what can I do to change the world?

A few blocks from where I live is a church called “to change the world” church (or something in that line). As soon as I finish up at the congregation I’m working at the moment (three weeks from now) I want to visit this church (as well as a few others in the inner-city area where I currently live). But in all honesty I want to visit them because I’m interested in the growing number of black urban prosperity churches in Africa, and I suspect this one to be a prime candidate (you really have to walk past it to understand my suspicion, but the google streetview image point to the space where it is situated, at the time of taking the photo about a year ago it was still “to let”).

I mention this because I have this growing suspicion of the popularity of mission. This is partly what lies behind the obvious attempt at controversy in titling a post “Against Mother Theresa” (I mean, who the hell (pun intended) is against Mother Theresa?), and I hope to unpack this more technically in a coming post. Because it’s not only the fast growing churches in urban Africa that is running with the popular theme that “you can change the world”. Since I’m facing the future of unemployment I’m looking through some church adds at the moment, and as a rule the mainline churches also find it important to remind us that they exist to “make a difference to society”.

This ideal I’ll obviously support, in spite of my growing skepticism concerning whether we actually mean what we say. Two quotes from what I’ve read yesterday point to what I believe we need to focus on if the church do believe that we are called to change the world, to make a difference.

Lester Brown writing in the New Scientist:

The question I get asked most is “What can I do?” People expect me to say change your light bulbs, recycle newspaper, but I say we must restructure the world economy, especially in energy. It’s about becoming politically active. If there’s a coal-fired power station near you, organise to close it down.

And this is the reality which I’m fearing in the church. We all want to do something. But the something should be personal, hands-on. We want to pick up papers. Hand out food. We don’t want to get involved in the messy world of politics where the systemic questions are being addressed.

And then there is South African theologian Klaus Nűrnberger writing in Prosperity, Poverty and Pollution:

Meanwhile, left-wing activism has changed from Marxist macro-economics, which has fallen to pieces, to small scale community development. Ideology has made way for romanticism about the symbolic universe of the marginalised. Others concentrate on isolated environmental issues. This is simply not good enough. While the emphasis on community empowerment at grass roots level is important, and while we do not want elephants and tigers to die out, it is the macro-economic context in which grass roots development and ecological sustainability will either flourish or flounder.

Now we’ve made all kinds of arguments when confronted with the systemic questions. We regularly tell each other that people will change when busying themselves with the random acts of kindness, and then become more inclined to participate in the broad systemic changes. We also divide the solutions, and say that some should busy themselves with “community empowerment at grass roots level” while others address the broad political questions. And while I think both these arguments have some merit, I also believe that both can potentially be just another way of sustaining the status quo, just as the middle-class church which focus on changing the world, but refuse to address the macro-economic questions, is most probably more keeping the status quo in place than changing the world.

So what can I do to change the world? Probably nothing. And this is the reality which our hyper-modern, hyper-individual personalities does not want to face. I cannot change the world (in spite of all the examples we like to hold up as heroes, Mandela, Theresa, Ghandi), to change the world we will have to give it a shot. Because changing the world will require us to organize ourselves, to lobby, protest, analyze, construct alternative solutions, implement alternative solutions, create a new world. We will have to address the macro-economic world in which we live. And we will have to do it, we cannot out-source it to either the Americans or the politicians.

What could academics do in response to #17Feb

Dedicating a whole blogpost to the question of the role of professional academics in response to Libia might say more about my personal process of discernment than anything else at the moment. It might also just be because of the article by Rebecca Chopp* that I’ve been reading over the weekend. The argument doesn’t concern me, but the statement which the American Academy of Religion made in response to 9/11 does concern me in light of the recent events in North-Africa, as well as the question whether it might spark similar events in Zimbabwe.

We grieve with out members, their colleagues, and students who have lost loved ones in this tragedy. As the major professional association of scholars and teachers in the field of religion, we feel a special responsibility in this time of crisis. We therefore urge our members to find appropriate educational responses to these events and their aftermath in our classes, our colleges and universities, and our communities, and to serve as resources in the national conversation on a range of issues that have been foregrounded by this tragedy: suffering and evil, human rights and religious liberties, international order and justice, democracy and the common good. The AAR Board especially wishes to urge members to encourage conversation on campuses and in communities about the dangers of religious and ethnic harassment and discrimination. Such educational engagements are appropriate to the Academy’s mission to foster reflection upon and understanding of religious traditions, issues, questions, and values by bringing the teaching and scholarship of our members to bear on the public understanding of religion and religions.

(AAR Board Statement 2002)

I do not wish to go into the typical African slant (and I can do this if needs be) of how the whole world was reacting when CNN kept on repeating the 9/11 footage, while Gaddafi (to use the example which is on our table today) just kept on doing what he does best. I do not wish to go into a comparison of which is the worse atrocity. Suffice to say that 9/11 was wrong, Gaddafi was wrong. 9/11 is in our past, Gaddafi has been our present for 42 years, and he is our present at the moment, and the questions on how we react has to be responded to today.

Our academic environments is the place where we are supposed to challenge our underlying ideologies. We might say that academics has the task to critically engage the reigning ideologies with the complex tools which is not available to the broader public. They do this not for the sake of the academy alone, but for the sake of society.

My critique is quite simple. If our academic environment has produced the business, technology, politics and intellectual leaders of our day, and these formative voices are able to continue this week as if Libya is not happening, then we have to face some serious questions about either the analytical skills of the academy (academics has not been able to notice the injustice under the various dictators), the critical capacity of the academy (academics has not been able to criticize ex-liberators like Gaddafi), or the formative effect of the academy (students are not really changed morally by their participation in the unversity environment).

So what is bugging me as theologian at this stage is the following: I wonder how many ethics classes and missiology classes are going to pass this week without mentioning Libya to students. I wonder whether the universities will find ways of forming students which will be able to voice critique and fight for change in the world. And I wonder whether the universities as a whole will contribute to a better understanding of what is currently happening in the world, or whether various oil interests and the fact that the events is happening in Africa will be enough reason that also the universities, even the theologians, will somehow just never respond.

The voices saying that South Africa has to be a a voice of critique within Africa is growing. But we need solid analysis of the implications of our choices, and then make the choice for justice whatever the cost might be. The responsibility towards society for those at universities (currently or at any position in the past) is to contribute to this solid analysis. I hope that universities in South Africa, as well as the many who have had the privilege of obtaining degrees will contribute to our public conversation in South Africa by stating clearly who all the stakeholders in this mess is, including the various power bases outside of Libya. Our critique need to address the full complexity of the problem, deeper than simply getting rid of Gaddafi (a bare minimum), but uncovering the ways in which many outside of Libya has allowed, or even contributed to, his being kept in positions of power. But mere analysis and critique is not enough. We need the moral conviction to go to the streets and contribute to the growing pressure on both African dictators and their many friends (including those running politically correct democracies).

In South Africa we need this also as an exercise, because Zimbabwe need a date. Because in South Africa we will have to move beyond the Mbeki scapegoat and address the broader system which is making it possible that Zimbabwe is continuing along this route.

We need more than nice quotes about justice today. We need to listen to those who provide the analysis which might make us uncomfortable. Because let’s face it, if change in Libya wouldn’t have cost anyone else anything, then at least some self-righteous liberal would have made a lot more noise long ago. Dictators do not exist in isolation. They are dictators in relation to many positions of power in this world. Let’s use every ounce of our critical capacities to uncover these, and do more then retweet #Libya and #Gaddafi (important as these tweets are).

*Beyond the Founding Fratricidal Conflict: A Tale of Three Cities

reflecting on the politics of parenthood

One of my favourite scenes from Fiddler on the Roof is when Perchik askes Hodel to marry him. The stumbling and discomfort of talking about the relationship, the way in which he bring his whole belief system into the conversation, and she reminds him that this relationship is about even more than the big socio-political questions of the day, and as can be expected, I have liking in Perchik as character, the revolutionary, believing that a new world is possible.

It’s been just over two weeks since we heard that Maryke is pregnant. We are suddenly thrown into the wonderful world of becoming parents. One of my friends said that he can’t wait for the contemplations on parenting, and I can’t wait to write them, and can’t wait to reflect on this important aspect of life together with all those who have been forming my thoughts over the past years.

I have to start by thinking of parenting as one way of addressing the political questions of the day. As Hodel does, you, and my wife might support you in this, should remind me that it’s also about affection. And I’d say, yes of course, and continue to unpack this as a deeply political task. You might be somewhat uncomfortable with this, and so am I. Still, let me put my thoughts on the table.

Being really excited about the coming of this small miracle (the fact that I’m using this word already reflects the excitement, since I’ll never use the word miracle for anything) into our lived, we share the instinct, I hope with most parents, that we want to do anything possible to protect this kid. We are still to meet her/him, and already we are making choices which have more dramatic implications for our lives equal to the choice to get married! I guess we live with the instinct to take this child to a place where we believe to be a good place.

But simultaneously we carry into this new relationships all the socio-political convictions we have, and affection. We don’t want to take this child into any ghetto. We want to take this child to the marketplace, to the places where average South Africans live. To the inner-cities and townships, and dare I say sometimes also to the suburbs. We want this child to be part of a world less “raced” and “classed” into various ghettos. And we know it’s not possible.

So I guess part of what affection does is to provide and even deeper political commitment, and faith conviction. Convinced that the world we dream of, the impossible world, can not wait another generation, because there is this child which we will do anything so that she/he might grow up in a world less violent (in all the complex ways in which violence manifests), more equal (in all the various ways where equality comes into play), and more open to become fully human.

I guess the deep commitment we have towards our children bring out the what we are truly committed towards. And this relationship will most probably bring out the many places where words were easy, but action not so easy. Maybe nothing reflects out deepest convictions better than the choices we make for our children.

becoming a Christian materialist

The idea that has been working in me for the past year or two could be explained as the conviction that ideas which is not unpacked in all its complexity in the actual material (I’m starting to sound like those literalists who put 4 descriptives before the word “resurrection” just to make sure that you definitely agree with in the minutest detail with them) reality of our existence, then we should be very skeptical as to what the real intent of that idea is. I know that many in philosophy and theology has unpacked this much better than I have, but nonetheless, I need to write to get my head around this.

Even on ‘n popular level we have always claimed that the idea and its application should exist together. When it doesn’t, we make statements such as “practice what you preach”, and we talk about the hypocritical nature of the church. We especially love to talk about the church, although I believe the same should apply to most of modern liberal society. Because who will ever claim that what we should do is exploit the poor? Yet those in power participate in exactly this on a constant basis, whether Christian or not.

But rarely do we measure on what we actually do. In reality we have all this guards which we’ve employed so that no one could ever really know what I’m doing. So if you’d dare to make blatant racist comments, or claim that the plight of the poor should be of no concern, or that the destruction of the earth is not something which we should put energy into stopping, you will find yourself with a lot of harsh criticism. But if you choose to move out of a suburb which is attracting more and more black residents, spend your money in a way which will never be accessible to the majority, or consume products in a way which is not environmentally sustainable, little will be heard, except from a few radicals which we’ve worked out of mainstream conversations. So long as you make the right noises about all the good things you intend, and keep from braking these rules in the most blatant ways, you’ll be left alone, even considered a moral citizen whom are contributing to the social well-being of society.

And then we get those who follow Jesus, or those who follow Marx, that sit at a coffee-shop and discuss this new world where the first will be last, and where we should not wait to be served, but serve others, or where we dream of a world where the workers will not do work which they can’t afford to buy (and how many waiters can afford to sit at coffee-shops and be waited upon?). (and yes, I was sitting with Christian friends with Marxist inclinations at a coffee-shop in the past week)

And while the simple non-participation in the coffee-shops of our day might not lead to any kind of revolution creating a new world, we simply fail to notice that when ordering a Latté we are participating in keeping this system of unequal distribution in place. We have these nice ideas, but the true conversation towards our own ideas, that conversation which actually change our material reality in much more dramatic ways than by challenging our participation in coffee-shops (which can really be said to be an arguable example), that is what it is about.

However, it’s about more than hypocrisy. The skeptical view which we need to engage in the church, is that not only are our good ideas not reflected in how we construct our lives in this world, but our good ideas might actually be what keep us from constructing our concrete lives in a way which reflect the vision we claim to have of society. It is exactly because we can sit in church on Sunday mornings and dream about a society where all are equal that we can go out during the week and participate in a society where equality is a continually fading dream, always knowing that on Sunday morning a preacher will believe on our behalf that this dream is actually true, and thanks to this rhetoric we will be able to continue one more week.

So, since I have to go now for a meeting with fellow pastors at a local coffee-shop, and to prove that I’m don’t have in mind the typical examples of those who preach a heaven one day or something blatantly non-material as that, I’ll conclude with what I’m thinking about but still has to unpack more: is all this talk about mission actually changing the church, or is it exactly because of all this talk about mission that the so-called postmodern church is able to continue without actually changing.