holocaust Re - others in the church will step up and membrance Day and Memorial Day are ensure the long-term and broad sustain- recognized as days of mourning. ability of education for our church.” The law also codifies the parameters Buntrock “really wanted to make a of long-used national symbols such as difference” in supporting the Evan geli - the Israeli flag and the menorah, the use cal Lutheran Church in America, with of both the Jewish and Gregorian calen- which Luther Seminary is affiliated, dars, and Israel’s relationship with dias- Steinke said, “but being a businessman Luther Seminary president Robin J. Steinke pora Jews.

Christian Century August 15, 2018 16 vibrant and admired democracy,” AJC said. Supporters of the nation-state law said it merely recognizes the Jewish character of Israel, the only country in the world with a Jewish majority, and is a rebuke to those who claim Jews are AP PHOTO / OLIVIER FITOUSSI colonial invaders with no religious or historical ties to ancient or modern Israel. The National Council of Young Israel, an Orthodox synagogue umbrella orga - nization in the U.S., said in a statement: “While the democratic State of Israel facilitates freedom of religion and affords people of various backgrounds the right to visit and reside there, the reality is that Israel is inherently a Jewish state and affirming that fact does not contravene the liberties that it benevo- DEBATE ON NATIONAL IDENTITY: Arab lawmakers stand in objection during a lently bestows to individuals of other Knesset session in Jerusalem on July 19, before Israel’s parliament approved controversial faiths.” —Michele Chabin, Religion News legislation that defines the country as the nation-state of the Jewish people. Critics warn that Service the law discriminates against Arabs and other groups.

While much of the law merely the building of Jewish communities cements day-to-day practices of life in (though not necessarily West Bank set- Episcopal Church allows Israel, it also breaks new and controver- tlements) at the expense of non-Jewish sial ground. It states that the Jewish communities. all priests to perform people “have an exclusive right to Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat national self-determination” in the wrote on social media that the law same-sex marriage rites country and makes Hebrew the only “denies the Arab citizens their right to official language. The country’s Arab self-determination to instead be deter- Same-sex couples will now be able to community makes up 21 percent of the mined by the Jewish population.” marry in their home parish even if their population and Arabic will have “spe- Many Jews in Israel and abroad criti- local bishop has moral objections to gay cial” status, but it will no longer be an cized the law. marriage, Episcopal Church leaders official language. T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human decided at their General Convention in The clause on self-determination Rights said in a statement that the law Austin, Texas. underscores Israel’s vow never to allow “endangers Israeli democracy, legalizes Under the new rule, couples can Palestinian descendants of refugees the discrimination against 20 percent of request gender-neutral marriage rites, ability to settle en masse. A large influx Israeli citizens, threatens religious plural- which were approved for trial use at of non-Jews could eventually make Jews ism, and threatens the very future of the church’s 2015 convention, in the a minority in their own country, govern- Israel.” church where they worship. Even if the ment officials say. The American Jewish Committee local bishop opposes same-sex wed- Hours before the final vote, lawmak- said it is “deeply disappointed” by the dings, the priest of the parish can still ers deleted a clause that would have law, first because it “downgrades” conduct the ceremony, requesting pas- authorized the creation of communities Arabic and second because it promotes toral support from a bishop in another “composed of people having the same “Jewish settlement.” diocese if necessary. faith and nationality to the exclusive The latter “could be read as a euphe- The approved resolution also makes character of that community.” mism for the originally proposed it clear that “no clergy member can be Instead, it says: “The state views the endorsement of support for Jewish-only forced to preside over any marriage cer- development of Jewish settlement as a communities in Israel,” AJC said. emony,” the Episcopal News Service national value and will act to encour- “We respectfully ask the Government reported. age and promote its establishment and of Israel to clarify these and other ques- Currently, eight of the United States’ consolidation.” tionable elements of the bill, and to reaf- 101 Episcopal dioceses—Albany, New Some believe the clause is discrimi- firm the core principles and values that York; Dallas; two in Florida; North natory because it appears to promote make up the very foundation of Israel’s Dakota; Springfield, ; Tennessee;

17 Christian Century August 15, 2018 and the Virgin Islands—do not authorize FACEBOOK VIA PHOTO “This is clearly manipulation of religion the gender-neutral liturgies. for some political gains, which must be Bishop Lawrence Provenzano of rejected in Africa.” Long Island, New York, who helped craft Other religious leaders have also the resolution, hoped it would provide rejected the claim by fighters on both greater inclusion for LGBT couples sides that religious belief is behind the without alienating traditionalists. Pro - conflict. They have pointed to political ven zano said he was “joyfully surprised” and economic reasons for the fighting by what he described as a “spirit of rec- while trying to steer both sides toward onciliation” at the convention even in peace. the midst of heated debate. Dieudonné Nzapalainga, archbishop The new provision for a local option of Bangui, the capital, and Kobine doesn’t take effect until 2, the Layama, head of the country’s Islamic first Sunday of Advent. community, have appeared together in Also at the convention, the Episcopal conflict zones as a symbol of unity. Church adopted a resolution directing Scholars said that faith leaders on the Executive Council’s Committee on both sides are being attacked since they Corporate Social Responsibility “to are perceived as interfering with mining develop criteria for Israel and Palestine natural resources or supporting the other based on a human rights investment side when they preach peace. screen” similar to the one passed by the Catholic priest Firmin Gbagoua “It is an economic and political con- Evangelical Lutheran Church in America flict,” said Abdallah Kheir, a scholar of in 2016. The resolution also encouraged tinue the illegal exploitation” of mineral African studies and Islamic studies at shareholder advocacy for human rights in resources. Kenyatta University in Nairobi. “Some Israel-Palestine as well as “positive In late June, Firmin Gbagoua, who people are benefiting. And when the investment in Palestine and other under- served as the regional director of Caritas, clerics push for peace, they are seen as resourced areas where human rights an international Catholic relief group, interfering with the business.” abuses materially impact the well-being became the sixth Catholic priest to be Three years ago, a transitional coun- of all people.” killed in the conflict, which has pitted cil adopted a new constitution aimed in Other mainline denominations have Anti-balaka militias, who are mainly part to quell violence. But since then, taken similar action, including the Christian and animist, against ex-Séléka armed groups that splintered from Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) and the rebels, who are mostly Muslim. Séléka and Anti-balaka continue to United Church of Christ. —Religion News The Central African Republic de - carry out assassinations, other killing, Service and Episcopal news sources scended into conflict in 2013, when and rape, according to human rights Séléka, which means “coalition,” over- groups. threw President François Bozizé and Francis Kuria Kagema, secretary installed their leader, Michel Djotodia. general of the African Council of Reli - Priests killed in CAR The rebel coalition burned villages and gious Leaders, urged the fighting attacked and looted churches across groups to consider the suffering of as faith leaders advocate the country. As president until 2014, innocent citizens. Djoto dia attempted to dissolve Séléka, “They should rethink the new consti- for an end to the conflict but splinter groups continue fighting as tution,” Kuria said. That would offer the ex-Séléka. country “a chance for a new beginning.” Following the recent killing of priests Djotodia’s rise to power ignited According to Kuria, the country in the Central African Republic, church counterattacks by Anti-balaka. By the needs more grassroots peace efforts. He officials worry that clergy are being tar- time Djotodia resigned in 2014, Anti- noted that most of the minority Muslim geted by armed groups for their peace- balaka had killed and injured thousands population was dislocated during the making efforts. of Muslims. Hundreds of thousands conflict, and he called for support for “The attacks can be seen as an more fled to neighboring Chad and their resettlement. attempt to silence the church for its Cameroon, while some church groups Hamid Byamugenzi, deputy director strong opposition to the violence and gave shelter to Muslim people—as many of the Islamic University in Uganda, its work on peace,” said Nestor-Désiré as 2,000 in one parish. expressed concern that the violence in Nongo-Aziagbia, vice president of the In 2014 Saliou Mbacké, coordinator CAR could spread to other areas. CAR Catholic ’ conference. of Inter-Faith Action for Peace in Africa, “My fear is the tragedy may lead us “The Catholic Church has stood for the issued an appeal to both groups “to cease into deep trouble like the Rwanda geno- truth, denouncing all the evil plots and the attacks and live side by side as they cide,” he said. —Fredrick Nzwili, Religion plans to destabilize the country and con- have done for many years.” He said, News Service

Christian Century August 15, 2018 18 “For the past 25 to 30 years, I’ve been He became president of ELTS in 1971. People a contemporary biblical expressionist,” He remained president after the school he said. merged with Hamma School of Theology Although the blaze put an end to the in 1978 to form Trinity Lutheran Sem - couple’s dream of exhibiting the inary until his retirement in 1989. portion paintings in an international He published numerous articles and venue, it motivated Meira to create a books on and American book using high-quality prints of the Lutheran history. paintings stored at their printer’s office. Meuser spoke at the 1997 ELCA The result is Art of Revelation: A Visual assembly, saying that God’s power sus- Encounter with the Jewish Bible, a glossy tains the church.

RNS PHOTO BY MICHELE CHABIN 235-page book divided into sections cor- “It’s easy to forget what God promis- I It was 2 a.m. with a fierce dry wind when responding to the five books of the Torah. es to build: not sanctuaries, not the firefighters ordered Yoram and Meira The painting Noah’s Ark amid the American way of life, not American Raanan and other residents of Moshav Deluge, for example, portrays the down- Christianity,” Meuser said, according to Beit Meir, a communal village nine miles fall of civilization with surging reds and ELCA records. “God’s church is not a lit- west of Jerusalem, to evacuate their homes. its redemption with a calmer blue sea. A tle fearful remnant hiding from the big As they drove away Yoram, 65, an black box representing the ark hangs bad world, always bemoaning how bad American Israeli artist, saw his studio go precariously over the ocean from a things are, hanging on by their finger- up in flames. He told Meira, “Gam zu thread, showing that all living things nails. Oh, no! That church is a great com- l’tovah” (“everything is for the best”)— depend on God’s mercy. pany, from every land from times past even when it doesn’t seem so. “The work didn’t really die,” Yoram and present and yet to come, with the Most of his life’s work—several thou- said, thumbing through the pages of the mind of Christ in them and a Lord out in sand paintings, drawings, watercolors, and book. “The Torah doesn’t die. It’s a phys- front of them who says, ‘Follow me! I prints—was destroyed in minutes. ical reminder of eternity.” —Michele have overcome the world! I will build my Among the works were 160 paintings Chabin, Religion News Service church!’” —CHRISTIAN CENTURY staff inspired by the parasha, the Torah por- tion read each week in synagogues, creat- I Fred W. Meuser, SEMINARY LUTHERAN TRINITY COURTESY PHOTO I Jean-Louis Tauran, president of the ed over a three-year period. Only five in theologian, pastor, and Vatican’s Pontifical Council for Inter - that series survived, along with the house. first president of Tri - religious Dialogue, died at age 75 in “In my heart I felt something good nity Lutheran Sem- Hartford, Connecti cut, LICENSE COMMONS CREATIVE VIA TATIC DRAGAN BY PHOTO would come out of this,” Yoram said. inary in Ohio, died where he was be ing Raised in Passaic, New Jersey, Yoram at age 94 in treated for Parkin - became disillusioned with Judaism as a Orlando, Florida. son’s disease, the Vati - teenager. He thought it was hypocritical He studied at Cap - can wrote. that his family kept kosher at home but ital University and Pope Benedict XVI ate fish at nonkosher restaurants. “Juda - Yale Divinity School and joined the appointed him to head ism wasn’t inspiring me,” he said. Evangelical Lutheran Theological Semi - the interfaith relations After graduating from art school, nary in Colum bus as professor of church council in 2007. Yoram traveled around the world and history in 1953. He was ordained in the The French cardinal entered the stopped in Israel. American Lutheran Church, one of the role with some initial tensions because “I fell in love with the country—I felt predecessors of the Evangelical Lutheran of comments Benedict made about at home,” he said. “In America people Church in America, and served as a pastor Islam, as well as ones Tauran made would ask me if I’m Jewish” in a way that in Florida before becoming a professor. himself—telling a French newspaper never felt comfortable. While in Je - In 1969, Meuser accepted a two-year that Muslim belief in the Qur’an as the rusalem, Raanan enrolled in an call to serve as the executive secretary of literal word of God makes theological Orthodox yeshiva that encouraged the Division of Theological Studies at dialogue between Muslims and Chris - reflection and debate related to the the Lutheran Council in the United tians “difficult.” Jewish texts and practice. States of America as it studied the ordi- Yet he went on to establish relation- “For the first time in my life I came nation of women for three Lutheran ships with leaders of many faiths. into contact with people who were as denominations. Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s foreign passionate about the Torah and com- “Meuser considered the work to minister, said Tauran “made every mandments as I was about art, and it was reflect the power of the Holy Spirit lead- effort to boost solidarity among follow- inspiring,” he said. ing both women and men to see ordina- ers of all divine faiths and promote dia- Yoram spent the first half of every day tion of women as biblically warranted logue among religions without any reli- studying Jewish texts and the second half and theologically responsible,” his family gious bias, nescience, and extremism.” making art. Gradually his style formed. wrote in his obituary. —CHRISTIAN CENTURY staff

19 Christian Century August 15, 2018 , 22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time ness meeting, I was excited to be back, and I made plans to attend. Mark 7:1–8, 14–15, 21–23 That night, the church was filled. One of the deacons stood up and announced that there would be a debate on whether or THE PHARISEES and teachers of the law have not the pastor could have a female clergy colleague come and come with questions. They ask Jesus, “Why do your disciples preach for his pastoral anniversary. Up until that moment, I did not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with not realize that women could not preach in the church. That defiled hands?” Traditionally, when coming from the market night I watched as church elders stood up on each side of the they would be expected to ceremonially wash their hands. debate, using scripture to support their point for or against. I These religious leaders are here to scrutinize Jesus’ operations watched people I respected and looked up to—some of them and catch him in the act of inconsistency and violation of the women themselves—stand and plead that no woman could law. speak and preach in the church. The text does not explicitly say, nor does anyone ask, why Sitting there, I remembered that moment when I crossed Jesus’ disciples did not wash their hands. It is also possible the threshold of the pulpit and stood there. I remembered the that the disciples did wash their hands, before the Pharisees palpable discomfort in the room as no one could explain to me and scribes arrived. People come with accusations and judgments, often from the outside looking in. Care has to be taken here. There’s always a story behind One of the elder ladies spoke up. “Baby, the story. In Mark 7, Jesus deals directly with you can’t be in that pulpit.” questions of what defiles people (verses 1–23) and religion (24–37). Faced with the tradition and its why it was a problem. Years later, in seminary, I learned that demands, Jesus declares that Isaiah was right: “This people these traditions have roots in the belief that women have the honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. potential to defile the pulpit. That time after choir rehearsal, In vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as when I walked through the pulpit area, some people thought I doctrine.” defiled the pulpit as sacred space. The woman who was invited This notion of who is defiled and who is not underlies to preach the pastor’s anniversary sermon was also seen by some of our current religious and political discussions and many to defile the pulpit. debates. Finger-pointing about who is defiled, who is unclean, According to church and denominational law, this was not is commonplace—even and especially among us in the allowed. My home church subsequently split over this debate. churches. What does it mean to be seen as a defiled person? Who are But what happens when you are seen as one who is defiled? the people who are seen as defiled in our society? Have you Growing up in a small town in Missouri, I came to know ever been perceived as being defiled? God and had a great love for my home church. I was very Many wrestle daily with unworthiness, feeling marred or involved there during my college years. One Wednesday night, judged, checking themselves for imperfections. What is key in just as choir rehearsal was ending, I stepped out of the choir Mark 7 is that while the Pharisees and teachers of the law are stand and walked down a few stairs and across to the pulpit. A judging Jesus’ disciples, those disciples continue to serve with hush fell over the sanctuary. One of the elder ladies spoke up: him. They remain his disciples, in spite of others’ judgments “Baby, you can’t be in that pulpit.” and critiques. It was such a strange moment. I didn’t understand it. “OK,” Jesus reminds us that what comes out of us is what defiles a I said. And no one said another word about it. person (Luke 6:45). In this week’s Gospel text, Jesus calls us to A year later, when I came back to the church while visiting take a heart check and to check ourselves for what is coming from graduate school, I was informed that there would be a out of us. What are we saying? What are we producing? Who church business meeting. Never having attended a church busi- are we as a people in his sight?

Christian Century August 15, 2018 20 Reflections on the lectionary

ing about race and examining race and as an issue, , 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time a problem, and a root cause. (Other books along the Mark 7:24–37 #HealingRacism journey have included the 1985 Kairos Document by South African theologians, and subsequent I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN fascinated by the Kairos Documents from other nations and movements, as well Bible’s healing stories, especially Jesus’ specific methods of as Kelly Brown Douglas’s book Stand Your Ground: Black healing. He lays hands on people; he says “be healed”; he tells Bodies and the Justice of God.) people—on the sabbath—to pick up their mats and walk. In this Mark 7 text, Jesus delineates the line of privilege Sometimes he is in conversation with people, and in the very clearly. “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to process of interacting with him they are healed. This is the case, take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” for example, in John 5, when Jesus asks the man at the pool of What is Jesus saying here? Is this comment intended to stop Bethesda, “Do you want to get well?” the woman from pursuing what she came for, the healing and Jesus’ methods and modes of healing in Mark 7 might be the deliverance of her daughter? Whether or not that is Jesus’ oddest of all. In verses 31–37 he is in Sidon, in the region of the intention, that’s not what happens. She seems unfazed by his Decapolis, where he encounters a man who is deaf and mute. comments. She tells him that “even the dogs under the table The people plead with Jesus to lay hands on this man. Instead, eat the children’s crumbs.” Jesus puts his fingers in the man’s ears. Then he spits and Then Jesus announces to her, “For saying that, you may touches the man’s tongue. go—the demon has left your daughter.” She goes home and Just before that in the region of Tyre, Jesus is trying to avoid finds that it’s true. being seen or found, which he never seems to do well, when a What is it about the woman’s reply to Jesus that makes the gentile woman born in Syrophoenicia bows before him and difference? Why does he end up affirming the healing and pleads for him to drive a demon out of her daughter. Reading deliverance of her daughter? the story quickly, you might miss it—but did Jesus just call that woman a dog? Why does Jesus have to do that? This week’s text causes me a bit of discomfort. Issues of hierarchy come up even in the Could he have been more tactful, more diplomatic? This isn’t the best mode of realm of healing. pastoral care. Com mentators explain that Jesus is saying that healing is for the children of Israel first and In this story, the problem of stratification and hierarchy only then for the gentiles. Still, his words to her make me comes up even in the realm of healing. But the story is marked uneasy. as well by the woman’s persistence. If it is true that Jesus came And yet, the text reminds us of the reality we see today, in a first for the children of Israel and then after that for the rest, world of haves and have-nots. There are some who benefit and the woman demonstrates that perseverance and protest can receive and others who have to wait in line. Naming that caus- bring about a new paradigm. Syrophoenician or not, this es a bit of discomfort. woman’s daughter is healed, delivered, and set free. At The Gathering Chicago, the emerging ministry plant in Exploring this text is unsettling. So is uncovering the which I pastor, one of our first initiatives was a #HealingRacism wounds of racism in relation to church complicity. Perhaps the group. It wasn’t that we decided we wanted the first ministry of directness of the dialogue between Jesus and this unnamed the community to be about healing racism. The need arose Syrophoenician woman reminds us to name the differences because during the months in which we launched this new com- and call out the hierarchies. In order to be delivered from these munity of prayer and service, black Chicago youth were being demons that hold our society hostage, we have to name things killed and protests against police brutality were taking place in clearly. This is a first step in the process toward full healing and the city. A series of killings of unarmed black people around the restoration. country had risen to public attention as well. When we gathered that first Thursday, for a #HealingRacism The author is LaDonna Sanders Nkosi, convening pastor for The Gathering brown bag book discussion of Charles Mills’s The Racial Chicago and founder and international director of Ubuntu Global Contract, the need became clearer. People have difficulty talk- Village Foundation.

21 Christian Century August 15, 2018 Photo © Ian McDonnell / Getty

SMALL-TOWN CHURCHES AND THE MINISTRY OF ABIDING Pastors who stay

by Brad Roth

I PULL INTO the tiny town of Bloom in west-

ern Kansas, tires crunching gravel like war rubble,

and step out beside the paired ruins of the Bloom

School and the Lighthouse Baptist Church. All that’s

left of the school is its prodigious concrete arch,

cracked foundation slabs, and some rebar gnarling

the air. The church is just a stone front and back. A

sign over the door reads: Bloom Youth Center. But do

not enter—the roof caved in long ago.

Brad Roth is pastor of the West Zion Mennonite Church in Moundridge, Kansas, and author of God’s Country: Faith, Hope, and the Future of the Rural Church (Herald Press). He blogs at DoxologyProject.com.

Christian Century August 15, 2018 22 Bloom’s devastation came slowly. The school consolidated in “What are you doing in a place like that?” they ask. In contrast, nearby Minneola in the 1960s, and the post office closed in many of them have been working their denominations’ career 1992. Now the gas station is boarded up, the words “no trespass- ladders, moving up to larger congregations. ing” scrawled next to a wobbly, spray-painted heart. The only It’s not a question of qualifications. McConnell is convinced business left is a grain elevator. Bloom represents the extreme that rural churches deserve the best. He holds M.Div., Th.M., end of the decline many rural communities face—and fear. and D.Min. degrees. He teaches classes on best practices in Not every rural place finds itself in such grim circumstances. rural ministry through the Rural Home Missionary Some communities—such as Moundridge, Kansas, where I Association out of Morton, Illinois. “I want to have the highest live—have defied the narrative of decline, holding steady or credentials absolutely possible and then to give my life to a lit- even growing. But for every Moundridge there are 100 tle rural church like this,” he says. And he’s in it for the long Blooms: tiny communities with populations in the triple or haul. “I keep telling them that I’m here for forty years,” he says. double digits and falling. They’re no-stoplight towns that can “They still don’t believe me.” scarcely support a mom-and-pop grocery store. A big-city McConnell is deeply invested in the life of the community. reporter commented to me once, “There’s really no reason for He serves on the local school board, as an EMT, and as a ski a lot of these communities to exist.” Many residents have instructor at the school. McConnell prefers to spend after- apparently come to the same conclusion, voting with their feet noons working out of a local coffee shop where he can connect by leaving. with people. I set out to discover ways that the church can be a beacon of hope in tiny, often shrinking communities. Along the way, I talked to pastors and leaders who are proclaiming hope by Staying is one way that abiding in place, working for the good of the whole communi- ty, and testifying to a God who is greater than their present cir- pastors provide hope in cumstances. Hope might seem like just a bromide—after all, the church is in no position to fix the problems rural communi- declining rural areas. ties face. But the hope of biblical faith is robust. It is born in displacement and nurtured in slavery, fired in warfare and loss, McConnell’s long-term commitment to his community is a and given its distinctive cruciform shape in Jesus. And just as powerful sign of the gospel. It’s staying put as an act of hope Abraham hoped for the future fulfillment of God’s promise and love. And it’s not an easy thing to do. Our society’s narra- and yet saw the birth of Ishmael and Isaac, so too the church’s tives of success are powerful and persistent. Skilled pastors hope looks to the future but is grounded in the present. start in rural congregations. They don’t often stay there. In our society, moving on generally means moving up. We And yet, I’ve encountered pastors and leaders practicing move for family or education or work or a better view. the art of abiding in tiny and sometimes dying communities Remaining in a place—especially if it’s small and rural—looks and congregations. Like McConnell, many of them live out like getting stuck. But the biblical story challenges this narra- their commitment to abide by working for the good of the tive of movement and progress. Jesus proclaims his world- whole community. vaulting message to a small area around Galilee. He never sails for Athens or Rome, and he’s only in Jerusalem just long uring the announcement time at Journey@Yoder, a enough to overturn a few tables and antagonize the powers satellite congregation of the thriving Journey that be. He connects with a specific people at a specific time. DMennonite Church, pastor Philip Kauffman reminds Jesus models the art of abiding, and abiding is one of the the gathering of mostly young families and children about an most basic ways that pastors and congregations proclaim hope upcoming community meeting they are hosting. The plan is to in declining rural communities. To abide is to remain—with a join with other congregations, including several Amish com- sense of commitment to all that God is doing in a particular munities, to discuss possibilities for attracting a medical doctor place. It’s seeing ourselves as called to a place by the God who to the area. Yoder, along with its nearby sister town of Haven, loves the whole creation. Abiding is learning to love a people is located some 20 minutes outside of the city of Hutchinson, and a place, and then living that love out through steadfast Kansas. While many people can drive to the city for medical commitment over time. services, the distance is an inconvenience, especially for horse- Population size and economic wealth don’t sum up the and-buggy Amish families. worth of a place. When we start to take this to heart, we can try Convening community meetings like this fits with Journey’s something radical: living there. We might ground our presence vision. Kauffman and the rest of the pastoral team (there are in the theological language of incarnation and solidarity, but it three pastors, all part-time) have emphasized working for the all comes down to the vote of confidence we give by showing good of the community. It’s the way they do ministry. For up and staying put. It’s a fundamentally hopeful act. instance, when the Haven fall festival wraps up, the Journey Jason McConnell is a pastor who serves two congregations congregation gathers with others at 8 a.m. to tidy up the town. in Franklin, Vermont, a community of a little over 1,000 people After refueling on donuts and coffee, several local congrega- near the border with Quebec. He tells me about his far-flung tions celebrate a combined community worship service. They colleagues’ surprise when they hear about his ministry setting. worship and pick up trash.

23 Christian Century August 15, 2018 In many ways, Journey’s pastors are striving to live out the the community’s entertainment needs—needs that can be apostle Paul’s vision in Galatians 6:10, where he instructs the harder to meet in a rural area. church to “work for the good of all, especially for the family of Community involvement like Hinkle’s is a concrete expres- faith.” They’re not alone. In my conversations with rural pas- sion of love of neighbor and neighborhood. But it’s also a val- tors and leaders, community solidarity rises to the top as a idation of the community’s future. It’s a claim made with common factor in thriving rural congregations. People are blood, sweat, and popcorn butter that the church is invested in involved in the school and connected through nonprofits. They the future of the community. serve on boards. They participate in city government. They vol- Yet no one can predict what the future will bring for many unteer and coach and teach. They have a vision for the good of rural communities. the whole community. Thad Hinkle, a pastor in north-central Kansas, describes ear Mankato, the town of Formoso, Kansas (population how his ministry mind-set has evolved. When Hinkle first 70), faces a steep demographic slide that has lasted began serving the Mankato Christian Church, he moved into Ndecades, compounded by a particularly acute econom- the pastor’s office and waited for people to bring their prob- ic hollowing-out that has left the tiny community with a dispro- lems to him. But after two weeks of being sequestered behind portionately older and poorer population. The town is dotted the desk, Hinkle decided his approach wasn’t working. “I real- with houses that have been rented to low-income families by ized that I had to get out of the office or I wouldn’t see any- absentee landlords, allowed to slip into disrepair, and then one,” he says. “And my sermons got better because I started to abandoned. It’s a challenging situation with no easy solution. see where people are living.” In recent years, Hinkle has gotten involved in running the local movie theater. He describes what happened when the Like people, communities original theater went out of business. A community group formed to reopen it as an all-volunteer nonprofit. Hinkle puts find their reason to exist up new movie posters, handles tickets, and occasionally sells concessions. While pumping palm-oil butter over a tub of pop- in reference to God. corn might not be a discipleship moment, it’s a recognition of Daniel Waide is the young pastor of the Formoso Community Church, a congregation of about 30 people and the only church in town. While Waide recognizes the difficulties faced by Formoso, he hasn’t lost heart. “As long as there’s peo- Palimpsest ple here,” he says, “there are things that we need to do.” Waide describes his ministry as full time in the community, Consider the paper on which though “not necessarily in the church.” He grabs coffee at the I write, and, however hidden, public library, eats at the local diner, rides in the tractor along- all it contains: in the forest, side farmers, and connects with people throughout the week. the tree, the person who felled it, His wife, Kimberly, is involved in the garden club and in local those at the pulp mill, the mothers, homeschool groups. Their congregation has experimented with the fathers, the farmers who fed a community breakfast to extend an invitation into a commu- them, the crops in the fields, onion, nity in which Waide estimates some three-fourths of the popu- rhubarb, spinach, corn, the rain that lation have no church ties. watered, the sunlight that warmed, While there have been some new people who have connect- the soil, the earthworm, the honeybee, ed to the church in his two years serving in Formoso, Waide is root. motivated by a vision beyond whatever success he may or may not achieve in his congregation. He says, “Our hope is yet to Consider the words, these printed come. I found out a long time ago that the work I do in this in ink, the eyes that see, the mind community is not just for the community. I view my work as an that reads, the hand that is holding offering to God.” pine, paper, peach. This outlook may be the secret ingredient in serving rural congregations: a steadfast sense that our work is an offering to Consider creation, consider prayer: God. Without this conviction, pastors all too easily fall prey to the world in a grain of sand, heaven our society’s disordered values, which privilege growing things in a wild flower. Consider connection, and disparage weakness and dying. The possibility that min- eternity too, and, if you can, tell me, istry could be carried out faithfully and well in congregations where is the beginning and where is and communities clearly on the decline just doesn’t fit. the end? Towns like Formoso have been drying up across the Great Plains for years. The hope of the church, while anchored in the Sarah Rossiter present moment, must lie beyond the horizons of small-town

Christian Century August 15, 2018 24 demographic trends. Christian hope never promises any particular earthly outcome but rather looks forward to its ultimate fulfillment in God. According to To end disease the biblical vision that culminates in the book of Revelation, the world will be mended, the old wounds of injustice tomorrow, begin healed. Despite all the violent indica- tions to the contrary, history is being drawn inexorably to God’s good end. with Trials Today. But in the meantime, things fall apart. No doubt this already/not-yet tension is why the apostle Paul instructs the Corinthians to do their work with an eye Researchers across the country are getting to the promises of God. “In the Lord your labor is not in vain,” he writes (1 closer and closer to unlocking the science Corinthians 15:58). Hope in God infuses that can lead to cures. But they need you. day-to-day work with meaning. Health care can’t advance unless people like LaVernia Peters, Formoso’s mayor you volunteer to participate in trials. That’s and chief lawn mower, speaks of a hope shaped by her involvement in the why there’s ResearchMatch Trials Today, a Formoso Community Church. It’s not new way to search for clinical trials at the easy to keep a town like Formoso going. non-profit ResearchMatch.org. Many of Formoso’s biggest challenges are unfixable. Peters deals with what she can. For instance, she and others raise When you use ResearchMatch to find a trial, vegetables in a community garden plot you just might help a researcher find a cure. and sell their produce at a local market stand. The proceeds go to improve the community: fixing potholes or recoating the floor of the roller-skating rink. Says Peters of her hope: “It’s the only thing Trials Today that keeps you going.” Hope is what keeps us going. Per - at researchmatch.org haps it’s not so different for congrega- tions in burgeoning cities and suburbs. If we aren’t anchored in something big- ger than our present circumstance— hope, some sense of mission, and ulti- mately God—then our work becomes just one thing after another, the minor flywheel serving its little mechanical end. We need some sense that our life and labor are ordered toward some- thing greater than ourselves, no matter where we live. This may also be the reason that tiny, declining rural communities like Bloom and Formoso should exist at all. It’s the same reason any community exists, from Kansas City to Jerusalem. It’s not their economic value, artistic production, or architectural splendor. Like people, com- munities find their reason to exist in ref- erence to God. They exist because God has graced them into being through love. And that is enough.

25 Christian Century August 15, 2018 One family’s chaotic road to reunification Separated at the border by Terra Brockman

A FEW MONTHS AGO, Yeni Garcia González Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). and her three children stepped over a low fence in the Arizona These two large bureaucracies do not share databases and seldom desert and entered the United States. It was the last step of a interact, which adds to the difficulty of reunifying families. 2,000-mile journey from their village in Guatemala and their González’s children were sent to Cayuga Centers, a facility in first step into the Kafkaesque world of U.S. immigration policies. East Harlem, New York. The goal of this and other foster care cen- Since that day in May, González and her children—Deyuin, ters set up for unaccompanied minors is to look after children until 6, Jamelin, 9, and Lester, 11—have experienced the best and they are either matched with an approved sponsor or deported. the worst of the United States. González’s children were taken Reuniting children with a parent or relative is not a goal of these away from her and she suffered inhumane treatment at deten- facilities, nor is it part of their contract with the federal government. tion centers, but she also encountered the generosity and kind- The day after her children were taken away, González was ness of strangers who helped her fight for her freedom and her transferred to another processing center in Arizona and held there right to be with her children. for two weeks. These centers are meant to process people within a Like many who enter the U.S. at the southern border, González day or two, so they are not set up to meet basic needs for the long and her children were fleeing poverty and violence. Guatemala is term. According to a social media post by Janey Pearl Starks, an part of the Northern Triangle of Central America, which was rav- immigration activist and one of the first people to speak with aged by civil wars in the 1980s that left behind a legacy of corrup- González, “she was detained with her children for two days before tion, drug trafficking, and gang violence. Gangs forcibly recruit being separated. During that time they gave them no food.” boys as young as ten, and so Lester was at terrible risk of suffering During the two weeks she was in the second processing cen- violence or death if he refused to join a gang—and at similar risk ter, González and other detainees were fed only noodles— if he did join. He and the family were also threatened by the ran- instant ramen—and were not allowed to change clothes, show- dom violence and extortion that plagues the region. er, brush their teeth, or touch one another. So González left her home in the hope of providing her chil- Although she asked repeatedly for information about her dren with a safer life. Like many who make the dangerous trek children, González was not given any, nor was she allowed to north, González has relatives in the United States, and she make any phone calls. According to Fertig, one officer made sure that by the time the family reached the U.S. border, responded to González’s request for information about her each child had memorized the phone number of their aunt and children by saying: “You want to know something? You’re uncle in North Carolina. going to be deported to Guatemala, and your children will Shortly after crossing the border, González turned herself and remain in the hands of the government.” her family in to Border Patrol agents with the intent to request asylum, and they were taken to a processing center in Yuma. Two hen the children reached New York, they provided a days later, at 5 a.m., agents came and woke the children. case worker with the phone number that their moth- “They didn’t say anything. They just called them and the chil- Wer had insisted they memorize. When the case work- dren came, and then they closed the door. And I could see them er reached the children’s aunt and uncle in North Carolina, the pass by the window, and that was the last time I saw them,” relatives were astonished to learn that the children were in a González told Beth Fertig, a reporter at WNYC radio in New York. foster care center in New York. Not knowing where their moth- In that moment, Deyuin, Jamelin, and Lester joined the more er was, and unsure how to help, the aunt and uncle Googled than 2,000 children forcibly separated from their parents under “immigration lawyer, New York.” That led them to José Xavier the Trump administration’s policy of zero tolerance for those Orochena, an attorney who agreed to take the case pro bono. entering the country without legal documents. These children Orochena contacted Cayuga Centers and requested a visit have been transported to one of more than 100 foster care centers with his young clients. His request was denied for two weeks, located in 27 states across the country. Once separated from their during which time González was moved from the processing parents, the children are redefined by the government as unac- companied minors and placed in the hands of the Office of Terra Brockman is a freelance writer and author of The Seasons on Refugee Resettlement. Adults remain under the auspices of the Henry’s Farm.

Christian Century August 15, 2018 26 AP PHOTO / MARY ALTAFFER MARY / PHOTO AP

REUNITED: Yeni González (center) leaves Cayuga Centers in New York with her children (from left) Lester, 11, Deyuin, 6, and Jamelin, 9, after they were released to her on July 13. center to a detention center in Eloy, Arizona. When she was He’s headed out to Arizona this week for [González’s] bond finally allowed to make her first phone call, she called the chil- hearing. Once we know the bond amount, we’ll post it and dren’s aunt and uncle in North Carolina. Only then did she get her here and take it all from there. learn that her children were in New York, 2,500 miles away. This is it, y’all . . . We can help this one family reunite and She had no idea why they were there or how to get them back. have a semblance of a life while they go through this diffi- This is where González’s story takes a different turn from cult time. And then we’ll take what we learned and replicate that of many other migrants. Her relatives in North Carolina it and provide the template for other people to do it. were able to tell Orochena where the children’s mother was, and the puzzle pieces began to come together. Orochena was Collazo and her group, which informally called itself Team Yeni, finally allowed to visit the children at Cayuga Centers, and he created a Yeni González Support Team page on GoFundMe. began telling the media about how the González family had Before the first day of the campaign had ended, it had raised the been separated and his effort to reunite them. $7,500 needed to free her, mainly in small donations. One person who heard Orochena on the radio was Julie Orochena flew to Arizona, paid the $7,500 bond, and Gon - Schwietert Collazo, a writer, former social worker, and mother zález was released. Before they left the Eloy Detention Center, of three. On she posted on her Facebook page: González insisted that Orochena meet with other mothers whose children had been taken from them. He wrote down what Last Friday, I heard an interview on WNYC with an immi- they told him and got the mothers’ and children’s alien num- gration lawyer. He represents a mom who’s detained by bers—numbers they receive after they cross the border—so that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in Arizona. he could try to put the scattered families back together. Her three children are here in NYC. Something he said After her release, González stood next to Orochena under the flipped a switch for me: Reunification IS possible. We just brutal Arizona sun and responded to a reporter’s question about have to help his client get here and support her here until how she was feeling by saying that her “heart had been torn into her case is resolved in immigration court in NYC. a thousand pieces when my children were ripped from my arms.” Orochena took González to JCPenney to get some clothes That evening Julie spoke with her husband, Francisco, and and then to get some food. She told him she was afraid to eat with a group of friends and neighbors. They pledged not only solid food, since she had had nothing but soup during her time to help reunite the family but to support it during the long and in the Eloy Detention Center. Later she told Starks that she expensive process of applying for asylum. Collazo contacted hadn’t had any water for the three days before her release. Orochena and told him that a group of people was ready to Starks volunteered to drive González the first leg of her support his client. She reported the news on Facebook: journey from Arizona to New York. A relay of volunteer driv-

27 Christian Century August 15, 2018 A Unique and Challenging Presidency

New York eological Seminary, celebrating 118 years of preparing women and men for faith-based ministries in the city and throughout the world, seeks a President with a passion for the Seminary’s mission and program. Located in New York City, the Seminary is a diverse and inclusive community grounded in biblical witness and Christian tradition, with a historic urban focus.

e President will: • be responsible for the spiritual and academic life of a community of more than 500 students and 35 full- and part-time faculty representing almost 60 Christian denominations and other faith traditions; • actively and persuasively articulate the Seminary’s mission and program to a wide range of audiences outside the Seminary; and • empower all elements of the Seminary community to participate e!ectively in the Seminary’s development program.

Candidates must demonstrate proven success at fund-raising and have a minimum of "ve years of experience in leading an institution or program comparable to the Seminary. A complete job description may be found on the Seminary’s website at WWW.NYTS.EDU/PRESIDENTIALSEARCH, along with a full description of the Seminary’s many programs.

Nominations and expressions of interest may be sent electronically to [email protected] or by mail to the Presidential Search Committee at 475 Riverside Drive, Suite 500, New York, NY 10115 (Attn: Ms. Chantay Berry). Electronic submissions are preferred. All nominations and expressions of interest must be accompanied by a statement demonstrating why the candidate would be an excellent leader for New York eological Seminary. ers had been organized by another member of Team Yeni, ters in other states with less supportive government officials Meghan Finn. The drivers were necessary because officials told will gain custody of their children this quickly. Orochena he could not buy González an airline ticket since she But Team Yeni is far from discouraged. In fact, within days did not have the requisite identification to board a plane. of reuniting González with her children, Collazo and her On , González arrived in New York City and was greet- expanding network of volunteers created Immigrant Families ed at the south end of Central Park, in front of the statue of José Together, an umbrella organization with a website that has a Martí, by supporters holding signs in Spanish and English: page called “Moms You Can Help” containing information ¡Bienvenida a Nueva York, Yeni! ¡Te damos la bienvenida con about mothers who have been released on bond and others brazos abiertos! We welcome you with open arms! A reporter requiring assistance. Donors have already raised the funds asked her in Spanish, “How has it been?” She replied, “It was very needed to pay the bonds for six more mothers—women who rough. But it doesn’t matter now. I get to be with my children.” had been detained with González at the Eloy, Arizona, facility Before she returned to the car, she insisted on hugging every and whose children had been taken from them. “Faith commu- child who had come out to greet her. Through tears, she said, “I nities have been central to this effort,” Collazo said, adding have suffered as much for the love of my children as they have that “our next mom is being sponsored by a synagogue.” suffered for me. I love them. But I have to go forward. Look at Previously bonds for detainees such as González had been all these people who are supporting me. Gracias.” close to the mandated minimum of $1,500. But they are now The next morning, González was at Cayuga Centers when it being set higher and higher, with González’s at $7,500, subse- opened at 9 a.m. Although she was able to spend most of the quent detainees’ at $15,000, and the most recent ones at $30,000—an amount previously unheard of for someone who is neither dangerous nor a flight risk. Such bonds make it near- Team Yeni was able to reunite ly impossible for asylum seekers to gain the freedom they need to pursue their cases or to be reunited with their children. But González with her children with the support of Immigrant Families Together and many and to help other families. generous donors, these women now have hope. In a recent update, Collazo commented on the power of day with her children, she was not given custody. Because the hope: “José [Orochena] said that we’re public enemy #1 at Eloy. children that ICE separates from their parents are defined as Yeni’s release and reunion have given the other women hope. unaccompanied minors, González and other mothers or If that’s what it means to be a public enemy, I’m OK with that.” fathers are viewed not as a child’s parent but as a potential Collazo and her team are now working on a document that sponsor, someone who must be thoroughly vetted before being shares with others what they have learned about helping to unite permitted to take custody. That vetting involves fingerprinting, families. And they continually update the Immigrant Families DNA checks, and proof of sufficient income and housing. Together website and share new information on social media. To overcome the bureaucratic hurdles, Team Yeni enlisted the Although the Trump administration on reversed its support of government officials, including U.S. Representative policy of separating families, that policy and subsequent iterations Adriano Espaillat, New York State Senator Michael Gianaris, of it (families are kept together, but detained indefinitely) contin- and New York City’s Commissioner of Immigrant Affairs Bitta ue to impact thousands of migrants. The government was under Mostofi. These and other officials began pressuring Cayuga court order to return 102 migrant children under five years old to Centers, pointing out that while vetting makes sense for an unre- their parents by July 10 but was unable to fully comply. The lated person sponsoring a child, such criteria were irrelevant for prospects for reunification of more than 2,500 separated children a parent, especially one whose children were taken away by the by the court-mandated deadline of is highly uncertain. federal government. Collazo said Immigrant Families Together will continue to After nearly two weeks of only being able to see her chil- identify parents whose children were taken from them, pay dren during regular business hours, González heard from her their bonds, and help parents travel to wherever their children attorney that Cayuga Centers would release them into her cus- were taken. The group also continues to raise funds to sustain tody. Early the next morning, while González, Collazo, and the parents and children during the long process of seeking other supporters waited outside, Mostofi and Gianaris entered asylum. According to Collazo, “once they’re bonded out, that’s Cayuga Centers. Moments later they reemerged with Deyuin, really only the beginning of their journey.” Jamelin, and Lester, who ran to their mother. One of the many supporters who have helped by donating Holding hands with her children in front of the building and spreading the word is author and teacher Lavinia Spaulding, where more than 300 children separated from their parents are who echoed the sentiments of many others when she wrote on still being held, González’s thoughts were with the other moth- Facebook: “One of the worst things about this situation, for me, ers in detention whose children had been taken from them. “I has been the sense of powerlessness.” She said that Collazo want to send a message to all those moms,” González said. “single- handedly showed me that we are not even remotely “Keep fighting, because with the help of all these people and powerless.” She urged people to go online to see what Collazo’s with the help of God you’re going to achieve what you want.” team of “regular people (read: band of badass grassroots super- While the González family reunification is a positive prece- heroes) is up to today, and give some money to them. This is dent, it is unlikely that mothers of children held in foster cen- what gives me hope, day after day. We can do this.”

29 Christian Century August 15, 2018 Imagining the biblical story by Emily Zimbrick-Rogers

GOD’S WORD may be timeless, but its translation and transmission are always culture-bound. This is especially apparent in the way Bible stories are transmitted to children. Russell Dalton, who teaches religious education at Brite Divinity School, notes that in the past children’s were heavily tilted toward moralism and fear of God. A century ago, Bible stories for children affirmed status quo virtues and tend- ed to emphasize obedience to those in authority. Today, Dalton says, children’s Bibles are more likely to transmit the message: “God is nice and wants you to be nice and God will take care of you.” The moral of the Noah story, for example, was once: Growing in God’s Love: A Story Bible “God will punish the wicked and only the righteous will sur- Edited by Elizabeth F. Caldwell and Carol A. Wehrheim vive.” But it has evolved into “a story about a nice friendly God Westminster John Knox, 360 pp., $25.00 who didn’t cause the flood, where no one dies, and happy anthropomorphic animals smile as they float in the ark.” The Marvelous Mustard Seed Growing in God’s Love, a story Bible published by West- By Amy-Jill Levine and Sandy Eisenberg Sasso, minster John Knox this year, is a 21st-century effort to open illustrated by Margaux Meganck up the Bible for children. The brainchild of Elizabeth F. Flyaway Books, 40 pp., $16.00 Caldwell, professor emerita at McCormick Theological Seminary, and coedited with Carol A. Wehrheim, Growing in When God Made You God’s Love tells 150 stories from the Old Testament and the By Matthew Paul Turner, illustrated by David Catrow New Testament. Its contributors include 25 authors and 21 WaterBrook, 48 pp., $11.99 illustrators. This Bible has many strengths, from its diverse and colorful full-page illustrations to its inclusion of an equal number of The Watcher stories about women and men in the Old Testament. Likely By Nikki Grimes, illustrated by Brian Collier due to Caldwell and Wehrheim’s long careers in religious edu- Eerdmans, 42 pp., $17.00 cation, it is particularly suited for religious educators. The sto- ries each fit on a two-page spread, and each spread offers a few reflection questions centered on the concepts “hear, see, and at a new children’s Bible in order to put her teaching principles act.” There are several series of stories, including three stories into practice. She was driven by three goals: using inclusive lan- from the book of Esther (including one on Queen Vashti), guage for God, sharing good contemporary scholarship with three from the book of Ruth, and eight from the book of Acts. children, and recognizing diversity and difference in modern The book concludes with a section called “Listening to Jesus,” families. “So many of the Bible story books are simply taking which the editors explain as “the top-ten list of things Jesus traditional Bible stories and just doing it again,” Caldwell said. wants us to remember.” This list is balanced between law and Growing in God’s Love breaks out of the traditional mold gospel: “Remember to pray” and “take care of others” appear in several ways. It’s organized by themes, ignoring the canoni- alongside “Jesus is the bread of life” and “children are a special cal order of the stories. It also includes several rarely told sto- blessing in this world.” ries and leaves out some of the most familiar stories. For exam- Caldwell is a Presbyterian minister who has spent her ple, it includes the story of the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings career training future ministers about faith formation for chil- 17:8–24), but not the story of the Fall (Gen. 3). Caldwell also dren, stressing the need to teach children in such a way they was keen to include some conceptual stories, like “Where Does don’t have to unlearn things later. She decided to try her hand God Live?” These stories are where this Bible particularly

Christian Century August 15, 2018 30 shines, with lines such as “These images are like a pin in a map, ed to go with the story. The happy jewel-toned animal and ark giving us great ideas of where to look for God. Breath, moth- illustration was chosen for the Bible’s cover, in spite of the dif- er, and father suggest that God lives very, very close to us. God ficult theological concepts embedded in the story. is in our homes, in the people we love the most, and in our own Of course, anything that calls itself a Bible for children or bodies.” even a “storybook Bible” is difficult for adults to assess fairly. As she worked on the story Bible, Caldwell was also partic- It’s natural for adult readers to compare a storybook Bible to ularly attuned to the pastoral implications for various kinds of everything they know or believe about the Bible and find it families. “There’s a whole range of families that aren’t covered lacking. A book for children—no matter how educated the by other Bibles, which just address a mom and a dad,” Caldwell authors, how beautiful the illustrations, and how careful the said. Growing in God’s Love is by no means an explicitly theological agenda—will inevitably lack the complexity and LGBT family Bible, but it veers toward gender neutrality and range of the biblical text itself. Further, themes adult readers contains images of modern-day families that also pay attention love may be heavy-handed or moralistic, or simply uninterest- to diversity around race, religion, age, and physical abilities. ing when shaped for a child. Conversely, a child’s most beloved Caldwell and Wehrheim’s shift away from a harsh, judgmen- book may include writing or illustrations that adults would tal, or vengeful God is evident. In Growing in God’s Love, label as flat, stilted, or reflecting “bad theology.” there is no snake, no Fall of humanity, and no sin. There are two stories about Hagar, but she is euphemistically called Abra - he most important question to ask of a Bible story for ham’s second wife, and the story minimizes the magnitude of children might be: Does it draw upon important biblical the abuse and near-death she and her small son experienced. Tideas to actively engage a child’s imagination with the The story of Jesus’ death masterfully avoids blaming any one wonder and mystery of the life of faith? When we shift our person or group of people, but it also avoids mentioning or pic- emphasis toward imagination—that intangible quality that turing the cross. The soldiers take Jesus up the hill to die, and Maurice Sendak has identified as the mark of excellence in lit- then he dies. A young reader might assume that he dies of erature—we may be able to engage more deeply with the reli- hunger and thirst, or of sadness and fear, rather than through a gious ideas present in the words and illustrations. Freed from distinctively first-century Roman mode of execution. concerns about accuracy, transmission of values, and complete- As for Noah’s ark, Growing in God’s Love fits within the ness of content, we may be able to give ourselves over more to entering the imaginative space where biblical themes come alive and God’s presence is palpable. Bible stories adapted for From a theological, literary, and artistic perspective, books that focus on a brief portion of scripture or a single concept children can hardly be as may be able to accomplish more than children’s Bibles. Because of their narrower focus, these books have room to be complex as the original. both subtler and more imaginative than a project that tries to squeeze the whole biblical canon into a few hundred G-rated happy animal category. The illustration, by Israel-based artist pages. In a sense, the less a children’s religious book tries to do, Darius Gilmont, shows smiling animals looking out of a color- the more successful it may be at immersing its readers in the ful ark at a sunny day with a bright rainbow. It’s an engaging, wonder and mystery of faith. whimsical picture with dolphins jumping out of emerald and Religious publishers have recently produced some theolog- sapphire waves. The story begins with a note that many people ically rich children’s books that prioritize readability and qual- in the world have stories about a time when the world almost ity of artwork. One of the best new books in this category is ended and that most of those stories are about a flood. The The Marvelous Mustard Seed, written by New Testament schol- writer then simply says that it rained and rained and “every liv- ar Amy-Jill Levine and Rabbi Sandy Eisenberg Sasso and illus- ing thing died—almost. Just one person, Noah, built a boat, a trated by Margaux Meganck. This book is the second collabo- boat so big there was room for his whole family.” God is not ration for the three, following Who Counts? 100 Sheep, 10, the cause of the flood, the ark, or the animal collection. Coins, and 2 Sons, and it’s the first book published under God speaks at the end, saying: “Don’t be afraid that the Westminster John Knox’s new children’s imprint, Flyaway world will end. . . . I’m going to make a promise to all of you, to Books. The authors retell and greatly expand Jesus’ short para- the whole world and to everyone who lives in it. I will keep you ble of the mustard seed, with engaging full-page color illustra- safe.” Safe is an interesting word choice for this story. During tions of a diverse community set in a modern city. There’s not the 40 days of the flood, either God failed to keep the majori- too much text on each page, and the story builds up to its the- ty of humans and animals safe or God was absent and only ological conclusion both beautifully and simply—although enters the story at the very end. Perhaps the authors are trying prior knowledge of the parable would likely be helpful to to evoke a spiritual or eternal sense of safety. Yet, in the reflec- appreciate the book in its fullness. tion questions, the writers back away from God’s ability to While some storybook Bibles try to cram in information or keep everyone safe with the question: “How can you help God make sure that everyone God promised to protect is safe?” It Emily Zimbrick-Rogers is a qualitative researcher and writer who lives in seems that the writers did not know what direction they want- Norfolk, Virginia.

31 Christian Century August 15, 2018 address parents through the stories, Levine and Sasso put their sage is mentioned, and the book celebrates broad themes: academic notes on a separate page addressed to parents and God’s creativity, human creativity, and the uniqueness of teachers, more clearly delineating the didactic elements from the each human person. The rhyming at times can be a bit awk- imaginative, immersive story. Thus, children get to hear “the ward and stilted: “God loves you creating, your true self dis- Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed in the garden, right out- playing, when light on the inside through art is portraying.” side our windows, growing from itsy-bitsy, teensy-weensy to But the illustrations are so luminous and the ideas so life- colossal, from impossible to see to unable to miss.” And parents affirming that the book manages to simultaneously engage a get to read about what the authors “imagine Jesus’ original audi- toddler and bring tears of joy to a parent. “God pictured ences might have heard,” which may be surprising to some: your nose and all ten of your toes: The sound of your voice? God had it composed.” That audience, of Jewish people listening to a Jewish story- teller, would have expected a parable to challenge them. There is no challenge in hearing that from small beginnings In a book for children, come great things. They would not likely have thought that the seed represented faith, the Gospel, or the Christ. It would the goal is to suggest the not have occurred to them that the tree is the church, or the birds, or the gentiles. Parables were not originally allegories, wonder and mystery of faith. with every element in the story containing secret meaning. Parables can open up our imagination, if we let them. The main character is a brown-skinned girl with cornrows, yet the book is not a diversity tale. It’s a celebration of the When it comes to imagination, Levine and Sasso seem to be imago Dei in every child. There is no heavy-handedness here, saying, sometimes less is more. just the beauty of creation and creating. One of the most successful recent expansions of a biblical nother book that foregrounds imagination through story for children is The Watcher, inspired by Psalm 121, illus- creative text and immersive illustrations is When trated by the Caldecott-winning artist Bryan Collier and writ- AGod Made You, written by Matthew Paul Turner ten by the poet Nikki Grimes. Both Grimes and Collier have and illustrated by David Catrow. No particular biblical pas- received multiple Coretta Scott King awards for their contri- PREACHING SUNDAY?

At christiancentury.org/RCL you’ll find Living by the Word columns, Blogging Toward Sunday posts, relevant features, book reviews, and more, all dealing with this week’s texts.

CENTURY lectionary Browse the resources three-year cycle in one place Photo © Marc Dietrich by season or year (Thinkstock)

Christian Century August 15, 2018 32 butions to African-American children’s literature. Grimes uses Coretta Scott King Award, Collier painted the title character the words of Psalm 121 to create a series of “golden shovel” with his arms outstretched, in a pose similar to Jesus on the poems. The golden shovel form was recently created by cross. And Collier illustrated Rosa Parks with a halo of light in Terrance Hayes in honor of poet Gwendolyn Brooks. A line of his Caldecott Honor Rosa (written by Nikki Giovanni). Yet, Brooks’s poetry can be found reading the last word of each of when I asked Collier about the religious themes in his illustra- Hayes’s new lines from top to bottom. In The Watcher, the lines tions portraying important historical African-Americans, he of Psalm 121 can be found by reading the last word of each line said nobody had ever asked him that question. He thought for of Grimes’s new poem, as in this one: a moment. “When I illustrated Rosa Parks, Dr. King, and Dave the Potter (artist, poet, slave), I pay attention to light and col- I wake, a hail of hot words hitting my ors, body gestures—these are ways to pronounce a higher bedroom wall, like bullets. “God, help,” power and broader strength,” he explained. He found illustrat- I pray, hoping the answer comes ing The Watcher a challenge, because “I had to balance the the- quickly. My heart bleeds from matic story—bullying—and then incorporate the religious ele- the sound of my neighbors’ war next door. The ment of God looking down from above, without confusing the sun and I both shrivel, hiding behind the Lord. reader.” Ultimately, he succeeded in finding this balance: text and illustration combine in a way that sparks and sustains The poems in this book create a poignant story about two chil- imaginative engagement. dren, an African-American girl and a white boy, in which com- Of course, no single book (or set of books) can do the passion and faith bring about a change in their relationship and work of keeping a child engaged in lively relationship with in themselves. The golden shovel form helps Grimes make the God and God’s people. That’s the continual task of the biblical text integral to the story, yet also subtle. The illustra- church, of pastors and parents and religious educators, and tions are done in one of Collier’s signature styles, using collage of the Holy Spirit. But if—as the parable of the mustard and paint. seed reminds us—less really can become more in God’s Much of Collier’s other work is influenced by religious kingdom, then books like The Watcher, When God Made imagery. In Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave (written by You, and The Marvelous Mustard Seed are very good places Laban Carrick Hill), which won both a Caldecott Honor and a to start.

CONGRATS 2018-19 DISSERTATION FELLOWS

Elyse Ambrose, (Honorary) Drew University Andrew Sinclair Hudson, (Honorary) Amaryah Shaye Armstrong, Vanderbilt University University o! Pennsylvania Sarah J Barton, (Honorary) Duke Divinity School Candace Bridget Lukasik, Roger Baumann, Yale University University o! Cali!ornia, Berkeley Lindsay Wood Glassman, University o! Pennsylvania Devin C. Manzullo-Thomas, Temple University Rachelle Renee Green, (Honorary) Emory University Minjung Noh, Temple University Néstor A. Gómez Morales, University o! Jillian Pamela Plummer, University o! Notre Dame Denver/Ili" School o! Theology Sarah Amy Riccardi-Swartz, New York University Lydia Hernandez-Marcial, (Honorary) Hilary Jerome Scarsella, Vanderbilt University Lutheran School o! Theology at Chicago Wonchul Shin, Laney Graduate School, Emory University

www.louisville-institute.org

33 Christian Century August 15, 2018 Faith Matters M. Craig Barnes (pictured with his wife, Dawne)

“I’ve been working on a writing project about gravitas, which describes a soul that’s weighty enough to attract others. Most of us know people who have a gravitational pull on our lives. We go to them when we’re confused, hurt, or spiritually dry. They aren’t therapists or even spiritual directors. They may not be leaders, but we don’t trust leaders without gravitas.

Most people with these weighty souls are scarred up a bit, and that’s part of what makes them attractive. But I’m trying to figure out how gravitas is developed beyond being wounded by life.

Can a 25-year-old pastor find it just by taking the inherited theological tradition to heart? Can it be found from the land or the community to which one is devoted? What is the role of failure, sin, and regret? And in the end, is gravitas a holy gift or an achievement?”

Read Craig’s essays in by Samuel Wells

Untidy truth

I WAS VISITING a well-known social enterprise in “What got you involved with this kind of work in the first the city. I’d used it as a customer: they did a nice line in lawn place?” It was the professor’s question, designed to show the care and were a good source for picture frames. It was a great self-absorbed students how to start on community engagement place to take students in my ethics and social engagement without giving up their professional trajectories. I felt I was course. concluding the visit well. I was met at the door by a neatly dressed man, the kind of “Oh,” he said. “I wondered if anyone would ask about me. I person who takes a role on the board of a charity because his was like you guys. I was at college. I used to drink a lot, like career peaks before he’s 50 so he decides to take a salary cut people do at college. Except, when we all left, and the others and give something back. We were in a compound where all stopped, I didn’t stop. I went the other way. I drank more. I had the residents were addicts, combining steady work with partic- a great life. I married a doctor, and her income meant we ipation in a 12-step program. didn’t miss the money I spent. I held down my accountant’s job As he talked, I started to distrust him. How could this tidy for an amazingly long time, even though I’d drive into town at man talk in such an easy way about people’s trials and troubles, four in the morning to find a place to buy booze. I can’t believe of the successes to celebrate and the failures to learn from, of she stuck with me so long. She used to throw me out and I’d the hope and the reality? Nonetheless it was an impressive come back. Eventually she meant it. And I couldn’t see my presentation. The highlight was when he introduced us to a girls. Let me get out my picture of my girls. I can’t talk to them middle-aged woman. She began to tell her story about attend- now. I rang up on the most recent birthday and my wife put the ing an arts school, finding her voice, and having some success phone down without letting me speak to them. I lost all my as a performer. Yet she found she couldn’t escape the chasten- friends long ago. ing realities of her childhood, and she turned to drugs—first “You probably think I run this place, or sit on the board. I once in a while, then weekly, then day and night. Her life don’t. I live here. I’m nearly done with my two years. My friend imploded, and before long the gutter was her only companion. here”—he touched the singer’s shoulder—“washed up here “But I’d like to sing to you,” she told us, shyly. “I’d like you to about the same time. Took me weeks to sober up. It’s true I know what it feels like for your childhood to catch up with you help with the accounts here, and some of the management sys- and yet still to feel a song in your heart. And how it feels for me tems, and they wheel me out to speak to guys like you because to sing that song now—now that I know that I’m not alone.” I don’t seem so threatening. But don’t get me wrong. I’m an And then she sang, and the whole room was convulsed like alcoholic. I’m what some of you guys could become if you don’t it was connected to the electric grid. “There’s a man going get a measure of yourselves. Don’t be fooled. I can wear your round taking names. / He’s been taking my father’s name. / And clothes and walk like you. Maybe in a few weeks I could be liv- he left my heart in vain.” I’d never heard the song sung so slow- ing next door to you. But I’m your worst nightmare of your ly, so soulfully. It was as if each verse of the song (mother, sis- own future.” ter, brother, and finally, “Oh, death is that man”) was a year of The color drained out of the faces of every person in the her struggle—and a year of her recovery. After that, any cyni- room. Except the singer; she knew all. It was like the oxygen cism abated. This was real. This was transformation. This was as had evaporated and we were all gasping for breath. deep as it gets. But none more than me. I was the teacher. I’d taken the After the standing ovation we wanted to know all about students to learn how to live tidy lives and still give back. But her. Would she now resume her career? What was the worst this man blew apart any notion I retained that social engage- moment? Whose help had made the difference? What was it ment involved the abundant reaching out to the needy. He was like to feel utterly alone? This mesmerizing figure embodied both—us and them. He was the incarnation of deprivation, everything one could dream of about getting involved with a taking on the robes of comfort. There is no tidy. The truth only social enterprise. She was the talented aspirant struck down by appears when you see beyond appearances. What a mess. childhood hurt and emerging fragility who, with the help of What glory. wise companions like the tidy man, found sanctuary, got back on her feet, and learned to sing again. Samuel Wells is the vicar of St. Martin-in-the-Fields in London and author of There was time for one more question. I asked the man, Learning to Dream Again and A Nazareth Manifesto.

35 Christian Century August 15, 2018 Judean guru

by Chad M. Bauman

he topic of this excellent book— The bulk of Sugirtharajah’s story Jesus in Asia Asian quests to interpret the concerns more recent centuries. For By R. S. Sugirtharajah TJesus of scripture, history, and Hong Xiuquan, leader of the momen- Harvard University Press, 320 pp., $29.95 faith—will be new to most Western tous 19th-century Taiping Rebellion in Christians. R. S. Sugirtharajah brings , Jesus was not God, but merely together some fascinating parts of the the firstborn of many potential sons of the Western Jesus myth movement to global and perpetually expanding biog- God who were inferior to their father assert that there was no “historical raphy of Jesus. This particular expansion but superior to the angels. Drawing Jesus.” Instead, they asserted, early is a manifestation of the creative, idio- upon Confucian, indigenous Chinese, Christians conjured Jesus by amalga- syncratic personalities of those who read and Christian traditions, Hong referred mating episodes from the existing reli- scripture in Asian contexts. It also to Jesus as his “Heavenly Elder broth- gious stories of those who lived around reflects the desire of Christians to pre - er,” which conveniently but controver- them. sent Jesus in a culturally appealing garb. sially implied Hong’s kinship with The book includes numerous South Sugirtharajah begins with some of the Christ. Asian depictions of Jesus that draw upon earliest Asian biographies of Jesus. The The late 19th- and early 20th-century or attempt to appeal to Hindu sensibili- Nestorian Monument is a stele etched in Sri Lankan Ponnambalam Ramanathan, ties. Those that emerge from a Jain frame the seventh century by Church of the a Hindu, is thought to have produced the of reference are rarer, but Sugirtharajah East missionaries in Tang China, and the earliest Asian biblical commentaries. In tells the story of Manilal Parekh eight scrolls known as the Jesus Sutras Ramanathan’s appreciative portrayal (1885–1967), who was a Jain convert to were produced in approximately the (and in keeping with the author’s Saiva Christianity. Parekh insisted that becom- same time and place. In these depictions, Siddhanta Hinduism), Jesus becomes a ing Christian did not require him to attentive as they are to Buddhist and “Judean Jnana Guru” who “found Christ renounce his Jainism, and he was skepti- Taoist ideals, Jesus preaches mindfulness within himself, and . . . attained God,” a cal of the historical value of the Gospels. along with the doctrines of “no desire,” pure, fully realized, and awakened spirit Instead of emphasizing the ethical teach- “no piousness,” “no doing,” and “no operating within the impure fleshy con- ings of Jesus, Parekh focused on Jesus truth.” fines of a body which was “no better than the yogi’s abstinence, long prayers, and Mirror of Holiness, produced a mil- a carcass.” fasting—his “self-surrendering devo- lennium later by the Jesuit Jerome Sri Lanka was also the home of tion.” Here Jesus resembles the Jain Xavier (nephew of the famous Francis Francis Kingsbury (C. T. Alahasundram, tirthankaras, those fully realized souls Xavier) in the north Indian Mughal 1873–1941), who was influenced by Saiva who have conquered all human passions. Muslim court of Emperor Akbar, por- Siddhanta traditions but converted to In this same time period, the Minjung trays Jesus in ways intended to appeal to Christianity. Kingsbury was a skeptic, theology of South Korean Ahn Byung Mughal rulers while at the same time and his biographies of Jesus omit ele- Mu (1922–1996) arose. Ahn’s Jesus, asserting the truth of Christian (as ments of the Gospel accounts that he developed in the face of an oppressive opposed to Muslim) understandings of considered historically implausible. The regime, was a Galilean villager who Jesus. Xavier downplays Jesus’ ethical result, according to Sugirtharajah, “is not understood the struggle of the “cultural- prescriptions which might have offend- the divine human being of traditional ly exploited, politically victimized, and ed the royals (such as those on marriage orthodoxy, but simply a human being economically weak masses [the min- and divorce) while portraying Jesus as a like any other,” or to put it another way, jung].” For Ahn, the life of Jesus was not perfect soul, miracle worker, and cruci- “Jesus without a Halo.” a “once-and-for-all event that happened fied Messiah. The latter point refutes In India in the early 20th century, Muslim assertions that Jesus was not Thakur Kahan Chandra Varma and Chad M. Bauman teaches religion at Butler crucified. Dhirendranath Chowdhuri drew upon University.

Christian Century August 15, 2018 36

way back in Jerusalem” but a “continu- ous happening,” like the ceaseless flow of a volcanic eruption. As Sugirtharajah Anti-Blackness puts it, “Minjung events in Korean histo- and Christian Ethics New ry are Christ events and Christ is active Edited by Vincent W. Lloyd in all minjung events. The uprisings of and Andrew Prevot Scripture the minjung, then, are seen as a kind of Orbis Books, 224 pp., $26.00 paperback Christ event.” Sugirtharajah ends by discussing he term anti-blackness is relatively Study Shu-saku Endo- (1923–1996), who is bet- Tnew. Some think it should replace ter known in the West as a novelist than racism and white privilege as the organiz- as a biographer of Jesus. In A Life of ing concept for addressing the mistreat- and Jesus Endo- presents an intriguing recon- ment of African Americans. For them, Prayers struction of Jesus. Distinguishing biblical racism is too general and malleable, as it for an End “truths” from “facts” (and distrusting the can be deployed to discuss any form of way the Gospels present many of the lat- differential treatments based on concep- to Hunger ter), Endo- depicts Jesus as a weak and tions of race. Though white privilege ineffectual but co-suffering “‘Japanese’ draws attention to the many benefits of person whose humanity, compassion, and being deemed a white person—like the housands spirit of self-sacrifice were more pro- reality that I don’t feel anxious when I of churches nounced than his Davidic descent or his walk by a police car—it fails to account Twill celebrate Bread for the relationship with a mysterious ‘Father in for the horrifying treatment of those World Sunday on 21 Heaven.’” regarded as black. White privilege keeps or another Sunday this fall — According to Sugirtharajah, all of these one person from being shot by the as people of faith renew their portrayals of Jesus are—among other police, but it does not explain why other commitment to end hunger. things—acts of decolonization wherein individuals are far more likely to have Rev. Amy Reumann, director Asian writers “unearthed and rediscov- bullet holes riddle their bodies. Anti- of advocacy for the ELCA, has ered Asia’s spiritual treasures as an anti- blackness clearly names the problem: the written a scripture study on colonial strategy, . . . a notable early personal, cultural, social, legal, and struc- Mark 10:35-45, the Gospel attempt at ‘provincializing Europe.’” Many tural attacks on people called black. appointed for October 21. Rev. of these depictions will seem strange or Following a 2016 symposium at Bos ton Dr. John Crossin, OSFS, director inaccurate to Western Christians, but College on the subject, Vincent W. Lloyd of spiritual formation for the Western Christianity has tended to of Villanova University and Andrew St. Luke Center, has prepared a obscure or deny the parochial nature of its Prevot of Boston College brought togeth- new litany for the day. own interpretations of Christ. “The so- er ten essays that relate ethics and theolo- These two new resources, called historical Jesus,” Sugirtharajah gy to different facets of anti-blackness along with worship bulletin writes, “is invariably an idealized picture throughout American history. Most of the inserts in English and Spanish, drawn from the interpreter’s fancy and contributors are African Americans. Most may be ordered free of charge. from fads.” of them emphasize Christian ethics, but Jesus in Asia does not attempt to pre - the volume also contains essays by agnos- To order sent a nonsectarian history or chronicle tics and Jews. FREE resources visit of diverse Asian portrayals of Jesus. It is, The reasons for the collection are bread.org/sunday above all, a work in biblical hermeneu- obvious. Month after month, anti- or call 800-822-7323 tics. Sugirtharajah regularly compares blackness overwhelms American socie- the Asian depictions of Jesus to those of ty—from police killings of black men to “orthodox” Christianity or the “Jesus of politicians courting antiblack groups to the Gospel.” He occasionally includes his incarceration rates that reveal bias and subjective appraisal of these depictions, deep structural problems. The suffocat- as when he faults the Mirror of Holiness ing presence of anti-blackness is, in part, for “lamentably” lacking the “essential why Eric Garner’s words while being characteristics of Eastern mysticism.” grabbed by police have become a rally- When Sugirtharajah writes of the “schol- ars” who have thought about Jesus, he Reviewed by Edward J. Blum, who teaches Ameri - 425 3rd Street SW, Suite 1200 means Christian scholars. Christians, too, can history at San Diego State University and is Washington, DC 20024 are the audience for this book. Within coauthor (with Paul Harvey) of The Color of bread.org 800-822-7323 that realm, Jesus in Asia deserves to be Christ: The Son of God and the Saga of Race XC18-CC read widely. in America.

37 Christian Century August 15, 2018 ing cry for many in the Black Lives especially among African Americans, of power authors Eldridge Cleaver and Matter movement: “I can’t breathe.” religious organizations and resources George Jackson to show how their con- Anti-Blackness and Christian Ethics that challenged antiblack racism. The cept of love expanded upon Christian shows how American religion and symbolic head of the civil rights move- ethics rather than avoiding it. Elias Christianity have been creators, shapers, ment, Martin Luther King Jr., was a min- Ortega-Aponte uses Christian ethical and legitimizers of anti-blackness. M. ister. Activists, even Marxist ones, rou- insights from H. Richard Niebuhr to out- Shawn Copeland examines the place of tinely sang Christian hymns at rallies. line ways of observing racial violence in anti-blackness in European-American Churches and synagogues served as focal the digital and hypermedia age. Cath olicism, while Eboni Marshall points for training people (and instilling The book’s portrayal of God may Turman suggests that black churches the courage) to stand against the forces limit its appeal to some. Following James have participated subtly in furthering of white supremacy. Lloyd and Prevot Cone, the editors claim that “God identi- anti-blackness. Many of the essays hope that those rallying around the Black fies with the most marginalized, those emphasize the colonial period of Lives Matter movement will turn to the who suffer from systemic injustice.” The American history, roughly 1500 to 1800. re sources of religious organizations, the in - contributors tend to construct God along These authors focus upon the emergence spiring language of religion, and the these lines as well. Stated as a fact, of black slavery across the Atlantic and spiritual disciplines of prayer and medita- though, God’s identification with the the systematic abuse of black men, tion. Ultimately, Lloyd and Prevot sug- most marginalized is debatable. For women, and children in the United gest that religion is necessary for the some Americans, the realities of anti- States as the basis for anti-blackness. destruction of anti-blackness because blackness throughout American history This is our country’s proverbial “original religion provides ways “of seeing the suggest that if God exists, then God sin.” Ac cording to Kelly Brown Douglas, world at odds with the status quo.” clearly does not care about black people. this history “spawns a multidimensional Faith in “a world-transcending, world- This is why William Jones titled his 1973 cycle of violence against black bodies.” transforming God” is needed for change. book Is God a White Racist? For Jones, Of course, American religion has Several essays highlight the ways anti- Christianity lacks the resources to chal- never been solely on the side of anti- blackness has repackaged itself since the lenge white supremacy. In 1963, after blackness. Lloyd and Prevot are quick to ages of slavery and legal segregation. antiblack violence resulted in the deaths remind readers of the long tradition, Lloyd explores the writings of black of several children in Birmingham, Alabama, the young Anne Moody ex - plained to God she would try to kill him if she discovered he was black. The love of God crosses all boundaries. Then there are the millions of Chris- tians who believe that God is love, that Jesus knocks on the doors of individual Every. Single. One. hearts, and that “he’s got the whole world in his hands.” These people and groups would not see God as choosing sides or aligning more with one group or another. In Love Without Limits, Jacqueline Those who support the prosperity gospel A. Bussie imparts practical solutions would place God on the side of health, for people who yearn to love across growth, and material gain. Those who difference. Through poignant memoir, looked to Billy Graham as a model of faith did not believe their Lord to be on the side engaging theological refl ection, of the oppressed, unless by oppressed one inspiring stories of friendship, means all who suffer from sin, which in creative readings of Scripture, and their view is all people. shout-outs to some of love’s unsung By pointing to the inheritance of anti- heroes, Bussie challenges readers to blackness Anti-Blackness and Christian Ethics is a wonderful conversation answer God’s call to practice a love starter. On the question of how can anti- so vast that it excludes no one. blackness be overturned, the book has less to say. The editors acknowledge that , 2018 | $24.99 | Order now al though “the problems are clear, the solutions are often less so.” Perhaps the world-transcending God, the one who is fortresspress.com/LoveWithoutLimits out there somewhere, is not as needed as the people who wish to see the culture changed.

Christian Century August 15, 2018 38 transcendent clings to these particular ing our sectarian tendencies challenged, practices, and therefore these practices and yet they are challenged in these Sacred Signposts: cling to us. Humanity’s search through marks of the church. The progressive Words, Water, and the galaxies to find and take hold of Wesleyan and the paleo-Calvinist both Other Acts of Resistance charmed objects to bring good fortune find themselves under the sway of the By Benjamin J. Dueholm and success is the dangerous underbelly same practices, though they might under- Eerdmans, 176 pp., $16.99 paperback of religious piety. Dueholm points out stand them differently. Dueholm makes how each holy possession is the antithe- this point with a grace and matter-of- hat does the church offer the sis of that search, much to our surprise factness that engender both humility and Wworld these days? The answer, in and benefit. The bread of the Eucharist shock. It’s as if he’s naming a secret that Benjamin Dueholm’s estimation, is what may appear to be charmed in the hands we all know but refuse to acknowledge. it has always offered: a sacred word, bap- of the priest, but it is the one who Sacred Signposts is hard to nail down tism, Eucharist, forgiveness, ministry, receives who ends up being charmed. within a genre. “Humble apologetics” worship, and a cross-shaped lens through The holy water turns the baptized, might fit, although that description miss- which to view it all. These are the “holy regardless of race, social status, or gen- es the mark, as does “spiritual memoir.” possessions” of the church. Each is an act der, into the holy one. The forgiven one is The book offers a humble apologetics of resistance in a world that tempts us to made clean without the opportunity to not of the faith but of the faithful acts— live as inhumane and godless people. argue her case, which is an act of true and therefore of the practitioners, faith- These seven possessions are what we’ve grace. “This is the way of God,” each ful or not. While the prose occasionally got to work with and, according to mark continually hammers home, “to reads as romantic, it’s clear that Due - Dueholm, it has always been so. turn the recipient into the blessing.” holm deeply loves these practices and Sacred Signposts reads like Paul Throughout it all, I found my own feels loved by them, so his romanticism is Woodruff’s Reverence, a collection of place in the conversation. How do the easy to forgive. How else do you write personal stories and deep ruminations scriptures confront my reluctance to “give about something you love? on a topic that cannot be addressed a damn” about my neighbor? How does I have often thought that, should my head-on. A direct treatment would just baptism call me into community with faith deteriorate into nothingness, the be a collision. By writing about (or, more those I disagree with? Dueholm’s twists practices of the church would be what I accurately, around) each practice, and turns of phrase made me put the would miss most, both in the doing and Dueholm reveals the shape, depth, and book down periodically to ponder my the receiving. Dueholm nods in agree- necessity of each. His writing is careful own relationship with each rite. A book ment, and he notes that there is good rea- but not timid. Each chapter builds upon about the ministry arts should do no less. son for that. Intangible beliefs change, the previous one, culminating with the The unashamedly Lutheran herme - but these practices offer an enduring, tan- call to sacrificial living in “The Cross,” a neutic at work here will not be a stum- gible word for those seeking faith when topic which is both beautiful and biting, bling block for those who find them- all other words fail. breaking readers open to the fragile selves in other camps. One of Dueholm’s Our holy possessions continue to say power of the Christian life on which core convictions is that these practices something. It’s a mysterious but abiding these practices leave their mark. are a golden thread that weaves through something about the nature of God and Filled with wit and wisdom, honesty the church universal. I found this convic- humanity that gathers in the name of and humility, the book does what its subti- tion a testament both to the strength of Christ. It’s something that the church has tle suggests: it resists. It resists the tempta- each practice and to their disruptive always offered to the world in roundabout tion to be preachy and instead chooses a nature. Christians don’t appreciate hav- ways, full of hope and resistance and grace. more poetic route. The subversive nature of our holy possessions can only be approached through subversive writing. Dueholm takes up that challenge, weaving the brilliance of Augustine and Bon - hoeffer alongside that of his children, to reveal the meaning of Christian practices. Dueholm posits that the practices of the church are more art than achieve- ment, not mechanical movements of the faithful but actions that move the faith- ful. The church that seeks to engage the

Reviewed by Timothy Brown, who is the pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Raleigh, North Carolina.

39 Christian Century August 15, 2018 Photo © Adam Springer (Thinkstock)

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THE MARTIN E. MARTY LEGACY CIRCLE The first story, “The World by Night,” is a prime example. In this profound All the Names They meditation on loneliness, an albino Used for God woman named Sadie is married to a man By Anjali Sachdeva READ. who she always expects is on the verge of Spiegel & Grau, 272 pp., $26.00 leaving her. When he goes away on a trip, she goes into a cave, gets lost, and almost didn’t want to like Anjali Sachdeva’s gives up. She eventually hears other peo- Ishort story collection as much as I did. ple and finds her way out of the cave— SHARE. The photo on the back shows an author only to be drawn back to it later. who looks like she might have just Sachdeva never lets us know whether the turned 15. Pangs of envy. Then I read other cave explorers are actual people or that she is an Writer’s Workshop not, because it doesn’t matter. What mat- SUPPORT graduate, and I thought, oh great, more ters is that they are real to Sadie, and of that Lena Dunham millennial craft they represent the elusiveness of the humor. community she longs for but does not Then I read the book. Whereas most have. THE short story writers quickly find a comfort- Similarly, in “Glass-Lung,” a man ably identifiable niche—minimalism, who had been used to loving and caring relationship humor, domestic realism— for his daughter has an accident that Sachdeva is beyond that. These nine sto- immobilizes him. We watch as he slowly ries take several different ap proaches loses her to her future husband, agoniz- CENTURY. while still managing to feel like the prod- ing over his uselessness. But the strength uct of one voice. Her insightful eye of his desire to be the parent who can ranges over (and in some cases inhabits) bless his daughter is eventually convert- characters of disparate ages, times, places, ed into a talisman that enables him to scenarios, and struggles with the ease of move on. Help us guarantee someone who might have been there her- The strongest example of Sachdeva’s self. And this is Sachdeva’s first book. mastery of magical realism is “Robert Sachdeva writes like a love child of Greenman and the Mermaid,” which that the CENTURY George Saunders and Jhumpa Lahiri tells the story from both Greenman’s who managed to get the best genes from and the mermaid’s perspective. Green - will reach future each of them. Like Saunders’s work, man, a fisherman, is having a midlife cri- most of the stories contain a fantastical sis that manifests itself in the desire for element. Occasionally this element veers something else. generations. toward sci-fi, such as the bloblike alien Masters of “Manus,” but more often it is Robert could not say that he subtle. Sachdeva also shares Lahiri’s enjoyed being with the mermaid, just • Give a one-time gift keen eye for character. In her hands, that she was the only thing that to the CENTURY. magical realism is never merely a device, but the best way to concretize a charac- Reviewed by Christina Bieber Lake, who teaches • Become a CENTURY ter’s inner struggles. English at Wheaton College. associate.

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CLICK THROUGH TO AMAZON FROM CHRISTIANCENTURY.ORG BUY BOOKS (OR ANYTHING ELSE) THE CENTURY EARNS A SHARE THANK YOU! seemed to be real. The phosphores- cence of her skin, the silver reflec- tions of her tail were more tangible than the ocean or the ship or the BookMarks food he ate every day. The sparks of energy that went through his hands On the Brink of or face when she touched them were Everything: Grace, the only sensations that fully pierced Gravity and Getting Old the veil of exhaustion and lethargy By Parker J. Palmer that had settled over the rest of his Berrett-Koehler, 240 pp., $19.95 life. Fans of Parker Palmer’s honest, While this idea would be disastrous in earthy wisdom will appreciate this col- the hands of an amateur, Sachdeva lection of essays and poems loosely gath- sharpens it to reveal the vague empti- ered around the theme of getting old. ness of our contemporary lives, an With humility and humor, Palmer writes emptiness that we are unable to name or about topics that will speak to readers of identify. many ages: , righteous anger, If Sachdeva is superb at concretizing writing as a vocation, solitude, depres- the emptiness and loneliness of our age, sion, hope, spiritual practices, inter - she is equally good at tackling complex generational friendship, failure, poetry, questions of gender and power. “Any - political frustrations, activism, and what thing You Might Want” needs no fan- happens to our bodies after we die. He tastical device to put its protagonist in a engages deeply with human frailty, but I AM place where she recognizes she has a always with an eye toward expressing choice to lash out in revenge or not. the joy he finds in “grace and forgive- “All the Names for God” features two ness, the unconditional love of family NOT A African women, now in their twenties, and friends,” and the glory of the natural who have survived being kidnapped by world. Muslim extremists at age 16. As the TRINKET story unfolds, we learn that the two bonded over their development of a witchlike power to control the men Foy: On the Road to Lost Tens of thousands who “married” them, which they used By Gordon Atkinson of elephants are to escape. Perhaps out of Sachdeva’s Material Media, 194 pp., desire to avoid being sentimental or $15.95 paperback killed every year for heavy-handed, we get very little insight their ivory tusks, into the immensity of their pain. But The vignettes in this novel chart the which are made here again, the story speaks for itself: spiritual joys and struggles of Foy Davis, into everything eight years after their abuse, the from his childhood to his years as a pas- from knickknacks women are only now gaining the tor to his aimless wanderings as an ex- to souvenirs. courage to return to their original fam- pastor. Gordon Atkinson is a natural sto- ilies. Their bravado as they manipulate ryteller, and in these stories he creates a men into giving them money or free full picture of the complexities of min- Find out what you can hotel rooms is thereby revealed as a istry. Foy finds and loses faith as he nego- do to stop wildlife crime. self-hardening device: “When these tiates the prejudices and pain of those things have never happened to you, you who seek his counsel. To a man dying of think, I would rather die. But the truth AIDS who tells Foy about his abusive is that it is not so easy to decide to die. father, the minister responds with a And when, suddenly, you have the swear word, adding “sometimes in life option to live again, that is not so easy, you hear something really awful and it either.” just seems like only a righteous f-bomb Not many young writers would be will do.” In the end, it’s not clear whether worldwildlife.org/wildlifecrime willing to touch such red-hot stories on Foy’s deep empathy and pathological the other side of the globe. I admire honesty will save him or do him in. Sachdeva’s verve, and I can’t wait to see Atkinson leaves the story open, and he what’s next. promises a sequel.

43 Christian Century August 15, 2018 Be like Elastigirl

mid a plethora of tired summer- sexism, and racism whenever applied to in the Incredibles family. Unlike her hus- time movie sequels, Incredi bles the real world. In a country where every- band, Mr. Incredible, whose super- A2 stands out. Four teen years in one is encouraged to think of themselves strength tends to leave a path of destruc- the making, Incredibles 2 is a superhero as potentially extraordinary, privilege is tion in its wake, Elastigirl is capable of movie critiquing what it means to believe often mistaken for giftedness. stopping a runaway train with minimal in superheroes. Superheroes usually Incredibles 2 picks up where the 2004 destruction and zero casualties. She is operate against a backdrop of planetary film left off, but ideologically it is in a dif- also a team player, willing to collaborate dimensions and apocalyptic danger, and ferent place. After superheroes were with others and taking her time before by definition superheroes are extraordi- driven underground because of public rushing into action. She makes a perfect nary and unique. When we are watching lawsuits, the titular family of super- foil to the new villain, Screenslaver. them, we are encouraged to feel extraor- heroes, each with their own superpower, As in the original, the villain in dinary and unique, too. No one leaves a have just saved Metroville and brought Incredibles 2 is out to ruin superheroes, superhero movie thinking, “I guess I superheroes back into the limelight. The but this time her reasoning is different. should accept my position of mediocrity question of exceptionalism takes a turn, Superheroes, she argues, are a sign that and let truly extraordinary people take however. The question the movie poses is we have abdicated our responsibility to center stage.” not, “Will my society allow me to be society for the sake of being entertained. The first Incredibles played with this super?” but “Can we use our unique gifts Out to both expose and exploit those genre but essentially accepted its param- to work together to preserve the com- addicted to entertainment, the villain eters. The villain of the first Incredibles mon good?” Screenslaver uses screens to hypnotize movie (2004) was a nerdy wannabe This shift is signaled by centering the her victims. superhero kid who grows up to be an action on Elastigirl, the wife and mother Screenslaver is a complicated and

adult with delusions of grandeur. Using RESERVED RIGHTS ALL / STUDIOS ANIMATION PIXAR © technology instead of super-skills, he plans to displace and surpass super- heroes. When he is bored with this enter- prise, he will sell his technology to the rest of the world so everyone can be a superhero. As he says in his grand evil monologue, “when everyone is super, no one is.” In The Incredibles, such a fate would be worse than the destruction of the world. The drama of the film revolves around whether the supers will be allowed to be extraordinary or if society will instead enshrine mediocrity in the name of fairness. Some of this is a baby boomer critique of the “everyone gets a trophy” style of Gen X parenting. But there is also an undercurrent of Ayn Rand–style philosophizing that felt a lit- tle disquieting even in 2004. The message “let the extraordinary people be extraor- HEROES TOGETHER: The action of Incredibles 2 centers on Elastigirl, who embod- dinary” is always tinged with classism, ies a less destructive, more collaborative, more responsible type of superhero.

Christian Century August 15, 2018 44 perhaps incoherent villain. On the one hand, she is snobbishly dismissive of the weakness of ordinary people. On the other hand, her critique of entertainment culture and the abdication of responsibil- ity is merited. Sometimes she sounds like Paul Ryan knocking poor people for not buying expensive health care, but at other times she offers a clear-eyed cri- tique of what it is like to live in a social media bubble, trading the hard work of democracy for the comfort of an already formed worldview. The movie can’t decide if Screen - slaver is a real villain or on to something important. But this might be because Incredibles 2 is trying to do something new with the idea of the superhero. Instead of making space for exceptional superheroes in a mediocre society, super- heroes must learn to temper their powers and think about the overall good they are trying to preserve. As Mr. Incredible learns when watch- ing video footage of the destruction his “salvation” caused, sometimes heroics de stroy more than they preserve. Some - times it is better to let humans muddle their way to a collective solution instead of thinking that superpowers can fix everything. As much as it pains his mas- culine pride, he has something to learn from his wife’s style of heroics. Incredibles 2 is not the only film play- ing with the idea that the lone superhero is not the best model for social salvation. Avengers: Infinity War and Solo: A Star Wars Story also dismantle the lone hero in favor of a collective vision of heroics. This is hard to do within the rules of the super- hero genre, and all of these movies feel a little clumsy as they struggle to articulate some new rules. There is something satis- fying about watching Super man swoop in and fix things, and something less satisfy- ing about watching Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl struggle with their identities or offer only partial solutions. But it is the Incredibles that we need more of. In reworking the old story of heroes, these films offer a clue about the kind of heroics that better fit our time of planetary peril.

The author is Kathryn Reklis, who teaches theol- ogy at Fordham. Her essays appear in every other issue.

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TEACHING PASTOR—St. Paul Lutheran Church, a 3,500- member congregation in Davenport, IA, is adding a teaching women around pastor to its pastoral team. This individual, ordained Lutheran or in a mainline denomination partnering with the ELCA (e.g., PCUSA, UCC, UMC, the Episcopal Church, etc.), will serve as the primary teacher for adults, lead the learning staff, the world. build community through personal relationships, and provide general pastoral ministry as part of the pastoral team. Dynamic congregation that is a regional and national leader. For more info: http://www.stpaulqc.org/about/employment. Join the fight to make ADVE workplaces safe for RTISE women everywhere. HERE Learn more at: care.org/thisisnotworking To contact our advertising department, call (312) 263- 7510, ext. 229 or email: [email protected].

Christian Century August 15, 2018 46 PHOTO © SCALA /ART RESOURCE, NY RESOURCE, /ART SCALA © PHOTO

The Sacrifice at Lystra, by Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio) (1483–1520)

s the newly elected Pope Leo X, Giovanni de’ Medici chose Raphael to design wall cover- Aings for his private chapel, the Sistine. The ten tapestries, woven in Brussels from cartoons made by Raphael, were to hang beneath the frescoes commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV in the early 1480s. Few visitors to the today realize that the chapel’s decoration is incomplete without the tapestries. Those narrating Paul’s life were located beneath the painted life of Moses and were put up only on special occasions. The Sacrifice at Lystra illustrates the story told in Acts 14. Paul has just commanded a man who had been unable to walk from birth to stand up. Upon seeing the man rise, the frenzied crowd, along with a priest of Zeus who brought oxen to the gates, wants to offer a sacrifice to Paul and Barnabas. Paul responds by denying that he and Barnabas are divine and by offering his first sermon, presenting the gospel to gentiles.

Art selection and commentary by Heidi J. Hornik, professor of art history at Baylor University, and Mikeal C. Parsons, professor of religion at Baylor.

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