Guatemala Here I Am

I have a confession to make about my Guatemala trip (to attend a three week class at the Anabaptist Semilla Seminary). When I signed up, it wasn’t because of a burning desire to learn more about liberation theology or because Guatemala was on the list of places I needed to see before I die, or even because I wanted to apply my minimal talents and intellect to the problems of Central America. Instead, I can trace it back to Ken Humphrey, who went on and on and on about his enriching and valuable trip to the United Nations. Ken is a fellow AMBS sabbaticaller, Irish Catholic-Protestant Reconciler, and font of all knowledge concerning European sports. We became good enough friends that I've earned the right to be called a mucker by him, which is apparently a good thing in Ireland. Anyway, the UN conference he went to was one I could have easily attended, if I had gotten my act together, so his glowing review of it burned like hot coals in my flesh.

To add insult to injury, about a month later I again failed to attend a Mennonite writer’s conference that I wanted to go to. I later learned that my friend Dave Wright (poet, dreamboat English professor, and ideal house renter) had led some workshops there. He was very diplomatic about what a great conference I missed, but I just felt like a dope for not going. In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit that the reason I missed the writer’s conference was that the week before I went to the Ohio State-Indiana football game with the very same Ken Humphrey, and had used up all my spouse points to watch my beloved Indiana be ritualistically sacrificed to the BCS gods (44-3).

So, I wasn’t going to miss out again on another cool trip, regardless of what it was. That defines a lot of my life, by the way. I am spurred to action by the great motivator of Not Missing Out. For me, it always seems to come back to issues of being a middle child. In any case, Guatemala was the next opportunity for travel, so hellooo Guatemala. All I needed was to backfill valid and honorable reasons for going. Luckily it did happen to be true that I wanted to learn more about liberation theology. I also wanted to immerse myself in a different culture – I love being challenged about my comfortable, middle class, white American life. I also thought it would give me space and perspective to make some progress on what I should be doing in life. It’s all about me, after all.

So, I had very few expectations about coming here. Sometimes not having expectations is a good thing. So far, it has been like a movie you walk into knowing very little about and turns out to be the best movie you’ve seen all year (which in this case, isn’t hard, since the year is only 7 days old, but still, it’s been an enriching few days).

What I didn’t expect was to be so reminded of Venezuela. Latin American countries are obviously not identical, but they are more similar to each other than they are to the places I visit in the US, and I haven’t traveled internationally all that much. But I did live in Caracas when I was 12 (my Dad worked for International Harvester as a truck sales engineer and was transferred there for nine months in 1975-76).

On the way from the airport to the seminary, all the sights, sounds, and smells of Latin America came rushing back to me. The white stucco houses with red clay roofs, barricaded behind large walls. The corrugated tin houses and roofs on hillsides where the truly poor eke out an existence. The Spanish-style churches dotting every few blocks. Open air hallways, since enclosed walls are not necessary in this climate. The rat-a-tat-tat of Spanish speakers having animated conversations. The smell of sidewalk food containing I’m not sure what, but boy does it smell good, and might even be worth 3 days of diarrhea to try. And, of course, road signs and rules that are “only suggestive”, as quipped by Carina Soderlund, our first-rate Semilla guide, who can put a 15 passenger van in places I wouldn’t try putting a Miata.

Despite not having clear, success-oriented goals while I am here, I need to make the best of my time because I’m using up the next six month of spouse points by being here. My lovely but unfortunate wife is suffering by threes at home while I am here. She is taking a 3 week Anabaptist history and theology class which requires 3 papers (and a big test), while she is taking care of all 3 kids solo. Plus, just to rub it in, her birthday will take place while I am away. Since there is no way I can help her while I’m here, my only strategy is to simply make it worthwhile, and come back all smiles and energy to take over parenting for the next few months.

So far, the landscape is beautiful, the weather is perfect and the food is excellent. Unfortunately, the people are mostly oppressed, which I will talk about more in later, fun-filled posts.

Guatemala Here I Come

I signed up for an interterm class on Liberation Theology in Guatemala and leave tomorrow with 12 others for a 3 week stint in Guatemala City at the Mennonite Semilla.

I've been scurrying around trying to pack everything I'll need, which includes more dressy clothes than I am used to wearing (they dress more formally down there, so my usual slobby bluejeans are discouraged). I tend to underpack clothes and overpack reading materials, so I'll need to cut down on the number of New Yorkers I want to catch up on.

Here's what I know about Liberation Theology: God is on the side of the oppressed. I hope to learn why in the next three weeks.

I'm told there is internet access at the seminary there, so I don't know whether my blog output will increase or decrease while I'm there here. Statistically speaking, it would be hard to decrease blog output, since I managed only one post in December, and this post technically counts as a January post. But, I'm hoping there will be some time in between readings, class sessions, and day trips to see Guatemala to do a little blogging.

Beware of Mennonite Basketball

I am living this year in possibly the only place on earth that has a Mennonite church basketball league. I eagerly signed up when our church needed people for their team, hoping my slowly deteriorating body would still be able to compete against what I had hoped would be stout farmers in bib overalls and long beards clumsily attempting to both dribble and walk at the same time. No such luck.

Our team's goal on most days is to not have our score doubled by the other team, which we often accomplish. We are mostly a bunch of short, slow guards who hang out around the 3 point line, hoping that the other team gets bored or distracted enough to leave us open. If that happens, we launch a heroic shot that often bounces off the top third of the backboard, which the other team then easily rebounds, passes the ball to all five players without touching the floor and finishes with a no-look reverse slam dunk. Basketball is apparently one of the many things Mennonites have figured out how to do pretty well since leaving prayer caps and plain clothes behind.

Last week we were down by 25 points or so with about 4 minutes left in the game, so I was understandably trying very hard not to let them score on a fast break, lest they go up by an insurmountable 27 points. I stepped in front of a guy who was considerably taller than me. By how much taller I can’t really say because I wasn't vertical for any meaningful length of time after we collided. But I have evidence that his elbows were about as high as my forehead, as you can see from the picture below of where they made contact with my face:





Yep, that's 12 stitches all together, 4 of them underneath. Luckily no concussion was detected by the many fine machines that go whir at the hospital where I spent the rest of the day. I was disappointed that I didn’t develop any superpowers as a result of the sharp blow to my head, aside from my usual ability to cause sports teams I am rooting for to lose (sorry Colts fans!). Also, I still have my uncanny ability to know what time it is without using a watch, which is useful, but not a very cool way to fight evil.

Everyone has told me afterward that Mennonites do tend to get out their aggression on basketball floors, soccer fields and sometimes during combined-church hymn sings. In the end, I’m guessing the guy who smacked me feels worse than I do. Mennonites have an especially hard time when they are the cause of distress to others.

I am fine now, but while lying bleeding on the basketball floor and eventually losing a battle with consciousness, I vowed not to ever play again in a sport where other people are involved. God must be trying to tell me something, since my injuries keep getting worse. I broke my ankle playing soccer last spring and a few years I ago I broke my shoulder play touch football. If I keep doing this, I will eventually be sent off the field in a casket.

And yet, physical activity is only interesting to me if I can weave in and out of other people who are trying to prevent me from getting somewhere. Simply jogging from one place to another without any danger of being knocked down or stolen from is simply not interesting enough to do. So if I keep my vow I will not likely play sports again.

Luckily, vows made under duress, especially after a blow to the head, are easy to rationalize away. I’ll probably play again, but I’ll be taking a bit of break for awhile. If any superpowers do develop, I hope they are at least useful on the basketball court.

The Global Oh

I saw this on Huffington Post the other day: World Peace Through Global Orgasm (http://www.globalorgasm.org). They are calling all people to have sex on Dec 22nd (the Winter Solstice, exactly one month from today) to "effect positive change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible surge of human energy".

Even though this is quite possibly the dumbest peace strategy idea I have ever heard (and believe me when I say there is never any lack of dumb peace strategies), my commitment to peace is so strong that I am going to recklessly agree to participate. Hopefully my wife’s commitment to peace will also be strong that day, but if not, I’m willing to go it alone if needed. Sometimes, you just have to do what you are called to do, regardless of whether other people join you.

Note that if it doesn't work, all we have to do is figure out who did not participate, and then blame them for the remaining violence in the world.

Department of Peace, Anyone?

Here’s a different perspective from the Fosdick quote I posted earlier. It is from J. Denny Weaver, a Mennonite theologian, in an essay entitled “Which Religion Shall We Follow?”, written after 9/11.

It is unfair to assume that pacifists, who did not create the long buildup of frustrations that produces people with a feeling of hopelessness who do terrible things, can now be dropped into the middle of it with an instantaneous solution…The usual assumption is that because I and perhaps a few Christian Peacemaker Team (CPT) reservists cannot parachute into a situation and resolve the problem on the spot, pacifism is proved irrelevant and misguided.

For the “What-about” question to be fair, pacifists need equal time to prepare and equal numbers of people involved – say three peace academies (parallel to the Naval Academy, West Point, and the Air Force Academy) graduating several hundred men and women each year highly trained in nonviolent techniques, plus standing reserve companies of thousands of men and women trained in nonviolent tactics, all of whom have access to billions of dollars to spend on transportation and the latest communications equipment. Merely observing that compared to national military preparedness, the nation spends practically no money on nonviolence and has no structures in place even to think about it, makes it glaringly obvious that no serious attention was given to anything but violent responses to September 11. The nation’s response was far from a calculated decision based on careful consideration of a range of options. Quite transparently, it was shaped by – and is the current expression of – the national myth that shapes American identity. Both for government policy and in the mind of the public in general, violence was the only option considered, anticipated, and prepared for.

He goes on to say that violence, by definition, fails more than half the time, since both sides use it, and at most one side “wins” (and often both sides lose). He then lists the countries the US has used military force against since 1945 that did not produce democratic governments respectful of human rights as a result of our actions against them: China (45-56), Korea (50-53), Guatemala (54, 60, 67-69), Cuba (59-60), Congo (64), Laos (64-73), Vietnam (61-73), Cambodia (69-70), Grenada (83), El Salvador (80s), Nicaragua (80s), Panama (89), Iraq (91-present), Sudan (98), Afghanistan (98), and Yugoslavia (99).

I like the way he turns the question around here – why should we expect pacifism to have quick answers to complex problems when we don’t practice or prepare for peace? Why do we assume violence works when it has such a terrible track record?

I’m not sure that lets pacifism entirely off the hook – it still needs to make a case for how effective it can be as an answer to immediate violence. But pacifism is more of a way of life, a way to address the root causes of violence, to prevent violence from erupting in the first place. It may not always be able to provide satisfying answers. But violence rarely provides satisfying answers either, even though our national myth of benevolent redemptive violence tells us otherwise.

I totally agree with his call for peace academies. Americans, against overwhelmingly evidence to the contrary, believe ourselves to be a peace-loving people. We should make use of our desire to see ourselves that way, and push for a Department of Peace as a logical extension of our stated values.

Fosdick on War

As usual, I have a hundred ideas for blog posts, and no time to write them up. So, I'll cheat, like I often do, and post a quote I like. This one is from Harry Fosdick, liberal 20th century theologian, from an essay on whether Christians should participate in war.

Today when I picture Christ in this warring world I can see him in one place only, not arrayed in the panoply of battle on either side, but on his judgment seat, sitting in condemnation of all of us--aggressor, defender, neutral--who by out joint guilt have involved ourselves in a way of life that denies everything he stood for. The function of the church is to keep him there, above the strife, representing a manner of living, the utter antithesis of war, to which mankind must return if we are to have any hope. But the Christian ministry does not keep him there by throwing itself, generation after generation, into the support and sanction of the nation's wars. Rather it drags him down, until the people, listening, can feel little if any difference between what Christ says and what Mars wants. It is not the function of the Christian church to help win a war. A church that becomes an adjunct to a war department has denied its ministry. The function of the church is to keep Christ where he belongs, upon his judgment seat, condemner of our joint guilt, chastener of our impenitent pride, guide to our only hope.

I especially like the line about the "aggressor, defender and neutral" all being guilty. Pacifism isn't about sitting back and letting evil flourish, but about creating conditions for peace. Nonetheless, there are times when pacifism has no better answers than the soldier, and I think it is important to recognize that sometimes being faithful results in ineffectiveness, and requires both humility and penance. We are all to blame when conflict cannot be resolved peacefully.

Post-Election Musings

On a night when CNN was claiming that Democrats need to govern as conservatives (because some of their victories were in conservative districts) and FOX was claiming the election showed how *conservative* the country still is (apparently the transition from faith-based reality to reality-based reality is slow and painful), we must once again depend on Jon Stewart for the most incisive comments:

• “Can Karl Rove’s tactical genius overcome, say … reality?”
  
• “Democrats need 15 seats be the controlling party and allow themselves access to corruption and sexual perversity.”
  
• And my favorite: “... the Democrats cunning strategy of slowly backing out of the room while their brother gets yelled at for burning down the garage”.

I’m glad my political compass is broken, and the Democrats did win. More specifically, I’m glad there will finally be some oversight and accountability for the Bush administration. I hope Democrats can develop some spine and redeploy troops in Iraq, and maybe even impeach Bush, but I’d settle for making him follow the law from now on.

Finally, I must say that it still drives me nuts to hear CNN refer to pro-war, supply-side, gay-bashing christian conservatives as “value voters”, as if those who support ending the war, increasing the minimum wage, and having simple tolerance towards others are not votes based on values. Ironcially, these conservative values are usually in direct opposition to what Jesus taught, like their triumphalist desire to see a Christian America dominate the world, or their support for policies that increase disparity or turn their backs on poor and the sick.

In the end,Democrats are not going to make everything OK. I'm just hoping they can slow our descent into Armageddon.

Election Day Musings

It’s Election Day, and I have a bad feeling that the Republicans are going to steal yet another election from the bumbling Democrats. There are just too many Diebold voting machines out there, plus the usual tactics for suppressing votes.

The October surprise ended up being the Saddam trial verdict. Gee, no political calculations there – just good ole American luck! I wonder why all those conservative pundits who were decrying the political timing of the Mark Foley scandal are not now harshly criticizing the politicization of the trial timing. I guess consistency isn’t a family value.

I realized yesterday that I can hardly even listen to Bush speak anymore without turning my stomach. I heard him on the radio last night whipping up a crowd of supporters. He said something about how Saddam has been found guilty and is now going to hang, followed by thunderous applause from the crowd. It was quite unseemly, not unlike a French Revolution mob’s bloodthirsty calls for beheading the King. We Are Barbarians! We Are Proud Of It! Yea For Us!

I remember six years ago when I was horrified about then Governor Bush’s glee in executing criminals, even mocking one of them. Many of them did not have fair trials and at least one of them was later found to be innocent. I thought this lack of concern for human rights would translate into the normal Republican disdain for civil rights and erosion of programs designed to help the least among us. That the anti-Christian values of helping the rich and protecting the privileged would win the day.

As someone interviewed on the Daily Show mentioned (I can’t remember her name), these fears were a major failure of imagination on the part of liberals. Who would have thought that six years later, this country would have embarked on an aggressive, unilateral, and unjustified war, killed hundreds of thousands of people, created chaos and strife abroad, legalized torture, illegally wiretapped Americans, and emptied the treasury in support of tax breaks for the wealthy. Ironically, none of this would have been possible without the help of conservative Christians at the voting booth, voting against the values of their very own founder.

I don’t know whether Americans are capable of holding this Republican administration accountable for their deeds. I thought it was obvious two election cycles ago that some accountability was needed, which is why my political predictions are pretty useless these days. I guess we’ll find out in a few hours.

What Jesus Meant

I read an interesting little book awhile back called “What Jesus Meant” by Gary Wills. It started off rather badly for me, by slamming the Jesus Seminar, which is a group of scholars who intend to “renew the quest of the historical Jesus”. Jesus Seminar scholars like Marcus Borg are one of the reasons I can now claim an authentic Christianity for myself after a very long separation. He goes on for 6 pages describing why they are misguided. So, I wasn’t terribly inclined to hear what he had to say after that.

Nonetheless, I trudged forward, and I am glad I did. He has a lot of interesting things to say, and makes a convincing case for a Jesus who is far more radical than most everyone is comfortable with. He also has fresh and vibrant translations from the Greek. It is good to be challenged like this. Here’s are some excerpts:

When pilate asks Jesus if he is King, he answers:

John 18:36 “My reign is not of this present order. If it were of this present order, my ministers would do battle to prevent my surrender to the jews. But for now my reign is not of this present order”

Many would like to make the reign of Jesus belong to this political order. If they want the state to be politically Christian, they are not following Jesus, who says that his reign is not of that order. If, on the other hand, they ask the state simply to profess religion of some sort (not specifically Christian), then some other religions may be conscripted for that purpose, but that of Jesus will not be among them. His reign is not of that order. If people want to do battle for God, they cannot claim that Jesus has called them to this task, since he told Pilate that his ministers would not do that.

......

If Jesus opposes wealth and power, hierarchy and distinctions, he must have opposed their invariable instrument, violence. And of course he did. More than any other teacher of nonviolence – more than Thoreau, than Gandhi, than Dr. King – he was absolute and inclusive in what he forbade:

Luke 6.27-38
I say to all you who can hear me: Love your foes, help those who hate you, praise those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who punches your cheek, offer the other cheek. To one seizing your cloak, do not refuse the tunic under it. Whoever asks, give to him. Whoever seizes, do not resist. Exactly how you wish to be treated, in that way treat others. For if you love those you love back, what mark of virtue have you? Sinners themselves love those who love back. If you treat well those treating you well, what, what mark of virtue have you? Sinners too, lend to sinners, calculating an exact return. No rather love your foes, treat them well, and lend without any calculation of return. Your great reward will be that you are children of the Highest One, who also favors ingrates and scoundrels. Be just as lenient as that lenient Father. Be not a judge, then and you will not be judged. Be no executioner, and you will not be executed. Pardon, and you will be pardoned. Give, and what will be given you is recompense of crammed-in, sifted-down, overtoppling good showered into your lap. The excess will correspond to your excess”

Tremendous ingenuity has been expended to compromise these uncompromising words. Jesus is too much for us. The churches’ later treatment of the gospels is one long effort to rescue Jesus from his “extremism”. Jesus consistently opposed violence. He ordered Peter not to use the sword, even to protect his Lord – yet thousands, in the Crusades, would take up sword to protect the site of that Lord’s death. If one cannot use violence to protect the Lord, what can one justifiably use violence for?

The Church You Know.com

Finally, some people who understand what it means to have God's blessing :)



More hilarious shorts available at: http://www.thechurchyouknow.com

The Amish Example

Apparently, there is no event in America so tragic that it can’t be quickly exploited by those who want to trumpet their own cause, regardless of how unrelated that cause may be. Witness the recent Amish school shootings:

• The Westboro Baptist Church in Kansas was going to protest the funeral because America is so homosexual-friendly. They are normally content to protest at military funerals (because America is so homosexual-friendly). If this doesn’t make any sense to you on several levels, then just be happy that you are still apparently sane.
  
• A woman in Georgia is using the tragedy as fodder to ban Harry Potter books at her local school. She thinks school shootings are the result of JK Rowlings’ desire to indoctrinate children into witchcraft. As the comments on the link mention, it is fascinating how Harry Potter is famous all over the world, but school shootings by crazed citizens mostly happen in the US.

This is annoying to me because now I would look silly in trying to tie this to my own pet cause, which is the confluence of liturgical constantinianism and epistemological foundationalism as a corrupting influence on eschatological ecclesiology (and why it is ruining America). Like homosexuality and Harry Potter, the Amish have nothing to do with this. But I figure they had it coming, since we all know that God punishes random people when America doesn’t conform to the dictates of those Christians who are most in need of medication.

Instead, I guess we should grudgingly look to the Amish themselves for wisdom on the matter. They are heartbroken and grieving. And yet, shockingly, they remain faithful to their religious convictions. They invited the mother of the shooter to the funeral, as a way to extend forgiveness. They are quoted as saying “Forgiveness is a choice, but it is not an option if we want to be saved." Many even showed up to the funeral of the shooter. They extend grace far beyond what makes sense to the wider world.

I don’t want to sentimentalize the Amish, who certainly have human failings like everyone else. But geez. What a stunning example of how to be Christian. Imagine if we American Christians had all decided to be this grace-filled in response to 9/11. Imagine if we decided not to give in to fear and revenge, but to trust in God rather than Guns. We might not be fit to run the country, but I can’t help but think it would have tempered our national response in ways that would have made us stronger five years later. Instead, we are facing a world justifiably angry at our response to evil, since its main accomplishment so far has been the creation of new terrorists.

Given how interwoven the Christian message is these days with state power and domination over others, the Amish provide a healthy counter-example to aspire to. In this instance, they have provided a powerful example of Paul’s message to “overcome evil with good”. Too often we attempt to eliminate evil through violence and revenge.

Hauerwas on Worship and Murder

Stanley Hauerwas (Methodist theologian at Duke, admirer of John Howard Yoder, Defender of Church, Comedian) :

One reason why we Christians argue so much about which hymn to sing, which liturgy to follow, which way to worship is that the commandments teach us to believe that bad liturgy eventually leads to bad ethics. You begin by singing some sappy, sentimental hymn, then you pray some pointless prayer, and the next thing you know you have murdered your best friend.

He might be overstating it a bit, but I knew there was justification for hating those sappy love-songs-to-Jesus.

Greenwald on Foley

Another great post by Glenn Greenwald on the Mark Foley mess. Since he mentions God in it, I am justifying linking to it :)

Unclaimed Territory - by Glenn Greenwald: Does the Foley scandal prove the existence of a God?

My favorite line:
as Billmon wrote in comments here the other day, the relentless efficiency of this scandal is proof positive that Democrats had nothing to do with it...

Also, note that the question he is posing IS A JOKE.

The Foley Scandal

Lately I’ve wanted to post fewer pure political stories and more issues related to religion, or at least a mixture of the two. But then some new scandal hits the news, and I get sucked back into the vortex. So, instead of “America Debases Itself On Torture”, this week we get “Republican Preys On Children While Leadership Sleeps”. Yet another example of how power corrupts, and why we desperately need checks and balances, even if those checks are just compliant Democrats.

What’s interesting to me about the Mark Foley scandal isn’t just that politicians can be sexual predators. It is the extent to which political calculation trumps basic decency among those minimizing what Foley did. Foley’s sins are inexcusable (that is, his predatory-ness, not his gayness), and when exposed to the light of day, he recognized that he needed to immediately resign. But it amazes me that many Republicans and conservative commentators are continuing to downplay the seriousness of what happened, or playing politics with the story because an election is five weeks away. Whatever happened to the Republicans being the “party of personal responsibility?”

Just so we are on the same page here: Rep Foley was caught seducing 16 year old pages who worked on Capitol Hill. The Republican leadership (Hastert, Boehner, Reynolds) knew about this since at least last spring, and possibly for years, and never opened an investigation into it. While many fair-minded conservatives are rightly calling for the resignation of those who knew about this and did nothing, there are also many for whom it appears no transgression is grave enough to risk losing power, or smear others in an attempt to get the focus away from you. Here is a sampling of what I have been seeing:


Tony Snow: “there have been other scandals, as you know, that have been more than simply naughty e-mails"

Hannity: Clinton was a sexual predator with a teenager [Ah, yes, change the subject to Clinton, and also lie about him as well]. Also, Democrats are just making this a political issue: [How is a congressman’s being a sexual predator and the leadership ignoring warnings about it NOT a political issue?]

Fox News: Put up a picture of Mark Foley saying he was a Democrat.

Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council blames it on tolerance and diversity: [Yes, Foley’s sins are the result of liberal ideals. If only there were more intolerance of gays in this country]

Newt Gingrich: Republicans didn’t want to be seen as “anti-gay” for exposing this. [Yes, Republicans are very concerned about appearing to be anti-gay].

Hastert: “this is a political issue “ and “if they get to me” our country will be less safe. [So, we should sacrifice our pages in the interest of national security? Even though the NIE says we are less safe due to Republican policy?]

Limbaugh: Suggests the whole thing could have been setup and coordinated by Democrats. [It is probably unfair to include the crazy ravings of Rush, except that he continues to have a huge following]

Bush: : "Now, I know Denny Hastert, I meet with him a lot. He's a father, teacher, coach who cares about the children of this country”. [I guess the reasoning here is that because Bush knows Hastert cares about children, he could not have done anything wrong]

And, finally, according to Republican strategists, whether Hastert stays or goes depends on whether he can quiet the storm, not on whether he is guilty of protecting a sexual predator, precisely because it is bad politically to lose the speaker of the house so close to an election.


The simple facts are that a Republican was caught trying to pickup minors and was protected by House leadership. The honorable way to end this is for all those involved in both the scandal and the cover up to immediately resign. If House leadership is not going to follow up on these kinds of allegations, then how do we know whether other Republicans are doing the same thing?

Finally, it is amazing that a scandal that is entirely about Republicans can get some of them so worked up about…..Democrats. Normally, one would think that blaming Democrats and making excuses would be a ridiculous way of responding. But given the success of the swift-boat nonsense, it remains to be seen whether grass roots Republicans will fall for this kind of depravity again.

"Modern" Gives Way To "Minor"

When I started this blog, there were a number of identities and/or topics I could have chosen. White, middle-class, raving liberal, parent, transracial adopter, movie-holic, software manager, amateur history buff, argumentative Christian – all would have provided ample material for a once-a-week-or-so posting.

But I wanted to write about topics that could use more of a voice in our post-9/11 (or post-3/19) world. Given the power the religious right has exercised in its vision of a war-loving, unbridled-free-market Jesus, there needs to be more advocates for an alternative (or, as I like to call it, “more accurate”) vision of Jesus’ social teaching.

So, I chose my Mennonite identity for the blog, not because I am a representative Mennonite (who are all over the map politically), but because the seemingly monolithic “Christian = Conservative Republican” equation needs to be challenged. Christians who support peace and progressive social policies are actually more in line with Jesus' social ethic than those who, for example, support aggressive, unilateral war, torture, indefinite imprisonment without trial, or even large tax cuts for the wealthy. I don't claim to have a monopoly on the truth, but I do feel the need to be at least a tiny voice in this vast wilderness of the web to advocate for social policy that reflects what God might want for us lowly humans.

Since then, I have been spending a lot of time in the Elkhart/Goshen, Indiana area, taking classes at the Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary. This is the Mennonite Mecca of Midwest, where you don’t have to worry about people mistaking your religion for a cult. Spending time among so many well-spoken and serious Mennonites, who represent the faith far better than I do, is a very humbling experience. My Urbana-Champaign congregation is also filled with well-spoken and serious Mennonites, but it is so much easier to feel like a representative Mennonite there than in Elkhart, where there is so much more heritage and diversity.

One of the things that I didn’t anticipate with a blog name of “Musings of a Modern Mennonite” is that the majority of people who reach it (who do not personally know me) do so via an internet search of the word“Mennonite”. Here is a list of recent searches for people who have found their way here:

• mennonites torture
• hate mennonite
• mennonite bloggers
• mennonite blog
• mennonite blogs
• illegal mennonite immigrant or immigration
• mennonite standards

It is discomfiting to know that anyone interested in hating or torturing Mennonites (or maybe having Mennonites torture or hate them) is naturally led here. More importantly, I fear that without an additional qualifier, people will mistake my rantings as some kind of Mennonite standard, which is unfair to Mennonites as a whole.

So, I’ve decided to replace “Modern” with “Minor”. Minor, not in the sense that I can’t buy beer legally, but in the sense that I am far removed from any hierarchical Mennonite authority, and you could find heresy here just as easily as dogma. “Modern” was never really quite accurate anyway, as a friend pointed out that I am more Post-Modern in my outlook, even though I wasn’t really using the term in that way. And, “Minor” still fits, alliteratively, which is more important than it should be.

My wife claims this change makes me *more* Mennonite, not less, since it is a very Mennonite thing to claim unimportance. It binds us all together in one big, quiet mass of respectfulness. How perfect, then, to confirm my Mennonite identity in a way that makes it seem like I am being respectful and humble.

I proclaim to thee, My Blog, by the power vested in me of knowing the password to my blogspot account, that henceforth, thou shall be known as: “Musings of a Minor Mennonite.”