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Deadly Vipers, White Captivity and Real Reconciliation

Monday I was sitting in my library with Phileena reading. Occasionally I’d pick up my phone and review my Twitter feed. I noticed something that immediately caused me concern. It made me sick in my stomach and told Phileena, “oh no… this isn’t going to end well.”

What I read were tweets from Professor Soong-Chan Rah regarding the offense he had taken to Zondervan’s promotional material for a book called Deadly Viper Character Assassins by Mike Foster and Jud Wilhite. Prof Rah’s blog quickly moved from articulating his offense, to posting personal e-mails (something I don’t condone, but something he is addressing) he had received from Mike, to the following day’s open letter to Mike, Jud and Zondervan (an important letter for all people who care about issues of race and Christian community).

Why I felt such concern is that I know all these guys, love all these guys, and totally believe in (and stand behind) the messages they embody.

Mike and Jud’s book on character, integrity and leadership has challenged me to continually name my own short-comings in these areas and find practical and creative ways of growing in them. The book is thoughtful, creative and captivating. It’s very honest. It’s full of tangible suggestions and real-life scenarios. I first found it in 2007 and have read through it at least a half dozen times since then. But more than the content of the book, I am inspired by the ways that Mike and Jud embody the material in the intergrity of their own lives. After reading Prof Rah’s blog posts, I was saddened because though Prof Rah’s concerns regarding race are legitimate, the content of the book has really helped a lot of people and I would hate for the positive impact of the material to be diminished.

An important evangelical reformer, Prof Rah recently published a book The Next Evangelicalism: Freeing the Church from Western Cultural Captivity, that, among other things, speaks of “white captivity.” Something that our Word Made Flesh community has grappled with and continues to keep at the forefront of many of our conversations regarding mission. Several years ago we came to the sad realization that we were victims ourselves to our own malformed and unnamed white, Western captivity and have since made very deliberate, theologically based commitments to submission in a multi-ethnic, multi-national and multi-cultural formation of community. I respect and admire Prof Rah and believe in his message. It’s been a challenge to our whole community, one that has offered us crucial direction in who we want and need to become.

In addition to Prof Rah’s message being important for those of us who make up, and are, enslaved to the dominant consciousness of whiteness, his message has named, given language to, and touched on a very sensitive nerve for many people who are marginalized by white captivity.

Within a matter of 20 hours from Prof Rah posting his first blog, the backlash escalated at a furious pace. The real wounds of Asian Americans (and others) who have experienced voicelessness and offense at the (intentional and unintentional) expense of the comodification of their culture, found a symbol to rally around. Sadly (and understandably), Mike and Jud found themselves caught off guard and ambushed by all this.

Nikki Toyama-Szeto (Program Director for Urbana 09), knowing that I was friends with everyone involved, Facebooked me to see if I could help broker an introduction. I was glad to.

My sense was that the tone had escalated in ways that did not invite real dialogue, but had created a platform for people to voice their frustrations (which is a legitimate need). It seemed there were many assumptions made about Mike and Jud that excluded them from dialogue and turned them into the face of the problem. Sadly, many of these frustrations seemed to come in the form of accusations that weren’t entirely fair or should not have been aimed at Mike and Jud. Though their book touched a nerve, I was concerned that it may have been the wrong symbol to target.

I was also concerned that part of the breakdown in dialogue was that the real people and voices involved (Mike, Jud and Prof Rah) were objects in a conversation where the subject wasn’t entirely understood by everyone. I hoped, making an introduction would allow real people to be the subjects in dialogue toward the object of much-needed understanding, sensitivity and reconciliation.

By Wednesday publications like Sojourners and Mother Jones had picked up on the controversy. Anger around the issue (not only by Asian Americans) was simmering. I got a text from Nikki who asked if I’d be willing to join a conference call later that afternoon.

The virtual table included Nikki, Mike and Jud, Prof Rah, Eugene Cho (Pastor of Quest Church), Kathy Khang (InterVarsity Regional Multi-Ethnic Ministries Director) and myself. I wasn’t sure why I was included, other than I was a common friend that Mike, Jud and Prof Rah seemed to share.

The conversation was marked by a beautiful spirit of honesty, humility and openness. It was a safe place for the beginning of dialogue. It gave me a lot of hope that there is a real expectation for deeper understanding and reconciliation among some great people who all have crucially important messages and live them beautifully.

On Thursday there was a joint statement posted on several blogs that I hope will de-escalate some of the unconstructive tone that has fueled some of the backlash and flurry of activity on the blogosphere.

I realize there are, and will continue to be, a multitude of competing perspectives on this. But I trust that all sensitive, sensible and reasonable people who have the courage and thoughtfulness to engage this conversation will concede that these issues necessitate grace for growth. At points we may all need to agree to respectfully disagree, while working toward a collective affirmation of the divine imprint of God in all humanity inviting us to a greater sense of oneness, unity and solidarity.

Today I have hope that this will end well. The trajectory is headed in a hope-filled placed.

In the meantime, my respect and admiration has only grown for Jud, Mike and Prof Rah as I see them further humanizing and loving one another toward a real unity and an embodied example of what reconciliation looks like among brothers.

Heuertz Family Update Letter for November 2009

“Every second of the search is an encounter with God,” the boy told his heart. “When I have been truly searching for my treasure, every day has been luminous, because I’ve known that every hour was a part of the dream that I would find it. When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I’ve discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for a shepherd to achieve.”

                                                           The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, p. 132

 Dear Friends,

Greetings from Omaha. I’ve been reading The Alchemist—an enchanting fable about following your dream. The words of Jesus mingle with this creative author and I am moved to reflection. In Matthew 6, Jesus says, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Where is your treasure? What is your dream? If you’re not sure, listen to your heart; it will guide you to your created purpose.

Many years ago Chris and I had a dream. Young and idealistic, we dreamed of a better world. A world full of justice, compassion and equality. Nearly fourteen years later, communities centered on the Reign of Christ have been established in eleven cities in the majority world. People of poverty mingle with people of wealth and on most days we are left wondering who is rich and who is poor. Together, as we do the very hard work of loving one another, an exchange occurs and each of us is liberated a bit more than we were the day before.

Pursuing the dream of Word Made Flesh has required courage we didn’t know we had and unexpected treasure has marked our journey. But receiving those treasures has come at a cost. When we dare to dream, it will cost us everything; but there is no limit to the fulflling return. You are one of those treasures. And our dream would not be possilbe without you. Thank you for journeying with us.

Be well, Breathe deep,

Phileena Heuertz

In Honor of Jara & Kenley's Wedding, a Re-Post :: J.B.S. - Happy Moving Day Anniversary Dear Friend (Originally Posted 06/08/08)

 (Originally Posted 06/08/08)

Three years ago today, I found myself surprisingly set on a journey of re-defining friendship.

It was June 8, 2005 that Jara B. Sturdivant packed up her belongings, threw them in the back of a big ole truck and started driving from Memphis all the way to Omaha.

For the past three years Jara has faithfully loved our community through tremendous sacrifices but always with great joy. She’s had two different job titles (not counting “emcee,” which she’s been on many occasions for our community’s events), both of which she dominated (and still dominates). She’s seen at least 14 people come and go from our Omaha community, loving each of them through their transitions. She has brought tremendous insight and profoundly discerning wisdom into how many of our community’s decisions have been made. She’s been a source of strength, humble yet confident leadership, and thoughtful support for our shared vocations.

Jara’s also been a great friend. One of the best. Sharing her friends. Helping us discover new music. Reminding us to take care of ourselves. Running errands. Celebrating achievements and accomplishments and even the mundane and ordinary. Questions. Confrontations. Times of prayer. Running jokes. Laughing at each other’s quirks. Book discussions. Lost, the Office and 30 Rock. Contests.

Last year Phileena were on sabbatical. We started doing pilgrimage, the Camino de Santiago, by walking nearly 600 miles from southern France all the way through the Basque-country of northern Spain.

Then we got a fellowship from the Center for Reconciliation at Duke’s Divinity School. The center rented us a little place to stay, the Rose Cottage, in Durham. I remember the feelings as Phileena pulled into the driveway of the Rose for the first time. We were a little anxious and somewhat afraid. A new town. No friends. An empty home that we hoped would embrace us.

As we walked through the door of the Rose for the very first time we found a big box waiting for us on the kitchen table. And a note. It was from Jara.

Inside the box was a large and extremely beautiful bamboo bowl. The note read,

When you all arrive in your new home, you will have two things—a letter from me and a gift. It’s a simple gift. A bamboo bowl. As I’ve thought about how to send you off and how to keep in touch I was brought back to Nouwen’s Clowing In Rome. I’m excited because through this time away our friendship—not our work relationship—but our go run errands-do body attack—friendship will be deepened. It isn’t until we are empty—like this bowl—that we can fully embrace solitude and welcome each other more intimately in our lives. My hope and prayer is that you can fill this bowl with love, memories, letters—and that it brings us closer and close to God and each other. Keep on walking Pilgrims, Love JBS”

Along with the letter were four photocopied pages of Henri Nouwen’s book, Clowing In Rome with paragraphs bracketed and highlighted with specific statements underlined,

Solitude, then, is not private time in contrast to time together, nor it is a time to restore our tired minds. Solitude is very different from a “time-out” from our busy lives. Solitude is the very ground from which community grows. Whenever we pray alone, study, read, write, or simply spend quiet time away from the places where we interact with each other directly, we are potentially opened for a deeper intimacy with each other. It is a fallacy to think that we grow closer to each other only when we talk, ply, or work together. Much growth certainly occurs in such human interactions, but these interactions derive their fruit from solitude, because in solitude our intimacy with each other is deepened. In solidtude we discovery each other in a way that physical presence makes difficult if not impossible. In solitude we know a bond with each other that does not depend on words, gestures, or actions but is rather a bond much deeper than our own efforts could ever create.

If we base our life together on physical proximity, on our ability to spend time together, speak with each other, eat together, and worship together, life quickly starts fluctuating according to moods, personal attractiveness, and mutual compatibility, and thus becomes very demanding and tiring. Solitude, on the other hand, puts us in touch with a unity that precedes all unifying activities. In solitude we become aware that we were together before we came together and that life is not a creation of our will but rather an obedient response to the reality of our being united. Whenever we enter into solitude, we witness to a love that transcends our interpersonal communications and proclaims that we love each other because we have been loved first (1 John 4:19). Solitude keeps us in touch with the sustaining love from which we draw strength. It sets us free from the compulsions of fear and anger and allows us to be in the midst of an anxious and violent world as a sign of hope and a source of courage. In short, solitude creates that free community, that natural family that makes bystanders say, “See how they love each other.”

…it is also true that our emptiness provides a very large and sacred space where we can welcome all the people of the world. There is a powerful connection between our emptiness and our ability to welcome. When we give up what sets us apart from others—not just property but also opinions, prejudices, judgments, and mental preoccupations—then we have room within to welcome friends as well as enemies. When we pray for others, we invite them to enter with us into our solitude and there we lift them up to the God we encounter. In true solitude there is unlimited space for others because we are empty. In this poverty nobody stands over and against us, because our enemy is only our enemy as long as we have something to defend. But when we have nothing to hold onto or protect, when we have nothing we consider exclusively ours, then nobody will threaten us. Rather, in the center of our solitude we meet all men and women as brothers and sisters. In true solitude, we stand so naked and so vulnerable before God, and we become so deeply aware of our total dependency on God’s love, that not only our friends but also those who kill, lie, torture, rape, and wage wars become part of our very flesh and blood. Yes, in true solitude we are so totally empty and poor that we find our solidarity with brothers and sisters everywhere. Our hearts, full of God and empty of fear and anger, become a welcoming home for God and for our whole human family on earth. So bringing our brothers and sisters into our solitude and prayer by praying for them is a choice of self-emptying, inviting us to give up all that divides us from others to become those we pray for so that God may touch them in us.

That thoughtful and creative gift, the letter, the quotes from Nouwen, and the big bamboo bowl is a treasure we still cherish today.

During those first few awkward weeks at Duke when we were still trying to find friends, let alone our way around town, the bowl was a “safe” place for us. When we missed our community and home, when we felt lonely and displaced, we’d sit at our table and pull the notes and letters out of it and read them.

During our four months in North Carolina, the bowl was the centerpiece of our little home, the Rose Cottage. It sat on our dining room table and we slowly, yet steadily, began filling it with letters from friends (many from Jara, often 2-3 a week), ticket stubs from games and concerts, wine corks, hotel key cards (I collect them from the rooms we stay in), pictures of old and new friends, bar coasters, beer bottle labels (for some reason I peel those off and collect them too), take-out menus, matchbooks and other little memories from our sabbatical.

We still have the bowl out and it’s the first thing you see when you walk into our townhouse here in Omaha. And it’s still filled with the memories of our time away. On top of all them, is the original letter from Jara.

Three years later, Jara, her love for us, and the integrity of how she lives continues to be an inspiration—but more than that, a “safe” place. The gift of that bowl, something empty that was filled by friends and community, is a lot like Jara’s friendship. She does a beautiful job of creating space, open and empty space, to fill with memories and celebrations, conversation and sweet connections.

Today I thank God for her. For how she has embodied something I think we all long and hope for, a good and faithful friend. Today I celebrate Jara.

Happy moving-day anniversary dear friend.

Polarizing Rhetoric :: A War of Words Over a Peace Prize

I’m not sure what was more surprising, that Obama won the Nobel Peace Prize or the polarizing response to the announcement.

It was a touch after 7 a.m. this morning when I took a peak at the headlines on my phone browser at the Omaha airport (headed to New Mexico). I read the headline reporting that Obama had won the Peace Prize, but it didn’t register—was feeling pretty sleepy at that point.

I scrolled through my Twitter feed and suddenly it did register. The tweets were already popping, mostly laced with disgust and sarcasm, with a few congratulatory sentiments sprinkled in.

When I looked at my Facebook feed and saw the endless stream of status updates venting their reactions I wasn’t sure what to think.

I mean, Obama is a significant leader in today’s world for a number of reasons:

• Though some may argue that he’s not exactly the paradigm of a modern civil rights leader, he is undoubtedly an important symbol in the civil rights movement.

• He has taken a strong stand for nuclear disarmament, something that many people in today’s world have little understanding regarding how crucial this is.

• Unlike the previous US administration, Obama is committed to diplomacy and dialogue, a courageous and humble show of strength in leadership.

Of course, those are just a few highlights, and, many will argue they are either his only highlights, or may even disagree that they are important in and of themselves.

I realize none of those reasons seem to merit the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize. In fact, much of the criticism about this award coming too early in his tenure is more than fair. But let’s not put too much credence in a prize that was never awarded to Mahatma Gandhi due politicized fears of angering the British empire during its dying days (let alone a prize that most Americans would be unable to name the last 3 recipients of anyway).

I guess reading the tweets and Facebook status updates got me concerned. Why the hate? How come we have thrown so much oppositional energy behind our political stands? Is there an honest way to resist cynicism in a two-party system that successfully divides?

The announcement seemed to be a trigger for some people to continue to pile on their frustration with a Democrat in the office. Others, like RNC Chair Michael Steele just used it to take cheap shots, rather than celebrating that an American received the honor.

What I’m left wondering is if this is either a warning shot from the rest of the world to dial down the American trend of picking fights and starting wars every 4-7 years, or if this was not so much an affirmation of what Obama has done, but an indictment against what the previous US administration did.

Whatever the case, Obama’s speech was fantastic—humble and self-effacing, giving the credit back to the American people’s intention to make the world a better and more peaceful place.

And it’s a little funny to watch the rest of the world celebrate and congratulate Obama while we peeps here in America vent and argue over our reactions.

What Do We Do About This? :: An Intersexual South African and Gender

Perhaps you’ve seen this on the news.

Caster Semanaya (a South African runner) recently blew away her competition in a race drawing attention to the possibility of elevated testosterone levels in her body. (S)he has since then undergone gender testing only to determine that (s)he has both the sexual organs of a man and a woman.

Throughout the media, it has brought attention to an important conversation about the differences of “sex” and “gender.”

Are sex and gender always the same thing? Some have suggested that gender is a culturally constructed, socialized part of identity while sex may in fact have to do with physical organs and levels of testosterone or estrogen.

Is this where we’re headed? Will testosterone or estrogen levels begin to become the validation of sex?

Semanaya of course is not the only person to bear within their body this physical anomaly. The language used to describe this reality in humans is referred to as androgynous, hermaphrodite or intersexual. 

Ironically, I was actually watching the news when this story hit while simultaneously reading a book where the Franciscan priest, Father Richard Rohr, writing about gender and creation says,

“The spiritually whole person integrates within himself or herself both the masculine and the feminine dimensions of the human spirit. She or he is androgynous in the best sense of that term, which is derived from the two Greek words meaning “man” and “woman.”  It is very fascinating that some tribes and civilizations actually considered the man-woman to actually be the shaman, the wise man, the spiritual seer. They were the image of Divine wholeness. Androgyny is the ability to be masculine in a womanly way and to be feminine in a manly way, if I can day to say it that way.”

I know there are a lot of socially and religiously conservative people who follow this blog (thanks for reading) and many of them hold traditional views of faith, sexuality and human identity. I’m wondering if some of you (anyone is actually invited to comment) could respond to the question:

“what do we say to an androgynous person about love, sex and marriage?”

What is a biblical sexual ethic for someone like Caster Semanaya who understands and identifies her gender as female, something that has been socialized and reinforced in her psyche, but bears within her body the sex of a male?