Germanglish

I had an interesting encounter yesterday. It transported me back into a world of questions that had accumulated during my time in Germany. I bumped into a visiting German prospective student in the Fuller coffee shop around noonthirty. When I disclosed, my German connections and my Mennonite background, we quickly discovered a mutual German acquaintance.

Upon divulging my Mennonite connections, I sensed a glimmer of recognition cross his face. His look kinda communicated “Oh, one of them.” He then proceeded, in declarative terms, to identify his church plant as not associating itself with any denomination. He expounded upon his organization and gave me his business card with the organization’s name, “Gospel Tribe,” written across the top. Internally, I rolled my eyes.

Perhaps I had misunderstood the look? Perhaps we had mutually judged one another? Perhaps I am just reading too much into the whole thang? All I know is that I was left with familiar questions about the context of the church in Germany.

This encounter tapped into similar experiences I had with German Christian youth. On several occasions I came across the tendency for young adults to express a readiness to discard the old streak of tradition or denominationalism (which I readily understand) and to find new expressions and life in non-denominational/evangelical churches (which I readily support). This distancing from historic or institutional churches in itself is not the problem whatsoever. In fact, I consider myself a proponent of the impulse for new expressions and conceptualizations of church particularly in context steeped in state church corrosion. However, this incident resurfaced a huge irk of mine. I think I just find it hard to swallow the rationale (even though I completely understand it): “We are not identified with any denomination,” but then on the other hand we will call ourselves “Gospel Tribe.”

Gospel and Tribe are not German words. In German, Gospel could be roughly translated as Evangeliumstamm. Granted Evangeliumstamm probably ain’t good German grammar and it sure (knowing the youth culture) don’t have the same ring. It sounds stuffy and old-foggyish. See, English is “in,” especially with the youth. For that reason, I am very skeptical that it will somehow be not just considered a fad in 10-20 years. (“Oh, yeah. That was the phase when we used English, instead of German for slang expressions.”)

This phenomenon is not something limited to the German context. Christians here attempt to make Jesus and the church relevant all the live long day through language, technology, media, etc. I get the sense that many of the cues Germans take are the from American marketing style for Christianity, and like, the name “Gospel Tribe,” results in essentially non-indigenous terms for Christianity. We continually try to be ever savvier to be relevant. Maybe that is my issue. The Gospel and Church, to me, are not somehow exercises in panache.

Don’t get me wrong I am not projecting all my discombobulated vim at “Gospel Tribe.” That business card just got me on this rant. I know actually a little about their ministry and I know many swell people that are with them. I am not critical of the general attitude to make good use of the “new.” I am just left with a helpless sense of not knowing how to explain why I react to this. It makes sense, but it doesn’t feel right. I don’t want Jesus or the church to fall victim to trends… but when I say that it makes me feel like I sound stuffy and old-foggyish. I guess that is what makes me react. This kind of encounter taps into my own perplexity about the relevance and role of Christian traditions (especially mine) in our contemporary context. So there you have it.

Rant: Email This!

What do I do all day?

Email.

Each day I check my email in the morning and "voila!" I got me a task list for the day. I respond to one, move it to the appropriate folder, and go on to the next suspended assignment. It doesn't end there. All day I accumulate messages from ANYBODY from ANYWHERE. Its like if people are just lined up outside of my cubicle (excuse me, work station) and keep laying memos on my desk. And there isn't a thing I can do about it. "Thanks, Bob." "Thanks, Anne." "I'll get right to this, Greg." "Yep, just put it right there." "I will get right on that." All day I try to stay ahead of the curve. Hopefully by the end of the day no more pending tasks are in my inbox and I can go home with great sense of satisfaction that I spent the day thwarting the forces of email backlog.

I had a conversation with a friend of mine this week about how it feels like these days that not many of us really produce much or do anything tangible. Back in the days of yore one grew crops, built a house, butchered meat, or chopped wood. Fixing stuff had a tangible result - "Yep, done did unclog that there drain." Even writing resulted in a direct correlation to something being physically published. Now that labor is outsourced to other parts of the world, stuff that is produced comes from somewhere else and we are left with maintaining inboxes.

If we aren't producing stuff for each other to buy we provide services that we "need." I ain't no economist, but I do know that we basically have a service industry. So we have to spend and spend and spend just to keep our economy going. In fact the good ol' economy needs all those unfortunate people to rack up debts on credit cards just to keep things floating. Basically, isn't that what this recent tax refund is all about. Some folks know that to keep things going, we need folks not to save or to be good stewards of their earnings; but rather to spend like there is no tomorrow. "Don't use that tax stimulant on the mortgage, go buy a plasma TV." (By the way, I find it kinda disconcerting that my government is trying to "stimulate" me.) So instead of making stuff to buy and sell, we all do things for each other, so that we can get money to spend on having things done for us.

Don't get me wrong, I love my job and I feel that there is a very tangible task and purpose to what I do. I work in higher education and we are equipping students to serve and to lead in the church.

However, I don't always resonate with the nobility of my labor when I open my email in the morning.

I am a professional emailer.

Five and Counting

First, I was listening to the news this morning and I was yanked out of my semi-sleep state of mind by one report. This week denotes the 5 year mark of the beginning of the war in Iraq. The swell of emotion that accompanied the mere mention of that fact lingered in me for the rest of the morning. Five years… It has been a long time!

I remember the time preceding the war very well. I had moved to Germany a half year after 9/11 and spent the first year of my acclimation to Europe in the charged context of the build up to the war in Iraq. I remember it being a very difficult period for me. On the one hand, I was dealing with all the outrage and emotion leveraged against the US by my European friends and then on the other hand trying to sort out my own reaction and outrage at what my country was doing. I felt helpless to do anything and yet I felt the brunt end of the raw frustration directed towards US geo-politics. I was deeply distressed by the decisions being made, but at the same time felt defensive at the wholesale criticism of the US. In the end, I think I experienced what many US ex-pats, who were opposed to the war: I was confused.

Since having moved back to the US in 2006, it has been remarkable how far off and distant the Iraq War has become. My work with the Military Counseling Network in Germany had me dealing first hand with US soldiers returning from, going to or deployed in Iraq. I was very close to the gravity and intensity of the war. Here it seems so very far away, neatly tucked away in intermittent news reports.

The nature of this war is that the domestic experience is disconnected with what is directly happening overseas. Yet the subtext of this war is that it is directly shaping our society. The current war in Iraq is the major world issue of our time and it is having a profound influence on our lives in the US from economics, culture, politics, to religion. Although this war is disconnected with most American’s immediate lives and lifestyles (other than those serving in the armed forces or military families), the war is producing a strong undercurrent of change, particularly in the younger generations.

I am studying at a Christian seminary. We talk a lot about the changing nature of Christianity in our society. If there is one thing that hardly gets mentioned at all, it is the war in Iraq. It strikes me how very little it comes up in conversation or in class. I understand it is a scary and explosive topic. I know that people here have passionate opinions about the war that go either way and include all the in-between. However, five years ago Christians were at the center of the debate about the war. Today it is hard to talk about.

I find it interesting, form all the stuff I am learning at seminary, that the church is undergoing a period of tremendous change as the centrality and role of the church is being re-evaluated and marginalized. From what I can tell, there are seismic shifts in the way young Christians understand church. For my generation, the landscape of American Christianity is changing, particularly in the case of how Christians understand their role in society and in the world. It seems to me like there are more young people interested in engaging and taking holistic responsibility for the problems of the world beyond their own countries international policy and involvement. (Politically, there are more young adults voting and involved in political campaigns than ever before.)

The funny thing is that I hardly hear Christians in my context tangibly connect the situation in Iraq to the changing conception of the church and its role. Of course it is more complicated than reducing it to politics. However, I feel the confusion of the debacle of Iraq has permeated the consciousness of young Christians and they are not taking the role of American civil religion, consciously or unconsciously, for granted in the same way as they did five years ago.

A lot has changed in five years.

Second, in regards to attaining a resolution to the conflict, why have we not deployed Chuck Norris yet?

New Conspirators

Two weeks ago, Joel Shenk, Matt Krabill and I headed up to Seattle for the New Conspirators conference. It was a great experience and extremely worthwhile!

I attended the conference for several reasons: 1) I have heard the buzzwords, “missional” and “emergent”, bandied about with great frequency. And while I have a slapdash academic understanding of the terms, I sure didn’t have any faces or experiences to associate with the terminology (good elementary books are Missional Church and Emerging Churches). 2) Additionally, I was keen to meet up with fellow Anabaptist types and become better acquainted with the Submergent (emergent-Anabaptist) conversation taking place. 3) Plus, it seemed like a great excuse to hang in Seattle with some friends and do some serious conspiring.

The New Conspirators: What in the World is God Doing was organized around the premise that “God is doing something new through a new generation of emerging, missional, mosaic (multi-cultural) and monastic conspirators,” and philosophically based on the book, The New Conspirators: The Future One Mustard Seed at a Time. The streams, as defined by conference material:

eMerging: The emerging stream had its origins in the UK in the late 80s. Young Christians recognized that many of their postmodern peers had a keen interest in spirituality, but were not interested in what was being offered in traditional churches. Emergent leaders started creating cafés and art centers that engaged specific populations of the un-churched and de-churched. Emerging churches tend to be more relational and experiential.

Missional: The missional stream began with the publication of The Missional Church in 1998. While the emerging stream began with practitioners, this movement began in the academy with scholars like Darrell Guder. Many churches use the missional language, but what seems to distinguish young church planters in this stream is that they are creating outwardly-focused models that address the needs to those outside the church instead of those inside the building.

Mosiac: The mosaic stream seems to have its origins with young people from ethnic churches who want to be a part of richly multicultural congregations that reflect God’s Kingdom. Typically, like missional church plants, they tend to invest more of their resources outward in mission, but they experience much more of the richness of God’s new order by sharing cultural practices in their lives, congregations and communities.

Monastic: The monastic stream began twenty years ago with new monastic orders that moved into tough urban communities to work with the poor and practice spiritual disciplines together. Early groups included InnerChange, Servants Partners, Servants to Asia’s Urban Poor, Word Made Flesh and Urban Neighbors of Hope (UNOH). New Monasticism, a movement within the monastic stream, began at a gathering in Raleigh-Durham, NC, in 2005. Unlike the other three streams, most monastic have no interest in church planting, and they offer a much more robust critique of the dominant culture.

While there are differences between these four streams, they flow together. These new conspirators all share a strong common passion to create new forms of more authentic faith in their lives, families and communities, and to creat congregations that are more outwardly focused in local and global mission.

The “festival” was organized to be an opportunity to communicate, connect and create. The highlights for me were the people. We had some amazing speakers like Shane Claiborne and Efrem Smith and I got into some great conversations with folks like Mark Van Steenwyk (Jesus Manifesto) and Elician Rosario-Cruz (Kingdom Praxis). With all of its good intentions to include times of question-answer, collaboration, and creativity the conference took on a familiar conferencey disposition. In the end I felt, besides all good intentions, that it was a fairly conventional conference about unconventional church. In regards to the four streams, I was most vague about the mosaic stream as a self-aware movement. The monastics impressed me the most with their sense of covenant in community, counter cultural perspective, and mission. Two issues continued to tickle my brain after conference.

Social Location: One lingering question that remains for me is about the role of social location in these emerging expressions of church. It felt like many of these ideas and innovations were borne from folks with a significant degree of social mobility. They could choose where to live, what traditions to draw from, and what social contexts/neighborhoods/communities to enter. That is not the case for every social class and ethnic group. (For example, the majority of Christians around the world do not live in this state of choice and occupy this degree of social location.)

I spent a lot of time thinking about how much the issue of social location will play in these expressions and their influence on the contemporary context of the global church. Most people in the world live lives perhaps "confined" by their limited social mobility, culture, religious contexts. It is not simply a matter of choice. One cannot always choose which community to belong to, which neighborhood to live in, which social customs to adopt, or how to shape their own identity. I, like many of the people at the conference, represent people with a high degree of choice and social mobility. This is an age old question in mission and still is tangible, even in these new discussions about church. I hope that Christians in our day, in our participation in the mission of God, can find ways to transcend our social location and social mobility as we explore new ways of doing church.

Tradition and Streams: Over the weekend I kept trying to wrap my head around the question of how does my tradition interact and connect with these new expressions? I didn't come to any good place and hope to explore that further. It will be interesting to see how these fluid streams will interact with the rigidity or institutional concerns present in denominations. How will ideas from the perspective of choice interact with the context of confinement of established tradition? Coming from a denomination, the Mennonite Church, I don’t always feel like I have the same choice. I am rooted in a history, identity, culture and a tradition. To me having community and culture, is not something that one can just always pick and choose from. That encompasses my greatest tensions on the one hand and also gives me rootedness and sense of belonging on the other. Part of being church is living in that tension of experiencing confinement as a reality in where we are located and who we do community with. However, the Church also includes discovering and nurturing a new rootedness, new identity and a new people in Christ. I do believe that is exactly what these streams are exploring and discovering. Hopefully, traditions, like mine, can find points of renewal through the new expressions of church.

I am glad I went to this conference. I made some new friends. I learned more about the potential interaction between Anabaptism and the new expressions of church. The conference definitely gave me some new vocabulary and new food for thought. I am very excited about the developments and hope to continue exploring what these ideas can mean in my own context. I look forward to more conversations and insight.

Fresh Message of Bel Air

Last week, I tagged along with a few Fuller friends to hear Shane Claiborne speak. Shane is the author of Irresistible Revolution and lives in inner city Philadelphia in a New Monastic community, The Simple Way. I came prepared with note pad and writing utensils to engage and receive input on radical discipleship.

However, I was not prepared for Bel Air Presbyterian, our hosts.

If you have never been to Bel Air Pres, it pretty much resembles what you would expect when Bel Air is invoked in the title. Perched on the hillside with a magnificent view of the city, the church itself was a display of opulence and modern architecture. That was just the half of it. As the well-sculpted and uber-styled Bel Air youth arrived, I was so awestruck that it lead me to easily proclaim Bel Air to be the hippest church I have ever been in.

When worship started, you could say that I was fairly distracted and a bit flustered by my surroundings. (I even spilled my drink on the floor. Doh!) The band was composed of people that actually looked as cool as what you would expect from rock star folk. So as I soaked in my environment, I become a bit curious with who this Shane Claiborne guy was. I wondered where he was sitting and if I could pick him out. It took all of two seconds. I immediately spotted a guy sitting in the front row with dreads and baggy appearance. When he got on stage his southern twang and homemade clothes fully underscored the “one of these things is not like the other” element in the unfolding encounter. In Shane’s book he acknowledges this dynamic. “When I show up to speak at a fancy banquet and they don’t let me in until they realize that I’m the speaker, and then they escort me to the front row apologizing the whole way. (It has happened a few times!)”

You couldn’t have asked for more contrast. Here I was sitting in a Bel Air Church with Bel Air folk and guy from the inner city was talking about working with the homeless, orphans and prostitutes. Shane shared stories about his time in India with Mother Teresa and time in Iraq.

When he was done, the disjointedness of the setting quickly surfaced again as the pastor attempted to craft an adequate response for his congregation. The gulf was fairly wide and was apparent in his tone of moderation in how to understand and apply Shane's concepts and stories.

After the pastor’s response, worship reconvened with stylistic PowerPoints on the 15 ft jumbotron screen and with sonorous music from the gifted youth band. At the end we prayed and the most attractive, well-dressed prayer team ever made its way to the front of the sanctuary. I couldn’t worship. My mind was racing with all the contradictions and it sputtered to understand what I just took part in.

What just happened! This guy was talking about “Have Less, Live More” right in the heart of LA cosmopolitopia . He was advocating for radical discipleship as a way of being born again. He was saying that to follow Jesus required cost and your best.

As I tried to bring some measure of restraint to my over used cynical and critical faculties, I had to pause with humility. When I looked around at Shane and the Bel Air crowd, I had to admit that I was more indistinguishable with them then I was with Shane and could probably relate more to them after hearing a message like this. As I pondered further, I began to appreciate the youth pastor more, who apparently against many objections had advocated for Shane to speak at the church. In the end I admired Shane even more, because he was at Bel Air. He was talking to the very people that should hear it.

It revealed a few things about where I come from. As a Mennonite, I have grown up all my life being taught the value of service and the radical nature of discipleship. I hope to live a life of serving Christ and loving others. However, because of my traditions culture and history, we tend also to distance ourselves from encounters like Bel Air. Mainstream messaging is not our bag. We rarely venture out there because we often don’t want to get associated with other Christians or would feel compromised by associating with folks like Bel Air. We keep our distant from “all those Christians.” This is what I was going through at Bel Air. In that moment, I realized what I was doing and that I need to see them as fellow Christians.

From what I understand Shane espouses an affinity for Anabaptism. What I appreciated most about Shane is that he is counter-cultural, advocates social justice and calls for radical discipleship, and does this without mincing words about being a follower of Christ. This highlights a problem in my tradition - Anabaptist Nominalism. As Anabaptists we express ourselves in forms very reminiscent of what Shane says, but just leave out the Jesus element or let it remain an unspoken assumption. Shane eloquently speaks about and embodies what groups of Christians have always intuitively grasped and lived out, no matter the corruption, abuses or co-opting of the church – it is about following Jesus. For those of us that have grown up within the Anabaptist traditions, I think there is a lot to learn from folks like Shane. That was my experience at Bel Air.

More on Shane Claiborne and New Monasticism:

Shane Claiborne Video

Christianity Today Article

Early Church History Rant: Part Deux

My friend, Matt Krabill, and I spent about an hour last night rehashing our Early Church History course. We became fairly immersed in the subject, that we about missed out on the fondue meal with a group of friends. As we stood in the kitchen, people kept beckoning us to come and partake of the gooey, cheesy goodness before it disappeared.

This engrossment has become common nature recently. Early Church History has held me in a trance now for the past few weeks. I tend to go off about it whenever I get the chance, which many of my friends can attest to. Since I am running out of people who will humor my fixation, I need to resort to blogging. In continuance of my previous post, here goes rant two on Early Church History...

The main critique I have is not of my professor or of my class that I took. Like I mentioned Yesterday, I felt like I have learned heaps. Part of that learning involves being taught a historical perspective that is fairly normative in its approach. This is the story of how church and Christianity developed in the West and how the West tends to remember that story. That normative approach offers me a conversation partner as I sift out my thoughts on the historical narrative of Christianity.

The main critique I have is that this history is taught with the same absence of consciousness of the culture question that was lacking in what developed into the Christendom understanding of Christianity. Christendom was a cheery place where the Christian faith became equated with society and culture. Of course it is more complex than this, but the fundamental issues remain. The engagement of the gospel in culture ceased to cause tension and a society, with a healthy homogeneity of absolute Christianity, tended to view the need for engagement, or mission, as moot.

Christendom rendered the cultural interaction with Christianity as a neutral encounter, which lead to the perception that truth is also neutrally intelligible apart from culture and contains universal application. This was evident, especially, as Christianity expanded from the West to other parts of the world. As Christianity became firmly grounded in a territorial conceptualization, expansion of the church piggybacked the whim of empire. Christianity became to be understood as universally normative according to the Western experience and perspective, much to the eternal joy of the world’s “unreached” peoples.

A good example of the culture question being being overlooked is the American context. American Christians tend to neglect the way our culture informs our understanding of Christianity. Coupled with the Christendom legacy of Christianity being somehow culturally neutral, American Christians often face a double whammy, in that we assume our cultural narrative is neutral as well. Part of the way we understand that neutrality is that our values are espoused to be universally normative. Think of our civil religion of liberty, freedom and democracy. We see those issues as either disembodied from our culture as universal truths or the other way around, as universal truths embodied in our culture.

Another example of the culture informing the context of church history is the impact of German nationality as the catalyst for the Reformation. I would argue that the Reformation was not absent of political or cultural influence. Of course the theological confrontation was the heart of the issue, but German nationality became a major rallying point behind the emergence of a major change in the church. Rome was exercising dominion, politically and religiously, over the German people. The translation of the Bible into German, Luther's theological challenge to the religious status quo of Rome, the German princes chaffing under foreign rule, all led to the convergence of political, religious, cultural, and social factors uniting against papal authority. The Reformation did not take place in a theological vacuum.

Granted, we all approach history from where we stand. My professor comes out of the reform tradition. For him, the reform becomes the definitive event in the trajectory of Christian history. Therefore, the doctrinal development of the Early Church becomes paramount to the theological clash of the Reformation. For me as an Anabaptist, it is easy to see the course of Christian history resulting in the need for a restoration. This of course informs my historical understanding. However, when we approach history without asking the culture question, I believe it can result in the blindsides of Christendom.

The world is changing and the gospel is becoming couched in cultures all over the world. Today it is absolutely impossible to avoid the cultural question. As the church expands, the integration and re-translation of the gospel is automatically present. There is no ambiguity about culture shaping and informing Christianity today. In fact, in a post-Christian west we are becoming more keenly aware of the non-Western Christian influence on the global church. In a post-Christendom West, we are finally asking the culture question of how the gospel can engage our contexts missionally.

This is my beef. It is apparent to me that no time in Christian history is it somehow removed from the culture question. Church does not take place in a vacuum. There is always the variable of culture.

See, what started with a simple discourse on Early Christian History, turned into a seriously long rant on what is wrong with the world... People like me shouldn't be allowed to blog.

Early Church History Rant

Now that the quarter has come to a close and life has taken on less of a shrill tone, I can finally take the time to rant about my class, Early Church History.

First of all, the class should really be called Early Church History of Theology, NOT Early Church History. An abundance of time was dedicated to learning about hermits, monks, ascetics, bishops, theologians, and councils. The church history material on the 1^st – 5^th Century world felt as removed from the social, political, cultural, historical contexts as the monasteries of the early church were from the life outside of their abbey walls! Granted, we learned about the development of doctrine, the trajectory of Christian thought, the debate around the trinitarian controversy and initial ventures in methods of biblical interpretation. Ok! Christian historical material was covered. I admit that. However, it is a history that is taught disembodied from its context. For example, we spent maybe 5 minutes on the rift between East and West in the church. On the other hand, we spent over 2 hours on the Blessed Virgin Mary and way too much time in purgatory (pun intended).

In regards to my nervousness about the final exam, a friend of mine said “what's there to know about church history other than you had Jesus and the Apostles, than the fall of Constantine happened, and later the restoration of the Anabaptists came along? Seem pretty simple to me.” (He is Mennonite and not being sarcastic.) I had to remind my friend that there exists a vast array of unimportant stuff that happened in between those points on his time line. Apparently they are significant enough that my professor has made a livelihood out of teaching that stuff. In fact, he did cover Constantine for almost 10 whole minutes. Come to think of it, my friend’s comments are the completely opposite to what was covered in our class material. The apostles were briefly mentioned. Constantine was a "major transitional historical figure" where after "nominalism became an issue in the church" and nothing apparently needed to be "restored," only reformed. Basically, my professor comes out of the reform tradition and is keeping the major theological encounter of the reformation in mind as he develops the trajectory of Christian history.

In my mind we could have spent less time on monks who buried themselves up to their necks in sand at night, theologians who cut off their junk to remove the temptation of lust and bishops who endlessly bickered about the substance/essence/humanity/divinity/spirit of Jesus. I would have appreciated more time on the persecuted church in tension with the empire and Greco-Roman culture, the way communities of Christians formed and practiced their faith, the story of how the gospel movement spread throughout the Mediterranean and Europe, how conversion was understood, the impact of imperial patronage of the church after Constantine and the rise of institutionalization of religion in the church.

Am I being a typical Anabaptist?

To end, I want to make sure that I note the quality of the course and the professor. He was a great lecturer and knew his material inside out. The course, even if it had a typical Western perspective on the advancement of the church, was extremely helpful in understanding the way Christianity developed in the West.

And on a serious note, Monks did learn how to brew some good beer.

Resident Pacifist

This post has been a long time in coming.

Recently, a friend and colleague at work brought an Economist article to my attention about the US military's strategic response to the protracted wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. This is not an untypical encounter.

I have been at Fuller now for over a year and a common interaction with other co-workers and fellow students revolves around the issues of war and pacifism. As a “resident pacifist,” I frequently get questions that thrust me in excruciating hypothetical situations, suddenly put me in charge of solving/clarifying the problems that stump most world leaders, or invite me to take strolls down horrible moments on history lane. Besides having the worst experiences of humanity and the thorniest moral issues constantly thrown into my lap, I don’t mind this really and actually enjoy the opportunity to explore my faith while being solidly engaged in the realities of our world. This interaction compels me to be humble in my pacifism.

I appreciate my friend’s inquiry. We have a great rapport and can debate this stuff with genuine curiosity. Plus, I am a huge military history nerd and jump at the chance to discuss such issues.

More often than not, the questions or comments thrown at me reveal a common assumption. Because I am Mennonite/pacifist, I hold the default role of explaining myself. The interaction often unfolds with the assumption that they speak from a normative Christian perspective, and that I, as the pacifist, am in the position of exception. My friend Matt Krabill taught me a way to engage in this dialogue as not taking this “explaining role” for granted. He says that pacifism should be reduced to a “Mennonite thing.” This is a “Christian thing.”

This mutuality is what I have learned to strive for when exploring issues of war and pacifism in conversation with other Christians.

Now, to the article…

Should the US military be strategically adapting to and committed to fighting guerilla, non-conventional wars down the road? Is a larger troop force needed rather than a tech savvy smaller force advocated by Rumsfeld? Should the military rely less on fire power but more on smarts in an occupation situation (a gentler, more compassionate occupier)?

The adjustments, from a military perspective, are probably appropriate and fitting as a response to the prospect of fighting a drawn out guerilla warfare in future conflicts. Interestingly, these voices urging patience, extended commitment, strategy of long tem occupation were derisively dismissed at the onset of the war. The article outlines a basic shift in strategy to (finally) meet the reality of a protracted, “nation building” situation.

Another interesting point is the fact that the military is preparing for protracted engagements, assembling a force that can be effective in occupation. This is an assumption of a role that till now has only been thinly veiled. A military preparing to occupy is the quintessential definition of a military that is in empire mode. I am sure the British had to adapt similarly during their period of colonialism. Hmmmm…

No matter what though, I still have to raise two issues: those engaged in Guerilla warfare have 1) the initiative and 2) they will continuously provoke. Will the new military’s strategy of “if we are smarter, we will win” work? The (very bloody) jury is still out.

The War of the News

I have been spending quality time with PBS Frontline's documentary called, "News Wars." The documentary gives an in-depth report on the state of the news industry and how it has dramatically changed since the start of the turn of the Century. From the Bush Administration, leaking (governmentally speaking), "Plame Gate," to new issues in source protection, politics have had dramatic impact on how the news is done. The medium of cable TV as well has had a huge impact from serious "hard" news to ever increasing allotment of "soft" news - entertainment, style, sports (Anna Nicole Smith, Tomcat - need I say more?) The best "hard" news program is the Daily Show, which says a lot about the disrepair of mainstream news. Additionally, the internet is significantly altering the way we access news, the specialization of news and how it is distributed. Newspapers, still the overwhelming producer of legwork, research and on the ground journalism are in an anxious scramble of how to adapt to the new business dynamics, how to counteract a diminished reputation, and how to maintain principles of serving the public trust.

Which brings me to my point and my link. The PBS documentary is a mere, "Lord of The Ringsish" 270 minutes long, hence I will cut to the chase with what I found was most fascinating and infuriating. There is a series of clips in a row that tells the wistful tale of the experience of the LA Times and how it sheds light on what is happening in the broader context of the news industry. In the role of "Sauron" is the Tribune Company, a media conglomerate that owns many media outlets based in Chicago (Mordor). The Los Angeles Times is "Frodo," burdened with the task of bearing the good news (journalistically speaking). If you have the time, have no girlfriend, or live as long as Elves, please check out three 10 min long clips (might not work for Firefox):

The Story of the LA Times and American Journalism

Chapter 21: The Story of the LA Times http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/view/21.html

Chapter 22: The Fight to Save the Paper

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/view/22.html?c=4wm

Chapter 23: "Hyperlocalism"

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/newswar/view/23.html?c=4wm

The development of "hyperlocal" news is indicative of the state of journalism in our time and the political-cultural context we live in. In the one bit, the Tribune "Sauramon" Representative basically said, we won't cover the news because there is no profit in it and we want to offer news that people find more palatable, a.k.a. fluffy. This financially based strategic plan of the Tribune Company for the LA Times is the embodiment of the debate of the shift of to local, soft news, and moving away from finding out and telling about the proverbial truth in American journalism.

At one point the NY Times editor sarcastically gives a comment of the common excuses to reduce to local news, "If you want to go find out about the war, buy the NY Times." WHAT!?! Isn't this journalistic institutionalization of denial or playing into the society to believe "If I shut my eyes tight enough I don't see anything bad?"

It used to be that businesses existed for a purpose - to publish a newspaper, to produce toilet paper, to manufacture gaskets, etc. Now the immense shift in purpose to making money for Wall Street, stockholders, and shares is at the center at the struggle for newspapers future. The current state of affairs in journalism is being dictated by the understanding that purpose becomes secondary or at least a means to an end of greater wealth. Having been around enough news folk with my work in Germany, that vibe was something that was easy to pick up on. Newspaper folk would say that this is hurting newspapers to be able to provide an important civic function and to be able to look out for the public trust. Ironically, the documentary points out that the most trusted source of news, according to polls, is NPR, which is a non-profit model.

Sheesh! I think I might need to go cleave some Orcs to feel better about myself, but that might just be another form of escapism. Instead, I will go, buy newspapers and listen to NPR, so Frodo will at least have a chance.

Anabaptist post-counter-Christendom Witness

The challenge to the next Anabaptist generation, missiologically, is redefining relevant witness of the Anabaptist vision. Broadly speaking, the Anabaptist tradition originated from a movement that was fundamentally and radically alternate to the Christendom concept of Christianity. In some sense, Anabaptism and its numerous offshoots, represents a theology and confession that is counter-Christendom in nature and today a perspective and tradition that could be increasingly perceived as a relevant expression of church and faith in a postmodern, post-Christian and post-Christendom context.

For many who are seeking answers to faith, connection with Christ and a sense of community, Anabaptism has provided a relevant theology to connect with. Let me emphasis the point that it is the theology, ecclesiology, high Christology all rooted in a distinct sense of Christian community and counter cultural outlook that is appealing and attractive to those newly exposed to the Anabaptist tradition. Whereas historically, theology and the "radical" confession differed greatly from the surrounding culture, and theology ultimately provided the greatest barrier to mission and engagement. Today, those very aspects, the counter-Christendom church and witness, is what is in its essence attractive. What used to be a barrier is not experienced in the same degree today.

Additionally attractive, Anabaptism is a tradition that is free of much of the baggage of the Christian historical enterprise. However it is a tradition that is bogged down in the legacy of non-missional engagement and a sense of identity based on maintaining stolid distinctiveness in the face of dominant Christianity. Persistence of this mode of non-engagement in our pluralistic, multi-cultural, globalized world raises the question of relevant witness when those outside forces of Christendom do not exist anymore.

The challenge then is not our theology, being Christ centered in our witness or confessing our identity as Christian. No, the challenge is the baggage of having a community that traditionally operates in isolation and tends to be missionally un-engaging. The baggage is our own sense of community and identity, buttressed by ethnicity and tradition that were created in the maintenance mode of the hundreds of years by being the counter-Christendom church amidst the dominant Christian world. This culture of maintenance provides the contemporary Anabaptist community a significant barrier to missional engagement and our perceived relevance to the Christian presence in the world. Why? Because to be separate in a world connected is theologically expressed as non-participation in God's Kingdom. Not actively living out our faith or engaging would be a fundamental missed opportunity for relevant contribution of the Anabaptist vision at our crossroads in history. In a world, where it is nigh impossible to remain aloof or impossible to not tangle with the infringement of modern culture, "separate, but not of the world," needs to be redefined. It can only be tackled if we start moving from maintenance to missional engagement. That means redefining our identity to one rooted in theology not our cultural tradition. So 1) Theology is the vibrant part of our history and tradition that provides us with the means to engage. 2) In a world increasingly becoming more interconnected, non-engagement or not "rubbing shoulders" with world around , imparts a a disconnect between faith with relevancy, especially for Mennonites. Living out the Anabaptist vision in a post-Christendom context beckons Anabaptists to engage in order to keep the Anabaptist vision relevant.