Voting: Ritual or Responsibility? - A response

[Note: The following text was presented at an on-campus event at EMU today, "Voting: Ritual or Responsibility?" I was one of three main presenters, along with EMU professors, Ted Grimsrud and Jayne Seminare Docherty. Ted and I have had significant conversations over the past weeks, online and at the pub, and Jayne is one of my former professors at the Center for Justice & Peacebuilding/CJP. The discussion was facilitated by Jonathan Swartz and Matthew Bucher, both dual-degree students like I was, in the Seminary and CJP. Thanks to everyone involved at the event, and I welcome more conversation below in the comments! - Also, check out Ted's three posts on this topic, where I also have some comments posted.]

In a 1977 article in Sojourner’s, John Howard Yoder had this to say about the then-current context: “American political culture, a comparatively solid crust of common language and rules of thumb, floats on a moving magma of unresolved debate between two contradictory views of what the state is about.” In this article, entitled “The National Ritual: Biblical realism and the elections,” Yoder goes on to argue that we shouldn’t get ourselves too worked up about this system, or take it too seriously. But nonetheless this weak system is one that we can and perhaps should participate in.  I quote:

[Voting] is one way, one of the weaker and vaguer ways, to speak truth to power. We may do well to support this channel with our low-key participation, since a regime where it functions is a lesser evil…than one where it does not, but our discharge of this civil duty will be more morally serious if we take it less seriously.

This position of Yoder’s I take to be the basic position taken by Ted in his arguments, both here and on his blog. And I’m sympathetic to both, and don’t necessarily disagree. But I want to sound a few cautions.

I’ll start with a quote by Yoder’s one-time colleague at Notre Dame, Alasdair MacIntyre, who made these comments in the run-up to the 2004 presidential election. I quote:

When offered a choice between two politically intolerable alternatives, it is important to choose neither. And when that choice is presented in rival arguments and debates that exclude from public consideration any other set of possibilities, it becomes a duty to withdraw from those arguments and debates, so as to resist the imposition of this false choice by those who have arrogated to themselves the power of framing the alternatives.

Eastern Mennonite University: Welcome to my home

Exhibit 1 of what I'll miss: Sunrise over Massanutten & Park View/EMU

There are two senses in which I intend the title of this post to be taken. 1) In an autobiographical sense, as in Eastern Mennonite University has become my home in a significant way; and 2) as if the institution itself were uttering the phrase. I'll use the first to get to the second over the course of this post...

For the past four years I have called this Mennonite village my home. I have come to understand that EMU is but one part of what I've just called a "village," because it's embedded in the Park View neighborhood, in the city of Harrisonburg, in the region of the Shenandoah River Valley/South Fork watershed. This is an area that generations of Mennonites have called home for over two centuries. On this stretch of beautiful earth, these Mennonites have attempted to embody the Anabaptist tradition of Christian discipleship in their families, congregations, and institutions.

As an Iowan Brethren with no prior substantive experience with Mennonites, I only knew there to be an historical connection between the two traditions, that connection having something to do with "Anabaptism," a word I only knew in name and not content. So it was upon coming here that I discovered the Anabaptist tradition not only articulated but embodied in substantive ways. The "thickness" of this embodiment is something I immediately felt, and it was only after more than a year of living, studying, and working here that I began to understand and be able to myself articulate what was going on and why. More on that later...

The Mennonite vote?: A response to Michael Shank

Photo by Ken Wilson via Flickr

I'm not typically into the whole "a response to [so and so]..." style of positing, but a friend of mine asked me to write a quick response to a piece by Mennonite-raised Michael Shank, who works in Washington D.C. and also happens to be a fellow alumni of EMU's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. Here's the piece...

Republicans and the Mennonite Vote (The Hill)

One thing I've appreciated about Shank's writing is that he talks openly on DC-affiliated media about his Amish-Mennonite heritage and tries to appropriate this faith heritage into his public policy work and his public commentary. Someone talking so openly about how and why religious faith matters to public life is admirable in such a work environment. In this piece he reflects on the experience of talking politics at a family gathering, feeling a bit like a fish out of water because of his party affiliation (Democrat) amongst his largely conservative Republican relatives.

From quietism to the blogosphere

Dirk Willems in the digital age?

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of conducting a break-out session at the 2011 Anabaptist Communicators Conference, which was hosted here at Eastern Mennonite University. The conference theme was "Anabaptism in a Visual Age" and my session was billed as follows...

From quietism to the blogosphere
Surveying Anabaptist online engagement

This session will survey the various forms of online discourse within contemporary Anabaptist traditions, particularly Mennonite and Church of the Brethren. Both scholarly and popular venues will be examined, with plenty of discussion time to explore the implications to traditional structures and processes for Anabaptist discourse.

On the social media wave of the Nobel Peace Prize

Leymah Gbowee
Nobel Peace Prize winner &
CJP alumna

On Friday of last week, I had the most fun day at work ever. I had the fortune of being the web & social media nerd for the alma mater of a Nobel Peace Prize winner! Liberian nonviolent peace activist, Leymah Gbowee, was one of three women to win the 2011 prize. She is also a 2007 alumna of Eastern Mennonite University's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP), where I have been studying and working for the past three years. Leymah has been back on campus a time or two since I arrived in 2008, and I even got to hang around behind the camera while one of my teacher-colleagues, Paulette Moore, filmed this short interview with Leymah about her time at EMU. She is truly an amazing person and commands a powerful presence when you're around her.

In my 10+ years as a professional web nerd, I've never been involved in anything that's "gone viral," until Friday. We weren't caught completely off-guard at CJP, as we'd been hearing rumors of Leymah's being considered for the prize for months. But that still didn't prepare for me for riding the social media tidal wave on Friday morning, when the winners were announced. It was the quickest 5.5 hours of my professional life, keeping track of the activity on Facebook and Twitter, watching with amazement when at one point on Friday morning, "Leymah Gbowee" was one of the top-trending phrases in the U.S. on Twitter. When the digital dust settled by Monday morning and I checked stats, I saw that the EMU website as a whole doubled its traffic on Friday alone, not to mention the thousands of "likes" on the EMU News article which announced her winning.

Another sad-shocking-powerful expression of costly grace

Chloe Weaver;
MWR file photo

A few months ago I theologized about a Mennonite family in Washington whose children were tragically killed in a car accident, and how the family's response was shocking to many, including the news journalist covering the story as it unfolded over years.

Last fall, 20 year-old, Chloe Weaver, met her tragic end while bicycling on a highway in Colorado, being struck from behind by a teenage boy driving a pickup truck who then fled the scene but was later identified and charged. Again, this Mennonite family's response is not typical by broadly American justice standards:

Weavers seek 'healing response' at sentencing - Sheldon C. Good, Mennonite Weekly Review

Surveying the energy and movement of Anabaptism

Crackling with energy! Photo by Kristie Wells

In the fall of 2009, I had the pleasure to sit in a conference room on the campus of Eastern Mennonite University with a handful of Mennonite academics and pastors. The topic picked by the group of young church leaders organizing this event was audacious: "The Future of Anabaptism." The energy harnessed from this group eventually led to the formation of the Anabaptist Missional Project (AMP), in which two of my good friends from seminary are involved. I've been a Brethren fly on the wall to this group and they've been fun to interact with. AMP is "a network of emerging leaders who love Jesus, care about the church, and seek to be part of God’s mission in the world," purposing to "promote a constructive vision for church renewal, convene to fellowship and grow as emerging leaders, and network to create concrete initiatives for engaging our world missionally."

Early in my second year of seminary, I was just then getting into circles where people were talking openly and excitedly about what it means to be an Anabaptist Christian and what spiritual renewal in the church might look like in light of present global realities facing the church, Anabaptist or otherwise. I didn't know then that this excitement would sweep me up in the movement...

Yes and No to restorative justice as "a Mennonite Thing"

Today I had the privilege to run up to the D.C. area and back to give a quick talk on "Restorative Justice: Revisiting Punitive Interpretations of the Bible" at a conference called "Student Learning and Global Justice" co-sponsored by the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) and the International Justice Mission (IJM). I shared a session with Dr. Ken Turner, a professor of the Bible at Bryan College, a Southern Baptist-affiliated school in Tennessee. Given that and the crowd was largely American Evangelical college students, it was a nice change of pace from the Anabaptist crowds I run in.

It was also fun to present the paper, because it's essentially making the case that the "creation story" of the restorative justice movement, which you can find in the paper embedded below, has some distinctly Mennonite-Anabaptist qualities to it. But I'm also careful not to say that restorative justice is "a Mennonite thing." The paper is a quick weaving of storytelling and history for restorative justice, the Western criminal justice system, and the Anabaptist movement as the back-story for RJ's "creation story."

The presentation followed Dr. Turner's discussion on slavery in the Bible and how we should work with it in our engagement with Scripture, as well as how we should think about issues of modern-day slavery, particularly sex trafficking. After my paper, we opened it up for another 20 minutes to discussion and Ken and I had a great time fielding questions together. Also, to the doctoral student with whom I talked afterward, I hope you check out some of the materials in my footnotes and bibliography!

No villain, no hero... Just faith

Periodically, stories arise from the Anabaptist traditions that shock and sometimes offend sensibilities of the broader society. Perhaps most prominent in recent American memory is the 2006 Amish school shooting at Nickel Mines, Pa., and that community's response of near-immediate loving outreach to the shooter's family. Another story that exhibits costly Christian grace comes from a Mennonite family from Chewala, Wa., whose five children were killed in a car accident five years ago. But the story doesn't end there as this piece from the local TV station details...

Grace in Grief: The Schrock Family, Five Years Later - KXLY.com

A journey to Yoder and beyond

Don't write this guy off...

The first time I heard the name "John Howard Yoder" out loud, in conversation, was the middle of March, 2008, not even three years ago. It was uttered in the form of a question - Had I heard of him? (No.) - from Sara Wenger Shenk, who was at the time associate dean of Eastern Mennonite Seminary/EMS (now the president of sister school, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary). We were walking down the hallway on the top floor of the seminary building, having just walked past the office of prof. Mark Thiessen Nation. It's only in hindsight now that I appreciate the significance of having heard Yoder's in such close proximity to Mark's. (More on that later.)

This conversation and others were part of my family's campus visit trip from Iowa to Virginia and the campus of Eastern Mennonite. This trip was the first time I ever had face-to-face encounters with Mennonites, which might be surprising if one is familiar with the history of my tradition, the Church of the Brethren, having one of its historical-theological poles staked in the Anabaptist tradition along with Mennonites. I often refer to Brethren as the "little cousins" to the Mennonites. So read on after the break for a bit of reflection on how I came to know and began to appreciate the theological project of John Howard Yoder...

Radical Biblical and Cultural Interpretation and World-changing

Many of my friends at seminary and on Facebook are no doubt tired of me whining about the paper I'm posting here via Scribd (impressive service, btw). Taking shape in my head for over two months, it's finally done and I'll turn it in to my professor this afternoon. The paper is a review/synthesis and attempt at integration of two significant books which I read this fall, the latter of which I've recently mentioned here:

• World Upside Down : Reading Acts in the Graeco-Roman Age by C. Kavin Rowe (2009, Oxford)
• To Change the World : The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World by James Davison Hunter (2010, Oxford)

The primary presupposition for the paper is that it was written by a Christian (me) within and for the Church. Non-Christians might find some interesting material, especially the contemporary philosophical and sociological material, which challenge prevailing Western and American views and practices. Another presupposition that I point out in the paper is that I'm working primarily with the Church in America. Global concerns are important and named but are not the focus of the paper.  The paper can be most succinctly summarized by saying it deals with one working assumption that leads to two consequences explored in the paper.

• Assumption (later unpacked): Christians operate with a limited understanding of culture
• Consequence 1: Christians operate with a limited understanding of the biblical text
• Consequence 2: Christians set off on quixotic engagements with culture

Finally, a note on how this is posted. An academic paper does not "copy and paste" well into the blog format. The nature of the two media are far too disparate. Academic papers have footnotes, blog posts have hyperlinks, and trying to shoe-horn one into the other is a nightmare. This is why I'm so impressed with my first use of Scribd as a publishing platform. It allows both to be true to themselves while offering the best of social media for papers and publications like this.

So read on after the break if you're ready for a big 20-page exploration of Christians and culture in America...

[Update, Jan. 11, 2011: Just uploaded an edited and revised version of the paper below, which was submitted for an upcoming symposium in February.]

Review: Anabaptist Preaching

Anabaptist Preaching first caught my eye when my friend, Brett, took preaching class last fall, the last time former EMS dean, Ervin Stutzman, taught it before his transition to executive director of the Mennonite Church USA. It was assigned reading at that time and so for a while it was laying around Brett's study carrel which is right next to mine. My church tradition, the Church of the Brethren, has historical Anabaptist roots but as I've recently observed, those qualities have mostly bled out of the denominational consciousness and expression. So I've been going through a process of happily reclaiming Anabaptism these past two years at seminary.  Given, then, my high interest with anything Anabaptist-related, the title to this book itself was enough to get it on my mental “to-read” list, filed away for later. When our new seminary dean, Michael King, was brought on this year I was pleasantly surprised to learn that he was a co-editor of this book, as well as contributing the second chapter. So after a year's wait I've finally had a chance to read it and have put down a few quick thoughts in review...

More on the neo-Anabaptist take-over and Brethren ramblings

Back in early October I made a quick post directing people to the blog of John Fea, professor of American history at Messiah College, who was responding to an argument from Mark Tooley that neo-Anabaptists were trying to take over America. Fea's was a fun conversation in which I made a few comments. Well, apparently, Tooley's argument is still a bur in the saddle of a few Mennonites because in the past few weeks, two more posts showed up:

• Are Mennonites Taking Over the World? - by Sheldon C. Good, on HuffingtonPost.com
• We Come in Peace: A Response to Mark Tooley - by Jeremy Yoder, editor on the EMS Work and Hope blog

Both men make some good points and I'll not restate them here. What's happened for me since early October is having worked through 2/3 of James Davison Hunter's new-ish book, To Change the World. A professor of religion, culture, and social theory at the University of Virginia, and a confessing Christian, Hunter's is a fascinating book that's written (in some sense) within and for the church, particularly in America. It's a wonderful mix of sociology and theology, insightful cultural description and a constructive argument for faithfulness in the world, which he terms "faithful presence."

In sequential chapters of section 2 of the book, Hunter goes after the Christian Right, the Christian Left, and neo-Anabaptists, essentially saying their respective pet concerns are valid ones based on real societal conundrums, but their animating political ideologies lead them into all manner of "adventures in missing the point" (which may turn McLaren's and Campolo's clever book title around on them). I join others in not being completely convinced of Hunter's critique of neo-Anabaptists, but also find much to be humbled by.

What strikes me from this conversation about neo-Anabaptists, both in Hunter and the response to Tooley's (flawed) argument, is that, within the Church of the Brethren, there really doesn't seem to be much Anabaptism (neo or otherwise) left. At the denominational level and at the Brethren seminary, the animating ideology seems to be the Christian Left, while at the congregational level prevailing attitudes seem to be driven by the Christian Right. Hunter even aludes to this phenomenon in his footnotes, citing the work of Brethren sociologist (and his peer at UVA), Carl Bowman.

So while Mennonites are seeing these Left/Right ideological dichotomies emerge more and more in their North American institutions, the Brethren lead them in this regard by a few decades. It's almost as if Anabaptism isn't even an option anymore for Brethren, at least not at the institutional level where the power is most concentrated (and most contested). All this considered, taken with my recent historical studies of Brethren beliefs and practices, seems to paint a picture for me that looks like this: In their rush to respectability in the late 19th and through the 20th centuries, the Brethren drank too deeply from the cultural wells of a rapidly changing American society. Now all we're left with is the political culture setting the terms of conversation.

I've heard this painful analogy used with respect to the above: The Brethren are the "canary in the coal mine" for Mennonites. Obviously all analogies have their limits and this is no exception, but it does have some weight in my assessment. It hasn't been enough to scare me away from the Brethren (far from it!), but I've found that it puts me in a relatively fringe position, not quite feeling at home in many if any active Brethren circles. Heck, I'm at a Mennonite seminary and that in itself is telling.

FWFS: Brethren & Mennonites and the national anthem

After accepting the invite to blog about things Brethren on Feetwashing and Foursquare last week, I've just made my first contribution there...

Brethren & Mennonite attitudes toward the national anthem of the U.S.A.

If you're Brethren and/or Mennonite, head on over and check it out, and please comment!

Sara Wenger Shenk: A leadership biography

When I came to Eastern Mennonite University (EMU) in 2008 to begin graduate studies, I did so specifically to be dual-enrolled in both the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP) and the Seminary (EMS), working toward a degree in each program. When the time came to plan my seminary classes for the first semester, I sat down with Sara Wenger Shenk, the associate dean of the Seminary, to do so. As I look back on that experience from a year and half ago, I seem to recall that my first impression of Sara was fairly neutral. She struck me as quiet and reflective, perhaps even a bit intimidating to someone new to the university community, such as myself.

But over the course of my time here at EMU, I have come to see a tremendously deep well of wisdom, insight, and zeal for her work and community from Sara, not to mention a profound awareness and expression of her Christian faith that has made an equally profound impression on my own faith. In the crowd of wonderful professors, mentors, leaders, advisors – both academic and spiritual – and friends that I am exposed to here, Sara stands out. It is the intention of this paper to describe the kind of leader that Sara is. I will do this by way of relating my own experiences of her leadership in her various roles, along with elements of her own reflections on her formational journey that has brought her to this point. In addition, I have interviewed two other people in the Seminary context and will incorporate their reflections into this paper, providing a multi-dimensional view of Sara Wenger Shenk's expression of leadership.

Read on after the break for my reflections on Sara and her leadership...

A note on integration

While I have been an active participant in an online virtual community for almost ten years, I didn't hop on the blog bandwagon once they came around earlier this decade.  I certainly have followed a ton of blogs over the years, but had never started one of my own until this one came along.

But there's also another blog that I've been contributing to this fall, and that is the one listed on the right in "The Well" section: The Table.  This is the blog for my church, an experimental Mennonite fellowship/congregation that meets on the EMU campus.  While it is not officially affiliated with the university, by virtue of our location we do draw quite a university-centric crowd.

My posts there this academic year are tied to my seminary internship, which is rooted in that congregation.  They have so far dealt mostly with communal reading, study, and discernment of scripture as the foundation for planning worship services from week to week that rarely look alike, although do contain constant elements such as weekly celebration of communion.  So take a peak there if you're interested in seeing some of my other online writings.