Life happens, we deal with it

The right place to talk; notice who got the big-boy glass
(the little guy/me)

This is a meta-post in our ongoing series on the book Christianity, Democracy, and the Radical Ordinary, by Stanley Hauerwas & Rom Coles. This series is being authored by Jonathan McRay, Jonathan Swartz, & Brian Gumm.

The Coles-Hauerwas book blogging project has slowed down a bit in recent weeks for a number of reasons. It all started when I spent a week in Virginia for work, which among other things (like a mild existential crisis) granted me a bit of time to hang out with these two yayhoos on the right, the Brothers Jonathan. We had a great chat, and at the time we were wading into chapter 3, which John had just posted on.

But I've been holding the ball for a few weeks now, still in ch. 3 with no post up, so I got some 'splainin' to do. Long story short: life circumstances for Jon and I are changing. Just this week (this morning, in fact), Jon is starting another semester at EMU as a dual-degree student as well as taking on some new work responsibilities. Balancing all that with his family life is tricky business, and having done that myself (though with not as many children!) I can sympathize completely.

For my part, I'm ramping up for a writing project, some curriculum planning for a course I'm teaching next spring, and some new church ministry responsibilities starting this fall. Add to that my day job and family life, and my plate is looking rather full. So in light of that, we're making a mid-course correction in this here project...

MWR story on NuDunkers & MennoNerds

From our last hangout w/ David Fitch & Geoff Holsclaw

Kelli Yoder at the Mennonite World Review interviewed me a few weeks back on the NuDunkers, and has this nice article up today on the website (and in their upcoming print edition):

Hangout for 'MennoNerds': Online Anabaptist communities build faith, friendships, resources

As the title indicates, the story is also about the MennoNerds/Anabaptist Alliance that I've had some involvement with over the past few months. (This blog appears on the MennoNerds website.) The story offers a great account of the two distinct movements, where they came from and why, as well as our "symbiotic" relationship with each other, which as been great to see.

If the Anabaptist tradition is one that's marked by a thick sense of Christian community, these two movements are a great example of how we're trying to make that happen in online spaces, while simultaneously being cognizant of the limits of virtual communities. I'll quote myself here:

“Just because NuDunkers [and MennoNerds] is entirely social-media-based, this shouldn’t replace church for any of us... It should inspire and compel us into deeper engagement with those local manifestations of church.”

It seems that is actually happening, as the story reports one couple involved in MennoNerds is starting to think about planting a new local congregation! Great story, and my thanks go to Kelli Yoder for taking the time to conduct all the interviews and write it up, as well as all the folks involved in these two exciting, young, and emerging groups!

Mere Orthodoxy: The Frame for Watching Mad Men

Matthew Lee Anderson, the editor of the Mere Orthodoxy blog, was gracious enough to let me contribute a post in their series on AMC's hit drama, Mad Men...

The Frame for Watching Mad Men: When Joan sells Johnny

The MO crowd tends to be - by my assessment - socially, culturally, and theologically conservative American evangelical...but they're part of the new generation of evangelicals that's trying out loud and in public to re-imagine what that means in intellectually rigorous ways. Though my radical neo-Anabaptist impulses set me apart from some of their thinking, I've really enjoyed tracking with what Matthew is up to and the conversations I've had with him over the past year and a half, since reading his excellent book, Earthen Vessels: Why Our Bodies Matter to Our Faith. Thanks, Matthew!

Political Theology: Elected to be consumed

Challa bread photo by the.pinoyboy via Flick/CC license.

I have a new post up at Political Theology's "There is Power in the Blog"...blog:

Elected to be consumed

As I say in the intro:

I hope to show why...tactical abstinence from American politics and news media is not necessarily irresponsible, but can be seen as righteously “therapeutic” (in a Wittgenstinian sense) or as residing in what Mennonite writer, Tim Huber, has recently called a “holy silence.” I will do so by meditating on the word “election” in light of two different traditions. First, in the context of American politics, and then in the biblical/covenantal sense.

I also do a bit of eucharistic theology at the end and make reference to the Election Day Communion movement, started by a few Mennonite pastors. 

...I just blog a lot

Since starting this blog for personal and academic reasons in the fall of 2009, I've managed to justify blogging as part of my professional work at EMU. My previous role at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding had me acting as blog editor for Peacebuilder Online. In my new role as Distance Learning Technology Analyst in the Information Systems department, my work has included a high degree of research and development work around educational technologies and ed-tech trends in higher ed.

I take a social media-driven approach to R&D, which includes tweeting (@DistanceEd_EMU) and, as of last week, blogging: Ed-Tech at EMU.

It's the best of many worlds for me: Doing my tech nerdery for a Christian university ("like no other"), using media with which I feel comfortable and competent, and within which I can take a narrative approach to communicating for my work.

If this all sounds rather self-serving, let me situate it in the context of gratitude. These circumstances wouldn't be possible without the amazing leadership I've worked under/with at EMU these past few years. I've had leaders who 1) trust my skills and insights, and 2) have empowered me to be creative in carrying out my work. It's a gift to have such work.

Political Theology: Chick-fil-A, Capitalism, and Free Speech

Mmmm....Culver's...

"There is Power in the Blog" - the amazing name of the blog for the Political Theology journal, has just put up my first contribution there...

There’s no such thing as a free chicken sandwich.
(And it’s a good thing, too.)

Here's the summary:

In this post I want to focus on two interrelated things: 1) The capitalist logic to expressions of morality in the digital age, and 2) its effect on our understanding of the principle of free speech. What I’ll argue is that contemporary moral discourse is marked by a sense of victimhood which fuels the vitriolic and polarized nature of its expressions. In a society saturated by competing values disconnected from substantive moral traditions, this vacuum is filled surreptitiously by the moral logic of the “free” market. Moral discourse and outrage, then, has a deeply economic quality with a thin ideological sheen. The second part of my argument rests upon the first in that appeals to the principle of Free Speech – e.g. the Chick-fil-A flap – act simply as a screen for the phenomenon described in point one. Finally, my brief constructive remarks belie a vision for radical ecclesia which resists such destructive practices by enacting a politics and economics which emanates from the story-shaped practices of the body of Christ.

Check it out...

Who is this blog for?

My wife and I had an interesting conversation the other night about the nature of my public writing on this blog, and how it has been received in various social circles in which I find myself. At this transitional point in our life together as a family, I've been in a reflective mood in general, but as it relates to this blog and our conversation, it seems the right time to ask: Who is this blog for?

First, a theological preface: My goal in life is to faithfully answer the call to discipleship issued by Jesus Christ. So anything I do in my life, including writing this blog, should be first and foremost an offering to God, who is the "first who" in answer to the question.

But in line with the "double love command" of Jesus (love God, love neighbor; Mark 12), this "first who" puts me in relationship with the "second who": my neighbor. Who is my neighbor? Perhaps a better question in the digital age, on a public blog no less, is who isn't my neighbor?

Lead me not into temptation: Restorative Theology after grad school

"not many of you were wise by human standards... God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise"
(1 Cor. 1:26-27)

The sands are shifting. This blog was born in the first half of four grueling years of graduate school, which came to a close this past weekend. My writing on this blog thus far often served as a testing ground for applying in-class reading to pressing issues and concerns. It's where I applied William T. Cavanaugh's "myth of religious violence" thesis to U.S. military adventurism and James K.A. Smith's "sacred/secular liturgies" thesis to the military-consumerist complex in American society and its cultural practices, as I began describing myself as a "Christological, theopolitical pacifist" and "neo-Anabaptist." Writing here landed me my first writing assignment for a scholarly journal.

But before grad school I was a minister in the church. Now after grad school, I continue to be a minister in the church. This is a lifelong vocation. There has been a ministerial intent underlying my theological writing here, but now the framework of graduate studies is falling away, and whatever framework is coming next is still somewhat opaque, and unshaped.

So what will I do with this blog now that I can place "MDiv, MA" after my signature, in my CV, and in my online profiles?

P.S. to "A justice system at its best"

Photo by my mommy!
(Click for the whole gallery.)

In my part-time role as Web & Information Systems Coordinator for EMU's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, hands-down one of my favorite parts of the job is being co-editor of the Peacebuilder Online blog. Over the past few days I've been working with a part-time CJP student in my home state of Iowa, who wrote up an excellent restorative justice story/case study about a vandalism incident in the mid-90s at a synagogue in Des Moines. Here's that:

A justice system at its best by Fred Van Liew

My p.s. has to do with the photographer credited on the piece: my mother, Diane Gumm! On any blog which I post or edit, I always try to use photography or images that I know are honoring copyright. So even though there were a few small images of the synagogue dug up by Google Images, I couldn't determine their copyright, and all the ones I found on Flickr didn't have open copyrights (I always search for Creative Commons-licensed photos).

Three Brethren Desiring the Kingdom

A few months ago, Josh Brockway, my friend and fellow Brethren brother (and presenter at this week's #Occupy Empire conference!), fired up a new blog for the Brethren Life and Thought journal. Described as having "an Anabaptist and Radical Pietist voice," the blog is intended to bring scholarly discourse amongst folks in the Schwarzenau Brethren tradition into the digital age, something attempted in a few other places (including here) but with no institutional support.

Ever the tech nerd, I managed to wiggle my way into helping Josh administer the blog, but also contribute  to it. And just a few hours ago, Josh posted the final piece in a three-part/three-author series engaging James K.A. Smith's awesome book, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation.

1. Ascetic Christianity: Brethren Dress and Smith’s Cultural Liturgies by Joshua Brockway
2. In place of (non-)sacraments: Re-enchanting the Brethren by me, Brian R. Gumm
3. The Anabaptist’s Will, The Pietist’s Heart & The Lover’s Gaze by Scott Holland

It's been a lot of fun taking the work in this excellent book into conversation with two friends/brothers/colleagues with an eye on what its import may be to the Church of the Brethren today, and indeed I think there is plenty of import. My thanks to these guys!

BL&T: In place of (non-sacraments): Re-enchanting the Brethren

Over at the Brethren Life and Thought blog, I just posted my contribution to a three-part series of posts on James K.A. Smith's Desiring the Kingdom. Here's the link and the first bit of the post...

In place of (non-)sacraments: Re-enchanting the Brethren

While the Schwarzenau Brethren have long practiced the beautiful biblical-mimetic ritual we call “Love Feast,” there’s been the insistence that such practices – like baptism – are “ordinances” from Jesus. So we do them primarily because Jesus told us to, not because they have some “mystical” or “magical” power. Combined with a free church “priesthood of all believers” ecclesiology and liturgical practices, Vernard Eller could look at high church sacramental traditions in his book, In Place of Sacraments, and pejoratively describe them as “commissaries,” dispensing with mystical goods and services. Better than all that, Eller described the (surprise!) free church model which he called the “caravan” approach to practices like the Lord’s Supper and baptism. 

While honoring the good historical reasons that Anabaptists opted out of sacramental traditions (to their own peril, initially), appreciating much of Eller’s positive work in In Place of Sacraments, and being happy in our contemporary circumstances as a believers church tradition, still I wonder: Should we reconsider our bad attitude about the sacraments? In our desire to avoid magic-thinking, is there a way in which we’ve swung too far the other direction and depleted our social imagination as Anabaptists worshipping and serving a crucified and resurrected, therefore living, God? Have we thrown the genius of narrative-shaped ritual out with the sacramental bathwater? Read the rest...

Top posts for 2011, Google's and mine

On the heels of my last post about traffic, here are two lists showing the top 5 posts on Restorative Theology in 2011, out of a total of 89. The first is from Google Analytics, based on pure number of views:

1. Military porn, military infidelity (March 6) - The sad thing about this result is that its placement had more to do with Google searches for "military porn" than the actual content of my post.
2. In the dappled light of my grandfather (February 22) - My Grandpa Max died this year and this post formed the basis of my eulogy, which I delivered at his funeral later that same week. (This post also gets a nod as one of my favorites. It  really did help me grieve my grandfather, with whom I had an ambivalent relationship throughout my childhood and early adulthood.)
3. The Avett Brothers' narrative doctrine of Love (and Hate) (October 2010) - A post from 2010 continues to perform well in 2011, due to the Avett Brothers being awesome and Google searches such as "Are the Avett Brothers Christian?" directing people to my lyrical-theological analysis of one of their songs.
4. Anabaptist party-poopers, sports, shopping, and the military (May 2) - The obligatory "Where were you when they killed Osama bin Laden?" post. Hand-wringing and fist-shaking at the military-consumerist complex that has this country's social imagination in a stranglehold. (Another post I'll indicate as one of my favorites. I'll simply add that the last sentence bears repeating: "the death of a violent man by violent means will not end the insanity of terrorism; far from it. America's story just doesn't cut it. I won't celebrate it. Rather, I will celebrate the broken body of Christ, which is for the healing and reconciliation of the world in ways that any temporal nation-state or market economy could - given a million years - neither imagine nor enact.")
5. An old Brethren take on Love winning (March 15) - My brief contribution from Brethren history to the brouhaha surrounding Rob Bell's then-newly-released book, Love Wins. No, I didn't ever read the book and don't really plan on ever doing so.

Read on for the second list, my own subjective list of favorite posts from the Gregorian year just past, 2011:

Restorative Theology by the (modest) numbers

Mmm...charts; 2011 (blue) vs. 2010 (orange) visits

2011 marked the second full year of Restorative Theology's place in the theoblogoshere. As such, it is the first time that I'm able - using Google Analytics - to see some web traffic reports from one year vs. another. The good news is that visits were up 188% in 2011 over '10. The bad news is that average time spent on a particular page fell about 30 seconds, from 2:22 to 1:54. Given that my posts tend to be long, that means that people undoubtedly fall asleep pretty quickly.

From my personal and professional blogging experience, I was recently invited (actually I invited myself) to speak with folks from Mennonite-affiliated organizations who were interested in blogging and social media in their marketing. Professionally, I practice what I've come to call "narrative marketing," which eschews web advertising systems - like Google AdWords and Facebook ads - in favor of storytelling on blog posts and personal, conversational chatter on Facebook and Twitter. It is a qualitative approach rather than quantitative, which is consistent with my own ethos and that of my current place of work, the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. So as I confess my low traffic here, it is done so unapologetically. I go for depth rather than breadth.

So to the folks who follow this obscure little blog, a big thanks for your readership and conversation in the comments, over Twitter, or on Facebook! I continue to ponder what shape this blog will take after graduation in the spring, when I will no doubt continue to read academic material but not nearly as much, and my practice will be refocused more toward "the real world." Stick with me and we'll see what happens...

Theodoodling?

In early June of this year, I had the pleasure of speaking about blogging to a later manifestation of the same class which helped birth this very blog, "Research as Art and Transformation," with Howard Zehr and Paulette Moore. This time around, the class was being held during the Summer Peacebuilding Institute (shameless ad: I just finished the website today and registration for SPI 2012 is open!). SPI draws a significantly more diverse crowd from around the world than the already-widely diverse crowd in the masters program during the normal academic year. The students in this class were some serious artists, so it was a blast to talk about artsy stuff in relation to my theological blogging here.

One of the students, Delia, is a doodler. Her way of processing information in a classroom or in other settings is to listen and draw, listen and draw. She showed me her doodles from my session back in June, and I asked her if she would be willing to send me pictures of the doodles at some point. Well, she and I both forgot about it for a few months, but she just contacted me on Facebook and sent me the doodles and a link to her blog post about "blogoodling".

"Restorative theology" as a toddling two year-old

Appropriate image by gfpeck via Flickr.

Happy belated second birthday to this here blog, Restorative Theology, which saw its first post published on Saturday, October 3, 2009!

The reasons I gave in that first post for naming the blog as such still seem right, and in some ways have deepened through further study, blogging, and ministry experience. Yes, "restorative theology" does seem to name well the things that I'm about as a minister in the church. "Theological peacebuilding" is also a term I've entered into some of my reflections, and while it does seem a bit more active and nuanced, it just doesn't have the same ring.

In the last section of that first post, I named the immediate impulse for creating the blog, which was conducting a research project for a class at EMU's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. That project went wonderfully but my longer-term goals for the blog saw it as a place for "honing the craft of theological writing" as well as further exploring theology and ethics. This has certainly been the place for that, although it seems safe to say that many of my reflections over the past year have taken on the tone of a certain corner of the theological academy called "political theology." Sometimes things I write on the blog end up being the testing ground for cross-posts on other blogs (Work and Hope, Mennonite Weekly Review), or work their way into my academic papers. This blog even helped me land my first writing gig for a scholarly journal, a book review which will come out next year in the Conrad Grebel Review.

So happy second birthday, Restorative Theology! Thanks to the small group of readers who comment, send me e-mails, or stop me in the halls at the seminary. This isn't a comment-heavy blog, but I appreciate the fact that conversation does indeed take place as a result of what I write here, which is certainly my desire as a "think out loud" type.

Since I'm graduating from EMU at the end of this academic year, I'm already excited about the shifts in my writing which will inevitably come as my family enters our next phase. (Whatever that may be, we're still waiting eagerly to see it materialize!)

Cross-post: Restorative Justice Revisits Punishment

One of my CJP professors, Barry Hart (left); Photo by Jon Styer

This past spring I prepared a conference paper on the restorative justice "creation story" and its stark contrast with the criminal justice system, and then did a little storytelling from Anabaptist history. That paper made its way onto this blog in: Yes and No to restorative justice as "a Mennonite Thing".

The editor of Peacebuilder Magazine, the biannual print publication of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding (CJP), liked it well enough to run it as the opening article in the Spring-Summer 2011 issue, which - in my professional capacity - I just posted online yesterday. Here's the paper again in edited form...

Restorative Justice Revisits Punishment

My thanks go to the editor, Bonnie Price Lofton. The few times I've had my writing edited before release in whatever form, I've always been very grateful for the editor's impact on the piece. This article is no exception! So, thanks, Bonnie!

Cross-post: An Iowa boy teaching (and learning) peacebuilding in Ethiopia

"Intro to Conflict Transformation" class, 2011
MK College, Debre Zeit, Ethiopia

As co-editor of the Peacebuilder Online blog for EMU's Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, it's sometimes a little too easy for me to take advantage of being a professional blogger. For instance, after posting here this morning on a really old book, I wrote up a reflection on the experience of teaching for my "work" blog:

An Iowa boy teaching (and learning) peacebuilding in Ethiopia

Another new blogger: Paul Fike Stutzman and the Love Feast Blog

The book...now the blog!

Last fall I dropped a quick post about a new book by EMS alum and fellow Brethren minister, Paul Fike Stutzman (@paulstutzman). Recovering the Love Feast: Broadening Our Eucharistic Celebrations (Wipf & Stock, 2011) explores the Love Feast celebration from the Schwarzenau Brethren tradition (which includes the Church of the Brethren stream). Well, Paul has just started a new blog as "a place to learn about the Love Feast and share stories." Check it out!

The Love Feast Blog
Also, check out this story from EMU News:  Seminary Grad Book Champions Love Feast

I've become increasingly convinced that the Brethren Love Feast is a liturgical "diamond in the rough" from a tradition which typically describes itself as "non-sacramental." It is a practice that incorporates peacemaking into biblical, participatory worship. Like Paul, I am concerned that this practice has fallen by the wayside in many Brethren congregations and would like to see that trend reversed and the practice renewed, re-envisioned, and re-narrated for contemporary contexts. But I'd also love to see the Love Feast (yuk, yuk) be offered to other traditions as a gift for the whole church. Paul's book is a great contribution toward that end.

New blogging interlocutor: Daria at Pax Balkana

Daria, blogging at Pax Balkana

A few months ago I put up a post - Easter After Communism - which was based on an interview with Daria, a friend and fellow student in the conflict transformation program at EMU. Well, Daria has just flown to her native land of Bulgaria to work for two months on her practicum (much like I'll be doing when my family leaves for Ethiopia in under two weeks).

She's just put up her first practicum-related post at Pax Balkana, reflecting on the experience of going home yet simultaneously leaving home: travel at dawn.

New Brethren blogger: Carl Bowman

Just a few weeks ago, Brethren sociologist, Carl Bowman, started blogging at Brethren Cultural Landscape, and Brethren seem to have taken notice, actively commenting on his posts. Right now he seems to be making posts based on his 2006 Brethren Member Profile survey research, which went into the book, Portrait of a People: The Church of the Brethren at 300, which I read over the summer.

Having been familiar with his work for a few years now, I was recently surprised to find that his PhD advisor at the University of Virginia was James Davison Hunter, whose book, To Change the World, I'm reading now. Both Hunter and Bowman are involved in the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at UVA.