Richard Burden

Summer 2008 Fellow, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights

Three conversations stand out when I reflect on my experience at the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. In a way, these conversations reflect various facets of the central conversation we as Beatitude Society Fellows had when we met weekly over the course of the summer. This central conversation revolved around the question: are you a political progressive who happens to be Christian, or are you a political progressive because you are a Christian?

The first set of conversations I had were usually with baby boomers who had long been active in their respective churches. They generally went like this. Someone would ask me what I was doing this summer, and I would begin to gush about Green-Collar Jobs, Green Pathways out of Poverty, Job Corps, workforce training, and working with a coalition of legislators and business, labor, environmental, educators, community, and social justice leaders and advocates to bring all this green goodness about. I would passionately talk about the recognized need in all these subsets for retrofitting our homes and cities, the tremendous growth in clean-tech jobs, and the ability to use this powerful combination to leverage funds and resources to ensure that those who have been left out of the pollution-based economy are included in the clean, green economy. Green Jobs is a win—win—win solution, good for the earth, good for the poor, and good for the economy. It’s what Wendell Berry in Solving for Pattern calls a “good solution” because it “improves balances,” “solves more than one problem,” and “satisif[ies] a whole range of criteria.”1 After several minutes of indulging me, the person I was talking to would ask, “What’s that got to do with theology?”

Now, these very active mainstream church members may have been able to connect the dots between (for example) Gen 1:26, Matt. 5, Matt. 22:36-40, or Matt. 25 (to name only a few), or they may not. I don’t know. I’m willing to admit that in my excited wonkiness I may have breezed over the explicitly Christian reasons as to why I think Green-Collar Jobs is such a “good solution.” However, what I find helpful to reflect on in the question, “What’s that got to do with theology,” is that apparently these connections aren’t at all obvious. Is this because The Church, with all its various messages about individual salvation, tends to sanctify the status quo rather than articulate and facilitate real communal transformation?

The second conversation I had was similar, but tended to be with younger people, the spiritual but not religious, or unchurched adults. After providing them with my spiel they would often remark that it was really cool I was doing this, and that they had never heard of someone in seminary going and working for a social justice organization!

Again, most of them, with some gentle reminders, could have easily made the connections between the secular and the religious in the Civil Rights movement, the development of the Catholic Worker, and many other progressive causes, and maybe there was a time when every seminarian at the GTU was required to do weekly volunteer work as part of their training.2 I don’t know, but what I find revealing about this statement is that it presents a bold picture of how “the secular world” tends to view people who openly live their Christian faith. Those of us in The Church very often relish our sense of being “in the world but not of it” (John 15:19). We’re here, but we’re not. We live in the now and in the not yet. But this comment might help us see that those around us see that position as being reversed; that we are “of the world, but not really in it.” We are part of the fabric of being, just like everyone else, but don’t often come “down to earth” and mix in with the reality of daily, lived existence. I don’t happen to agree with this categorization, but I think it’s helpful to remember that this is a common perception that is “out there.” Being called, as we are, to being yeast (Matt 13:33, Gal. 5:9), and salt (Matt. 5:13), and lambs among wolves (Luke 10:3) what risks will we need to take, what activities will we need to be involved in so that our secular sisters and brothers see us as being more fully IN the world?

The third conversation I had took place with baby boom, non-practicing, secular Christians, who also happened to be heavily involved in the labor movement. The labor union, not the church, had become the community that gave their lives coherence and value and meaning. Most had been raised Christian, and so most had a glint of recognition when I introduced myself as a Beatitude Society Fellow. The conversation roamed around the confluence of Green-Collar Jobs and labor issues, and then it came back around to asking more about what the Beatitude Society was all about. After I explained what it was and what we were trying to achieve, there was typically this response: “Wow, I’ve been waiting for years to hear that message again. I grew up in the church and I eventually left it because it seemed like a social club that was only interested in raising money to support itself. But underneath that was this amazing message: that everyone matters, the poor matter, that the meek matter, that we are supposed to love each our neighbors as our selves, that we’re supposed to take care of each other and all of creation. I haven’t heard that message in a long time; I really hope we start hearing it more now, because we really need it.”

In Luke’s gospel, Jesus announces his ministry by reading from Isaiah, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor...proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor (Luke 4:18), this is the Good News that Jesus Christ brings. There are many out there who are blessed because they hunger for this amazing message. Is this the same message we proclaim, not only by what we say, but by the way we live our lives? If not, then I think we have to ask, are we really preaching and sharing and living out the Good News of God in Christ?

So those are the conversations and the questions that will stay with me. What’s theology got to do with it, or what are we more interested in: real, communal transformation or sanctifying the status quo? It never occurred to me that Christians would be openly engaged in social justice work, or are Christians really in the world, and do we have a responsibility to the world or not? And, where has this message been for so long, or are we proclaiming by word and example the Good News of God in Christ—are we seeking and serving Christ in all persons, and loving our neighbors as ourselves, are we striving for justice and peace among all people and respecting the dignity of every human being? The conversations are interrelated, and if you think of these questions and question askers as representatives of overlapping sets—a kind of Venn diagram—I think you’ll see a space where all three intersect. I’m not sure how to define it, but I feel certain that this is the space where my ministry (listening, learning, preaching, convening, catalyzing, teaching, facilitating, encouraging, challenging, conversing, and transforming) will take place in the coming years.

1 Wendell Berry, “Solving for Pattern” in The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays of Wendell Berry, (Emeryville: Shoemaker & Hoard, 2002) p. 272.

2 I’ve heard from one alum that this was the case, but I haven’t done any fact checking on this.

Strengthening the progressive Christian network for justice, compassion, & peace