Bank On It

Why are the most risky loan products sold to the least sophisticated borrowers? The question answers itself — the least sophisticated borrowers are probably duped into taking these products.
Edward Gramlich, the late Federal Reserve official who tried in vain to get Alan Greenspan to act against predatory lending

Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?
Isaiah 58:6

I must start by pointing out that three years after a horrific financial crisis caused by massive fraud, not a single financial executive has gone to jail, and that’s wrong.
Charles Ferguson, receiving his Academy Award for best documentary in 2011

Since the apocalyptic days of 2008, the curtain has been pulled back and big banks have been exposed for the kinds of predatory, fraudulent and/or risky "activities" they participated in to beef up profits. Banks are supposed to provide vital services for households and businesses: loans, savings accounts, ATMs, etc. And banks, of course, should have an opportunity to make a profit for making life more convenient for the American public.

When banks, however, creatively engage in trading complex derivatives and credit-default swaps that no one really understands it creates a massive risk to the American economy. The same practices that led to the financial crisis of 08 continue. Obama's attempt at financial reform (Dodd-Frank legislation) has been strategically esmasculated by the banks (and their puppet politicians) over the course of the past 3 years through lobbying and litigation.

In addition, banks are finding new ways to make profits by teaming up with colleges and universities. Banks now provide the plastic cards loaded with financial aid for students. Universities save money because they do not need to print out checks and send them in the mail and banks win because they charge for things like "lack of documentation fee" and for using a PIN instead of signing at a retail store. Consider that total college debt in the US has now exceeded $1 trillion. A recent study by the US Public Interest Research Group's Education Fund found that more than 40% of college students are affected by this (about 9 million) and the median annual fee per student is $49. Do the math. And this is the tip of the iceberg.

Banking is ought to be a seriously prioritized issue for those of rooted in a faith tradition and all "people of conscience," especially in an election season which has already (isn't the general election still 5 months away?) shattered records on campaign contributions in the aftermath of the disastrous 2010 Supreme Court Citizens United ruling. As Democratic Senator Dick Durbin (D) famously said, referring to Congress:

...the banks — hard to believe in a time when we’re facing a banking crisis that many of the banks created — are still the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill. And they frankly own the place.

No matter how hard we try, we simply cannot find any place in the biblical narrative to justify a bank charging interest (usury) on a loan. There's a reason for this: historically, there's been an epidemic of rich and powerful people who get richer and more powerful by giving oppressive loans with monstrous interest to poor people who cannot pay them back and have to foreclose on what they own. This is the real meaning/context behind the story of the rich man's rejection of discipleship in Mark 10:

Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, ‘You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.’ When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many properties.

We've slid down a slippery slope in Western Civilization on this issue over the past 500 years. And we keep on sliding. Because we are called to be lobbyists for "the least of these" (Matthew 25) and because we are committed to prophetically following Jesus into the Temple to overturn their tables of the unjust bankers (Mark 11:15-19), we must be vigilant in our quest to protect the most vulnerable among us from the captialist predatory strategies of banks and financial institutions.

Indeed, there are some very simple action steps for us to take. At the same time that Bank of America seeks to foreclose on 10,000 homes per day, we can transfer our money from big banks to credit unions. We can cut back on using our debit and credit cards--these services charge retail stores EVERY time we purchase something. The more we use cash, the more we can cut into banks profits.

But we must fight for structural change too. Remember, not only did President Bush and Congress combine to bailout these financial institutions with $700 billion in taxpayers' money, but the Federal Reserve secretly gave out $16 trillion in no-interest loans to these same banks (only a congressional audit exposed this fact). Do you know how much profit we would make if we had access to billions of no-interest loans?

These "authorities" could have used this massive load of cash to bailout homeowners and business owners who have lost trillions of dollars since the 2008 crisis. These "authorities" could have brought charges on bank executives who participated in fraudulent behavior that was against the law. These "authorities" could have attached strict regulations to their bailout money so that our economic system would be protected (like it was from the 1930s through 1970s before deregulation became sexy). These "authorities" have made these decisions for a reason: they are given millions in campaign contributions from these same banks and finacial institutions. These "authorities" can only be held accountable if a movement of millions demands change through the ballot box.

Jesus was forced to take up the cross after he confronted these "authorities." Those who claim to follow Jesus are called to take up the cross too.
_______________________________________________
Epilogue:
Here's what the securities and investment industry has given in campaign contributions over the past decade. This is a bipartisan bust:

Here's what Salon's Glenn Greenwald recently wrote:

And then there’s the always-annoying fact that Wall Street poured far more of its money into President Obama’s 2008 campaign than it did into John McCain’s, then placed large numbers of its former lobbyists and officials in key administration positions beyond just Summers and Tim Geithner, then received full-scale protection for the crimes leading to the 2008 financial crisis. Thus far, the banking industry — angered by Obama’s tepid anti-oligarch rhetoric and symbolic Election Year populist proposals, and excited to elect one of their own — has donated substantially more to Romney than Obama. It remains to be seen if that trend continues, but whatever else is true, the Democratic Party has been the recipient of ample amounts of Wall Street largesse for two decades now, and with good reason.

Who Would Jesus Deport?

We Christians follow a refugee Messiah.
Ched Myers

At the end of his one-hour lecture on immigration in a jam-packed, standing-room-only auditorium at Cerritos College this morning, a student blessed Ched Myers: I thought it was really cool how you connected all of this to the Bible. The sincerity of this 19-year-old shimmered for me. Could anyone do a better job summing up the significance of what Myers and his wife Elaine Enns are up to? No.

I am convinced that no one on this planet intertwines as many disciplines as Myers does with his reading of Scripture: history, political science, economics, psychology and on and on and on. And this is precisely how Bible-reading must be. For instance, how is it possible that finally, after three decades of Christian faith, I have been presented with the idea that Jesus and his parents (Jose & Maria, as Myers calls them) were, in fact, undocumented refugees when he was born in a feeding trough in Bethlehem? After all, how else could we possibly explain why Jose traveled from Nazareth to his family's ancestral town and, sure enough, not one of his ancestors lived there anymore?

Like Jose and his entire family, the current influx of immigrants into El Norte have been pushed by economic and political forces (war, NAFTA, etc) harnessed and unleashed on them by the United States (see this if you doubt it). In other words, they don't come to "our country" because we have Disneyland. They come to survive economically. Just like they always have:

And, as Myers points out with his next slide, don't be so quick to claim that Hispanics are dominating the population charts--in fact, the Germans have for decades:

So, as it turns out, we are all immigrants. And Myers, a 5th generation Californian whose great-great-grandfather became an American when the U.S. ceded stole California from Mexico in 1848, ought to know. But all of this is in the Bible, you know? Myers will eventually get to a book project on Genesis 1-11, what he calls the first subversive literature in the history of the world. The Church has always read it only theologically. But when we read it through the lens of history and politics and economics, we hear the voice of God warning us of the tragedy that comes with civilization: the hatred of Cain, the hoarding of Noah's neighbors and the hubris of Babel.

This is the kind of God whom Myers exposes: the One who can only care for everyone by adamantly privileging those on the periphery of society. This One bubbles and boils from below because the goodies never seem to trickle-down when they are gifted to those who sit ruling from above. As Myers says, "the poor folk are the protaganists of history." And, sure enough, when we pursue justice it all actually connects to the Bible. Good to know in a country where you can buy one of these at a gas station:

*For more on Ched Myers and Elaine Enns, see this.

2012 Already?

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 (all other things being equal) than one where it does not, but our discharge of this civil duty will be more morally serious if we take it less seriously.
John Howard Yoder

Democracy is a practice. It is an ongoing form of citizen engagement and we cannot allow ourselves to be lulled into either complacency or cynacism.
Robert Reich

The stewardship of influence is at the heart of advocacy.
Alexia Salvatierra

We survived the Cinco de Mayo weekend so you know what that means. Summer? No, the Election season is upon us. That's right, the actual general election is not until November, but Obama officially kicked off his campaign this week (it has unofficially been percolating the past couple of months). Unfortunately, electoral politics has largely become a spectacle (as opposed to democratic) and event (as opposed to a process). Spectacles create spectators while processes birth participants. Over the course of the next year, will you commit to actively join with us in a quest to infuse justice, compassion and equality into our political system. We need people of conscience, all you with a prophetic imagination, addicted to consciousness-raising and bearing witness, to stay engaged and help build an alternative movement instead of coping with the dysfunction by hiding in cynacism, apathy and indifference. Here are 5 ways we can shift the focus:

1. Super-PACs: as a result of the 2010 Citizen's United Supreme Court Decision, corporations and unions and wealthy individuals can now flood millions of dollars of campaign contributions to either or both of the Presidential candidates (and congressional candidates). These are undisclosed contributions. We do not know who is giving, but we do know how many give (a few) and how much is given (a ton). Association breeds assimilation. Candidates who receive these funds and achieve electoral victory owe the hand that feeds them. This is the simple answer to why candidate Obama of 2008 became corporate Obama on January 20, 2009. No matter what any political expert says about the economy being the key to the election, the real factor is this enormous amount of unaccountable cash flooding into our already dysfunctional system. In order to retrieve our democracy, we must do away with this elitist kingmaking.

Act Now: demand full disclosure—-put it at the top of your list of non-negotiable issues that Presidential and Congressional candidates must address.

2. Two Equally Bad Choices: this is not Obama versus Romney. It's Obomney versus Us. There are simply too many problematic bipartisan (the difference between GOP and Dems is undiscernable) policy stances that we are stuck with in the American 2-party system. Examples? How bout the $700 billion solution to the financial crisis (the official audit actually exposed a $16 trillion bailout)? How bout the decade of conventional wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and Yemen? How bout the murder of innocent civilians at the hands of air force commanders controling drones from Nevada? How bout the failure to extend habeas corpus to suspected terrorists in Gitmo and other secretive prisons? How bout the renewal of the US Patriot Act, giving the government unprecedented leverage in listening in and looking on to our private lives? How bout the free market fundamentalism that imagines we will have higher quality and cheaper medical care, healthier food, safer roads & bridges, better education and more ecological transportation with less investment & regulation from government? How bout the record number of undocumented deportations under the Obama Administration (take that Bush!)? How bout the proposal to "broaden the tax base" to tackle the national debt? How bout neither party fighting for marriage equality? How bout the utter absence of robust solutions to eliminate poverty?

Act Now: expose the lie that the “culture war” actually exists—-the real issue is that there exists an elite “establishment” that consists of the political leaders funded by their corporate sponsors who own the media & military-industrial complex endorsed by celebrities worshipped by the people

3. But...We Still Ought to Discern the Partisan Differences: don’t get me wrong, there are differences between the 2 major political parties—-both in style and substance. It seems like just about every week that another Republican leader comes out with an expose on just how far to the right and unwilling to compromise the GOP has become (see this, this, this and this).

The Republicans have become the party of “no” since losing the reins of the federal government in ’06 and ’08. Consider the public option (a blend of government and free market competition) and the individual mandate in the Obama’s health care reform package. Several leading GOP politicians have flip-flopped on both of those issues. And most GOP leaders continue to cling to ideological arguments defending climate-change denial, “traditional” marriage and supply-side economics that have been more-or-less blown out of the water by studies and events on the ground. On policy, the two parties have significant differences on many issues ranging from immigration to abortion to health care to education to deficit-reduction. We ought to seek out and tell the truth about these different positions over and over again.

Act Now: Refuse to go along with the false hypothesis that both parties are equally the problem in regards to the gridlock and complete lack of creative energy in DC. And refuse to carry on a poliical dialogue that is rooted in emotionalism rather than actual policy proposals. In other words, don't vote for someone baed on which one you'd more want to get a beer with or who has more experience in the business world.

4. The Role of Faith: all eyes are on Romney and his ability to convert conservative Evangelicals to his cause. We ought to have zero tolerance any time Romney is demonized for being a part of "a cult" and any time it is even insinuated that Obama is a Muslim. These are largely fear-based attacks. We we should, however, be massively concerned about is how the Bible is used to advocate for which policies are important and which are not. Rick Warren famously published his 5 non-negotiables and sent it to every member of his congregation in '04:

1. What does each candidate believe about abortion and protecting the lives of unborn children?
2. What does each candidate believe about using unborn babies for stem-cell harvesting?
3. What does each candidate believe about homosexual marriage?
4. What does each candidate believe about human cloning?
5. What does each candidate believe about euthanasia - the killing of elderly and invalids?

Warren was emphatic about the prioritized "biblical" nature of these particular 5 issues:

To me, they’re not even debatable because God's Word is clear on these issues. In order to live a purpose-driven life -- to affirm what God has clearly stated about his purpose for every person he creates -- we must take a stand by finding out what the candidates believe about these five issues, and then vote accordingly.

Bold. Here are 5 non-negotiables that, in my humble conviction, are more thought-provoking and at home in the biblical narrative of a God who created the word and is absolutely determined to redeem it through all those who hunger and thirst for justice:

A. We represent a spiritual-political movement that vigilantly promotes LIFE

In the womb, from the bomb and in the slum, God cares about all of creation, from humanity to plants to every creature on every hill. We are finding more and more that this life-stance often confronts "the bottom line" head on. Sometimes, we need to intellegently regulate the marketplace in order to protect vulnerable and oppressed life.

B. We represent a spiritual-political movement that vigilantly promotes limiting the POWERS

Like Jesus, we go to battle with forms of government, media, business and, yes, religion that go beyond their God-ordained vocations. When these powers seek more and more power, they become god-like, a form of idolatry that inevitably leads to the de-humanization and destruction of our world. With the Tea Party movement, we say "amen" to less taxes on the poor and middle class, as well as lowering the national debt, and with the anti-war movement, we say "amen" to less spending and power for the "military-industrial complex" (so coined by GOP President Eisenhower).

C. We represent a spiritual-political movement that vigilantly promotes THE OTHER
Some people, in different pockets of our globe, hate the United States of America, not because of our freedoms and our Christianity, but because we have used these freedoms and faith to grow our wealth at the expense of others. We have systemically dominated "the other," both at home and abroad. The immigrant, the homosexual and the Muslim often attest to the stripping away of rights and dignity under the guise of security, sanctity or suspicion. These are not the marks of a country that believes in the humane treatment of all God's children. We need a new brand of diplomacy and a new definition of patriotism.

D. We represent a spiritual-political movement that vigilantly promotes FAITH as a vital contributor to democratic living

Various faith movements and organizations have led the charge during this 200+ year American experiment. The sick have been healed, racial minorities and women have been given rights, diseases have been cured and children have been educated and protected when religious communities have thrived. Faith should be encouraged and freed to do what it does best: join God in the redemption of the world

E. We represent a spiritual-political movement that vigilantly promotes TRUTHFULNESS in a political environment of sound-bites, self-interested agendas and outright lies.

The truth shall set us free. Enough said.

Act Now: hold faith leaders accountable by calling out (with love and gentleness) biblical interpretation and policy stances that forsake peace, justice, the poor, the oppressed and lack the courage to confront the establishment. And let's hold secular leaders accountable by insisting that faith certainly ought to be a robust aspect of socio-political dialogue (while, of course, being sensitive to our non-religious brothers and sisters).

5. The Progressive Dilemma*: where do we go from here? Both political parties have moved to the right, advocating furiously for the status-quo (something Jesus, King & Gandhi would have never imagined). As Bill Maher said recently, "The Democrats have moved right and the Republicans have moved right into a mental hospital." But seriously, this is going to be a tough year for us. Obama the candidate was more progressive and more courageous. We'll naturally have a lot of skepticism this time around. We ought to be skeptical and we ought to voice it. With our friends, neighbors, co-workers. Eloquently. Passionately. Gently. Always stating what we are for as much as what we are against. Committed to a personal lifestyle (which, by the way, is always political) of simplicity, sustainability and sincerity. We have a vital stewardship of influence and who will be influenced without actions that back up our message? After all, as Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh writes, "Our life must be our message."

Act Now: refuse to settle for a broken 2-party system and join up with movements that are committed to building a better world...for everyone. Join this, this, this, this and/or this.

*See this for a deeper articulation of what it means to be "progressive."

The Empty Tomb

...declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord...
Romans 1:4

If the gospel isn't good news for everybody, then it isn't good news for anybody. And this is because the most powerful things happen when the church surrenders its desire to convert people and convince them to join. It is when the church gives itself away in radical acts of service and compassion, expecting nothing in return, that the way of Jesus is most vividly put on display.
Rob Bell

Many Jews in the first century believed in "the Resurrection from the dead," a day when the God who created the heavens and the earth would plant his feet on this world and raise the righteous ones to eternal life in God’s Kingdom. This "end-time"’ expectation was contested within Judaism, but it was an ultimate hope for many. The Pharisee Saul believed fervently in this hope, and on his road to Damascus to arrest those pesky Jews for Jesus, he was confronted by the resurrected Jesus himself!

Saul became the Apostle Paul after 3 days of physical blindness and spiritual illumination. It seems, rather strangely, that this long-hoped-for day of Resurrection had actually come in this crucified Servant-King Jesus from the out-of-the-way town called Nazareth. However, God inaugurated the ‘end-times’ in Jesus partially, as a foretaste, a first-fruit of a still future reality for all of God’s people. In Jesus’ resurrection, God vindicated Jesus’ interpretation (both his teaching and lifestyle) of what the kingdom of God was (and is) all about:

the vulnerable and marginalized are given dignity and priority, forgiveness and reconciliation is bestowed in relationships, neighbors (and even enemies) are served and loved, possessions are shared, illnesses and addictions are healed, lust and sexual perversion are shelved, and the whole world—-both Jew and Gentile—-are invited to participate in what God is doing to redeem his creation.

Resurrected life is offered to all…now! But we participate in the kingdom of God only by signing on to the cross: a death to self and the "common sense" of our culture. As the 20th century American prophet Martin Luther King said in Chicago months before his assassination:

The cross we bear precedes the crown we wear. To be a Christian one must take up his cross, with all of its difficulties and agonizing and tension-packed content and carry it until that very cross leaves its marks upon us and redeems us to that more excellent way which comes only through suffering.

Just 25 years after Jesus death and resurrection, the Apostle Paul pleaded with the small Christian community of Jews and Gentiles in Rome to participate in this death and resurrection way:

Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. [Romans 6:4-6]

Those baptized into citizenship in God’s international Kingdom pledge to crucify our old selves in order to live freely in "the whole new world" (II Corinthians 5:17; Galatians 6:15) of Jesus’ Way. Eternity starts with Jesus' Resurrection and will continue on earth with the resurrection of everything...someday soon! As Bible scholar NT Wright often says,

Jesus's resurrection is the beginning of God's new project not to snatch people away from earth to heaven but to colonize earth with the life of heaven.

Or put more cleverly (as Wright):

Heaven is important, but it is not the end of the world.

Our hope lies not in a disembodied heaven or an escapist rapture from the world. We long for a renewal of all things (Romans 8) and we anticipate that by living out our vocation as the resurrection people in our own unique contexts now--as we daily pray,

Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

On Easter Sunday, EasyYolk joins Christians all over the world to celebrate God’s vindication of Jesus’ way, but we also renew our vows to journey with him to Jerusalem, bearing the cross, confronting power structures that enslave many. Today, this means committing to ridding our own self-absorption and self-gratification in order to participate in the energizing of the downtrodden with a team of fellow healers and givers and servants. It also means critiquing the counterfeit narratives cleverly told by commercials, print ads, movies, songs and websites. But we are not alone in this hard task of continuing Jesus legacy:

If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in y'all, he who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in y'all.
Romans 8:11 (I use the "Southern translation" to note the Greek word for "you" is plural--Paul writes letters to communities, not autonomous individuals)

If the resurrection of Jesus is "true," then we, the people of God, are empowered by Something far greater than anything we can calculate with our 5 senses. On this Easter, we are awe-struck with the notion that God's reign comes to this world "from below," through the suffering, humble service of the cross-bearers who cling to the power of God's Spirit unleashed on the world.

That said, we get strength from our solidarity with those abandoned by the powers-that-be: the Third World farmers priced out of the market by Western policies and multinational corporations, the undocumented workers in crowded apartments, the Palestinians locked in Gaza, the homosexuals who yearn to be understood and humanized, the unemployed laborers who long to join "the American work week," the uninsured pushed out because of pre-existing conditions in order to satisfy shareholders, the women and children who have been victims of abuse, the elderly who have been forgotten and all those who have been taught to hate themselves because they are the wrong size, color, gender, sexual orientation, religion or political affliation. These "crucified ones" give us the perspective and the power to "walk in newness of life."

A Maundy Prayer

Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, and all of them drank from it.
Mark 14:23

The New Testament is a brutal destroyer of human illusions. If you follow Jesus and don't end up dead, it appears you have some explaining to do. The stark signifier of the human condition is one who spoke up for love and justice and was done to death for his pains. The traumatic truth of human history is a mutilated body.
Terry Eagleton

A Last Supper Prayer Inspired By Mark's Gospel

We acknowledge that you call ALL of your disciples to the ultimate price of social nonconformity: If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. (8:34-35)

Lord, we long to be a part of a more radical form of Christian faith. We come to this Lord’s Supper with an emphasis on "participation in Christ, not substitution by Christ."

We acknowledge that we are sick and we need the doctor—-we are enslaved by the power of sin and we long for liberation. (2:17)

Lord, liberate us from self-absorption and ego-centeredness—-free us from the idols of wealth (desire to possess), prestige (the drive to be someone) and power (the will to dominate others).

We acknowledge that Jesus came to bind the strong man, the powers-that-be that enslave humanity. (3:27)

Lord, liberate us from the economic, political and religious forces—--as well as the media—-that hold us captive—-the apathy, the trivializing commentary, our narcissism and the insatiable appetites that come from what most people might say is just "the way things are."

We acknowledge that Jesus redefined family—-our brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers are all those who pledge to do God’s will with their lives. (3:35)

Lord, transform us through the patterns of this alternative family and give us the strength, energy and discernment to do your will throughout the entire week.

We acknowledge that we live as the people of the new covenant in a culture where the seed of the gospel is cast ‘among the thorns,’ limiting it from bearing abundant fruit. (4:18)

Lord, free us from the cares of the world…the lure of wealth…the desire for other things.

We acknowledge that you fed the hungry and downtrodden by delegating your abundance mentality, through creativity and ingenuity, to your disciples, but that the hard work can only be done through Christ, not our own efforts or control. (Mark 6:41; 8:6)

Lord, saturate us with your compassion for humanity—-the world is full of sheep without a shepherd. Give us vision to give generously and abundantly to those in our own tight-knit community today, to those living in the US where real unemployment is in double-digits and to the rest of the world where a billion people live on less than $2 per day.

We acknowledge that your kingdom gives status to the vulnerable and marginalized, symbolized in the children that you not only embraced but then beckoned your disciples to do the same (Mark 10:13ff).

Lord, let us be a community that values people differently than the domination system of our culture, placing the unknown, hidden and quietly faithful ones before celebrities, political leaders and financially successful. Let us be a voice for the unborn, but also for children impoverished, abused, abandoned and neglected. Let us ponder those without status in our own culture: the elderly, the immigrant, the homosexual, the sexually abused and those who bear all the blame for the economic crisis that affects so many.

We acknowledge that your leadership model is not about bringing attention to ourselves or gaining positions of power to use it for leverage. You call us to be servants to each other and the rest of the world.

Lord, we pledge to join your procession, riding the lowly donkey, with the poor and downtrodden hoping in you to bring the world to rights. (9:35; 10:43)

We acknowledge that out of all the characters in Mark’s story about Jesus, we are most like the rich man who refused your procession because he loved his possessions too much. (10:22)

Lord, we repent and resist this entitlement and privilege of living in southern Orange County...and all over suburban pockets of the United States. Give us the perspective of the periphery so that we can see clearly that you side with those who are down-and-out and are longing for mercy.
_____________________________________________
An Alternative Last Supper Narrative?

Shot Rings Out In The Memphis Sky

There is no way a ten-cent white boy could develop a plan to kill a million-dollar black man.
James Bevel, friend & colleague of Martin Luther King

If you want to understand King, you must look at Jesus.
James Lawson

When I took up the cross I recognized it's meaning. The cross is something that you bear, and ultimately, that you die on.
Martin Luther King

Today, on the hump day of Holy Week, we honor Martin Luther King on the 44th anniversary of his murder. We acknowledge that most of the conventional wisdom concerning what happened on that Memphis night is inaccurate. In 1999, the King family won a wrongful death civil trial that revealed that co-conspirators, including U.S. government agencies, were involved in the King assassination. The King family was awarded $100, proving that they did not sue for the money, but for the simple, but tremendously important, recognition that other "powers" were at play in King's death.

William Stone, the lawyer representing the King family in 1999, explained that these "powers" wanted King dead for a reason:

...the overall coordinating role of Government and the powerful economic interests which decided that MLK had to be removed from the scene because of his increasingly effective opposition to the war and, perhaps, more significantly, his commitment to bring upwards of 500,000 of the wretched of America to Washington, not to march but to encamp and daily visit their elected representatives to demand the restoration of the social welfare/health and educational programs which had been severely, even terminally, cut in deference to the military budgetary increases.

Like Jesus, King's death was at the hands of those whom he confronted with his life and teachings. Ched Myers helpfully compares the two:

Like King, Jesus was a member of an ethnic community that suffered great discrimination at the hands of a world power. Both of them:

•spent time listening to the pain of the dispossessed and broken among their own people, and advocating on their behalf;
•worked to build popular movements of identity, renewal and resistance to injustice;
•proclaimed the vision of God's "Beloved Community" in ways that got them into trouble with both local and national authorities;
•were widely perceived as operating in the biblical prophetic tradition by both allies and adversaries;
•animated dramatic public protests resulting in arrest and jail;
•were deemed such a threat to national security that their inner circles were infiltrated by government informers; and
•in the end, were killed through an official conspiracy because of their work and witness.

Myers concurs with Lawson, but also encourages present-day prophetic Christians to flip the script: to pattern our lives according to the Jesus of the Gospels interpreted through the lens of the life, teachings and death of King:

If we want to understand Jesus, we would do well to look at King. Indeed, the more I study the civil rights movement, the more the gospels come alive. Remembering the challenges that Dr. King faced trying to build a social movement for racial justice in the teeth of the hostile system of American apartheid can help us re-imagine how difficult it must have been for Jesus to proclaim the Kingdom of God in a world dominated by imperial Rome two thousand years ago.

Most Christians, of course, tend to think of Jesus in a highly spiritualized, even romanticized way, ignoring the fact that he lived and died in times that were as contentious and conflicted as our own. The Nazarene's world was not the fantasy-scape we so often imagine the Bible to inhabit. It was tough terrain, not so unlike that of the U.S. in 1968: a world of racial discrimination and class conflict, of imperial wars abroad and political repression at home, all presided over by a political leadership that (directly or indirectly) engineered the demise of the prophet, then issued stern but pious calls for law and order in the wake of his "tragic death"...

In our journey through Holy Week may we ponder how we might bear the cross just like both King and Jesus, confronting the social and political forces that keep people oppressed and dehumanized. As it turns out, discipleship is hard work. It might, in fact, demand everything.

The Coin Flip

Then they sent to him some Pharisees and some Herodians to trap him in what he said. And they came and said to him, ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality, but teach the way of God in accordance with truth. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not? Should we pay them, or should we not?’ But knowing their hypocrisy, he said to them, ‘Why are you putting me to the test? Bring me a denarius and let me see it.’ And they brought one. Then he said to them, ‘Whose image [ikon] is this, and whose inscription [epigraphe]?’ They answered, ‘Caesar’s.’ Jesus said to them, ‘Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ And they were utterly amazed at him.
Mark 12:13

Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of leaders…and millions have been killed because of this obedience…Our problem is that people are obedient allover the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty.
Howard Zinn

During this Holy Week, and the rest of the year, we yearn for a movement of people who find biblical authority in its ability to script us into passionate participation with the personal, social, political and economic challenges of our day. Just like the original disciples in the Gospel narratives, we, too, are convinced that Jesus continues to be present with us as we imaginatively find ourselves as real-life characters inside the story, creatively finding connections with our own reality.

As such, we humbly and critically study each Gospel episode, groping for historical and literary aids that bring the text alive and light a fire in our hearts as they burn in our journey with Jesus (Luke 24:32).

In Mark 11:13-17, a small snippet of his final, pre-crucifixion Tuesday (115 verses in Mark!), Jesus is confronted by an unlikely coalition of Jewish groups that rarely found common ground. Their desire to "destroy" Jesus goes all the way back to Mark 3:6, creating deep tension in a "competition of kingdoms:" God versus Caesar [Mark 1:14-15]. N.T. Wright helpfully describes the polarizing context,

If Jesus is Lord, then Caesar is not.

The interpretation of this passage has been heavily influenced by Augustinian and Lutheran notions of dividing our world into two "cities" or "kingdoms": the spiritual and the political/economic/social. Today, this passage is cited by both pastors and politicians to urge obedience to the government, while seeking a spiritual and future salvation through the church. As Gunnery Sargeant Hartman in Stanley Kubrick's Full Metal Jacket says, "You can give your heart to Jesus, but your ass belongs to the Marine Corp." This, essentially, retains power for both pastor and political leader, respectively. It's a convenient coaltion.

However, through the Dead Sea scroll findings and other scholarship, we have learned more in the past 5 decades about what Jesus' culture was like than we knew in the previous 1950 years combined. Here's the language of a more compelling, scholarly interpretation from Kairos Europa, a European network of ecumenical initiatives and groups, working for a Europe for justice:

This is the catch-question that is posed to Jesus. What
does he say?

1. I have absolutely nothing to do with this Roman
money (”bring me a coin and let me see it“).

2. It bears the image of the emperor, who allows himself
to be venerated as a god on it - that is idolatry.

3. Therefore, give the emperor this idolatrous money
back, i.e., have nothing to do with it.

4. You, though, that bear the image of God, give yourselves
back to God completely.

When Mark's story, from start to finish, is read as a critique of both Jewish and Roman claims to power, then this coin episode can be more clearly understood as just one more event in a gripping narrative about what or who really is on the throne, ruling over the entire known world. Jesus' questions about "image" and "inscription" should be read in light of the wider echoes of Scripture ('So God created humankind in his image'...Genesis 1:27) and striving towards the awfully beautiful conclusion of Mark's story of Jesus on the cross ('The inscription of the charge against him read, "The King of the Jews"...Mark 15:26) as confessed by, of all people(!), the Roman soldier ("the son of God"...15:39). God's image is stamped on all humankind (even Caesar!) and Jesus is the true "king of the Jews" (not Herod) and "son of God" (not Caesar).

With this boldly communicated, the Gospel of Mark leaves her hearers 40 years after Jesus' death/resurrection with this proclamation: "Give to Caesar what belongs to him and give to God what belongs to him." Jesus continues to extend this challenge to us today: who or what is our ultimate allegiance and how might that cost us everything?

Casting Out The Powers

Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
Mark 11:12

Then they came to Jerusalem. And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple, and he overturned the tables of the money-changers and the seats of those who sold doves; and he would not allow anyone to carry anything through the temple. He was teaching and saying, ‘Is it not written,
“My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations”?
But you have made it a den of robbers.’
Mark 11:15-17

There are many causes I would die for. There is not a single cause I would kill for.
Gandhi

At the end of the procession into Jerusalem on a baby donkey, nothing happens.

At least that is what appears to be the case. Jesus actually gets his scouting report on Sunday night for how he will organize his protest on Monday morning in the crowded Temple. This is an important point because Jesus' "Temple cleansing" has been read for centuries as a spur-of-the-moment fury of righteous messianic anger. However, biblical scholars like Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Ched Myers and John Howard Yoder have presented a compelling case (each independently in slightly different ways) that the Temple action was a premeditated act of political protest. If this is so, just what exactly happened and why was he protesting?

Jesus has choreographed a chaotic demonstration, overturning tables and blockading the daily marketplace activities in one small section of the huge court of the Gentiles (3x5 football fields in size). ALL bible scholars (across the theological spectrum) only really agree on two things in this episode: (A) that, indeed, Jesus historically did something in the Temple and (B) that this action somehow lead to his arrest and death a few days later. The scholarly proposals focus on 3 issues:

1. Economic Exploitation by the religious leaders--these powerful aristocrats were using the very dwelling place of God to oppress the peasant class of mostly tenant farmers who would come to the Temple to pay dues, make sacrifices to God and worship. These economic practices kept the bottom 95% in their place.

2. The Violent Political Vocation of Jewish Rebels--Mark wrote his gospel about 40 years after the events of Jesus' life. In about 70AD, Palestine was in a crisis of warfare and chaos as rebels stormed the temple to take it over from the Roman-Empire-collaborating religious leaders. These rebels were turning the vocation of Israel, "the light of the world," into a violent people on the edge of the Empire. In 70AD, the Temple was destroyed by hordes of Roman soldiers who finally put down the rebellion. Jesus cites Jeremiah 7 during his Temple protest. Here are some of the verses leading to the passage he quotes:

For if you truly amend your ways and your doings, if you truly act justly one with another, if you do not oppress the alien, the orphan, and the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own hurt, then I will dwell with you in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your ancestors for ever and ever…Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your sight? You know, I too am watching, says the LORD.
Jeremiah 7:5-7, 11

'Robbers' is the greek word lestes which is more accurately translated 'rebels' or 'brigands,' groups of violently resisting marauders. The Temple had become a hiding place for these rebel groups whose violent solutions were contrary to God's original vocation for Israel: a light to the nations.

3. The Substitution of Worship for Justice--throughout the Hebrew Bible, the prophets consistently call on Israel to pledge themselves to social justice for the most vulnerable members of their community. God's people would naturally forsake the real notion of worship [reflecting God's care for the oppressed and marginalized] for the sacrificial system and other worship traditions of the Temple.

The key to interpreting this Temple incident hovers around two aspects of Mark's story-telling genius. First, Mark 'frames' this episode with figs:

On the following day, when they came from Bethany, he was hungry. Seeing in the distance a fig tree in leaf, he went to see whether perhaps he would find anything on it. When he came to it, he found nothing but leaves, for it was not the season for figs. He said to it, ‘May no one ever eat fruit from you again.’ And his disciples heard it...In the morning as they passed by, they saw the fig tree withered away to its roots. Then Peter remembered and said to him, ‘Rabbi, look! The fig tree that you cursed has withered.’
Mark 11:12-14, 20-21

In a few instances in the Hebrew Bible, the fig tree is used as a metaphor for Israel. God, through the prophets, was asking whether Israel, as God's agent in this world, would "bear fruit" or not? If not, they would wither. In this episode, Jesus condemns the fig tree...and the Temple.

Second, earlier in Mark's story, Jesus is first confronted by the Jerusalem scribes in chapter 3, where Jesus offers a peculiar parable about his own vocation:

And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He has Beelzebul, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.’ And he called them to him, and spoke to them in parables, ‘How can Satan cast out Satan? If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.
Mark 3:22-27

Jesus is the one who comes to "bind the strong man," the system that economically-politically-religiously oppresses the bottom 95% of Palestinian society. Just as Jesus, throughout his earlier ministry, "casts out" demons from those oppressed by the system, he "casts out" (same greek verb) those oppressors in the Temple in the last days of his life...then "the house (temple) can be plundered."

Jesus' confrontation with the Powers-that-be certainly leads to his death as the action heats up in the days ahead. How effective were his prophetic protests? Perhaps it all depends on how messianic communities continue his legacy of protesting all sorts of economic and political injustice today, including the various ways that religious leaders legitimate the oppressive system. The powerful coalition of banks & corporate executives, political leaders and their conservative religious legitimators (hijacking Jesus and shifting his significance into a spiritual or future salvation) stifle God's Dream of abundance and deliverance to all God's Children. The vocation of kingdom citizenship has been passed on to us in all of our diverse locales. How can we muster the Spirit-led imagination to creatively lead protests, stage boycotts and simplify lifestyles that illuminate God's new creation in the midst of an old, broken system?

Here Comes The King

When they were approaching Jerusalem, at Bethphage and Bethany, near the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples and said to them, “Go into the village ahead of you, and immediately as you enter it, you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden; untie it and bring it. If anyone says to you, ‘Why are you doing this?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it and will send it back here immediately"...Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their cloaks on it; and he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road, and others spread leafy branches that they had cut in the fields...Then he entered Jerusalem and went into the temple; and when he had looked around at everything, as it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the twelve.
Mark 11:1-3, 7-8, 11

No one really knows why they are alive until they know what they'd die for.
Martin Luther King

Today, those of us in the Christian Tradition will begin our journey through Holy Week near the Mount of Olives (echoes of the final battle between Israel and her enemies in Zechariah 14:2-4), approaching Jerusalem on a young colt never ridden. Those desperately searching for spontaneity in this episode will be disappointed. Jesus has a strategic plan to expose the counterfeit nature of those in power. He pre-arranges his transportation (colt) and preps the peasant crowds to bring symbolic tokens (leafy branches) from the fields where their "unskilled labor" usually would go unnoticed. These day laborers showed up to pay homage to this Servant-King who healed, advocated for and pledged solidarity to their Cause. After all, this was their lord and savior, not Caesar in Rome or Herod in his seaside palace.

What precisely was this People's King up to? This was street theater, imitating the Roman leaders on triumphant horses, with their soldiers and weapons, intimidating the crowds into submission at the start of the Jewish holiday festival. As Bible scholar and activist Ched Myers writes:

...the theatrics of the procession may have been meant by Mark as a kind of parody, contrasting Jesus' destiny of the cross with the popular messianic expectations of the disciples/crowds/readers.

The Prince of Peace came riding in on an unbroken colt from a poor village on the outskirts of town. It looked something like this:



Or this:



When scores of people come together in their quest for humanity, to demand dignity, they are caught up in a whirlwind of love and solidarity. They've been kicked down for so long and then one of their own, someone special, anointed even, comes along and unveils God's Dream for the World and they've just gotta join in--which can only mean marching on and rising up and sittin' in. Confrontation.

Which leads us to Jerusalem, where the Real Lord--the Dream Giver--got off the colt and went right into the Temple, the very center of God's universe--to have a "look around," getting the scouting report and strategizing for the next chapter in this campaign of liberation. But until then, it's back to Bethany for a good night sleep. It's gonna be a big day tomorrow.

The Era of Full Disclosure

...I worried greatly when the Bush administration cut back crucial supports for mothers and babies such as the Children's Health Insurance Program; Women, Infants, and Children; food stamps; and Pell Grants for college education. I predicted those cutbacks would increase abortions in 2002 among pregnant women who feared they would not have the support needed to raise their baby and keep their life together economically.
Glen Stassen

[Bank of America] is like the world's worst-behaved teenager, taking your car and running over kittens and fire hydrants on the way to Vegas for the weekend, maxing out your credit cards in the three days you spend at your aunt's funeral. They're out of control, yet they'll never do time or go out of business, because the government remains creepily committed to their survival, like overindulgent parents who refuse to believe their 40-year-old live-at-home son could possibly be responsible for those dead hookers in the backyard.
Matt Taibbi

...far above all rulers and authorities and powers and dominions.
Ephesians 1:21

Because EasyYolk has always been a blog dedicated to truth-seeking, and therefore vigilant transparency, the recent comments from Arizona State Legislator Terri Proud (R) ought to be considered:

Personally I'd like to make a law that mandates a woman watch an abortion being performed prior to having a "surgical procedure". If it's not a life it shouldn't matter, if it doesn't harm a woman then she shouldn't care, and don't we want more transparency and education in the medical profession anyway? We demand it everywhere else.

Considered. But rejected. On the basis of two key principles: (1) the "least of these": women are tremendously vulnerable and make up a huge percentage of the world's poor and oppressed people; and (2) the coercion principle: real convictions are never coerced, but compelled. This is the crucial difference between being motivated/shaped by fear and being motivated/shaped by "unarmed truth & unconditional love." As Gandhi said:

Power based on love is a thousand times more effective and permanent then the one derived from fear of punishment.

When a policy violates both of these principles it falls short of what God wills for all humanity.

Proud's conviction that women should know what they are getting into when making the awfully sensitive decision of whether or not to end a pregnancy is understandable. Unfortunately, people consistently make important decisions without knowing nearly the full extent of what goes into that decision. Transparency is vital in this era of full disclosure. However, for a government to force a woman, in the highly vulnerable position of being pregnant, to "watch an abortion being performed" before actually having an abortion is to create a coercive, fearful situation that will not equate to real convictional transformation.

For Christians, this is where church communities have historically functioned as "a thermostat that transformed the mores of society" (Martin Luther King). Highly committed faith communities can creatively advocate for the unborn by being laboratories of transparency. When churches play the societal role of being conscience-bearing, truth-seeking hubs that are committed to serving their unbelieving neighbors, then we will see hearts and minds and lifestyles changed.

This vigilant, robust commitment to transparency will mean that pastors, scholars and theologians guide faith communities through an honest reading of Scripture. In addition, it will mean that both men and women disciples will understand the best of social scientific research on abortion and families and the structures of economic (in)justice (Stassen's compelling research claims that we ought to increase government funding for vital children's programs like health insurance, education & food stamps in order to decrease abortion rates: "Economic policy and abortion are not separate issues; they form one moral imperative."). In other words, to be transparent is to be honest about what the Bible actually says about abortion (not much according to Richard Hays' The Moral Vision of the New Testament: "In sum, we have no passages dealing with abortion, though a few texts poetically declare God's providential care for all life, even before birth or conception. This gives us very little material for the construction of a normative judgment.") and what factors actually lead to more abortions.

Hopefully, this commitment to transparency will extend to areas outside the womb:

1. To the vicious disregard for God's creation within the factory farm system (which produces more than 99% of US meat).

2. To the intricacies of corporate capitalist & investment banking culture where profits trump people.

3. To the de facto racism that persists in regards to loan and job applications.

4. To the money that flows from lobbyists to political leaders in Washington and state capitols.

5. To the corporate donations that flow from the wealthy patrons of political leaders.

6. To the real causes of terrorism: America's own imperialist policies.

7. To the real causes of immigration: Western countries like the US robbing the developing world of vast amounts of resources and forcing economic policies that benefit El Norte.

8. To the choices that consumers make at restaurants and grocery stores in regards to what they put into their precious bodies.

9. To the interest rates & fees that banks levy upon their most vulnerable customers (as Matt Taibbi lamented last week).

10. The prison-industrial-complex that keeps an overwhelming number of racial/ethnic minorities locked up for petty crimes.
_________________________________________
In short, we want transparency everywhere. Where Terri Proud's abortion proposal differs from my 10 pleadings is who is being kept accountable. The litmus test is simple: the powerful & wealthy elites must have a force more powerful that shines the light on their actions. Historically vulnerable people groups like women, on the other hand, should be protected and given rights to make highly sensitive decisions about their own bodies and the life in their wombs. This decision becomes even more painful and sensitive when women are raped or suffer repeatedly in heavily patriarchal marriages or whose own lives may be at stake during a high-risk pregnancy.

Those of us committed to living out the way of Jesus are called to consistently criticize the powers that govern society (political, social, economic & religious--this means "government," but also corporations, media outlets and, yes, even sacred institutions like churches and religious non-profits) and energize "the least of these" among us. Surely, we have great respect for those in authority and we believe that God often works through them to organize our world (the alternative would be utter chaos), but on the cross, God "disarmed" and "exposed" these powers--and we are called to be the people who nonviolently & creatively "triumph" over them (Col 2:15), laying down our lives for the Cause of the least of these so that new life will be the result for them.

The Gospel is all about a whole new world of light birthed out of the shame and shadows. Christians are those who take both personal inventory (truth-telling, confession, etc), but also commit to a process of redeeming the structures that keep millions locked in the basement of poverty and death and disease and 2nd class citizenship. We need a real mechanism to hold back the destructive forces of patriarchy, corporate greed, homophobia, de facto racism, militarism & a complete disregard for the welfare of animals in our quest for cheap, abundant meat. As Martin Luther King said 50 years ago:

But we must go on to say that while it may be true that morality cannot be legislated, behavior can be regulated. It may be true that the law cannot change the heart but it can restrain the heartless. It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me but it can keep him from lynching me and I think that is pretty important, also.

Toxic Cultures of Violence & Greed

The sheer volume, scale and rate of killing, the way the animals form a continuous stream rather than individual creatures, makes it clear the animals are seen as raw material. The cattle are called ‘beef’ even while they’re alive — and that not only protects people from acknowledging what they’re doing and that they’re doing it to sentient beings, it’s also accurate, a reflection of the process itself.
Timothy Pachirat, Yale Political Science PHd candidate

How did we get here? [Golman Sachs] changed the way it thought about leadership. Leadership used to be about ideas, setting an example and doing the right thing. Today, if you make enough money for the firm (and are not currently an ax murderer) you will be promoted into a position of influence.
Greg Smith, former Goldman Sachs executive director and head of the firm’s United States equity derivatives business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa

There were two very important pieces that I've read in the NY Times the past 2 days that I'd like to share. First, food columnist Mark Bittman reviewed Yale political science PHd candidate Timothy Pachirat's book Every 12 Seconds, which refers to how often an animal was slaughtered at the Omaha slaughterhouse where he worked for 5 months (2500 per day). Here's how Bittman focuses the significance of Pachirat's study:

The most publicized stories about industrial agriculture represent the exceptions that prove the rule: the uncommon torture of animals by perverse individuals in rogue operations. But torture is inherent in the routine treatment of animals as widgets, and the system itself is perverse. What makes “Every Twelve Seconds” different from (for example) a Mercy for Animals exposé is, says Pachirat, “that the day-in and day-out experience produces invisibility. Industrialized agriculture perpetuates concealment at every level of the process, and rather than focusing on the shocking examples we should be focusing on the system itself.”

As Bittman adds, Pachirat's study on the "normalization of violence" extends from industrial meat production to imprisonment, war, torture, deployment of drones and other sophisticated weaponry that allow impersonal killing.

The second hit piece was from Greg Smith, who resigned today from Goldman Sachs after a dozen years on the job. When Smith joined the force, he believed in what the company was doing. Not anymore. He goes on to describe a culture that calls clients "muppets," doing whatever it takes to make profit for the company, regardless of how it affects the client:

I attend derivatives sales meetings where not one single minute is spent asking questions about how we can help clients. It’s purely about how we can make the most possible money off of them. If you were an alien from Mars and sat in on one of these meetings, you would believe that a client’s success or progress was not part of the thought process at all.

These are two must-read articles. What makes them so fascinating is the perspective of each writer who both describe first-person accounts within the highly influential cultures of industrial farming (where Americans get 99% of their food) and investment banking (which almost single-handedly brought the entire global economy to her knees in '08). As Smith writes, "You don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure out that the junior analyst sitting quietly in the corner of the room hearing about 'muppets,' 'ripping eyeballs out' and 'getting paid' doesn’t exactly turn into a model citizen."

Pachirat is not an animal rights activist or even an animal-lover at that. He's an aspiring political scientist who began asking questions about unseen violence which led him to spend time on a factory farm which led him (unexpectantly) to become a vegetarian (out of conviction for how animals were horrifically treated and what that does to an ignorant & indifferent population gorging on its flesh). He is making highly significant connections between what happens to "beef" on a farm and what happens to "suspected terrorists" (who are often later found--dead--to be nothing more than "civilians") in Pakistan and Gitmo prison.

Smith was swimming in power and wealth during these last few years at Goldman. He was not forced out. He just couldn't live within that culture of competitive greed any longer nor could he lead anyone else down that toxic route either.

"Toxic culture" is precisely what Phil Angelides called the investment banking industry on the radio today, in light of Smith NY Times editorial. Angelides is the former California treasurer who heads up the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, an investigative arm of Congress studying the lead-up to the loss of trillions of dollars of household wealth and 24 million jobs. He ultimately called for far more regulators on the job--paralleling what the US government had on the job during the savings and loan crisis in the late 80s.

These 3 voices (Pachirat, Smith & Angelides) serve as a wake-up call to a de-regulated, laissez-faire America wishing and dreaming that the violent & greedy actions of industrial farmers and investment bankers won't affect anyone else. As Martin Luther King prophetically declared 4 decades ago, we all exist in a "web of mutuality." We are in this together. It's no use ignorantly believing otherwise.

Captain Kirk & The Final Frontier

Marriage is almost as old as dirt, and it was defined in the garden between Adam and Eve. One man, one woman for life till death do you part. So I would never attempt to try to redefine marriage. And I don't think anyone else should either. So do I support the idea of gay marriage? No, I don't...

I think that it's - it's - it's unnatural. I think that it's - it's detrimental, and ultimately destructive to so many of the foundations of civilization.
Kirk Cameron, March 5, 2012, during a CNN interview

I'm a bit uncomfortable with making much out of a CNN interview with an actor talking about politics, but Kirk Cameron's comments last Friday are important because they mirror much of the understanding of "marriage" and "homosexuality" coming from the uber-powerful, privileged and wealthy Evangelical community in the United States (he may be coming to a venue near you). Cameron's statements have been critiqued and lambasted by plenty so, predictably, he issued a statement to ABC News, explaining his position:

I spoke as honestly as I could, but some people believe my responses were not loving toward those in the gay community. That is not true. I can assuredly say that it’s my life’s mission to love all people. I should be able to express moral views on social issues especially those that have been the underpinning of Western civilization for 2,000 years — without being slandered, accused of hate speech, and told from those who preach ‘tolerance’ that I need to either bend my beliefs to their moral standards or be silent when I’m in the public square.

Here's what's problematic with both what he said and how he responded:

1. First of all, using language like "unnatural," "detrimental," and "ultimately destructive" to describe a commitment (under oath!) of covenantal love and forgiveness between two people is awfully tough to defend in 2012. If he was referring to the consequences of high rates of heterosexual marital divorce in Western civilization that would be one thing. But he wasn't.

2. As far as redefining old concepts and institutions, isn't this precisely what we ought to strive to do when events on the ground call for our society to rethink them (think Galileo, Martin Luther, the Framers of the American Constitution, Frederick Douglass, Lucretia Mott & Martin Luther King)? We know far more about sexual orientation and the lives of gays and lesbians than we did even a generation ago. As more and more of our gay brothers and lesbian sisters courageously "come out" we are observing that their lives aren't much different than the rest of us. Some are adept at loving and learning and parenting. Some aren't. Just like heteros. Tradition can certainly be important. But not always.

3. During the "controversial" debate over slavery in the 19th century, there came a point in time when those in the West who supported slavery stopped using arguments like "the curse of Ham" or that it was the necessary "white man's burden" (etc). Those arguments went from (A) being accepted by most to (B) questionable to most to (
C) straight-up laughable to most. What we are observing right now in 21st century America is the first-fruits of a societal shift from B to C. Even some conservative Evangelicals (and a lot of younger Evangelicals) who think homosexuality in all forms is "sin" are no longer validating these types of comments. This, I believe, is evidenced by many conservative Christians who have a history of passion on this issue, but are now giving up. This was Michelle Bachmann's strategy on Piers Morgan this week when he asked her about gay marriage. First she gave a very un-Bachmann-like response: "I’m here as a member of Congress; I’m not here as anybody’s judge." Then, after being prodded: "I think I’ve had enough of this conversation. We’ve beaten this horse to death.” Look for this strategy to become more and more popular among conservative Evangelicals and Catholics in the years to come. They will stop the rhetoric, not because people are questioning, but because so many are laughing.

4. Cameron is adamant that calling the gay community unnatural, detrimental and destructive is not unloving. He defends his words with a shallow (albeit sincere) plea that it is his "life’s mission to love all people." I do not doubt that Cameron attempts to love all people. But even Cameron falls short of this mission from time to time. Of course, Cameron surely claims that he's just "speaking the truth in love," just like the Bible tells him to. But the truth in love ought to be spoken to those we know intimately, not generalized groups of people, especially those who have been overwhelmingly bullied and scapegoated throughout history. Love compels us to tell our alcoholic husband/father that his lifestyle is "destructive" and "detrimental," but real love keeps us from proclaiming generalized groups of people (Nazis and child molesters are exceptions) enemies of civilization.

5. And this leads to my last concern. When we analyze the future of our civilization (and certainly we must), we ought to prioritize our issues: what are those problems that the American community--the entire human community--must come together and address? As a Christian, committed to performing the biblical Script, shouldn't Cameron commit himself, as Jesus did, to energizing the poor & oppressed while criticizing those whose wealth, power & privilege were "earned" on the backs of the poor & oppressed (and this is precisely the significance of what Jesus taught and lived, leading to his arrest, torture & execution).

What is as old as dirt, since the beginning of "civilization," is, in fact, the constant oppression of "the least of these." This is what Jesus came to put an end to, rooting himself in the prophetic strand of the Hebrew Bible (the call for God's People to strive for peace and justice as a conscience & model to the world). Followers of Jesus are called to do likewise. Indeed, this task is "the gospel of the kingdom," the great commission proclaimed to the world.

And so, the Final Frontier of Western Christianity is a choice between two roads that diverge in a yellow wood: Will Christians take the road of giving voice and privilege to women, the poor, ethnic & sexual minorities, "unskilled" workers, the Global South, the physically and mentally handicapped and the undocumented? Or will Christians, as the past 30 years attests, go the route of Cameron (and a large chunk of the conservative Evangelical church he represents) and fight for policies that demonize and demoralize the least of these? If we have the courage to take the one less traveled by, it will make all the difference.

The Price of Social Nonconformity

He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?
Mark 8:34-37

Christians begin with the catastrophic.
Cornel West

The late systematic theologian and Fuller seminary professor James McClendon used to remind his students, "There should have been 13 crosses." Instead, of course, there was one. The 12 male disciples betrayed, denied or scattered (the women were at the foot of the cross witnessing the horrific event). When Jesus told his disciples to take up the cross, it only meant one thing in the 1st century. John Howard Yoder explained it well back in 1972 (The Politics Of Jesus):

The believer’s cross is no longer any and every kind of suffering, sickness, or tension, the bearing of which is demanded. The believer’s cross is, like that of Jesus, the price of social nonconformity. It is not, like sickness or catastrophe, an inexplicable, unpredictable suffering; it is the end of a path freely chosen after counting the cost…it is the social reality of representing in an unwilling world the Order to come.

Yoder was confronting the popularity of a pietistic, apolitical Jesus that was far more American than representative of what is actually in the Gospels. Yoder was not injecting anything new into the understanding of the disciple's cross, but instead reclaiming the original vision of Christian discipleship: the confrontation with oppressive power.

Here's how Ched Myers explains the Mark 8 passage in his Binding The Strong Man (1988), his socio-political commentary on the Gospel of Mark:

The threat to punish by death is the bottom line of the power of the state; fear of this threat keeps the dominant order intact. By resisting this fear and pursuing kingdom practice even at the cost of death, the disciple contributes to shattering the powers' reign of death in history. To concede the state's sovereignty in death is to refuse its authority in life.

Jesus has revealed that his messiahship means political confrontation with, not rehabilitation of, the imperial state. Those who wish to "come after him" will have to identify themselves with his subversive program. The stated risk is that the disciple will face the test of loyalty under interrogation by state authorities. If "self" is denied, the cross will be taken up, a metaphor for capital punishment on grounds of insurgency. Through these definitive choices the disciple will "follow Jesus."

Following Yoder and the liberation theologians of the 70s and 80s, Myers posits that Christianity only finds its authenticity through a rugged willingness to die for what one believes. But this is different than the American soldier who "joins up" to fight for freedom. The gospel of Jesus is always marked by a humble (not self-interested) quest for truth and a ruthless commitment to nonviolent love.

Princeton professor of African American and religious studies Cornel West says it like this:

The cross signifies unarmed truth and unconditional love crushed by the Roman empire, embodied in the flesh of a first century Palestinian Jew named Jesus.

The robust truth of West's work hinges on the the parallels between the Roman Empire of Jesus' day and our own context of "American exceptionalism" today. How do we remain faithful to Jesus' original revolution to "take up the cross" and "deny" self in the midst of socio-econmic-political structure defined by 660 military bases in more than 30 countries, skyrocketing income inequality, addiction to consumption, narcissistic obsession and indifference to the suffering of others? West spells this out more specifically:

But for me as a Christian, it means I'm looking at those in the prison industrial complex. I'm looking for the children in our dilapidated school system, in the decrepit housing, those who don't have health care and child care. So that Tom Friedmans and others, they're looking at the world from the vantage point of the top.

Very much like brother Obama's economic team. They're not looking at the world through the lens of poor people and working people. They got Wall Street elites as their buddies, their cronies, intimate ties, so the vantage point through which they look at the world is very, very different. Christians begin with the catastrophic.

West proposes that the cross is more of a mentality (or consciousness) that saturates us with the suffering of the world. When we find ourselves in solidarity with the poor & marginalized we are inetivably forced to confront (a crucial corollary) the wealthy & powerful who pad this privileged position (through their lobbyists, lawyers and loads of capital) on the backs of the suffering.

When we, like the original male disciples, pledge allegiance to Jesus' "kingdom of God" (God's Big Picture), we are called to carry that vision all the way to the doorsteps of Power. That's where the cross awaits. Think Martin Luther King (berated, abused & jailed by white Christians). Think Gandhi (who loved the Jesus of the Gospels while questioning the "Christianity" of the West which oppressed his beloved India). Think Harvey Milk (who was detested & scorned by Evangelical Christians). These 3 lost their lives nonviolently confronting the oppressors.

And, like the original disciples, we fall short of the life and death of these heroes of the faith. And when we fall short of this radical mentality and lifestyle of the cross, we find ourselves resting in God's legendary grace and tender mercy. This is the fuel to get us back on our feet to try, try again.

When God Is In Charge

The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the gospel.
Jesus (Mark 1:15)

But the whole point of the Gospels is that the coming of God's kingdom on earth as in heaven is precisely not the imposition of an alien and dehumanizing tyranny, but rather the confrontation of alien and dehumanizing tyrannies with the news of a God—-the God recognized in Jesus—-who is radically different from them all, and whose inbreaking justice aims at rescuing and restoring genuine humanness.
N.T. Wright

In the midst of Mark's fast-paced narrative of urgency and immediacy--from his baptism to his wilderness trial of fasting to the arrest of the prophetic John the Baptizer--Jesus proclaims his message: the KINGDOM of God has come near...so REPENT and BELIEVE in the GOSPEL. Pretty straight forward, eh?

But the problem is that, in the real world, there is an interpretive battle going on for what exactly "the kingdom of God" actually is. And further more, there is quite a lot of mystery as to what exactly it would mean for someone to "repent" and "believe" in this "good news" proclamation. As it turns out, these were loaded words in 1st century Palestine and without knowing the context, we miss the meaning.

The mainstream (or establishment) definition coming from American Evangelical circles today is that "the kingdom of God" refers to either the heart of the believer (where God comes in to reside) or to heaven, the place where believers immediately go when they die. The gospel is self-evident to anyone who grew up in a Bible church or "got saved" at a Christian summer camp: it is the message that we are all sinful, but can escape eternal damnation if we believe in Jesus and commit our lives to following him.

However, this message has swerved off its original path. In the 1st century, there was one dominant "gospel" message (Greek euangelion): the proclamation that Caesar was the Lord and Savior of the world. Truly, the kingdom of Caesar was expanding and, once conquered, indigenous peoples (like the Palestinian Jews) were commanded to repent, or change loyalties (Greek metanoia). These new participants in the Roman Empire were told to believe (Greek pistis) in Caesar and his lifestyle of arrogant, triumphalist domination.

Jesus' gospel message of the kingdom of God, thus, flew in the face of Caesar's gospel message of the kingdom of Rome. One simply could not give loyalties to both Lords. The Jewish people believed that, in the future, God would make clearly known Who was the real King of the world. Jesus had the audacity to proclaim that that Time had come. As biblical scholar Brian Blount writes,

God's future power invaded and transformed the human present.

So the kingdom of God is about both the Now and the Not Yet. There is a tension that we live in and, in the midst of that tension, the voice of Jesus continues to beckon us to repent and believe. It's about infinitely more than heart and heaven. It's about repenting from counterfeit stories revolving around addiction, financial success, redemptive violence, body image, patriotic emotionalism and economic exploitation and believing in a New Story that highlights enemy love, nonviolent resistance to powerplays, humble service, simple living and abundant generosity.

Here's how a few Christian scholars describe the Kingdom of God:

From Boston University professor Bryan Stone who prefers the moniker “the Reign of God”:

...a radically new order that comes to put an end to the age-old patterns of wealth and poverty, domination and subordination, insider and outsider that are deeply ingrained in the way we relate to one another on this planet.

From Fransciscan priest and contemplative coach Richard Rohr:

Basically, we can translate “the kingdom” as “the Big Picture.” The kingdom of God, or reign of God, is how things objectively, truly and finally are. Jesus is always inviting us to live in the final and full picture, and not get lost in momentary dramas, hurts or agendas.

And from Anglican priest and New Testament scholar/theologian NT Wright:

What it looks like when God is in charge.

During this Lenten season, may we have the focus, energy, wisdom and discernment to repent and believe in a personal, social, political and economic order that reflects the Big Picture. When God is in charge, not only will we find that the solace and love in our hearts and minds will overflow into a living wage and humanzing conditions for Chinese unskilled workers who meticulously build IPhones for the Western World.