Amicus Dei

A casualty of the struggle for democracy in Burma, killed by Burmese troops today. Source:  BurmaNet.org

Burma, now called Myanmar by the totalitarian junta that rules it, is in the midst of a struggle for democracy.  The democracy movement led by Buddhist monks has captured the hearts of the people of Burma who are risking their own lives now to take to the streets in protest against this repressive regime.  Christian Solidarity Worldwide has called upon Christians around the world to speak up for the Burmese people during this time. 

Reports out of Burma suggest that there is in-fighting among the leaders of the military junta, possibly signaling the beginning of civil war.  Burmese aircraft took to the skies today, and more troops from a new command, were moving toward Rangoon.  It was not known if these additional forces were reinforcements or were moving to oppose the bloody crackdown.  Reuters reports that satellite images confirm the accounts of years-long massive human rights abuses by the regime. 

Also reported in BurmaNet — the family of the leader of the junta has flown out of Burma.  Perhaps all these signs are of imminent change in Burma.  Only time will tell.  However, what we do know is that, unlike the 1988 violence also aimed at the student democracy movement, this time the world is seeing the images of innocent, peaceful protestors gunned down in the streets of Rangoon.  Reportedly, Buddhist monks have been among the casualties, marking a low point in the ruthless junta’s grip on Burma.

The Burmese struggle for democracy is reminiscent of the civil rights movement in our own country — peaceful protestors beaten, gassed, fired upon, and killed by the goon squads of an autocratic system. 

As followers of Christ, our responsibility is to stand with the peaceful protests for democracy and against violence and repression.  Raise your voice both in prayer and protest that something be done by our own government to stop the violence in Burma. 

"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,  for the rights of all who are destitute." Proverbs 31:8  NIV  – Amicus Dei

Okay, so the header is a little bit of a tease.  The good news is, according to the NY Times,  the federal Bureau of Prisons is returning the books it had banned just this spring.  Under a wrong-headed policy called the Standardized Chapel Library Project (yes, they really had a name for censorship), the Bureau of Prisons had instructed all prison chaplains to remove all books from prison chapel libraries that were not included on the BoP’s "approved" list.

Of course, the BoP declined to say how they had compiled the authorized list, and why notable authors such as Karl Barth and Rick Warren were not on it.  Now, apparently, the BoP has relented under withering pressure from a lot of different groups, plus the promise of lawsuits and public embarassment.  The books are "immediately" being re-shelved in prison libraries. 

But, and this is a big but, these books are only being returned until the BoP can come up with a new list.  And I quote –

"The bureau has not abandoned the idea of creating such lists, Judi Simon Garrett, a spokeswoman, said in an e-mail message. But rather than packing away everything while those lists were compiled, the religious materials will remain on the shelves, Ms. Garrett explained."  — NY Times, 9/26/07

So, we could be right back where we started.  Of course by then the spotlight will be off, and the BoP will do whatever they want to, I suppose.  Cynical, yes, but also probably realistic.  When that happens, hopefully someone will blow yet another whistle to alert us to the unwarranted and arrogant intrusion of government into matters of faith.  — Amicus Dei

I like Scot McKnight.  Actually, I don’t know Scot McKnight except from his books and blog, Jesus Creed, but I like what he has to say.  I’m reading his book,  A Community Called Atonement right now. Here’s how he kicks off the book —

"The gospel we preach shapes the kind of churches we create.

The kind of church we have shapes the gospel we preach."

Theology On The Ground

McKnight is that interesting blend of theologian, pastor, contemplative, and regular guy (he blogs about his wife and family, too) that we need more of.  He’s a thinker and a doer, and I like that combination.  In chapter 4, McKnight provides a great definition of theology –

"Theology, like an ecosystem, is an interlocking network of ideas, beliefs and practices that meld into a coherent whole that brings into living expression the work of God in this world." — pg 25

The reason I like McKnight is his balance — he admits and celebrates the nuances of theology as a positive thing.  Unlike the either/or choices usually presented in theological debate — Calvinism vs. Arminianism to mention one worn-out dichotomy — McKnight challenges his readers to embrace it all and to revel in the complexity that we can only begin to comprehend.

And, he goes on to say, theology is both practice and proposition, proposition and practice.  In other words, what we believe needs to work on the ground, or it’s not very good theology.  I like that.

Remember pastoral theology?  You hardly ever hear that phrase anymore, but we need more of it.  Taking hard theological positions is easy until you find yourself face-to-face with a person whose problems don’t fit the dichotomies of dogmatic theology.  Theology has to work on the ground — the gospel we preach shapes the kind of church we have and vice-versa. 

I also like the approach McKnight takes to conversion.  He says there are three ways people come to faith, and crisis conversion (ala evangelicalism) is only one of those.  Again, balance. 

In addition to his academic interests, McKnight is also interested in spiritual formation and wrote Praying with the Church to encourage and clarify the practice of the daily office and prescribed prayer.  McKnight spans the gulf that separates traditional church from emerging church, and does it wonderfully well.  If you don’t know Scot McKnight, you need to.  You’ll like him.  — Amicus Dei   

I just met Elizabeth Gilbert.  Well, not really, but I found her website thanks to Church of the Customer blog.  Gilbert, author of the phenomenal bestseller Eat, Pray, Love, has written one of the best reflections on the writing life that I have ever read. 

Listen to her describe how she approached writing –

"I believe that – if you are serious about a life of writing, or indeed about any creative form of expression – that you should take on this work like a holy calling. I became a writer the way other people become monks or nuns. I made a vow to writing, very young. I became Bride-of-Writing. I was writing’s most devotional handmaiden. I built my entire life around writing. I didn’t know how else to do this."

Gilbert then talks about the vagaries of the writing life — rejection, discouragement, disappointment — and concludes by saying –

"In the end, I love this work. I have always loved this work. My suggestion is that you start with the love and then work very hard and try to let go of the results. Cast out your will, and then cut the line. Please try, also, not to go totally freaking insane in the process. Insanity is a very tempting path for artists, but we don’t need any more of that in the world at the moment, so please resist your call to insanity. We need more creation, not more destruction. We need our artists more than ever, and we need them to be stable, steadfast, honorable and brave – they are our soldiers, our hope. If you decide to write, then you must do it, as Balzac said, “like a miner buried under a fallen roof.” Become a knight, a force of diligence and faith. I don’t know how else to do it except that way."

Gilbert’s writing vocation is reminiscent of the old Celtic abbey for me.  I can see monks in the scriptorium, bent over illuminated manuscripts, pouring their souls into pen and paper without thought of who might ever see them.  That is the calling I want to answer and live into.  That is the calling of creativity.  — Amicus Dei

The whole emerging church scene is full of art, and that is a wonderful gift.  Paul Soupiset, artist, musician, theologian, has a bunch of stuff you need to see.  I just ran across a couple of his sites/blogs you might like.  Check them out and let me know what you think.

– Paul Soupiset, soupablog — cool art and music

– Communique: an online literary and arts journal — get a free email sub (no feed on site)

– The Acoustic Coffeehouse — offers CDs by Paul Soupiset

– Real Live Preacher — moleskine notebook sketch galleries

– Paul Soupiset, Illustrator — more really great art

– Amicus Dei

The New York Times reports today that the federal prison system is purging its chapel libraries of selected books on faith, allowing only 150 approved titles per religious group to remain.  Chaplains have been ordered to remove all but the approved texts in this project called, Standardized Chapel Library Project. 

The "board of censors" remains anonymous, and no criteria for how the approved titles were selected has been forthcoming.  The NY Times obtained a list of approved titles from a person opposed to the project.  The graphic, courtesy of nytimes.com, shows 5 well-respected authors whose names have not been included on the list of approved volumes — Robert Schuller, Reinhold Niebhur, Karl Barth, Avery Dulles, and Yves Congar. 

Freedom of Religion

Baptists have long held that freedom of religion — freedom from government interference in religion — is critical to the unfettered practice of faith.  We believe that freedom should extend to all persons of all faiths, even persons in prison.  While the government does have an interest in screening out books and resources that incite to violence or terrorism, our government seems to have gone much further in prescribing an exclusive list of books and prohibiting all others.

Missional communities proclaim freedom 

How this impacts prison ministries, chaplains’ freedom to reference unapproved materials, and prisoners’ access to texts that did not make the list remains to be seen.  Prisoners have filed a class-action suit to block this government interference in religious practice.  The question for missional communities is — do we care if prisoners have access to books on faith?  Granted, reasonable precautions must be taken, but this is an extreme intrusion of government into the realm of faith.

Jesus said, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
      because he has anointed me
      to preach good news to the poor.
   He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
      and recovery of sight for the blind,
   to release the oppressed,
    to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor."  — Luke 4:18-19 NIV

Freedom is a precious gift.  Will those of us who claim to be friends of God on the mission of God seek to proclaim freedom for the prisoners? — Amicus Dei 

Some of you are old enough to remember Lyndon Johnson’s War on Poverty.   Then, Richard Nixon gave us the War on Drugs.  Now, it’s the War on Terror.   In all of these cases, the promised results — eradication of poverty, eradication of illegal drugs, eradication of terrorists — have not materialized.  In other words, "The War on _______ " (you fill in the blanks here) has failed.  There has been no victor, no vanquished, no clear winner, and lots of losers. 

Maybe it’s time for the War on War.  Maybe the problem is that for all it’s tough sounding rhetoric, war as public policy is a failed model.   The complex and inculturated problems of our society and world are crying for a new imagination, a new ethic for dealing with those threats to our very existence. 

Missional communities can offer that new imagination.  Missional communities can devise strategies and tactics to deal with the causes of poverty, drug-abuse, and social upheaval.  Missional communities can offer to show the world how to beat swords into plowshares, finding new solutions to age-old problems. 

If violence begets violence, then war, however well-intentioned and targeted, is a poor framework for doing God’s work. – Amicus Dei