Lazy Sunday Readings: Follow Me to Freedom, by Shane Claiborne and John M Perkins

I am currently enjoying reading several books at once (as per usual). A book that I've re-picked up (stole) from my wife. The two authors shared a few conversations and the book, Follow Me to Freedom: Leading and Following As an Ordinary Radical, is probably one of the more important books on leadership that a Christian should read. John M Perkins is one of the very few (sadly) civil rights figures in contemporary Evangelicalism, he is also a visionary who helped to set the stage for the CCDA (Christian Community Development Association) one of the leading bright spots unifying Evangelicals to strive for justice. Claiborne, a bit of a self-styled red-neck hippy Christian is also a bright spot in Evangelicalism.

Well, I should say they're bright spots for me. Perkins and Claiborne are also provocateurs. Claiborne was banned from speaking at my brother's alma mater - a conservative Christian college - by some concerned pencil pusher or another because of his outspokenness. One time I saw Perkins was the only time I went to Cornerstone Festival (a great music/arts/film/sessions week-long festival put out by Chicago's own Jesus-hippy commune, Jesus People USA, that is, well, like much of Evangelicalism, predominately White [I mean the fest, not necessarily the commune]). He was preaching about the need for racial reconciliation between music shows (maybe before The Choir?) and some of my friends were mocking the old man, and how he was always going about that business. The other time I saw him, he was speaking at a fundraiser gala for my brother's npo (which is decidedly focused on growing Christian leaders and disciples from within overlooked areas of Chicago) and spoke to the audience - much of whom are decidedly conservative - about the need to love our neighbors through voting for politicians that do not harm them. That helped to solidify my appreciation for him and my appreciation of being a leftist politics.

Some take-aways from early on in the book:

On the "Theology of Enough":

Shane: There are enough resources. God did not create an economy of scarcity. God did not make too many people or not enough stuff. Gandhi once said, "There is enough for everyone's need but not enough for everyone's greed." So why do a few have more than others, and so many feel that they do not have enough?... We have not trusted in "this day our daily bread." Instead, we stockpile our money in banks, like the guy Christ spoke about who stores all his stuff in barns, when God is leading us to give it away. Stashing away our resources is not how we are supposed to live.

On Leading Through Shared Pain:

John: The leader who can tap into our pain part right and walk through it with us - bearing our burdens like Jesus bears them - is going to be a real leader.


Shane: Too often, well-intentioned leaders are quick to stand up to be a voice for the voiceless rather than being a voice with the voiceless. We assume that because people's voices are not being heard, they're not speaking. And the truth often is that people on the margins are weeping, wailing, and crying out from the depths of their souls, but the rest of the world has hands over their ears. Leaders are folks who can remove the earplugs and the blinders so that we all can hear and see and feel the pain of others; so that the ache touches us and we cannot help but begin to carry the burdens and wipe the tears away... People most affected by the pain and closest to the injustices make the best leaders... Every leader who is not indigenous to struggle needs to take that pilgrimage into pain.


John: Today, Christians tend to put leaders on a pedestal. We have megachurch pastors, televangelists and Christian celebrities. It is hard for the leader to enter into the pain of the people when he only sees it from the other side of the camera or sitting at the boardroom table. We do leaders a disservice sometimes. We think we are protecting them, prioritizing their time and doing wonderful things for them, when in actuality, by shielding them or filtering what information they get, we distance them from real people and real needs. By always having a catchy slogan, a positive spin, a trendy campaign or a big reward, we end up not dealing with real issues or the heart of the matter. I am not saying we cannot have slogans, campaigns, or rewards. And I am not saying that megachurch pastors cannot be justice leaders. But some leaders are talking out of that place of pain and others are just talking.

Follow the Blood Trail

The internet rag American Stinker (1) is at it again. Normally, if I'm writing about the kooks on the far right zombie hand of the dial, I write a brief, dismissive and/or furiously satirical piece at the other site, if for nothing else than to blow off steam. But this piece was frustrating for different reasons. And for those reasons, I thought it best to write an actual, serious bl0ggue about it.

Mister Perfesser Robert Huff* follows his hero, the self-serving malignant David Horowitz (a troll that has been touting his past-life as a 'radical liberal activist' since the day when every single person on the Left exhausted their patience with his conniving, back-stabbing ways and Horowitz found he could make more money by 'exposing them' - pretty nifty trick) in making connections that aren't really there in an attempt to smear the images of innocent people for political purposes. Huff puffs about Shane Claiborne, darling of the Evangelical center, actually. But he also aligns him with other characters, chief among them Dr. John Perkins (elder statesman of reconciliation and the Beloved Community, a hero to non-racist Evangelicals for being our sole historical bodily connection to the Civil Rights movement, the visionary responsible for the Christian Community Development Association's ethos and doctrine). But he never mentions anything at all positive about the actions of Perkins - never clues in his obviously clueless audience as to the identity of Claiborne's co-author. Huff only makes this dubious association with a man he dubiously associates with dubious associators of dubious associations with dubious people and/or purposes. The soul-sucking vacuum is obvious - and intentional. And, for what I can only assume are ivory-political purposes, he throws in a dig at the naivety of his school for forcing its freshmen to absorb the the librul Christian Left propaganda.**

When I got my bachelors, the only credit math classes I signed up for were Linear Equations and Logic. Huff must not be so advanced in these fields that he's pushing forward a new type of logic. Or, he's just another separatist fundamentalist that got a job at an Evangelical school.

My money's on the second. According to Huff, Dr. Perkins and the entire Christian Left*** are guilty by association with Claiborne. Claiborne is guilty for having gone to Iraq with Iraq Peace Team^ for a few weeks during this occupational war. The Iraq Peace Team is guilty for being a joint venture of Voices in the Wilderness and Christian Peacemaker Teams. Christian Peacemaker Teams is guilty for talking with and working with Palestinians. Teh nerff! Spazz!! And those ingrates at VitW hate America so much that they went to Iraq, got kidnapped and then had the gall to blame the American and British governments for creating the desperation in the country that led to their imprisonment.

Of course, this is some weird thinking, but it's not new. Peacemakers are always accused of creating violence, by the very fact that they expose the violence of the oppressive system. Israel, Britain and the US can do tremendous violence against Iraqis, Palestinians. They can completely destroy their homes, take over their countries, displace them, remove their access to jobs, clean water, and the land they've owned for generations and generations. They can introduce civil strife, tie their hands, force them into desperate and violent retaliatory measurements. This is not new for empire-building, nor for the United States (take how we treated our indigenous populations, for instance). But the second someone questions these actions, the moment she takes an action to openly demonstrate the evil that is being brushed under the carpet, she is labeled a traitor and a violent, dangerous radical.

However, the real victims of the American Thinker's article isn't the Christian left, the Iraq Peace Teams, or even everybody's favorite evangelical monastic, Shane Claiborne. Neither is it the much-revered Saint (and the only living connection between the largely white Evangelical church and the Civil Rights movement it sat out) Dr. John Perkins or his school's curriculum. The real nasties, according to The Perfesser, are the Palestinian and Iraqi people who dare question American dominance and imperialism.

Not only are they guilty of being ingrates (and dark-skinned), but anyone who associates with someone who associates with someone who associates with them are, of course, tainted...

(1) Credit for photoshop and altered name belong to the fine folks at Sadly, No. Should have made this clear yesterday.

*Google crashed when I tried to search his name. Just sayin'...

**Yes, I'm reading between the lines. I make no excuses for doing so. If he's going in with such a naked agenda, I'd like to call him out on it. Or he can explain how I'm wrong. In which case, he'll have to repudiatedly refutions on his whole piece.

***A rather new name - complete with a Facebook page - that may be bigger and more diverse than can be possibly contained within Huff's use of the term, or anyone else's. But, in basic, it seems to be a somewhat reactionary movement against the political conservatism that has largely taken over at least the Evangelical super-movement. It parallels, in some ways, the post-Conservatives and Hipster Christian generational shifts.

^ From the Voices in the Wilderness page:

Voices in the Wilderness organized Iraq Peace Team delegations to live alongside ordinary Iraqis during the massive bombardment of Operation Shock and Awe. Convinced that “where you stand determines what you see and how you live,” VitW continues its efforts to educate people in the United States and abroad about the consequences of US militarism. Our current campaign focuses on the need to “spotlight Iraq.” By telling the truth about this war, we hope to help prevent future wars. Further, we seek to connect with and educate ourselves about people who live in other countries threatened by US war.