Thursday, September 13, 2012
THE POVERTY TRAP
--Yap Kim Hao--
I was invited to a luncheon and fireside chat jointly organized by the NUS Greater Good Series and Asia Refuge Projects. Dr Yang Saing Koma who received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for his rural development work in Cambodia and Professor Kua Ee Heok of NUS spoke on the topic “The Poverty Trap: Challenge of the Mind”. Asia Refuge Projects has invited Ambassador Chan Heng Chee as the Guest-of-Honour. This was also attended by NGOs from Cambodia, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.
I was reminded of my involvement on behalf of the Christian churches in the world on the work of relief and rehabilitation in 1979 immediately after the conclusion of the war and Phnom Penh was re-opened for the people to return home where they were forcefully evacuated by the Pol Pot regime. The task of rebuilding the country was soon extended to development work.
The new government that came into power then continues to the present which is a period of thirty-two years. Hun Sen was the Defense Minister. After meeting the whole Cabinet it was made known to us that he will emerge to lead and in 1985 became the Prime Minister till today. He is the longest serving Prime Minister in the world.
Dr Koma who is actively engaged in agriculture and rural development in his own country now would have been confronted with the many of the same challenges then. In the fireside chat he shared his concern of the mind-set of his people in the development of the country. His call is to respect the thinking of the people and aid agencies should not impose their ways upon them.
It was expected that the people will develop a new vision of their own future different from the Pol Pot regime. Recently the country has entered a new phase of urbanization and industrialization with a new form of expelling the urban poor to the countryside without adequate compensation and infrastructure to exist as a viable rural community. Foreign companies have invaded the country to grasp economic gains.
It is not only the addressing of the mind-set of the poor especially those in the rural society but also those who hold economic and political power. Are they aware of why people are poor or how they have been made poor. What is the common mind-set of the citizens as they carve a future for their country? We cannot deal with economic growth without engaging in social and political advancements for the common welfare of the whole country.
The poverty trap is not in terms of money but also that of social and political values. What is the vision of our global community of nations? What is the mind-set of the people within our own countries and how do we sustain one another in this inter-connecting world? This is the challenge we face for our common survival on planetary earth.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Transforming the Economy
Transforming the Economy: Linking Hands Across the Social and Environmental Divide
by Helena Norberg-Hodge
December 12, 2011
I share the deep concern expressed by Allen Kanner in “Why Extinction Matters at Least as Much as Climate Change” about what is happening to our planet, and I agree with him that focusing on climate change is too narrow in scope and effect. However, I don’t believe that shifting attention to extinction is the way forward.
"We now have a not-to-be-missed opportunity to link hands with the global Occupy movement," the author writes. "Their focus on the injustice and unsustainability of corporate capitalism is taking the debate rapidly in the direction of strategic action." Here, a sign at Occupy Oakland makes the link between environmental injustice and corporate power. Credit: Creative Commons/Rainforest Action Network.
If we are to have any chance of bringing about meaningful change, we urgently need to broaden and deepen our analysis. Climate change and extinction are both too narrow. We need to move beyond ecological concerns to reach out to the ever-larger proportion of society focused on eradicating injustice and poverty. We need to reach out to those who now live in fear of losing their livelihoods and homes. And, if we start addressing root causes, we will see that the corporate control of our governments, media, science, and even our minds is the single most important cause of both social and ecological breakdown.
My perspective has been greatly influenced by living in the non-Western world for much of the last four decades. In less industrialized countries the impact of corporate media and advertisements is stark and dramatic. People who previously exhibited tremendous self-respect and dignity, start speaking of themselves as “underdeveloped,” backward, and poor. I have witnessed the many ways in which conventional development and economic globalization manipulate people into becoming consumers. At the same time, the destruction of more self-reliant local economies unravels the fabric of community because it leads to a dramatic increase in competition and conflict for scarce job opportunities.
As Kanner points out, “The world’s dominant economic system, capitalism, not only assumes that people are fundamentally selfish, but goes to tremendous lengths to drive this point home on a daily basis.” This economy encourages competition, desire, and jealousy at every turn. It plays on our fears and insecurities to induce us to consume ever more stuff. It underlies the pressures in the workplace, the desperation to hold on to a job in this time of rising unemployment and the fear and despair among the unemployed. It pervades every aspect of our lives, even influencing how we think and feel about ourselves. It has separated us from each other and the natural world and created or exacerbated every environmental crisis we face today.
In my view, we need to go straight to this root cause by addressing the economic system rather than the symptoms it produces. To do so, it is vital that we link the harm that this system is inflicting on the natural world to the harm that it inflicts on human beings. This allows us to acknowledge not only the tragic loss and suffering in the nonhuman world, but also the suffering in society: our children who are pressured from a young age to consume in order to feel loved, special, worthy; the teenagers so beset with insecurities that they harm themselves or lash out violently against their peers; the millions around the world who deal daily with depression; the students graduating with massive debts, full of self-doubt and little hope of employment; the 99 percent that have had more than enough of it all.
"My perspective has been greatly influenced by living in the non-Western world for much of the last four decades," the author writes. "I have witnessed the many ways in which conventional development and economic globalization manipulate people into becoming consumers," as in this crowded KFC in Mecca. Credit: CC Al Jazeera English.
Seeing the global economic system that promotes rampant consumerism and waste as the root cause of our environmental problems also enables us to reject the personal guilt and self-recrimination that is so widespread today in the West. Instead of focusing on narrow, individual consumer choices, it’s important to raise awareness about the need for policy change. Our efforts to reduce our ecological footprint are small in comparison to the massive amounts of carbon emissions produced by big business in the blind pursuit of globalized trade. Few jobs exist where we can work for the benefit of people and planet, and environmentally friendly products are often prohibitively expensive. The products most readily accessible are overpackaged, overprocessed, and shipped halfway around the world.
The same applies to extinction. Even though we should certainly encourage a sense of empathy and care, few individuals have any direct influence on the survival of endangered species. We can grieve, we can support conservation organizations, but ultimately we must make fundamental changes to the economy to avert further destruction.
We now have a not-to-be-missed opportunity to link hands with the global Occupy movement. Their focus on the injustice and unsustainability of corporate capitalism is taking the debate rapidly in the direction of strategic action. And, once the critique of multinational corporations and banks gives voice to the need for a systemic shift away from globalization, toward economic localization, we may well be on our way to greater sanity and sustainability.
The corporate economy is so vast and so distant that it’s structurally incapable of representing the needs of people and the Earth. Increasingly, people are coming to realize that the future lies in reducing the scale of economy, so as to bring it under democratic control. In essence, localization is about shortening the distance between producers and consumers wherever possible and meeting our needs — especially our basic needs — from closer to home. In localized economies, the impacts of our choices are more visible and we end up using resources more efficiently, while producing less waste and pollution. Localization is neither about eliminating international trade nor stopping all industrial production. It’s about insisting that business be place-based, that they belong to a society and adhere to the rules of that society.
The first and most urgent task is to level the playing field through re-regulating big business. Currently, large corporations — including banks, agri-businesses, and energy companies — enjoy a range of subsidies and tax breaks that are out of reach of smaller businesses. Without these supports, it would be very quickly apparent that business at this scale is inordinately costly, wasteful, and in many ways nonsensical. For example, redundant trade — the importing and exporting of identical products in almost identical quantities — would cease to be profitable and we could immediately reduce global carbon emissions by millions of tons.
Alongside these policy changes, we can support the bottom-up localization movement, which is already demonstrating that it is possible to reduce our ecological footprint while increasing economic stability. A prime example is the local food movement. By shortening the distance between producers and consumers, food miles are lowered, local economies strengthened, and many more small, diversified farms are able to survive. Studies have shown that farms like these actually produce more food per unit of land than large-scale monocultures. This means that more localized food systems leave more space for wilderness, while also increasing niches for wildlife on the farms themselves.
Local farmer's markets such as this one in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, offer a concrete example of localized economies that are already functioning. Credit: Creative Commons/WBUR.
In more place-based, localized economies people reconnect with the natural world around them; this kind of reconnection is one of the best ways to engender compassion, whether for other humans or for other species. There are a number of projects that are already doing this with juvenile delinquents, prisoners, torture victims, and people with drug addictions. The personal transformation many of them experience in reconnecting with the source of life is truly inspiring.
Experiencing our deeper connections to the living world can certainly lead to feelings of grief and loss, but also to joy and an appreciation for what is still there. Even the tiniest worm and beetle can engender a sense of the miracle of life and remind us that we are deeply, spiritually intertwined with the magical complexity of the cosmos.
Ultimately, it is deeply inspiring to realize that the same changes that are essential for our ecological wellbeing are essential for human well-being. No matter what our main concern is — climate change, unemployment and poverty, social conflict, or extinction — we can be most effective by focusing on root causes. That way we can begin not only to reverse our countless ecological problems but also to start the journey of recovering our deeper nature, our life-purpose, and our joy.
(To read other perspectives on extinction, climate change, and the rights of nature, click here.)
Author and filmmaker Helena Norberg-Hodge is the founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture. She is a pioneer of the ‘new economy’ movement, and has been promoting an economics of personal, social and ecological well-being for more than thirty years. Her groundbreaking work in Ladakh earned her the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize), and her book, Ancient Futures, along with a film of the same title, has been translated into more than forty languages.
by Helena Norberg-Hodge
December 12, 2011
I share the deep concern expressed by Allen Kanner in “Why Extinction Matters at Least as Much as Climate Change” about what is happening to our planet, and I agree with him that focusing on climate change is too narrow in scope and effect. However, I don’t believe that shifting attention to extinction is the way forward.
"We now have a not-to-be-missed opportunity to link hands with the global Occupy movement," the author writes. "Their focus on the injustice and unsustainability of corporate capitalism is taking the debate rapidly in the direction of strategic action." Here, a sign at Occupy Oakland makes the link between environmental injustice and corporate power. Credit: Creative Commons/Rainforest Action Network.
If we are to have any chance of bringing about meaningful change, we urgently need to broaden and deepen our analysis. Climate change and extinction are both too narrow. We need to move beyond ecological concerns to reach out to the ever-larger proportion of society focused on eradicating injustice and poverty. We need to reach out to those who now live in fear of losing their livelihoods and homes. And, if we start addressing root causes, we will see that the corporate control of our governments, media, science, and even our minds is the single most important cause of both social and ecological breakdown.
My perspective has been greatly influenced by living in the non-Western world for much of the last four decades. In less industrialized countries the impact of corporate media and advertisements is stark and dramatic. People who previously exhibited tremendous self-respect and dignity, start speaking of themselves as “underdeveloped,” backward, and poor. I have witnessed the many ways in which conventional development and economic globalization manipulate people into becoming consumers. At the same time, the destruction of more self-reliant local economies unravels the fabric of community because it leads to a dramatic increase in competition and conflict for scarce job opportunities.
As Kanner points out, “The world’s dominant economic system, capitalism, not only assumes that people are fundamentally selfish, but goes to tremendous lengths to drive this point home on a daily basis.” This economy encourages competition, desire, and jealousy at every turn. It plays on our fears and insecurities to induce us to consume ever more stuff. It underlies the pressures in the workplace, the desperation to hold on to a job in this time of rising unemployment and the fear and despair among the unemployed. It pervades every aspect of our lives, even influencing how we think and feel about ourselves. It has separated us from each other and the natural world and created or exacerbated every environmental crisis we face today.
In my view, we need to go straight to this root cause by addressing the economic system rather than the symptoms it produces. To do so, it is vital that we link the harm that this system is inflicting on the natural world to the harm that it inflicts on human beings. This allows us to acknowledge not only the tragic loss and suffering in the nonhuman world, but also the suffering in society: our children who are pressured from a young age to consume in order to feel loved, special, worthy; the teenagers so beset with insecurities that they harm themselves or lash out violently against their peers; the millions around the world who deal daily with depression; the students graduating with massive debts, full of self-doubt and little hope of employment; the 99 percent that have had more than enough of it all.
"My perspective has been greatly influenced by living in the non-Western world for much of the last four decades," the author writes. "I have witnessed the many ways in which conventional development and economic globalization manipulate people into becoming consumers," as in this crowded KFC in Mecca. Credit: CC Al Jazeera English.
Seeing the global economic system that promotes rampant consumerism and waste as the root cause of our environmental problems also enables us to reject the personal guilt and self-recrimination that is so widespread today in the West. Instead of focusing on narrow, individual consumer choices, it’s important to raise awareness about the need for policy change. Our efforts to reduce our ecological footprint are small in comparison to the massive amounts of carbon emissions produced by big business in the blind pursuit of globalized trade. Few jobs exist where we can work for the benefit of people and planet, and environmentally friendly products are often prohibitively expensive. The products most readily accessible are overpackaged, overprocessed, and shipped halfway around the world.
The same applies to extinction. Even though we should certainly encourage a sense of empathy and care, few individuals have any direct influence on the survival of endangered species. We can grieve, we can support conservation organizations, but ultimately we must make fundamental changes to the economy to avert further destruction.
We now have a not-to-be-missed opportunity to link hands with the global Occupy movement. Their focus on the injustice and unsustainability of corporate capitalism is taking the debate rapidly in the direction of strategic action. And, once the critique of multinational corporations and banks gives voice to the need for a systemic shift away from globalization, toward economic localization, we may well be on our way to greater sanity and sustainability.
The corporate economy is so vast and so distant that it’s structurally incapable of representing the needs of people and the Earth. Increasingly, people are coming to realize that the future lies in reducing the scale of economy, so as to bring it under democratic control. In essence, localization is about shortening the distance between producers and consumers wherever possible and meeting our needs — especially our basic needs — from closer to home. In localized economies, the impacts of our choices are more visible and we end up using resources more efficiently, while producing less waste and pollution. Localization is neither about eliminating international trade nor stopping all industrial production. It’s about insisting that business be place-based, that they belong to a society and adhere to the rules of that society.
The first and most urgent task is to level the playing field through re-regulating big business. Currently, large corporations — including banks, agri-businesses, and energy companies — enjoy a range of subsidies and tax breaks that are out of reach of smaller businesses. Without these supports, it would be very quickly apparent that business at this scale is inordinately costly, wasteful, and in many ways nonsensical. For example, redundant trade — the importing and exporting of identical products in almost identical quantities — would cease to be profitable and we could immediately reduce global carbon emissions by millions of tons.
Alongside these policy changes, we can support the bottom-up localization movement, which is already demonstrating that it is possible to reduce our ecological footprint while increasing economic stability. A prime example is the local food movement. By shortening the distance between producers and consumers, food miles are lowered, local economies strengthened, and many more small, diversified farms are able to survive. Studies have shown that farms like these actually produce more food per unit of land than large-scale monocultures. This means that more localized food systems leave more space for wilderness, while also increasing niches for wildlife on the farms themselves.
Local farmer's markets such as this one in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts, offer a concrete example of localized economies that are already functioning. Credit: Creative Commons/WBUR.
In more place-based, localized economies people reconnect with the natural world around them; this kind of reconnection is one of the best ways to engender compassion, whether for other humans or for other species. There are a number of projects that are already doing this with juvenile delinquents, prisoners, torture victims, and people with drug addictions. The personal transformation many of them experience in reconnecting with the source of life is truly inspiring.
Experiencing our deeper connections to the living world can certainly lead to feelings of grief and loss, but also to joy and an appreciation for what is still there. Even the tiniest worm and beetle can engender a sense of the miracle of life and remind us that we are deeply, spiritually intertwined with the magical complexity of the cosmos.
Ultimately, it is deeply inspiring to realize that the same changes that are essential for our ecological wellbeing are essential for human well-being. No matter what our main concern is — climate change, unemployment and poverty, social conflict, or extinction — we can be most effective by focusing on root causes. That way we can begin not only to reverse our countless ecological problems but also to start the journey of recovering our deeper nature, our life-purpose, and our joy.
(To read other perspectives on extinction, climate change, and the rights of nature, click here.)
Author and filmmaker Helena Norberg-Hodge is the founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture. She is a pioneer of the ‘new economy’ movement, and has been promoting an economics of personal, social and ecological well-being for more than thirty years. Her groundbreaking work in Ladakh earned her the Right Livelihood Award (Alternative Nobel Prize), and her book, Ancient Futures, along with a film of the same title, has been translated into more than forty languages.
Why Liberation Theology is Necessary
Why Liberation Theology Is Necessary for Us All
A Response to an Imagined Critic from North America
by Ulrich Duchrow
Peace be with you! I have received your letter from Minnesota raising important questions about our church endorsing and following up the decisions taken by the Assemblies of the Lutheran World Federation in Winnipeg in 2003 and of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in Accra in 2004. I'm happy to be in dialogue with a pastor from North America. The passages you particularly challenge are:
The Lutheran World Federation's Statement on Globalization in its 10th Assembly saying, "As a communion, we must engage the false ideology of neoliberal economic globalization by confronting, converting, and changing this reality and its effects. This false ideology is grounded on the assumption that the market, built on private property, unrestrained competition, and the centrality of contracts, is the absolute law governing human life, society, and the natural environment. This is idolatry and leads to the systematic exclusion of those who own no property, the destruction of cultural diversity, the dismantling of fragile democracies, and the destruction of the earth."
The Accra Confession of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in 2004 stating, among other thing, "We believe that God is sovereign over all creation. ‘The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof' (Psalm 24.1). Therefore, we reject the current world economic order imposed by global neoliberal capitalism.... We reject any claim of economic, political, and military empire which subverts God's sovereignty over life and acts contrary to God's just rule."
Your first argument against the intent of these passages is:
We have to be "realistic" and achieve something real, rather than utopian transformation. We weaken our ability and our "credibility" if we in the Christian progressive world use language that is anti-capitalist or that envisions global transformations, because the people with power in the political system, including people we believe really have goodness in their hearts and want to make whatever changes they think are possible, stop listening to us or taking us seriously when we talk in these broader terms or with what seems like the jargon of communist Russia -- socialism, anti-imperialism, or even anti-capitalism. So, though we know that you too have a good heart, we cannot publicly identify with you because you'll weaken our ability to accomplish what really can be accomplished, which is less than what we would want, but more than what the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Council of Churches, and your church can accomplish with your ideologically based language and political orientation.
Your argument would be correct if we were still in a situation like that after World War II. After the disaster of classical liberalism in the great recession in 1929 and the two world wars, it was possible to tame capitalism to a certain extent. The labor movement had some power because the Fordist economy needed the buying power of the people to buy the products of mass production, capitalism had to make compromises in order to cope with the competition of socialism dragging more and more countries into its camp, there were no limits to growth because the ecological problems were not yet seen, and it was still possible for the Western world to extract raw materials and other wealth from many colonies. The result was a kind of social contract between labor and capital in the form of what was called the New Deal in the United States and the Social Market Economy in Europe.
However, this situation gradually changed. What were the reasons?
At the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, John Maynard Keynes, the famous British economist, proposed institutions and policies that took the European social market economy as the model for the postwar global economy. The United States, however, having become the hegemonic power after the self-destruction of the Europeans, refused. It wanted both the dollar as the world currency and trade liberalization for its big companies. This opened up space for neoliberalism to rise in various ways. In order to regain ideological hegemony in the 1930s, liberal economists had already started a transnational network leading to the foundation of the Mont Pelerin Society under the leadership of Friedrich von Hayek. Through think tanks, university institutes, journals, etc., they started a long-term campaign for privatization, liberalization, and deregulation.
At the same time, the United States put dictators in power, mainly through intelligence instruments (the CIA) and local collaborators. (Remember that the first case was Iran, where the democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh was toppled because he wanted to nationalize oil. The Shah was installed by grace of the United States -- starting the tragedies of Iran that have lasted up to the present day.) The first task of the dictators was to open up their national markets to transnational capital in order to give it access to markets and resources for its own interest; the second was to crush all political and social resistance against this interference (resistance was crushed not only in Iran in 1953, but also in Congo in 1960, Brazil in 1964, Indonesia in 1965/1966, Chile in 1973, and Argentina in 1975). These dictators were also to contract national debts by buying Western products, thereby instigating the over-indebtedness of their countries. These foreign debts were used by Western-dominated, undemocratic institutions, such as the IMF and World Bank, with the help of structural adjustment policies, to liberalize, privatize, and deregulate the economies and societies of these countries. In this way, the structural force of finance replaced direct military force. The result was massive impoverishment, expropriation of national resources, and increased violence among the people of these countries, now struggling bitterly for survival. Anyone who does not want to believe these facts should read the confessions of one of the "economic hit men," John Perkins, whose conscience did not allow him to continue working in this system and who, therefore, left his highly paid job in the hands of what he calls the economic Mafia (Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: The Shocking Story of How America Really Took Over the World).
This development intensified after 1990, after the collapse of the competing system, state socialism (which in the same modern context as capitalism had in its own way concentrated political and economic power at the top and violated human rights): the neoliberal-capitalist model has now become globalized. Globally, mobile capital can play workers and governments of all countries against each other, leading to the dismantling of the welfare functions of the state and strengthening the security functions. The international aspect of this has been that the main military and political servants of capital empire -- the United States, the EU, and their allies -- are going back to methods of direct violence to steal and control resources in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. At the same time, there is increasing social downgrading of more and more people, direct violent aggression, and destruction of nature around the earth. Human rights, originally formulated by the bourgeoisie, are increasingly being destroyed by global capitalism in the form of empire.
In this situation it is utopian and unrealistic to assume that some leaders with good hearts can save humanity and the earth from destruction. Finance capital is asking for maximum profits, at the moment up to 25 percent on the invested capital and even more -- a profit rate that no real economy can yield. That is why companies are forced to produce unemployment and to avoid all ecological care in order to save costs. Also all goods and services for the satisfaction of real needs are deteriorating in order to extract profit for capital. Politicians and media are being co-opted by both corruption and blackmailing, making democracy a farce. As capital by definition is the investment of money and other assets in order to create more capital, and as this is the driving force of the dominating economy, it is completely correct to call this system capitalism. And it is also correct to call the global political and military powers protecting this system imperialist.
As a pastor you know the Bible. Is it not the prophetic task of the people of God to name the powers, to unmask and engage them? But then the question arises: how to engage the powers and how to change the situation so that humanity and earth, God's creation, may live. If you look to the Bible for help, you can discover different strategies dependent on the context. If you look at the classical prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah, they indeed try to change the situation of injustice by directly addressing the kings and the aristocracy. However, already in the case of the struggle for power after the deaths of Kings Manasseh and Amon (643-640 bce) the prophets join with the movement of the peasants who put the eight-year-old prince Josiah on the throne of David. Under his rule the faith in the liberating God of Israel and God's rules of solidarity for keeping freedom were restored, as you can read in the Torah's book of Deuteronomy. This situation can be regarded as an approximate analogy to the times of the New Deal and Social Market Economy. People had a common framework through which to address the elites.
However, by Hellenistic times the situation had changed completely. Particularly after the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV had taken power, he prohibited the worship of the God of Israel, YHWH, in the temple of Jerusalem, where he put a statue of Zeus. The economy was to be governed by the absolute rule of property, money, and slavery. No life according to the Torah was possible. In this situation there was no possibility of correcting the situation by speaking to the rulers. The Maccabeans took up arms for a liberation war and the Hasidim practiced passive resistance. A witness of this is the book of Daniel, the third chapter of which characterizes the situation by telling the parable of an emperor erecting a statue of gold and asking everybody to bow in front of it. All do so, except three Jewish men who are ready to suffer the consequences: martyrdom. So in this situation resistance against the absolutist system was the only way of following God and preparing for a future in dignity and faith for people.
The same can be seen in the Roman Empire. Many Judeans took up arms against the occupation forces, others tried to politically bargain; others engaged in passive resistance. One particular strategy was used by the Jesus movement. Building on the book of Daniel -- where in chapter seven the seer had envisaged the kingdom of God with a human face, overcoming the empires, characterized as wild beasts -- Jesus proclaimed and practiced God's coming kingdom as already happening among people. He liberated people from the demons of the oppressive powers of Rome and Mammon, the God of accumulating wealth, and built with them small cells living according to the life-giving Torah of solidarity. Thus he created leaven to penetrate the whole people, followed later by the apostle Paul building new communities of Jews and gentiles, living peacefully together in the whole oikumene of the Roman Empire. So in the midst of an absolutely exploitative and oppressive system, the realistic policy is to resist and develop concrete alternatives among the people.
But you have a second argument. You say:
We have learned that large-scale changes have unintended consequences that can often be disastrous, and that they too often lead to the rise to power of people who care more about power than about healing the world. We've learned from Reinhold Niebuhr and other Christian theologians that it is really more in accord with the Gospel to frame our vision in ways that are not utopian.
Your point is well taken. You could see this tendency of perverting liberation into oppression already when the Maccabeans came to power. They quickly developed into normal Hellenistic potentates. Also when the Christians got to power with the help of the Roman emperor Constantine in the year 312, they applied violence against Jews, later also Muslims, witches, and whole peoples through colonialism, neocolonialism, and imperialism, from 1492 up to this day. Minority Christian groups who did not follow this path were accused of being heretics and persecuted, too. The only way to overcome this heritage is to learn from leaders like Gandhi. The key point here is that the means in the struggle for justice and peace have to mirror the end. If you want justice and peace, these have to be the guiding criteria on the way. This is why Gandhi claimed that the strategy to achieve these goals is satyagraha (holding fast to truth) and ahimsa (active nonviolent direct action). With these you do not tolerate injustice but confront the perpetrator (in his case the British Empire), forcing it to react. By reacting with increasingly open violence, it discredited itself, losing legitimacy. As no power can survive without legitimacy, more and more people joined the struggle, encouraged by the pioneers who had been risking their lives.
But, finally, you have a third argument:
We also have learned from the Gospel that human beings were conceived in sin and have a strong tendency toward sin. For that very reason, we want to avoid giving any person or group of people the power to shape our lives. We know that human beings are so tempted to fall for their own egos, their own shadow side, and their own evil instincts that we cannot allow them to get the power to do that. By fighting for small incremental steps, we can be sure that each step is carefully measured and doesn't push human beings beyond their current capacities, and that provides us with much more safety than we could possibly get from large-scale changes.
In this argument I see two strands. The first one puzzles me. Are you not contradicting yourself? Is not the present situation exactly characterized by "giving persons and groups of people the power to shape our lives"? Is it not the owners of capital and their agents -- the bankers, the managers, the business consultants, etc. -- who determine the lives of the people and even the whole earth? Do they not determine the decisions of the governments? What about the lobbyists in the capitals of the States and Washington, D.C.? In Brussels, the headquarters of the EU, there are 15,000 of them, highly paid, while the poor majorities have no money to make their voice heard. Have they not indebted our public budgets to an incredible extent in order to take our democratically elected governments hostage and blackmail them for their own purposes, i.e., making money at the cost of people and earth?
In order to really make governments accountable, you have to democratize the economy. Therefore, social movements and faithful parts of the faith communities around the world are developing alternative ways of doing economy: people form cooperatives; they take over companies that have gone bankrupt from the neoliberal policies like in Argentina after the crash in 2001; they develop networks of solidarity economy and participatory communal budgets like in Brazil; they produce their own decentralized alternative energy (sun, wind, water, biomass) at the communal level like in Germany; they stop the privatization of public goods and services like water, energy, public transport, health, and education. In Uruguay, after the social movements had achieved the change to a socially oriented government five years ago, the first action of the new government was to write into the constitution "Water must never be privatized."
All of this and many more things show that there is a great cultural paradigm shift in the making. More and more people realize that the present way of life and economic system has no future. The population of the United States already has a lifestyle that needs six planets; the Europeans use up three planets. How long can that last? The crisis we are in is not just a financial crisis, but a deep crisis of modernity that builds on a presupposition, formulated by the philosopher Descartes in the seventeenth century: "Man is lord and owner of nature."
This touches upon the last part of your argument: Who is the human being? You say you are following the Gospel. But in reality you are following Thomas Hobbes, the seventeenth-century philosopher who first projected what he saw in the capitalist market economy onto the nature of the human being: everyone, being an atomistic individual, strives for more wealth, power, and reputation. The Bible has a different view. Humans are created as relational beings, men and women, in the image of God, blessed by God and called to be stewards of the earth (Gen. 1:26-28). Indeed, sin is tempting them but they are called to control it (Gen. 4:7). God gives them rules about how to stay in the blessing and in freedom (Deuteronomy). And Jesus reinforces this reality by radiating the spirit of solidarity to make the beginnings of God's kingdom happen among people, to penetrate humanity like salt and light (Matt. 5). So pinning people down in the inescapability of sin is not in accordance with the Gospel.
Nor is it in line with the latest scientific findings. Brain research shows that human beings have so-called mirror neurons that enables them to feel empathy with other creatures and make them enjoy cooperation. Relational psychology tells us that from the original relationship between mother and baby onward we become (strong) selves only in relationships of mutual recognition. Even economic happiness research shows that, having reached a certain standard of living, people do not become happier by accumulating more and more money. Instead, people's happiness increases by living in good relations at all levels. The same is experienced in other faiths like Buddhism. Happiness is achieved by living with empathy.
Besides all this scientific and spiritual evidence, the overcoming of the Western modern ideology of possessive individualism and the war of all against all is a question of survival of humanity and the earth. If we continue to declare the Western model "realism," we will not only kill the earth but also commit suicide. Therefore, the Jewish-Christian central call, "Love your neighbor as yourself," must be translated differently (in the tradition of Buber and Levinas): "Love your neighbor -- he/she is yourself." Bishop Desmond Tutu says the same idea is expressed in the African philosophy of ubuntu: "I live only when you live." This, of course, has to be organized within participatory institutions of power control, starting from the local level. But the basis is to overcome the illusionary suicidal Western utopia of the limitless growth of the individual and to become realistic with the spiritual and wisdom traditions and sciences of humanity.
So, dear brother, join us in AGAPE -- the Greek word for love; it is taken up by a program of the World Council of Churches, but here AGAPE is translated as Alternative Globalization Addressing People and Earth.
Ulrich Duchrow is a professor of systematic theology at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, specialized in ecumenical theology and theology-economy issues. He is also cofounder and moderator of Kairos Europa, an ecumenical network striving for economic justice.
An expanded version of this document, that includes a Statement of Reasons, is available on http://www.oenid.net/IOeFK/Engl_FinalProposalDeclarationOnJustPeace.pdf).
Source Citation: Duchrow, Ulrich. 2011. A European Revival of Liberation Theology. Tikkun 26(1): 74
A Response to an Imagined Critic from North America
by Ulrich Duchrow
Peace be with you! I have received your letter from Minnesota raising important questions about our church endorsing and following up the decisions taken by the Assemblies of the Lutheran World Federation in Winnipeg in 2003 and of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in Accra in 2004. I'm happy to be in dialogue with a pastor from North America. The passages you particularly challenge are:
The Lutheran World Federation's Statement on Globalization in its 10th Assembly saying, "As a communion, we must engage the false ideology of neoliberal economic globalization by confronting, converting, and changing this reality and its effects. This false ideology is grounded on the assumption that the market, built on private property, unrestrained competition, and the centrality of contracts, is the absolute law governing human life, society, and the natural environment. This is idolatry and leads to the systematic exclusion of those who own no property, the destruction of cultural diversity, the dismantling of fragile democracies, and the destruction of the earth."
The Accra Confession of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches in 2004 stating, among other thing, "We believe that God is sovereign over all creation. ‘The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof' (Psalm 24.1). Therefore, we reject the current world economic order imposed by global neoliberal capitalism.... We reject any claim of economic, political, and military empire which subverts God's sovereignty over life and acts contrary to God's just rule."
Your first argument against the intent of these passages is:
We have to be "realistic" and achieve something real, rather than utopian transformation. We weaken our ability and our "credibility" if we in the Christian progressive world use language that is anti-capitalist or that envisions global transformations, because the people with power in the political system, including people we believe really have goodness in their hearts and want to make whatever changes they think are possible, stop listening to us or taking us seriously when we talk in these broader terms or with what seems like the jargon of communist Russia -- socialism, anti-imperialism, or even anti-capitalism. So, though we know that you too have a good heart, we cannot publicly identify with you because you'll weaken our ability to accomplish what really can be accomplished, which is less than what we would want, but more than what the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the World Council of Churches, and your church can accomplish with your ideologically based language and political orientation.
Your argument would be correct if we were still in a situation like that after World War II. After the disaster of classical liberalism in the great recession in 1929 and the two world wars, it was possible to tame capitalism to a certain extent. The labor movement had some power because the Fordist economy needed the buying power of the people to buy the products of mass production, capitalism had to make compromises in order to cope with the competition of socialism dragging more and more countries into its camp, there were no limits to growth because the ecological problems were not yet seen, and it was still possible for the Western world to extract raw materials and other wealth from many colonies. The result was a kind of social contract between labor and capital in the form of what was called the New Deal in the United States and the Social Market Economy in Europe.
However, this situation gradually changed. What were the reasons?
At the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, John Maynard Keynes, the famous British economist, proposed institutions and policies that took the European social market economy as the model for the postwar global economy. The United States, however, having become the hegemonic power after the self-destruction of the Europeans, refused. It wanted both the dollar as the world currency and trade liberalization for its big companies. This opened up space for neoliberalism to rise in various ways. In order to regain ideological hegemony in the 1930s, liberal economists had already started a transnational network leading to the foundation of the Mont Pelerin Society under the leadership of Friedrich von Hayek. Through think tanks, university institutes, journals, etc., they started a long-term campaign for privatization, liberalization, and deregulation.
At the same time, the United States put dictators in power, mainly through intelligence instruments (the CIA) and local collaborators. (Remember that the first case was Iran, where the democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh was toppled because he wanted to nationalize oil. The Shah was installed by grace of the United States -- starting the tragedies of Iran that have lasted up to the present day.) The first task of the dictators was to open up their national markets to transnational capital in order to give it access to markets and resources for its own interest; the second was to crush all political and social resistance against this interference (resistance was crushed not only in Iran in 1953, but also in Congo in 1960, Brazil in 1964, Indonesia in 1965/1966, Chile in 1973, and Argentina in 1975). These dictators were also to contract national debts by buying Western products, thereby instigating the over-indebtedness of their countries. These foreign debts were used by Western-dominated, undemocratic institutions, such as the IMF and World Bank, with the help of structural adjustment policies, to liberalize, privatize, and deregulate the economies and societies of these countries. In this way, the structural force of finance replaced direct military force. The result was massive impoverishment, expropriation of national resources, and increased violence among the people of these countries, now struggling bitterly for survival. Anyone who does not want to believe these facts should read the confessions of one of the "economic hit men," John Perkins, whose conscience did not allow him to continue working in this system and who, therefore, left his highly paid job in the hands of what he calls the economic Mafia (Confessions of an Economic Hit Man: The Shocking Story of How America Really Took Over the World).
This development intensified after 1990, after the collapse of the competing system, state socialism (which in the same modern context as capitalism had in its own way concentrated political and economic power at the top and violated human rights): the neoliberal-capitalist model has now become globalized. Globally, mobile capital can play workers and governments of all countries against each other, leading to the dismantling of the welfare functions of the state and strengthening the security functions. The international aspect of this has been that the main military and political servants of capital empire -- the United States, the EU, and their allies -- are going back to methods of direct violence to steal and control resources in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. At the same time, there is increasing social downgrading of more and more people, direct violent aggression, and destruction of nature around the earth. Human rights, originally formulated by the bourgeoisie, are increasingly being destroyed by global capitalism in the form of empire.
In this situation it is utopian and unrealistic to assume that some leaders with good hearts can save humanity and the earth from destruction. Finance capital is asking for maximum profits, at the moment up to 25 percent on the invested capital and even more -- a profit rate that no real economy can yield. That is why companies are forced to produce unemployment and to avoid all ecological care in order to save costs. Also all goods and services for the satisfaction of real needs are deteriorating in order to extract profit for capital. Politicians and media are being co-opted by both corruption and blackmailing, making democracy a farce. As capital by definition is the investment of money and other assets in order to create more capital, and as this is the driving force of the dominating economy, it is completely correct to call this system capitalism. And it is also correct to call the global political and military powers protecting this system imperialist.
As a pastor you know the Bible. Is it not the prophetic task of the people of God to name the powers, to unmask and engage them? But then the question arises: how to engage the powers and how to change the situation so that humanity and earth, God's creation, may live. If you look to the Bible for help, you can discover different strategies dependent on the context. If you look at the classical prophets like Isaiah and Jeremiah, they indeed try to change the situation of injustice by directly addressing the kings and the aristocracy. However, already in the case of the struggle for power after the deaths of Kings Manasseh and Amon (643-640 bce) the prophets join with the movement of the peasants who put the eight-year-old prince Josiah on the throne of David. Under his rule the faith in the liberating God of Israel and God's rules of solidarity for keeping freedom were restored, as you can read in the Torah's book of Deuteronomy. This situation can be regarded as an approximate analogy to the times of the New Deal and Social Market Economy. People had a common framework through which to address the elites.
However, by Hellenistic times the situation had changed completely. Particularly after the Seleucid ruler Antiochus IV had taken power, he prohibited the worship of the God of Israel, YHWH, in the temple of Jerusalem, where he put a statue of Zeus. The economy was to be governed by the absolute rule of property, money, and slavery. No life according to the Torah was possible. In this situation there was no possibility of correcting the situation by speaking to the rulers. The Maccabeans took up arms for a liberation war and the Hasidim practiced passive resistance. A witness of this is the book of Daniel, the third chapter of which characterizes the situation by telling the parable of an emperor erecting a statue of gold and asking everybody to bow in front of it. All do so, except three Jewish men who are ready to suffer the consequences: martyrdom. So in this situation resistance against the absolutist system was the only way of following God and preparing for a future in dignity and faith for people.
The same can be seen in the Roman Empire. Many Judeans took up arms against the occupation forces, others tried to politically bargain; others engaged in passive resistance. One particular strategy was used by the Jesus movement. Building on the book of Daniel -- where in chapter seven the seer had envisaged the kingdom of God with a human face, overcoming the empires, characterized as wild beasts -- Jesus proclaimed and practiced God's coming kingdom as already happening among people. He liberated people from the demons of the oppressive powers of Rome and Mammon, the God of accumulating wealth, and built with them small cells living according to the life-giving Torah of solidarity. Thus he created leaven to penetrate the whole people, followed later by the apostle Paul building new communities of Jews and gentiles, living peacefully together in the whole oikumene of the Roman Empire. So in the midst of an absolutely exploitative and oppressive system, the realistic policy is to resist and develop concrete alternatives among the people.
But you have a second argument. You say:
We have learned that large-scale changes have unintended consequences that can often be disastrous, and that they too often lead to the rise to power of people who care more about power than about healing the world. We've learned from Reinhold Niebuhr and other Christian theologians that it is really more in accord with the Gospel to frame our vision in ways that are not utopian.
Your point is well taken. You could see this tendency of perverting liberation into oppression already when the Maccabeans came to power. They quickly developed into normal Hellenistic potentates. Also when the Christians got to power with the help of the Roman emperor Constantine in the year 312, they applied violence against Jews, later also Muslims, witches, and whole peoples through colonialism, neocolonialism, and imperialism, from 1492 up to this day. Minority Christian groups who did not follow this path were accused of being heretics and persecuted, too. The only way to overcome this heritage is to learn from leaders like Gandhi. The key point here is that the means in the struggle for justice and peace have to mirror the end. If you want justice and peace, these have to be the guiding criteria on the way. This is why Gandhi claimed that the strategy to achieve these goals is satyagraha (holding fast to truth) and ahimsa (active nonviolent direct action). With these you do not tolerate injustice but confront the perpetrator (in his case the British Empire), forcing it to react. By reacting with increasingly open violence, it discredited itself, losing legitimacy. As no power can survive without legitimacy, more and more people joined the struggle, encouraged by the pioneers who had been risking their lives.
But, finally, you have a third argument:
We also have learned from the Gospel that human beings were conceived in sin and have a strong tendency toward sin. For that very reason, we want to avoid giving any person or group of people the power to shape our lives. We know that human beings are so tempted to fall for their own egos, their own shadow side, and their own evil instincts that we cannot allow them to get the power to do that. By fighting for small incremental steps, we can be sure that each step is carefully measured and doesn't push human beings beyond their current capacities, and that provides us with much more safety than we could possibly get from large-scale changes.
In this argument I see two strands. The first one puzzles me. Are you not contradicting yourself? Is not the present situation exactly characterized by "giving persons and groups of people the power to shape our lives"? Is it not the owners of capital and their agents -- the bankers, the managers, the business consultants, etc. -- who determine the lives of the people and even the whole earth? Do they not determine the decisions of the governments? What about the lobbyists in the capitals of the States and Washington, D.C.? In Brussels, the headquarters of the EU, there are 15,000 of them, highly paid, while the poor majorities have no money to make their voice heard. Have they not indebted our public budgets to an incredible extent in order to take our democratically elected governments hostage and blackmail them for their own purposes, i.e., making money at the cost of people and earth?
In order to really make governments accountable, you have to democratize the economy. Therefore, social movements and faithful parts of the faith communities around the world are developing alternative ways of doing economy: people form cooperatives; they take over companies that have gone bankrupt from the neoliberal policies like in Argentina after the crash in 2001; they develop networks of solidarity economy and participatory communal budgets like in Brazil; they produce their own decentralized alternative energy (sun, wind, water, biomass) at the communal level like in Germany; they stop the privatization of public goods and services like water, energy, public transport, health, and education. In Uruguay, after the social movements had achieved the change to a socially oriented government five years ago, the first action of the new government was to write into the constitution "Water must never be privatized."
All of this and many more things show that there is a great cultural paradigm shift in the making. More and more people realize that the present way of life and economic system has no future. The population of the United States already has a lifestyle that needs six planets; the Europeans use up three planets. How long can that last? The crisis we are in is not just a financial crisis, but a deep crisis of modernity that builds on a presupposition, formulated by the philosopher Descartes in the seventeenth century: "Man is lord and owner of nature."
This touches upon the last part of your argument: Who is the human being? You say you are following the Gospel. But in reality you are following Thomas Hobbes, the seventeenth-century philosopher who first projected what he saw in the capitalist market economy onto the nature of the human being: everyone, being an atomistic individual, strives for more wealth, power, and reputation. The Bible has a different view. Humans are created as relational beings, men and women, in the image of God, blessed by God and called to be stewards of the earth (Gen. 1:26-28). Indeed, sin is tempting them but they are called to control it (Gen. 4:7). God gives them rules about how to stay in the blessing and in freedom (Deuteronomy). And Jesus reinforces this reality by radiating the spirit of solidarity to make the beginnings of God's kingdom happen among people, to penetrate humanity like salt and light (Matt. 5). So pinning people down in the inescapability of sin is not in accordance with the Gospel.
Nor is it in line with the latest scientific findings. Brain research shows that human beings have so-called mirror neurons that enables them to feel empathy with other creatures and make them enjoy cooperation. Relational psychology tells us that from the original relationship between mother and baby onward we become (strong) selves only in relationships of mutual recognition. Even economic happiness research shows that, having reached a certain standard of living, people do not become happier by accumulating more and more money. Instead, people's happiness increases by living in good relations at all levels. The same is experienced in other faiths like Buddhism. Happiness is achieved by living with empathy.
Besides all this scientific and spiritual evidence, the overcoming of the Western modern ideology of possessive individualism and the war of all against all is a question of survival of humanity and the earth. If we continue to declare the Western model "realism," we will not only kill the earth but also commit suicide. Therefore, the Jewish-Christian central call, "Love your neighbor as yourself," must be translated differently (in the tradition of Buber and Levinas): "Love your neighbor -- he/she is yourself." Bishop Desmond Tutu says the same idea is expressed in the African philosophy of ubuntu: "I live only when you live." This, of course, has to be organized within participatory institutions of power control, starting from the local level. But the basis is to overcome the illusionary suicidal Western utopia of the limitless growth of the individual and to become realistic with the spiritual and wisdom traditions and sciences of humanity.
So, dear brother, join us in AGAPE -- the Greek word for love; it is taken up by a program of the World Council of Churches, but here AGAPE is translated as Alternative Globalization Addressing People and Earth.
Ulrich Duchrow is a professor of systematic theology at the University of Heidelberg, Germany, specialized in ecumenical theology and theology-economy issues. He is also cofounder and moderator of Kairos Europa, an ecumenical network striving for economic justice.
An expanded version of this document, that includes a Statement of Reasons, is available on http://www.oenid.net/IOeFK/Engl_FinalProposalDeclarationOnJustPeace.pdf).
Source Citation: Duchrow, Ulrich. 2011. A European Revival of Liberation Theology. Tikkun 26(1): 74
Liberation Theology
Life in Just Peace
A joint statement by a group of twenty-six European initiatives and networks, including Kairos Europe, Pax Christi (German section), INKOTA, Christians for a Just Economic System, Pleading for an Ecumenical Future, Winds from the South, and several regional ecumenical grassroots networks, working together in the "German Ecumenical Network" in preparation for the May 2011 International Ecumenical Peace Convocation in Kingston, Jamaica.
Humanity and the earth are undergoing a unique crisis. Above all, this is manifested in the form of the financial and economic crisis, the food crisis, the social crisis (the growing gap between those who are becoming poorer and those becoming richer), the energy crisis, the climate crisis, the crisis of the extinction of species and the crisis of increasing violence at all levels -- from the family and schools to imperialist wars. The causes of these crises are clearly related to the dominant civilization, which from the "West" has conquered the entire globe in the areas of economics, politics, ideology, and the understanding of what it means to be human. This crisis is threatening life itself. As we see it, just peace must therefore be understood as leading toward a new culture of life at all levels -- from institutional to spiritual life.
The necessary turnaround toward a life in just peace includes at least three dimensions:
A spiritual vision of a new, emerging culture of life, based on faith or a humanist motivation.
The fundamental rejection of the dominant economic, political, violence-producing culture and world order, for the sake of the integrity of faith and the very being of the church.
Short-, medium-, and long-term steps toward realizing this vision.
We therefore present the following declaration, which is based on the biblical message and affirms decisions by the assemblies of ecumenical organizations, inviting all churches, congregations, and Christians to embrace it and to publicly advocate for the implementation of its demands.
1. Which god shall rule?
We believe that God created the whole universe in love, inviting all people to cooperate with God's ongoing creative work in mutual solidarity and respect for God's gifts. "The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it" (Ps. 24:1). With faith in God's Trinitarian dynamic we confess with all Christians the sociality of God as the source of the unity of all creatures.
Therefore, we reject the current world economic order imposed by global neoliberal capitalism -- using both structural and direct violence. We reject every claim to an economic, political, and military empire that attempts to subvert God's order of life and whose actions stand in contrast to God's love and justice. We reject an economic system and way of life that exploits nature and propagates unlimited growth so that the conditions of life for future generations are forcibly destroyed and the survival chances of the entire earth are threatened.
The power of God's Spirit frees us as individuals and churches to resist the ruling political-economic-cultural system and to work for crucially necessary alternatives.
2. God's good gifts for all should not be privatized by force.
We believe that God is a God of life and desires the fullness of life for all creatures. "I came that they might have life and have it abundantly" (John 10:10).
Therefore we reject a policy that through the privatization of collective and common goods produces wealth for the capital owners but scarcity and poverty for the vast majority of the world's population -- the worst kind of violence (Gandhi) -- and which exploits and even destroys nature. With particular emphasis we reject the patenting of seeds and of medicines that are necessary to meet people's basic needs. We say no to the privatization of genes as well as acts of biopiracy; no to the privatization of water and other gifts of nature; no to the privatization of services of general interest such as energy, transportation, health, education; also no to the destruction of solidarity-based social insurance systems through privatization; no to their submission to profit-oriented insurance companies and at the same time to speculative finance markets. All of this is structural violence at the service of the rich. But especially we reject the direct violence of a policy that wages wars to realize these private interests and wastes immeasurable resources on armaments.
The power of God's Spirit frees us as individuals and churches to work for the democratizing of the economy and the solidarity-based social systems toward serving life, among ourselves and in society, so that all might have enough, so that neither hardship nor excessive consumption prevails and that the earth can remain intact for future generations. Economic systems should be for the common use and not for the expansion of capital. For this reason goods and services for basic needs as well as global common goods must be publically run for mutual benefit, so that in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights all governments recognize their responsibility for the welfare of their citizens. We pledge to struggle for an order at all levels, in which economics and politics are put at the service of life for all and thereby overcome the fundamental causes of violence.
3. God's good earth should not be destroyed by greed.
We believe that God entrusted human beings with a rich and beautiful earth. "The Lord took the human beings and put them in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it" (Gen. 2:15).
Therefore, we reject an economic and social order that converts God's gifts into commodities and in so doing increasingly destroys them. We especially call on Christians, congregations, and churches in the industrialized countries to recognize their enormous ecological debts, particularly their destructive climate debts, toward people who have been living in impoverished regions for the past five hundred years, and at least to offer symbolic compensation, to radically reduce their harmful greenhouse emissions, and to oblige their governments to pass national and international laws to keep global warming under two degrees and to stop the extermination of species.
The power of God's Spirit frees us as individuals and churches to set an example and reduce our consumption of energy and the environment as well as to force our governments to establish binding rules for reduction under international law (allowing for transitional arrangements for newly industrialized and developing countries). All in all, we will work for a cyclical economy that makes the gifts of nature available for just and sustainable use.
4. God liberates working people from violent exploitation.
We believe that God intends human labor to become participation in God's creative power and as a means for self-sufficiency in human societies, without exploiting working men and women. "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other Gods before me" (Gen. 20:2).
Therefore, we reject an economic order in which working people, especially women, are (structurally or directly) violently exploited and driven into unemployment. We reject governments that tax workers more and more but levy less and less taxes on capital gains from profits and fortunes and refuse to abolish tax havens.
The power of God's Spirit frees us as individuals and churches to struggle in cooperation with labor unions for legal systems and economic decisions in which those able to work can find useful employment and socially meaningful jobs and -- owing to increased productivity -- comprehensive reduced working hours. In reaching these decisions, all of those involved in the productive process must have a voice.
5. God does not want any accumulation of wealth beyond that which is necessary for life.
We believe that God despises the accumulation of wealth for the few at the cost of the majority. "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth" (Matt. 6:24). "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, nor ox nor donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor" (Exod. 20:17).
Therefore we reject an economic order that stimulates and rewards greed, which is dependent on nature-destroying and socially antagonistic growth, because it makes money and capital a commodity and its increase an end in itself.
The Spirit of God frees us as individuals and churches to overcome the violent power of money and especially its speculative misuse as a "financial weapon of mass destruction." We ourselves will only use money at the service of genuine economic activity. In concert with social movements we will struggle to induce political institutions to make money a national and international public good that only serves useful economic activity, and to ensure that all use of property becomes socially and ecologically beneficial to all.
6. God wants to create human security through justice rather than through military means.
"This is the word of the Lord to Zerubabbel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6). "Until a spirit from on high is poured out upon us, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field. The effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness, and trust forever" (Isa. 32:15-17).
Therefore we say no to the institution of war, which -- under the conditions of present-day weapons technology -- cannot be justified under any circumstances; no to the more than 1 billion U.S. dollars wasted annually for armaments while more than 30 million people die from the causes of hunger. Arms do not murder only when they are used, but already while they are being produced. In particular we reject the imperialist wars, which stand in violation of international law, such as those against Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the unlimited "war on terror." Therefore we reject the presence of more than 800 U.S. military bases, under whose protection authoritarian and pseudo-democratic regimes such as those in the Philippines and Colombia commit notorious violations of human rights, and also the arming of the European Community with international rapid intervention forces. When the international community needs to intervene in individual countries and regions because of notorious violations of human rights, this must be done only by police forces under the umbrella of a democratized United Nations.
The power of God's Spirit frees us as individuals and churches to refuse to cooperate in any way with waging war. Instead, in the spirit of Jesus and Gandhi we wish to confront all injustice with readiness to accept conflicts and suffering, to cooperate in reconciliation processes therapeutically and in terms of prevention, and to contribute to a political stance that seeks to outlaw war.
7. Weapons of mass destruction are blasphemy against God.
We believe that weapons of mass destruction are blasphemy, since human beings are created in the image of God. "Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person's blood be shed; for in God's own image God made humankind" (Gen. 9:6).
Therefore, we reject unequivocally the production, deployment, and use of means of mass destruction, which always shed innocent human blood and can even eliminate all life on earth. We reject the strategies of the United States and NATO, which claim the right to a nuclear first strike and already are making use of enhanced munitions with disastrous effects for the people targeted.
The power of the Spirit of God frees us to refuse to collaborate under any circumstances in the production, deployment, or use of weapons of mass destruction or to vote for any political party that has not declared its support for the complete abolition of any means of mass destruction. We call on all members of Christian churches to do likewise. Especially we call on the government of the United States as well as on other governments to make deeds follow their words and to create a nuclear-free world. Only then can governments now working to achieve a nuclear capacity be prevented from realizing their plans.
8. God has created a people, which has invited all peoples to a life with a just peace.
We believe that God has called us to be a people that lives a life of justice and peace and can so become the light of the world, the city on the hill and salt of the earth (Matt. 5:13-16). "Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that God may teach us God's ways and that we may walk in God's paths.' For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem" (Isa. 2:3-5, NRSV).
Therefore, we reject all misuse of the name of God and Christ for achieving power, be it by governments, political parties, groups, theologies, or churches. We especially reject prosperity theologies, fundamentalist crusade theologies, and ideologies that in the name of freedom increase the wealth of capital owners and even support the use of imperialist violence to this end.
The power of God's Spirit frees us as individuals and churches to follow Jesus and to participate in building God's domination-free kingdom, God's life-affirming order with a human face. This includes collaboration in developing
(1) a new economic approach based on solidarity and serving life;
(2) the practice of nonviolent behavior for conflict resolution and therapy, avoiding and reducing violence at all levels, from the family to a world peace order; and
(3) a style of life that promotes ecological and social justice.
We seek the company and cooperation of people of other faiths or of none, who respect and promote the lives of the most humble human beings and of the endangered earth. In the name of Jesus we ask God for the spiritual power to rejoice at the wonderful gifts of creation, to lead a life of justice and peace, and to work toward the day when this will be enjoyed by all people
A joint statement by a group of twenty-six European initiatives and networks, including Kairos Europe, Pax Christi (German section), INKOTA, Christians for a Just Economic System, Pleading for an Ecumenical Future, Winds from the South, and several regional ecumenical grassroots networks, working together in the "German Ecumenical Network" in preparation for the May 2011 International Ecumenical Peace Convocation in Kingston, Jamaica.
Humanity and the earth are undergoing a unique crisis. Above all, this is manifested in the form of the financial and economic crisis, the food crisis, the social crisis (the growing gap between those who are becoming poorer and those becoming richer), the energy crisis, the climate crisis, the crisis of the extinction of species and the crisis of increasing violence at all levels -- from the family and schools to imperialist wars. The causes of these crises are clearly related to the dominant civilization, which from the "West" has conquered the entire globe in the areas of economics, politics, ideology, and the understanding of what it means to be human. This crisis is threatening life itself. As we see it, just peace must therefore be understood as leading toward a new culture of life at all levels -- from institutional to spiritual life.
The necessary turnaround toward a life in just peace includes at least three dimensions:
A spiritual vision of a new, emerging culture of life, based on faith or a humanist motivation.
The fundamental rejection of the dominant economic, political, violence-producing culture and world order, for the sake of the integrity of faith and the very being of the church.
Short-, medium-, and long-term steps toward realizing this vision.
We therefore present the following declaration, which is based on the biblical message and affirms decisions by the assemblies of ecumenical organizations, inviting all churches, congregations, and Christians to embrace it and to publicly advocate for the implementation of its demands.
1. Which god shall rule?
We believe that God created the whole universe in love, inviting all people to cooperate with God's ongoing creative work in mutual solidarity and respect for God's gifts. "The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it" (Ps. 24:1). With faith in God's Trinitarian dynamic we confess with all Christians the sociality of God as the source of the unity of all creatures.
Therefore, we reject the current world economic order imposed by global neoliberal capitalism -- using both structural and direct violence. We reject every claim to an economic, political, and military empire that attempts to subvert God's order of life and whose actions stand in contrast to God's love and justice. We reject an economic system and way of life that exploits nature and propagates unlimited growth so that the conditions of life for future generations are forcibly destroyed and the survival chances of the entire earth are threatened.
The power of God's Spirit frees us as individuals and churches to resist the ruling political-economic-cultural system and to work for crucially necessary alternatives.
2. God's good gifts for all should not be privatized by force.
We believe that God is a God of life and desires the fullness of life for all creatures. "I came that they might have life and have it abundantly" (John 10:10).
Therefore we reject a policy that through the privatization of collective and common goods produces wealth for the capital owners but scarcity and poverty for the vast majority of the world's population -- the worst kind of violence (Gandhi) -- and which exploits and even destroys nature. With particular emphasis we reject the patenting of seeds and of medicines that are necessary to meet people's basic needs. We say no to the privatization of genes as well as acts of biopiracy; no to the privatization of water and other gifts of nature; no to the privatization of services of general interest such as energy, transportation, health, education; also no to the destruction of solidarity-based social insurance systems through privatization; no to their submission to profit-oriented insurance companies and at the same time to speculative finance markets. All of this is structural violence at the service of the rich. But especially we reject the direct violence of a policy that wages wars to realize these private interests and wastes immeasurable resources on armaments.
The power of God's Spirit frees us as individuals and churches to work for the democratizing of the economy and the solidarity-based social systems toward serving life, among ourselves and in society, so that all might have enough, so that neither hardship nor excessive consumption prevails and that the earth can remain intact for future generations. Economic systems should be for the common use and not for the expansion of capital. For this reason goods and services for basic needs as well as global common goods must be publically run for mutual benefit, so that in accordance with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights all governments recognize their responsibility for the welfare of their citizens. We pledge to struggle for an order at all levels, in which economics and politics are put at the service of life for all and thereby overcome the fundamental causes of violence.
3. God's good earth should not be destroyed by greed.
We believe that God entrusted human beings with a rich and beautiful earth. "The Lord took the human beings and put them in the Garden of Eden to till it and keep it" (Gen. 2:15).
Therefore, we reject an economic and social order that converts God's gifts into commodities and in so doing increasingly destroys them. We especially call on Christians, congregations, and churches in the industrialized countries to recognize their enormous ecological debts, particularly their destructive climate debts, toward people who have been living in impoverished regions for the past five hundred years, and at least to offer symbolic compensation, to radically reduce their harmful greenhouse emissions, and to oblige their governments to pass national and international laws to keep global warming under two degrees and to stop the extermination of species.
The power of God's Spirit frees us as individuals and churches to set an example and reduce our consumption of energy and the environment as well as to force our governments to establish binding rules for reduction under international law (allowing for transitional arrangements for newly industrialized and developing countries). All in all, we will work for a cyclical economy that makes the gifts of nature available for just and sustainable use.
4. God liberates working people from violent exploitation.
We believe that God intends human labor to become participation in God's creative power and as a means for self-sufficiency in human societies, without exploiting working men and women. "I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery; you shall have no other Gods before me" (Gen. 20:2).
Therefore, we reject an economic order in which working people, especially women, are (structurally or directly) violently exploited and driven into unemployment. We reject governments that tax workers more and more but levy less and less taxes on capital gains from profits and fortunes and refuse to abolish tax havens.
The power of God's Spirit frees us as individuals and churches to struggle in cooperation with labor unions for legal systems and economic decisions in which those able to work can find useful employment and socially meaningful jobs and -- owing to increased productivity -- comprehensive reduced working hours. In reaching these decisions, all of those involved in the productive process must have a voice.
5. God does not want any accumulation of wealth beyond that which is necessary for life.
We believe that God despises the accumulation of wealth for the few at the cost of the majority. "No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth" (Matt. 6:24). "You shall not covet your neighbor's house; you shall not covet your neighbor's wife, or male or female slave, nor ox nor donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor" (Exod. 20:17).
Therefore we reject an economic order that stimulates and rewards greed, which is dependent on nature-destroying and socially antagonistic growth, because it makes money and capital a commodity and its increase an end in itself.
The Spirit of God frees us as individuals and churches to overcome the violent power of money and especially its speculative misuse as a "financial weapon of mass destruction." We ourselves will only use money at the service of genuine economic activity. In concert with social movements we will struggle to induce political institutions to make money a national and international public good that only serves useful economic activity, and to ensure that all use of property becomes socially and ecologically beneficial to all.
6. God wants to create human security through justice rather than through military means.
"This is the word of the Lord to Zerubabbel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6). "Until a spirit from on high is poured out upon us, and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field, and the fruitful field is deemed a forest. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness abide in the fruitful field. The effect of righteousness will be peace, and the result of righteousness, quietness, and trust forever" (Isa. 32:15-17).
Therefore we say no to the institution of war, which -- under the conditions of present-day weapons technology -- cannot be justified under any circumstances; no to the more than 1 billion U.S. dollars wasted annually for armaments while more than 30 million people die from the causes of hunger. Arms do not murder only when they are used, but already while they are being produced. In particular we reject the imperialist wars, which stand in violation of international law, such as those against Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the unlimited "war on terror." Therefore we reject the presence of more than 800 U.S. military bases, under whose protection authoritarian and pseudo-democratic regimes such as those in the Philippines and Colombia commit notorious violations of human rights, and also the arming of the European Community with international rapid intervention forces. When the international community needs to intervene in individual countries and regions because of notorious violations of human rights, this must be done only by police forces under the umbrella of a democratized United Nations.
The power of God's Spirit frees us as individuals and churches to refuse to cooperate in any way with waging war. Instead, in the spirit of Jesus and Gandhi we wish to confront all injustice with readiness to accept conflicts and suffering, to cooperate in reconciliation processes therapeutically and in terms of prevention, and to contribute to a political stance that seeks to outlaw war.
7. Weapons of mass destruction are blasphemy against God.
We believe that weapons of mass destruction are blasphemy, since human beings are created in the image of God. "Whoever sheds the blood of a human, by a human shall that person's blood be shed; for in God's own image God made humankind" (Gen. 9:6).
Therefore, we reject unequivocally the production, deployment, and use of means of mass destruction, which always shed innocent human blood and can even eliminate all life on earth. We reject the strategies of the United States and NATO, which claim the right to a nuclear first strike and already are making use of enhanced munitions with disastrous effects for the people targeted.
The power of the Spirit of God frees us to refuse to collaborate under any circumstances in the production, deployment, or use of weapons of mass destruction or to vote for any political party that has not declared its support for the complete abolition of any means of mass destruction. We call on all members of Christian churches to do likewise. Especially we call on the government of the United States as well as on other governments to make deeds follow their words and to create a nuclear-free world. Only then can governments now working to achieve a nuclear capacity be prevented from realizing their plans.
8. God has created a people, which has invited all peoples to a life with a just peace.
We believe that God has called us to be a people that lives a life of justice and peace and can so become the light of the world, the city on the hill and salt of the earth (Matt. 5:13-16). "Many peoples shall come and say, ‘Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; that God may teach us God's ways and that we may walk in God's paths.' For out of Zion shall go forth instruction, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem" (Isa. 2:3-5, NRSV).
Therefore, we reject all misuse of the name of God and Christ for achieving power, be it by governments, political parties, groups, theologies, or churches. We especially reject prosperity theologies, fundamentalist crusade theologies, and ideologies that in the name of freedom increase the wealth of capital owners and even support the use of imperialist violence to this end.
The power of God's Spirit frees us as individuals and churches to follow Jesus and to participate in building God's domination-free kingdom, God's life-affirming order with a human face. This includes collaboration in developing
(1) a new economic approach based on solidarity and serving life;
(2) the practice of nonviolent behavior for conflict resolution and therapy, avoiding and reducing violence at all levels, from the family to a world peace order; and
(3) a style of life that promotes ecological and social justice.
We seek the company and cooperation of people of other faiths or of none, who respect and promote the lives of the most humble human beings and of the endangered earth. In the name of Jesus we ask God for the spiritual power to rejoice at the wonderful gifts of creation, to lead a life of justice and peace, and to work toward the day when this will be enjoyed by all people
Wednesday, November 23, 2011
My Batam Experience
Upon the invitation of Bridget Lew of H.O.M.E. I visited her project in setting up an NGO, Yayasan Dunia Viva Wanita (YDVW), which seeks to empower women and changing the lives of the slum dwellers in Batam caught in the process of urbanization and industrialization.
Her aim is to decrease the vulnerability of people from engaging in trafficking and exploiting workers.
I was interested to see how Batam was dealing with the issue of HIV/Aids and how Bridget has linked up with the government and non-governmental programmes on this important public health issue.
We met with Pieter P Pureklolong who is the Executive Secretary of the local government Commission on Aids who briefed us on the situation in Batam which is known in Singapore as a sex tourist destination.
His official report indicated that there was a 15% rise of 273 with HIV in 2009 to 317 in 2010. There were 77 who developed Aids in 2009 and 134 in 2010. The number of deaths was 36 in 2009 and 74 in 2010. The government provides free testing, free Aids medication, free male and female condoms produced in the country.
We visited the main red light district with sex workers plying their trade in a block of apartment flats just off the main street near two shopping malls. A private clinic offers medical services to the sex workers just across the street. Working with the clinic are volunteers who provide counseling services and safe sex education to the sex workers. Along with the government hospital are private hospitals that take in Aids patients. There is close co-operation between the private and public agencies in addressing the issue of HIV/Aids.
In an industrial zone known as Batammindo there is established a community centre where social agencies are able to provide various educational, recreational, and social services to the 40,000 workers from different islands working in the different manufacturing factories. On the day we visited the workers were on a national strike for an increase of their minimum monthly salary from about SGD180 to 200. Bridget's project has a computer training centre with donated computers from Body Shop to train the workers. She has plans to provide an educational programme on HIV/Aids in order to work on prevention and stigmatization.
We went to an urban slum known as Kampong Air close to a rubbish dumping site where
YDVW in co-operation with local agencies and support from H.O.M.E., Healthserve, Bethany Church in Singapore have established a comprehensive development project.
200 children are in a Little Angel Reading House with a library and play activities. The youths will be given enrichment programmes including sex education and safe sex. Women have formed a Co-operative to sell basic supplies like rice, cooking oil etc. A micro-credit scheme will be in place to enable the slum dwellers to generate family income. Seminars will be conducted on Sanitation & Health including HIV/Aids and Human Trafficking.
Rumah Wanita in a secluded neighbourhood is the Shelter is for abused women from domestic violence, migrant workers from other islands, victims of human trafficking and unmarried mothers. They find safety and security and receive guidance and training for them to be integrated into society.
It was an enriching experience which energises me for wider development services to marginalized communities. It is a privilege to be support the work of H.O.M.E. in Singapore and with YDVM in Batam.
Her aim is to decrease the vulnerability of people from engaging in trafficking and exploiting workers.
I was interested to see how Batam was dealing with the issue of HIV/Aids and how Bridget has linked up with the government and non-governmental programmes on this important public health issue.
We met with Pieter P Pureklolong who is the Executive Secretary of the local government Commission on Aids who briefed us on the situation in Batam which is known in Singapore as a sex tourist destination.
His official report indicated that there was a 15% rise of 273 with HIV in 2009 to 317 in 2010. There were 77 who developed Aids in 2009 and 134 in 2010. The number of deaths was 36 in 2009 and 74 in 2010. The government provides free testing, free Aids medication, free male and female condoms produced in the country.
We visited the main red light district with sex workers plying their trade in a block of apartment flats just off the main street near two shopping malls. A private clinic offers medical services to the sex workers just across the street. Working with the clinic are volunteers who provide counseling services and safe sex education to the sex workers. Along with the government hospital are private hospitals that take in Aids patients. There is close co-operation between the private and public agencies in addressing the issue of HIV/Aids.
In an industrial zone known as Batammindo there is established a community centre where social agencies are able to provide various educational, recreational, and social services to the 40,000 workers from different islands working in the different manufacturing factories. On the day we visited the workers were on a national strike for an increase of their minimum monthly salary from about SGD180 to 200. Bridget's project has a computer training centre with donated computers from Body Shop to train the workers. She has plans to provide an educational programme on HIV/Aids in order to work on prevention and stigmatization.
We went to an urban slum known as Kampong Air close to a rubbish dumping site where
YDVW in co-operation with local agencies and support from H.O.M.E., Healthserve, Bethany Church in Singapore have established a comprehensive development project.
200 children are in a Little Angel Reading House with a library and play activities. The youths will be given enrichment programmes including sex education and safe sex. Women have formed a Co-operative to sell basic supplies like rice, cooking oil etc. A micro-credit scheme will be in place to enable the slum dwellers to generate family income. Seminars will be conducted on Sanitation & Health including HIV/Aids and Human Trafficking.
Rumah Wanita in a secluded neighbourhood is the Shelter is for abused women from domestic violence, migrant workers from other islands, victims of human trafficking and unmarried mothers. They find safety and security and receive guidance and training for them to be integrated into society.
It was an enriching experience which energises me for wider development services to marginalized communities. It is a privilege to be support the work of H.O.M.E. in Singapore and with YDVM in Batam.
Sunday, July 31, 2011
When Mel White Calls
Mel White called on Free Community Church on Sunday July 31, 2011 and exhorted the congregation in these challenging times to respond in faith to its mission. I read earlier in his Facebook posting about his visit to his Bali project for street boys and his Phnom Penh orphanage. I commented and invited him to drop by to visit us.
During the worship service, Mel lamented about the decline of the American Empire and the impending collapse of the earth and even Singapore could be submerged due to the greed and arrogance of humankind.
Mel is here as the house guest of Prof Kerry Sieh, his former church member, of Nanyang Technological University. Mel White had introduced Kerry Sieh and his partner to FCC during a previous visit.
On 13 Oct 09, Channel News Asia broadcast a newsclip featuring an interview with Prof. Kerry Sieh, the openly gay head of Singapore’s Earth Observatory. Sieh, who was actively courted by the Singapore government for his expertise, moved to Singapore with his male partner after Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said in July 2007 that “Homosexuals are mostly born that way, and no public purpose is served by interfering in their private lives”.
Before becoming Director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore, Prof Sieh was a tenured geology professor with an endowed chair at the California Institute of Technology's Tectonics Observatory, a US$30 million privately funded scientific effort, which he and others created at the university. He uprooted and joined NTU when the Singapore government made him an offer he could not refuse – to build a research centre of excellence for the study of earthquake sciences with S$150 million funding.
This visit of Mel reminded me of an earlier article written by Joe Dallas who is critical of Mel who is the founder of Soulforce. It was Soulforce who was instrumental in the decision of Bill Hybels to dissociate recently from Exodus International. It is amazing to me that such an description of Mel was penned by a anti-gay leader.
When Soulforce Calls
JAF4322
Joe Dallas
This article first appeared in the Christian Research Journal, volume 32, number 2 (2009). For further information or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org
Synopsis
The gay advocacy group Soulforce presents itself as a faith-based, civil rights organization, promoting justice for homosexuals by confronting churches and Christian leaders who promote the traditional biblical view of homosexuality. Soulforce has adopted teachings from both Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., and views itself as a modern civil rights movement following the traditions of nonviolent protest. Founded by Mel White, a former ghost writer for Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell, Soulforce believes the traditional Christian position on homosexuality is wrong, damaging to homosexuals, and must be confronted as its promoters must also be confronted, converted, or ultimately silenced. To this end, it has sponsored demonstrations at denominational conventions, churches, and conferences across the country, and has visited numerous Christian and secular universities. If pastors or Christian leaders choose to dialogue with this group, they should be aware of its erroneous theological positions and should clearly assert their disagreements with Soulforce’s beliefs and goals.
“We must stage powerful and long term direct actions against local churches and local pastors who are the primary source of the antigay propaganda in our communities....”
—Rev. Mel White, founder of Soulforce1
In the spring of 2008, pastors Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, T. D. Jakes, and Bill Hybels shared a dilemma. Each had been informed that his church was selected for a visit from Soulforce, a pro-homosexual religious organization that was sending a group of openly gay couples, along with friends and allies, to attend their worship services and inform their congregations of the “damaging impact of religion based discrimination” towards homosexuals.2
That wasn’t all, however. Soulforce would also “require” a forum for “personal and direct interaction” with each church and its leadership, which could take the form of a shared meal, panel discussion, or private meeting. If the pastors refused, they could expect “creative and visible nonviolent direct action.”3
They weren’t alone. Administrators at Biola University, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, and numerous other Christian campuses around the country have received similar notice from Soulforce, often resulting in on-campus trespassing, additional security requirements, and arrests.4 Additionally, Focus on the Family’s facilities in Colorado Springs are visited regularly by Soulforce demonstrators, some of whom refuse to leave the property until their demands are met;5 the annual conference of American Catholic Bishops has had its mass interrupted by Soulforce activists;6 denominational conventions have been subjected to Soulforce-engineered demonstrations and disruptions of business;7 and Christianity Today magazine, commenting on the group’s activities, cited Soulforce as an example of “an inescapable conflict for every church” over homosexuality.8
Thus, an increasing number of Christian leaders are facing the question: What should we do when Soulforce calls? This article will attempt to answer that question by examining the history, beliefs, and tactics of Soulforce, and by offering biblical principles and strategies to assist pastors and leaders who will one day encounter this growing and aggressive organization.
REV. MEL WHITE AND THE HISTORY OF SOULFORCE
Soulforce was birthed in 1999 by Rev. Mel White and his partner Gary Nixon, with the intention of recruiting and training volunteers to join in “confronting the antigay words and actions of fundamentalist Christians.”9 White, a former pastor and professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, had ghostwritten books for some of America’s foremost Christian leaders, including Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson, and was recognized as an accomplished film producer and communicator. In his autobiography Stranger at the Gate, however, he describes what was not well known about him: his private and lifelong struggle with homosexuality, a struggle he was aware of from his boyhood in the 1950s. Raised devoutly Christian, he felt his only option was to keep his sexual feelings a secret and marry, which he eventually did, fathering two children, one of whom became the well-known comic actor and screenwriter Mike White.
White recounts, movingly, his attempts to change his sexual orientation through counseling, intensive prayer, and even electroshock therapy.10 Unable to find relief from his attractions to men, he engaged in a number of clandestine homosexual encounters, even while ghostwriting for prominent leaders such as Graham and Falwell, none of whom knew of his sexual leanings. For most of his adult life, he’d believed homosexuality to be wrong, so his lapses into same-sex encounters caused him considerable guilt. His thinking gradually changed, influenced largely by a psychologist at Fuller who advised him, in 1980, that even though he was a married Christian father, he was also a gay man who needed to accept it, fall in love with another man, and move on.11 An epiphany followed: “For twenty five years I had been in a kind of bondage, judging myself, hating myself, trying to change something in the heart of me that could not, should not, be changed.”12
He began discussing his sexuality with his wife, Lyla, and by 1984 he’d begun seeing Nixon, though still married, and eventually was amicably divorced from his wife (who is on record as supporting him in his work with Soulforce). He then formed a partnership with Nixon that was solidified in a California marriage ceremony in 2008.13 His “coming out” in 1993 sent shock-waves through evangelical circles, and the release of his autobiography the next year was accompanied by generous media coverage, from featured newspaper articles to interviews on 60 Minutes and Larry King Live. White was soon to became the most visible and vocal representative for those claiming to be genuinely Christian and openly gay.
From the beginning, though, his goal was not just to “come out,” but also to come out against.” I will not remain silent any longer,” he declared in 1993 while issuing a public challenge to those he referred to as the religious right. “I pledge myself to do my best to prove you wrong with all the courage, wisdom and love I can muster.”14 On this promise he made good. He would soon stage a demonstration against Pat Robertson’s CBN headquarters in Virginia Beach, resulting in trespassing charges for which he would be jailed and then, in Ghandi-style protest, begin a well-publicized hunger strike that would only end when Robertson came to him in jail and promised to change his rhetoric when speaking about homosexuals.15 A similar “Fast for Understanding” was staged in Colorado Springs in protest of Focus on the Family.16 Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church would soon face many similar public displays from White and his allies.17
By 1999, White and Nixon had organized and recruited others who shared their concerns and Soulforce was formed, seeking “freedom for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from religious and political oppression through the practice of relentless nonviolent resistance.”18 The ensuing decade has seen the group’s visibility and aggression expand, making itself known at annual denominational conventions, church trials for pastors charged with violating their denomination’s standards regarding homosexuality, Christian universities, and churches, both national and worldwide. With public support from allies such as Jay Bakker (son of PTL founders Jim and Tammy Faye Baker),19 Arun Gandhi (grandson of Mohandas Gandhi),20 and Yolanda King (daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr.),21 Soulforce has solidified its image as both a civil rights and progressive religious organization.
SOULFORCE BELIEFS
White continues to identify himself as a bible-believing Christian,22 and the frequent references Soulforce volunteers and associates make to scripture, along with personal claims of faith, suggest a specifically Christian organization.23 Soulforce’s approach to the faith, however, is ecumenical: “Our Creator is not confined to any church or synagogue, any temple or mosque. Our Creator is on the front lines where people are suffering injustice. And when we join God there, we discover what it means to be a son or daughter of God, what it means to be truly human.”24
Soulforce therefore believes that we are all children of God by birth (not rebirth, as Jesus claimed in John 3:3) who discover God’s fatherhood by doing social justice. In fact, the first of the “Six Soulforce Beliefs about Myself ” announces: “I am a child of a loving Creator, a daughter or a son of the Soulforce at the center of the universe.”25 This belief stands in stark contrast to John’s declaration that “as many as received him [Christ] to them gave the power to become the sons of God” ( John 1:12 KJV), and to Jesus’ assertion that no one can come to God but by Him ( John 14:6).
So, while some Soulforce advocates may identify themselves as Christian, the organization’s self-description, posted on its Web site, is apt: “Soulforce is an interfaith and ecumenical movement.”26 The name Soulforce refers to teachings by Gandhi called satyagraha, his term for “truth force.” Gandhi taught that people should live by this truth force through defining a “plan of action that developed inner lives while working to transform society.” These teachings influenced first Gandhi, then King, both of whom White claims as inspirations and models: “Gandhi developed and refined his Satyagraha or ‘soul force’ principles while leading justice movements in South Africa (1893–1915) and India (1915–1948). Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., discovered Gandhi’s ‘soul force’ rules and used them to shape his own nonviolent civil rights movement in America.”27 White asks, “How would our [gay] civil rights movement be different if we rediscovered and applied those ‘soul force’ principles…?”28
Seeing itself as following in Gandhi and King’s footsteps— the oppressed (gays) taking a righteous stand against the oppressor (the church)—Soulforce holds to three primary beliefs concerning homosexuality and Christianity: (1) the traditional Christian position on homosexuality is wrong, (2) the traditional Christian position on homosexuality is damaging, and (3) the traditional Christian position on homosexuality must be changed or silenced. Understanding Soulforce requires an understanding of each point.
“The Traditional Christian Position on Homosexuality Is Wrong”
Soulforce promotes a revision of the Bible as it regards homosexuality. In doing so, it joins established pro-gay religious organizations such as the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, The United Church of Christ, and Evangelicals Concerned, all of whom regard the Bible as inspired, but believe that scriptural references to homosexuality found in Genesis 19:1–11, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, Romans 1:24–27, 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, and 1 Timothy 1:10 have been mistranslated, misinterpreted, or simply misunderstood. White explains his position on homosexuality and the Bible: “Most people have not carefully and prayerfully researched the Biblical texts used by some people to condemn God’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender children. The Biblical authors are silent about homosexual orientation as we know it today. They neither approve it nor condemn it. The prophets, Jesus, and the Biblical authors say nothing about homosexual orientation as we understand it today.”29
To Soulforce, the traditional Christian view that homosexual acts are biblically prohibited, and that homosexuality itself is abnormal, is wrong. By extension, then, all Christians who hold such views are equally wrong.
“The Traditional Christian Position on Homosexuality Is Damaging”
Here Soulforce goes further than many pro-gay theologians, who simply declare the traditional viewpoint on homosexuality to be incorrect.30 Soulforce insists it is also damaging, causing depression and suicide among homosexuals, and violence against them as well.
Sometimes they claim the traditional view is damaging because unbalanced, homophobic people may use it as an excuse to assault homosexuals. In such cases it’s not the view itself, but its potential for misuse, that’s the problem. One Soulforce volunteer remarked: “I think over and over again how we must help all preachers understand how their negative ‘Biblical pronouncements’ about LGBT persons harms and hurts LGBT persons and gives some violent persons rationale for their violence against them.”31 White, in an open letter to a Catholic Bishop, makes a similar argument: “If God rejects us and you reject us, is it any wonder that our families and friends reject us, that we are demeaned by our classmates, fired from our jobs, evicted from our apartments, hunted down and hounded out of the military, harassed and taunted in the streets, and even killed by teenagers with knives and baseball bats?”32
More often, though, Soulforce claims the traditional view is damaging in and of itself. For example, if you say homosexuality is a sin, that statement not only inspires others to hurt homosexuals, but the statement itself emotionally or spiritually violates them. White argues accordingly: “I’d rather suffer psychological or physical violence any day than be told over and over again the untruth that my sexual orientation is a sickness and a sin; that my Creator doesn’t love me as I am; and that my fifteen year relationship with Gary Nixon isn’t blessed by God.”33
According to Soulforce, then, if you preach that homosexuality is a sin, you inspire others to commit violent acts against homo sexuals, and you yourself, by making that statement, commit violence against them as well. You diminish their sense of worth; you generate depression within them; you inspire rejection, abuse, and violence against them. Thus all Christians (Christian leaders, especially) who hold the traditional view are an ongoing source of suffering to the homosexual population. Consider a few more of White’s statements in this vein:
“These antigay, religion-based teachings and actions have become the primary source of misinformation against sexual and gender minorities, misinformation that leads to suffering and death.”34
“We know that all Christian churches share responsibility for the mistreatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Americans.”35
“Religious leaders are the primary source of misinformation that leads to suffering and death for sexual and gender minorities.”36
Mistreatment, suffering, violence, death—no wonder Soulforce declares itself “determined to help change the minds and hearts of religious leaders whose anti-homosexual campaigns lead (directly and indirectly) to—suffering.”37 If you believe that a certain teaching causes emotional suffering, physical violence, or death to any group, you’ll no doubt do what’s within your power to change the minds of the people behind the teaching, or silence the teaching itself. Inevitably, then, Soulforce’s first two primary beliefs generate its third.
“The Traditional Christian Position on Homosexuality Must Be Changed or Silenced”
“This spiritual violence must end,” declares White. “We love…the body of Christ too much to allow it to continue these policies that lead to suffering and death.”38 Elsewhere he warns, “The toxic rhetoric flows unabated, primarily from sincere but misinformed religious leaders. It is poisoning the national discourse, dividing homes and churches, ruining families and wasting lives. We must do our best to stop that flow of poison at its source.”39
Traditional teaching on homosexuality sparks violence; religious leaders dispense a toxic flow of traditional teaching; the flow must be cut off at its source—churches, Christian schools, evangelistic institutions, or any other places where the traditional biblical view on homosexuality is promoted. But how? “What I suggest to all homosexuals and their supporters,” White advises, “is to create tension between the church and the gay community.”40
To create that tension, Soulforce chooses a church, Christian college, denominational conference, or organization, then contacts them to request a meeting, warning of potential demonstrations or other “direct actions” if they refuse. Such “direct actions” may disrupt or inconvenience, but the group adheres to a strict policy of nonviolence, and there’s no evidence of Soulforce demonstrators ever threatening, vandalizing, name calling, or using obscenity in any form. Some leaders who’ve hosted meetings with Soulforce have positive things to say about the encounters,41 while others who’ve refused to meet their terms have been obliged to have them forcibly removed from their property.42 The meeting they request normally includes an allotted time to present their views to the church or campus, informal discussions, distribution of their literature, and meetings with the church or college leaders.
Annual events include the Equality Ride (bus riders visiting Christian seminaries and Bible colleges), the American Family Outing (delegates visiting megachurches), and Soulforce Q (international outreach). Clearly, then, Soulforce’s attempts to change the church’s views on homosexuality are expanding. So let me offer three general suggestions to consider when Soulforce calls.
DIALOGUE IS OPTIONAL, NOT MANDATORY
We are not biblically required to respond to every charge leveled against us, nor to every request for a conversation. Jesus at times refused to engage in dialogue when dialogue seemed useless or distracting, or when those “baiting” Him hoped to provoke an argument (Matt. 21:24). Paul likewise reserved the right to deny audience to men who would introduce false doctrine to churches he was responsible for (Gal. 2:5). Soulforce presents its concerns as though every pastor or administrator is obliged to consider them, but the fact is, a leader’s responsibility is first to the people he serves, not to an outside group demanding his attention.
There is scriptural precedent for avoiding conversations or debates that may divert a group from its primary goal, as there’s precedent for pastors protecting their flock from error. Nehemiah, for example, knew his responsibility was to rebuild Jerusalem, leading his men to fulfill his God-given vision. When Israel’s enemies tried to distract him from this, first by mockery (Neh. 4:1–3), then by threats (Neh. 4:11), then finally by an invitation to dialogue (Neh. 6:5–7), he ignored their attempts, focusing instead on the work at hand. In doing so he was hardly mistreating those who wanted to distract him. Rather, he knew his priorities, recognized his limited time and energy, and refused to engage with others who would divert him from his primary purposes.
Any leader contacted by Soulforce should “go and do likewise” by considering, first and foremost, his priorities. How does their request for access to his congregation or group match the needs of the group itself, and his God-given vision for it? If it doesn’t, then a polite but clear refusal of their invitation is called for. But if after prayerful consideration, he concludes that an encounter with Soulforce would be in the best interest of his organization or flock, then two more points should be considered.
SOULFORCE PREMISES ARE ERRONEOUS
Space prohibits a detailed response in this article to Soulforce’s claim that the Bible verses traditionally understood to condemn homosexuality have been mistranslated, misinterpreted, or misunderstood. A clear reading of these verses in context, utilizing common sense and respect for the inspiration of both testaments, leaves little doubt, however, as to their unambiguous prohibition of homosexual relations of any sort, under any circumstances. Still, an effective response to the pro-gay interpretation of Scripture requires an understanding of that interpretation and a detailed rebuttal of it.
It’s essential that those deciding to dialogue with Soul force first brush up on the finer points of pro-gay theology, because any dialogue with a group claiming homosexuality and Christianity are compatible must begin with either a concession to their claim or a challenge to it. Two helpful resources would be The Gay Gospel? How Pro-Gay Advocates Misread the Bible by Joe Dallas (Harvest House, 2007) and The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics by Robert Gagnon (Abingdon Press, 2002).
Likewise, the premise that traditional teaching on homosexuality leads to the suffering of homosexuals calls for rebuttal. No doubt there is prejudice against homosexuals, evidenced at times in acts of violence and cruel words. Proof of a link between biblical teaching and violence against homosexuals, however, is lacking, though Soulforce presents this premise as established fact. One might respond that Anti-Semitism (prejudice against Jews) exists, and Christians generally believe Jews who reject Jesus the Messiah are unsaved. Does it logically follow that those who recognize Christ as Messiah therefore create Anti-Semitism? Likewise, Scripture teaches that parents should train their children, and some parents abuse their children. Shall biblical teaching on parenting be blamed for the horrors of child abuse, or shall we admit the obvious and significant distinction between a belief and its perversion or misapplication? Soulforce claims to the contrary, saying that homosexuality is wrong is one thing; encouraging hatred towards homosexuals is something obviously and entirely different.
Consider Soulforce’s Concerns; Assert Your Own
Respectful dialogue requires a careful analysis of the other’s claims, so when dialogue with Soulforce is decided on, then hearing their concerns is necessary. Much can be learned in doing so. But an error Christians often make when dealing with homosexual activists is to overindulge their desire for us to hear their concerns, while offering none of our own. “The servant of the Lord must not strive,” Paul warned, “but must be gentle to all men” (2 Tim. 2:24). Some leaders who have dealt with Soulforce seem to have achieved at least that part of the passage, congratulating themselves for having been gentle and respectful, leaving the meeting keenly aware of Soulforce’s complaints and concerns. One wonders, though, if Soulforce had a clue about any concerns the pastors themselves may have had.
Paul did, after all, continue by saying God’s servant must be “apt to teach…instructing those that oppose themselves” (2 Tim. 2:24–25 KJV). Surely a Christian leader who believes that homosexuality is wrong will be concerned for the spiritual welfare of Soulforce delegates who claim to be both gay and Christian (as many do). Surely such leaders, believing homosexuality to be sin, will be concerned about this group’s aggressive commitment to encouraging its normalization and celebration. And surely such leaders will feel some injunction to, as Paul said, “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather, reprove them” (Eph. 5:11 KJV). So those hosting a dialogue should insure that time spent expressing these concerns to Soulforce is equal to the time spent hearing theirs. If a conversation is requested, then let it be understood in advance as a mutual dialogue, not a monologue, because in the end, this dialogue is inevitable and unavoidable.
The past year (2008) saw unprecedented aggression from the gay rights movement, as it sought legitimization of homosexuality and the marginalization of any group or individual who opposes it. And since the last organized force resisting this movement is, for the most part, the Christian church, Christianity Today’s editorial on Soulforce and a Christian response to it seems both relevant and ominous:
“Soulforce’s message to evangelicals is clear: You are next.”43
Joe Dallas is the program director of Genesis Counseling in Tustin, California, a Christian counseling service to men dealing with sexual addiction, homosexuality, and other sexual/relational problems. He is a member of the American Association of Christian Counselors and is the author of three books on human sexuality, including Desires in Conflict (Harvest House, 1991) and A Strong Delusion (Harvest House, 1996).
notes
1 “Why We Can’t Wait to End This Debate!” Interview in Gay Today.com, http://www.gaytoday.com/garchive/ viewpoint/051302vp.htm.
2 “Soulforce: The American Family Outing,” http://www.soulforce.org/pdf/AFOcomplete.pdf.
3 Ibid.
4 “The Equality Ride,” http://www.soulforce.org/equalityride.
5 “Pro-Gay Protestors Arrested at Focus,” citizenlink.com, May 2, 2005,http://www.citizenlink.org/CLFeatures/ A000000335.cfm.
6 “History of Soulforce 1999–2006,” http://www.soulforce.org/pdf/historybook.pdf.
7 Ibid.
8 “Coming Attractions: Gay Activism Is Not Just Found in Liberal Churches,” Christianity Today, August 1, 2003, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/august/31.33.html.
9 “Soulforce 1999–2006,” Soulforce, http://www.soulforce.org/pdf/historybook.pdf.
10 Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994).
11 Ibid., 155.
12 Ibid., 155–56.
13 http://www.allsaints-pas.org/site/DocServer/JEB080618_Mel_White_and_Gary_Nixon_Wedding_ Homily.pdf?docID=4624.
14 Stranger, 269.
15 “Partners in Soulforce,” Soulforce, http://www.soulforce.org/article/10.
16 “Mel White Launches ‘Fast for Understanding,’” Holysmoke.org, http://www.holysmoke.org/ sdhok/homo06.htm.
17 “Jerry Falwell, Mel White, and the Model of Intervention,” Colorado Confidential, http://coloradoconfidential.com/ showDiary.do?diaryId=2068.
18 Soulforce Vision Statement from http://www.soulforce.org.
19 “Soulforce Meets with Joel Osteen; New Birth Next Target,” Gay Christian Movement Watch, http:// gcmwatch.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/soulfarce-meets-with-joel-osteen/.
20 “Media Photos,” Soulforce, http://www.soulforce.org/article/746.
21 Ibid.
22 Stranger, 238.
23 See, e.g., testimonials of the Freedom Riders at the “Equality Ride Blog,” http:// www.soulforce.org/article/1440.
24 “History of Soulforce,” Soulforce, http://www.soulforce.org/pdf/historybook.pdf.
25 “Six Soulforce Beliefs,” Soulforce, http://www.soulforce.org/article/567.
26 Ibid.
27 Mel White, “A Soulforce Call for Direct Action: Bringing Truth and Love to Lynchburg,” February 22, 1999, http://www.soulforce.org/article/525.
28 Mel White, “The Original 17 Step Journey,” Soulforce, http://www.soulforce.org/article/531.
29 “What The Bible Says—And Doesn’t Say about Homosexuality,” Soulforce, http://www.soulforce.org/article/ homosexuality-bible.
30 See, e.g., John Boswell’s prominent defense of pro-gay theology, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), and for detailed rebuttal see Robert Gagnon’s The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002), and Joe Dallas’ The Gay Gospel? How Pro-Gay Advocates Misread the Bible (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2006).
31 “Bishop T. D. Jakes Agrees to Ongoing Dialogue with LGBT & Straight-Ally Families,” Soulforce, http://www.soulforce.org/email_campaign/email_5_22_2008.html.
32 http://www.whosoever.org/v5i4/mel.html.
33 Mel White, “The Second Trial of Jimmy Creech,” Whosoever, http://www.whosoever.org/ editorial/creechtrial.html.
34 Mel White, “Why We Can’t Wait for This Debate to End!” Gay Today, http://www.gaytoday.com/garchive/ viewpoint/051302vp.htm.
35 http://www.soulforce.org/article/469.
36 http://www.soulforce.org/article/395.
37 “History of Soulforce,” Soulforce, www.soulforce.org/pdf/historybook.pdf.
38 “Declaring an Unholy War,” Circuit Rider’s Range, http://www.crrange.com/soulwar.html.
39 “History of Soulforce,” Soulforce, http://www.soulforce.org/pdf/historybook.pdf.
40 “Mel White Speaks about Being Gay and Christian in America,” Collegiate Times, http://www.collegiatetimes.com/ news/1/ARTICLE/8052/2006-11-16.html.
41 See http://www.soulforce.org/article/1107 for comments.
42 See http://www.soulforce.org/article/1483 for one of many examples.
43 “Coming Attractions: Gay Activism Is Not Just Found in Liberal Churches.”
During the worship service, Mel lamented about the decline of the American Empire and the impending collapse of the earth and even Singapore could be submerged due to the greed and arrogance of humankind.
Mel is here as the house guest of Prof Kerry Sieh, his former church member, of Nanyang Technological University. Mel White had introduced Kerry Sieh and his partner to FCC during a previous visit.
On 13 Oct 09, Channel News Asia broadcast a newsclip featuring an interview with Prof. Kerry Sieh, the openly gay head of Singapore’s Earth Observatory. Sieh, who was actively courted by the Singapore government for his expertise, moved to Singapore with his male partner after Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew said in July 2007 that “Homosexuals are mostly born that way, and no public purpose is served by interfering in their private lives”.
Before becoming Director of the Earth Observatory of Singapore, Prof Sieh was a tenured geology professor with an endowed chair at the California Institute of Technology's Tectonics Observatory, a US$30 million privately funded scientific effort, which he and others created at the university. He uprooted and joined NTU when the Singapore government made him an offer he could not refuse – to build a research centre of excellence for the study of earthquake sciences with S$150 million funding.
This visit of Mel reminded me of an earlier article written by Joe Dallas who is critical of Mel who is the founder of Soulforce. It was Soulforce who was instrumental in the decision of Bill Hybels to dissociate recently from Exodus International. It is amazing to me that such an description of Mel was penned by a anti-gay leader.
When Soulforce Calls
JAF4322
Joe Dallas
This article first appeared in the Christian Research Journal, volume 32, number 2 (2009). For further information or to subscribe to the Christian Research Journal go to: http://www.equip.org
Synopsis
The gay advocacy group Soulforce presents itself as a faith-based, civil rights organization, promoting justice for homosexuals by confronting churches and Christian leaders who promote the traditional biblical view of homosexuality. Soulforce has adopted teachings from both Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., and views itself as a modern civil rights movement following the traditions of nonviolent protest. Founded by Mel White, a former ghost writer for Billy Graham and Jerry Falwell, Soulforce believes the traditional Christian position on homosexuality is wrong, damaging to homosexuals, and must be confronted as its promoters must also be confronted, converted, or ultimately silenced. To this end, it has sponsored demonstrations at denominational conventions, churches, and conferences across the country, and has visited numerous Christian and secular universities. If pastors or Christian leaders choose to dialogue with this group, they should be aware of its erroneous theological positions and should clearly assert their disagreements with Soulforce’s beliefs and goals.
“We must stage powerful and long term direct actions against local churches and local pastors who are the primary source of the antigay propaganda in our communities....”
—Rev. Mel White, founder of Soulforce1
In the spring of 2008, pastors Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, T. D. Jakes, and Bill Hybels shared a dilemma. Each had been informed that his church was selected for a visit from Soulforce, a pro-homosexual religious organization that was sending a group of openly gay couples, along with friends and allies, to attend their worship services and inform their congregations of the “damaging impact of religion based discrimination” towards homosexuals.2
That wasn’t all, however. Soulforce would also “require” a forum for “personal and direct interaction” with each church and its leadership, which could take the form of a shared meal, panel discussion, or private meeting. If the pastors refused, they could expect “creative and visible nonviolent direct action.”3
They weren’t alone. Administrators at Biola University, Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University, and numerous other Christian campuses around the country have received similar notice from Soulforce, often resulting in on-campus trespassing, additional security requirements, and arrests.4 Additionally, Focus on the Family’s facilities in Colorado Springs are visited regularly by Soulforce demonstrators, some of whom refuse to leave the property until their demands are met;5 the annual conference of American Catholic Bishops has had its mass interrupted by Soulforce activists;6 denominational conventions have been subjected to Soulforce-engineered demonstrations and disruptions of business;7 and Christianity Today magazine, commenting on the group’s activities, cited Soulforce as an example of “an inescapable conflict for every church” over homosexuality.8
Thus, an increasing number of Christian leaders are facing the question: What should we do when Soulforce calls? This article will attempt to answer that question by examining the history, beliefs, and tactics of Soulforce, and by offering biblical principles and strategies to assist pastors and leaders who will one day encounter this growing and aggressive organization.
REV. MEL WHITE AND THE HISTORY OF SOULFORCE
Soulforce was birthed in 1999 by Rev. Mel White and his partner Gary Nixon, with the intention of recruiting and training volunteers to join in “confronting the antigay words and actions of fundamentalist Christians.”9 White, a former pastor and professor at Fuller Theological Seminary, had ghostwritten books for some of America’s foremost Christian leaders, including Billy Graham, Jerry Falwell, and Pat Robertson, and was recognized as an accomplished film producer and communicator. In his autobiography Stranger at the Gate, however, he describes what was not well known about him: his private and lifelong struggle with homosexuality, a struggle he was aware of from his boyhood in the 1950s. Raised devoutly Christian, he felt his only option was to keep his sexual feelings a secret and marry, which he eventually did, fathering two children, one of whom became the well-known comic actor and screenwriter Mike White.
White recounts, movingly, his attempts to change his sexual orientation through counseling, intensive prayer, and even electroshock therapy.10 Unable to find relief from his attractions to men, he engaged in a number of clandestine homosexual encounters, even while ghostwriting for prominent leaders such as Graham and Falwell, none of whom knew of his sexual leanings. For most of his adult life, he’d believed homosexuality to be wrong, so his lapses into same-sex encounters caused him considerable guilt. His thinking gradually changed, influenced largely by a psychologist at Fuller who advised him, in 1980, that even though he was a married Christian father, he was also a gay man who needed to accept it, fall in love with another man, and move on.11 An epiphany followed: “For twenty five years I had been in a kind of bondage, judging myself, hating myself, trying to change something in the heart of me that could not, should not, be changed.”12
He began discussing his sexuality with his wife, Lyla, and by 1984 he’d begun seeing Nixon, though still married, and eventually was amicably divorced from his wife (who is on record as supporting him in his work with Soulforce). He then formed a partnership with Nixon that was solidified in a California marriage ceremony in 2008.13 His “coming out” in 1993 sent shock-waves through evangelical circles, and the release of his autobiography the next year was accompanied by generous media coverage, from featured newspaper articles to interviews on 60 Minutes and Larry King Live. White was soon to became the most visible and vocal representative for those claiming to be genuinely Christian and openly gay.
From the beginning, though, his goal was not just to “come out,” but also to come out against.” I will not remain silent any longer,” he declared in 1993 while issuing a public challenge to those he referred to as the religious right. “I pledge myself to do my best to prove you wrong with all the courage, wisdom and love I can muster.”14 On this promise he made good. He would soon stage a demonstration against Pat Robertson’s CBN headquarters in Virginia Beach, resulting in trespassing charges for which he would be jailed and then, in Ghandi-style protest, begin a well-publicized hunger strike that would only end when Robertson came to him in jail and promised to change his rhetoric when speaking about homosexuals.15 A similar “Fast for Understanding” was staged in Colorado Springs in protest of Focus on the Family.16 Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church would soon face many similar public displays from White and his allies.17
By 1999, White and Nixon had organized and recruited others who shared their concerns and Soulforce was formed, seeking “freedom for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people from religious and political oppression through the practice of relentless nonviolent resistance.”18 The ensuing decade has seen the group’s visibility and aggression expand, making itself known at annual denominational conventions, church trials for pastors charged with violating their denomination’s standards regarding homosexuality, Christian universities, and churches, both national and worldwide. With public support from allies such as Jay Bakker (son of PTL founders Jim and Tammy Faye Baker),19 Arun Gandhi (grandson of Mohandas Gandhi),20 and Yolanda King (daughter of Martin Luther King, Jr.),21 Soulforce has solidified its image as both a civil rights and progressive religious organization.
SOULFORCE BELIEFS
White continues to identify himself as a bible-believing Christian,22 and the frequent references Soulforce volunteers and associates make to scripture, along with personal claims of faith, suggest a specifically Christian organization.23 Soulforce’s approach to the faith, however, is ecumenical: “Our Creator is not confined to any church or synagogue, any temple or mosque. Our Creator is on the front lines where people are suffering injustice. And when we join God there, we discover what it means to be a son or daughter of God, what it means to be truly human.”24
Soulforce therefore believes that we are all children of God by birth (not rebirth, as Jesus claimed in John 3:3) who discover God’s fatherhood by doing social justice. In fact, the first of the “Six Soulforce Beliefs about Myself ” announces: “I am a child of a loving Creator, a daughter or a son of the Soulforce at the center of the universe.”25 This belief stands in stark contrast to John’s declaration that “as many as received him [Christ] to them gave the power to become the sons of God” ( John 1:12 KJV), and to Jesus’ assertion that no one can come to God but by Him ( John 14:6).
So, while some Soulforce advocates may identify themselves as Christian, the organization’s self-description, posted on its Web site, is apt: “Soulforce is an interfaith and ecumenical movement.”26 The name Soulforce refers to teachings by Gandhi called satyagraha, his term for “truth force.” Gandhi taught that people should live by this truth force through defining a “plan of action that developed inner lives while working to transform society.” These teachings influenced first Gandhi, then King, both of whom White claims as inspirations and models: “Gandhi developed and refined his Satyagraha or ‘soul force’ principles while leading justice movements in South Africa (1893–1915) and India (1915–1948). Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., discovered Gandhi’s ‘soul force’ rules and used them to shape his own nonviolent civil rights movement in America.”27 White asks, “How would our [gay] civil rights movement be different if we rediscovered and applied those ‘soul force’ principles…?”28
Seeing itself as following in Gandhi and King’s footsteps— the oppressed (gays) taking a righteous stand against the oppressor (the church)—Soulforce holds to three primary beliefs concerning homosexuality and Christianity: (1) the traditional Christian position on homosexuality is wrong, (2) the traditional Christian position on homosexuality is damaging, and (3) the traditional Christian position on homosexuality must be changed or silenced. Understanding Soulforce requires an understanding of each point.
“The Traditional Christian Position on Homosexuality Is Wrong”
Soulforce promotes a revision of the Bible as it regards homosexuality. In doing so, it joins established pro-gay religious organizations such as the Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, The United Church of Christ, and Evangelicals Concerned, all of whom regard the Bible as inspired, but believe that scriptural references to homosexuality found in Genesis 19:1–11, Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13, Romans 1:24–27, 1 Corinthians 6:9–10, and 1 Timothy 1:10 have been mistranslated, misinterpreted, or simply misunderstood. White explains his position on homosexuality and the Bible: “Most people have not carefully and prayerfully researched the Biblical texts used by some people to condemn God’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender children. The Biblical authors are silent about homosexual orientation as we know it today. They neither approve it nor condemn it. The prophets, Jesus, and the Biblical authors say nothing about homosexual orientation as we understand it today.”29
To Soulforce, the traditional Christian view that homosexual acts are biblically prohibited, and that homosexuality itself is abnormal, is wrong. By extension, then, all Christians who hold such views are equally wrong.
“The Traditional Christian Position on Homosexuality Is Damaging”
Here Soulforce goes further than many pro-gay theologians, who simply declare the traditional viewpoint on homosexuality to be incorrect.30 Soulforce insists it is also damaging, causing depression and suicide among homosexuals, and violence against them as well.
Sometimes they claim the traditional view is damaging because unbalanced, homophobic people may use it as an excuse to assault homosexuals. In such cases it’s not the view itself, but its potential for misuse, that’s the problem. One Soulforce volunteer remarked: “I think over and over again how we must help all preachers understand how their negative ‘Biblical pronouncements’ about LGBT persons harms and hurts LGBT persons and gives some violent persons rationale for their violence against them.”31 White, in an open letter to a Catholic Bishop, makes a similar argument: “If God rejects us and you reject us, is it any wonder that our families and friends reject us, that we are demeaned by our classmates, fired from our jobs, evicted from our apartments, hunted down and hounded out of the military, harassed and taunted in the streets, and even killed by teenagers with knives and baseball bats?”32
More often, though, Soulforce claims the traditional view is damaging in and of itself. For example, if you say homosexuality is a sin, that statement not only inspires others to hurt homosexuals, but the statement itself emotionally or spiritually violates them. White argues accordingly: “I’d rather suffer psychological or physical violence any day than be told over and over again the untruth that my sexual orientation is a sickness and a sin; that my Creator doesn’t love me as I am; and that my fifteen year relationship with Gary Nixon isn’t blessed by God.”33
According to Soulforce, then, if you preach that homosexuality is a sin, you inspire others to commit violent acts against homo sexuals, and you yourself, by making that statement, commit violence against them as well. You diminish their sense of worth; you generate depression within them; you inspire rejection, abuse, and violence against them. Thus all Christians (Christian leaders, especially) who hold the traditional view are an ongoing source of suffering to the homosexual population. Consider a few more of White’s statements in this vein:
“These antigay, religion-based teachings and actions have become the primary source of misinformation against sexual and gender minorities, misinformation that leads to suffering and death.”34
“We know that all Christian churches share responsibility for the mistreatment of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered Americans.”35
“Religious leaders are the primary source of misinformation that leads to suffering and death for sexual and gender minorities.”36
Mistreatment, suffering, violence, death—no wonder Soulforce declares itself “determined to help change the minds and hearts of religious leaders whose anti-homosexual campaigns lead (directly and indirectly) to—suffering.”37 If you believe that a certain teaching causes emotional suffering, physical violence, or death to any group, you’ll no doubt do what’s within your power to change the minds of the people behind the teaching, or silence the teaching itself. Inevitably, then, Soulforce’s first two primary beliefs generate its third.
“The Traditional Christian Position on Homosexuality Must Be Changed or Silenced”
“This spiritual violence must end,” declares White. “We love…the body of Christ too much to allow it to continue these policies that lead to suffering and death.”38 Elsewhere he warns, “The toxic rhetoric flows unabated, primarily from sincere but misinformed religious leaders. It is poisoning the national discourse, dividing homes and churches, ruining families and wasting lives. We must do our best to stop that flow of poison at its source.”39
Traditional teaching on homosexuality sparks violence; religious leaders dispense a toxic flow of traditional teaching; the flow must be cut off at its source—churches, Christian schools, evangelistic institutions, or any other places where the traditional biblical view on homosexuality is promoted. But how? “What I suggest to all homosexuals and their supporters,” White advises, “is to create tension between the church and the gay community.”40
To create that tension, Soulforce chooses a church, Christian college, denominational conference, or organization, then contacts them to request a meeting, warning of potential demonstrations or other “direct actions” if they refuse. Such “direct actions” may disrupt or inconvenience, but the group adheres to a strict policy of nonviolence, and there’s no evidence of Soulforce demonstrators ever threatening, vandalizing, name calling, or using obscenity in any form. Some leaders who’ve hosted meetings with Soulforce have positive things to say about the encounters,41 while others who’ve refused to meet their terms have been obliged to have them forcibly removed from their property.42 The meeting they request normally includes an allotted time to present their views to the church or campus, informal discussions, distribution of their literature, and meetings with the church or college leaders.
Annual events include the Equality Ride (bus riders visiting Christian seminaries and Bible colleges), the American Family Outing (delegates visiting megachurches), and Soulforce Q (international outreach). Clearly, then, Soulforce’s attempts to change the church’s views on homosexuality are expanding. So let me offer three general suggestions to consider when Soulforce calls.
DIALOGUE IS OPTIONAL, NOT MANDATORY
We are not biblically required to respond to every charge leveled against us, nor to every request for a conversation. Jesus at times refused to engage in dialogue when dialogue seemed useless or distracting, or when those “baiting” Him hoped to provoke an argument (Matt. 21:24). Paul likewise reserved the right to deny audience to men who would introduce false doctrine to churches he was responsible for (Gal. 2:5). Soulforce presents its concerns as though every pastor or administrator is obliged to consider them, but the fact is, a leader’s responsibility is first to the people he serves, not to an outside group demanding his attention.
There is scriptural precedent for avoiding conversations or debates that may divert a group from its primary goal, as there’s precedent for pastors protecting their flock from error. Nehemiah, for example, knew his responsibility was to rebuild Jerusalem, leading his men to fulfill his God-given vision. When Israel’s enemies tried to distract him from this, first by mockery (Neh. 4:1–3), then by threats (Neh. 4:11), then finally by an invitation to dialogue (Neh. 6:5–7), he ignored their attempts, focusing instead on the work at hand. In doing so he was hardly mistreating those who wanted to distract him. Rather, he knew his priorities, recognized his limited time and energy, and refused to engage with others who would divert him from his primary purposes.
Any leader contacted by Soulforce should “go and do likewise” by considering, first and foremost, his priorities. How does their request for access to his congregation or group match the needs of the group itself, and his God-given vision for it? If it doesn’t, then a polite but clear refusal of their invitation is called for. But if after prayerful consideration, he concludes that an encounter with Soulforce would be in the best interest of his organization or flock, then two more points should be considered.
SOULFORCE PREMISES ARE ERRONEOUS
Space prohibits a detailed response in this article to Soulforce’s claim that the Bible verses traditionally understood to condemn homosexuality have been mistranslated, misinterpreted, or misunderstood. A clear reading of these verses in context, utilizing common sense and respect for the inspiration of both testaments, leaves little doubt, however, as to their unambiguous prohibition of homosexual relations of any sort, under any circumstances. Still, an effective response to the pro-gay interpretation of Scripture requires an understanding of that interpretation and a detailed rebuttal of it.
It’s essential that those deciding to dialogue with Soul force first brush up on the finer points of pro-gay theology, because any dialogue with a group claiming homosexuality and Christianity are compatible must begin with either a concession to their claim or a challenge to it. Two helpful resources would be The Gay Gospel? How Pro-Gay Advocates Misread the Bible by Joe Dallas (Harvest House, 2007) and The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics by Robert Gagnon (Abingdon Press, 2002).
Likewise, the premise that traditional teaching on homosexuality leads to the suffering of homosexuals calls for rebuttal. No doubt there is prejudice against homosexuals, evidenced at times in acts of violence and cruel words. Proof of a link between biblical teaching and violence against homosexuals, however, is lacking, though Soulforce presents this premise as established fact. One might respond that Anti-Semitism (prejudice against Jews) exists, and Christians generally believe Jews who reject Jesus the Messiah are unsaved. Does it logically follow that those who recognize Christ as Messiah therefore create Anti-Semitism? Likewise, Scripture teaches that parents should train their children, and some parents abuse their children. Shall biblical teaching on parenting be blamed for the horrors of child abuse, or shall we admit the obvious and significant distinction between a belief and its perversion or misapplication? Soulforce claims to the contrary, saying that homosexuality is wrong is one thing; encouraging hatred towards homosexuals is something obviously and entirely different.
Consider Soulforce’s Concerns; Assert Your Own
Respectful dialogue requires a careful analysis of the other’s claims, so when dialogue with Soulforce is decided on, then hearing their concerns is necessary. Much can be learned in doing so. But an error Christians often make when dealing with homosexual activists is to overindulge their desire for us to hear their concerns, while offering none of our own. “The servant of the Lord must not strive,” Paul warned, “but must be gentle to all men” (2 Tim. 2:24). Some leaders who have dealt with Soulforce seem to have achieved at least that part of the passage, congratulating themselves for having been gentle and respectful, leaving the meeting keenly aware of Soulforce’s complaints and concerns. One wonders, though, if Soulforce had a clue about any concerns the pastors themselves may have had.
Paul did, after all, continue by saying God’s servant must be “apt to teach…instructing those that oppose themselves” (2 Tim. 2:24–25 KJV). Surely a Christian leader who believes that homosexuality is wrong will be concerned for the spiritual welfare of Soulforce delegates who claim to be both gay and Christian (as many do). Surely such leaders, believing homosexuality to be sin, will be concerned about this group’s aggressive commitment to encouraging its normalization and celebration. And surely such leaders will feel some injunction to, as Paul said, “have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather, reprove them” (Eph. 5:11 KJV). So those hosting a dialogue should insure that time spent expressing these concerns to Soulforce is equal to the time spent hearing theirs. If a conversation is requested, then let it be understood in advance as a mutual dialogue, not a monologue, because in the end, this dialogue is inevitable and unavoidable.
The past year (2008) saw unprecedented aggression from the gay rights movement, as it sought legitimization of homosexuality and the marginalization of any group or individual who opposes it. And since the last organized force resisting this movement is, for the most part, the Christian church, Christianity Today’s editorial on Soulforce and a Christian response to it seems both relevant and ominous:
“Soulforce’s message to evangelicals is clear: You are next.”43
Joe Dallas is the program director of Genesis Counseling in Tustin, California, a Christian counseling service to men dealing with sexual addiction, homosexuality, and other sexual/relational problems. He is a member of the American Association of Christian Counselors and is the author of three books on human sexuality, including Desires in Conflict (Harvest House, 1991) and A Strong Delusion (Harvest House, 1996).
notes
1 “Why We Can’t Wait to End This Debate!” Interview in Gay Today.com, http://www.gaytoday.com/garchive/ viewpoint/051302vp.htm.
2 “Soulforce: The American Family Outing,” http://www.soulforce.org/pdf/AFOcomplete.pdf.
3 Ibid.
4 “The Equality Ride,” http://www.soulforce.org/equalityride.
5 “Pro-Gay Protestors Arrested at Focus,” citizenlink.com, May 2, 2005,http://www.citizenlink.org/CLFeatures/ A000000335.cfm.
6 “History of Soulforce 1999–2006,” http://www.soulforce.org/pdf/historybook.pdf.
7 Ibid.
8 “Coming Attractions: Gay Activism Is Not Just Found in Liberal Churches,” Christianity Today, August 1, 2003, http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/august/31.33.html.
9 “Soulforce 1999–2006,” Soulforce, http://www.soulforce.org/pdf/historybook.pdf.
10 Stranger at the Gate: To Be Gay and Christian in America (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994).
11 Ibid., 155.
12 Ibid., 155–56.
13 http://www.allsaints-pas.org/site/DocServer/JEB080618_Mel_White_and_Gary_Nixon_Wedding_ Homily.pdf?docID=4624.
14 Stranger, 269.
15 “Partners in Soulforce,” Soulforce, http://www.soulforce.org/article/10.
16 “Mel White Launches ‘Fast for Understanding,’” Holysmoke.org, http://www.holysmoke.org/ sdhok/homo06.htm.
17 “Jerry Falwell, Mel White, and the Model of Intervention,” Colorado Confidential, http://coloradoconfidential.com/ showDiary.do?diaryId=2068.
18 Soulforce Vision Statement from http://www.soulforce.org.
19 “Soulforce Meets with Joel Osteen; New Birth Next Target,” Gay Christian Movement Watch, http:// gcmwatch.wordpress.com/2008/05/27/soulfarce-meets-with-joel-osteen/.
20 “Media Photos,” Soulforce, http://www.soulforce.org/article/746.
21 Ibid.
22 Stranger, 238.
23 See, e.g., testimonials of the Freedom Riders at the “Equality Ride Blog,” http:// www.soulforce.org/article/1440.
24 “History of Soulforce,” Soulforce, http://www.soulforce.org/pdf/historybook.pdf.
25 “Six Soulforce Beliefs,” Soulforce, http://www.soulforce.org/article/567.
26 Ibid.
27 Mel White, “A Soulforce Call for Direct Action: Bringing Truth and Love to Lynchburg,” February 22, 1999, http://www.soulforce.org/article/525.
28 Mel White, “The Original 17 Step Journey,” Soulforce, http://www.soulforce.org/article/531.
29 “What The Bible Says—And Doesn’t Say about Homosexuality,” Soulforce, http://www.soulforce.org/article/ homosexuality-bible.
30 See, e.g., John Boswell’s prominent defense of pro-gay theology, Christianity, Social Tolerance and Homosexuality (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), and for detailed rebuttal see Robert Gagnon’s The Bible and Homosexual Practice: Texts and Hermeneutics (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002), and Joe Dallas’ The Gay Gospel? How Pro-Gay Advocates Misread the Bible (Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2006).
31 “Bishop T. D. Jakes Agrees to Ongoing Dialogue with LGBT & Straight-Ally Families,” Soulforce, http://www.soulforce.org/email_campaign/email_5_22_2008.html.
32 http://www.whosoever.org/v5i4/mel.html.
33 Mel White, “The Second Trial of Jimmy Creech,” Whosoever, http://www.whosoever.org/ editorial/creechtrial.html.
34 Mel White, “Why We Can’t Wait for This Debate to End!” Gay Today, http://www.gaytoday.com/garchive/ viewpoint/051302vp.htm.
35 http://www.soulforce.org/article/469.
36 http://www.soulforce.org/article/395.
37 “History of Soulforce,” Soulforce, www.soulforce.org/pdf/historybook.pdf.
38 “Declaring an Unholy War,” Circuit Rider’s Range, http://www.crrange.com/soulwar.html.
39 “History of Soulforce,” Soulforce, http://www.soulforce.org/pdf/historybook.pdf.
40 “Mel White Speaks about Being Gay and Christian in America,” Collegiate Times, http://www.collegiatetimes.com/ news/1/ARTICLE/8052/2006-11-16.html.
41 See http://www.soulforce.org/article/1107 for comments.
42 See http://www.soulforce.org/article/1483 for one of many examples.
43 “Coming Attractions: Gay Activism Is Not Just Found in Liberal Churches.”
Monday, July 25, 2011
Progress Report on Vavuniya Project
Progress Report on Vavuniya Project
I just returned from another arduous visit to the Chen Su Lan Education Center in Vavuniya, the Gateway to the North in Tamil majority region in Sri Lanka. This morning’s news headlined “Tamil Tiger-linked party wins big in local polls,” in reporting on last Saturday’s Local Councils elections. This is the first local election after the four decades of ethnic conflict in which the Tamil National Alliance seized victory in 18 of the 26 contested councils amid alleged voting buying and intimidation.
My journey by car took a strenuous eight hours of driving and with stops leaving from Vavuniya at eleven in the morning to reach the Colombo International Airport to catch the midnight flight to Singapore in the morning at six. After some rest I gave an address in a first ever half-day public Interfaith seminar on Religious faiths and Sexual Orientation.
On this trip I was made aware of the spirit of D T Niles whom I regard as my spiritual mentor. I began my ministry in 1954 fresh out of seminary from Boston University to deliver an address reflecting on Rajah Manikam’s “Christianity and the Asian Revolution.” Around the same period I met up with D T who was influential in setting the course of my ministry. He personally invited me to have my first ecumenical conference in 1965 in what was then in serene surroundings of the “colonial” Queens Hotel along the picturesque lake in Kandy. It was a meeting on “Confessional Families and the Churches in Asia.”
This was followed by an invitation to be the Conference Preacher in the Methodist Conference in which D T was the President. Here was a giant of a preacher inviting me a novice preacher. As expected you cannot refuse D T and he even gave me the “text” which he took from a classic Chinese poem – “The trees would like to be still but the winds keep blowing.” The winds continue to blow all these years. That imagery stuck in my mind.
Surprisingly when I was interviewing the candidates who applied for teaching positions at the CSL Center for O and A level students and Adults I opened up the application form of Niles Jayanayaki William. The name of Niles leapt from the form and before me was one of the members of the extended Niles family. She had just retired from teaching at the age of fifty last year and came to the CSL Center to take a computer course. When she found that we needed English teachers she applied. To me it is an act of providence and she is exactly the kind of person that I was looking for. She was able to finish her university education in English and was teaching since then in the government schools. I am not surprised if the spirit of D T is behind this too!
The level of English in the schools now is pathetically low and compounded with the lack of teachers even those below the required minimum for teaching. But English periods are scheduled for schools from primary to A levels. It was not difficult for me to identify that we need help to upgrade the low level ofEnglish instruction and I am of focussing on students from two years before the O level to A level and the adults in the community.
Unless the level of English education is improved they will not be able to take advantage from the courses which we will teach to use the Computer. There is neither Sinhala or Tamil full and direct access to the internet except through using the English keyboard. There is excitement about Computer courses but if they do not have a minimum command of English they cannot benefit from the Internet.
The CSL Center is poised to provide free quality English instruction to reach the students and adults who have the capacity to upgrade themselves. Free computer training is an extra tool for their educational development.
For another project I am looking for responsible people who can administer a micro financing scheme to help the poor generate income through developing small business. The money is already available but I need people on the ground to manage the programme.
There are some encouraging signs appearing. An NGO was organizing a walk from the south to Jaffna to raise money for the first Cancer Hospital there. Groups along the way participated in the walk. When it passed Vavuniya I was invited by Brigadier General Napagoda who is commanding the 56 Division to join him in meeting the walkers passing through the Army Camp and then had breakfast in his home before we followed them to the border crossing in Omanthe.
The trains are able to reach only Omanthe now and there is free access across the border to Jaffna. But travellers from the north still have to pass through the border and may face some security checks at this checkpoint point after they alight from the buses.
BG Napagoda then drove us for my second visit to Kela Bogaswewa which is about two hours through the jungle to some Sinhala villages. We saw elephant tracks and people repairing the irrigation canals and “tanks” for storing water during the rainy season for the rice fields. The last time I visited the clearing of the land mines was taking place for the area which was a battleground. With the villages returning and the water made available the fields will soon be lush with rice plants.
The Minister Agriculture whom I met earlier had informed me that Sri Lanka is now self-sufficient in rice but not enough to export.
I visited another former battle zone in Mannar on the way to meet Father Emilianuspillai of the Shrine of our Lady of the Rosary in Madhu Church. I have met Father earlier when he was serving in the Church in Vavuniya. He was preparing for the annual festival where around 500,000 pilgrims gather. The church buildings which were damaged have been restored. This church has a long history reaching back to around 400 years ago when the country was under Portuguese colonial rule.
Much more needs to be done for education and to open more land for agricultural purposes. There is lack of employment opportunities and people are struggling to survive under harsh conditions. The area is a safe place and I am trying to reach out to the religious leaders in Vavuniya to use the Centre to further interfaith relations and together develop community service to the people. Again resources are available but project carriers are hard to come by. Faith communities will have to assume responsibility to assist in developing the community.
The CSL Trust will continue to explore ways to help to bring about reconciliation and to promote peace and assist in development of the people.
I just returned from another arduous visit to the Chen Su Lan Education Center in Vavuniya, the Gateway to the North in Tamil majority region in Sri Lanka. This morning’s news headlined “Tamil Tiger-linked party wins big in local polls,” in reporting on last Saturday’s Local Councils elections. This is the first local election after the four decades of ethnic conflict in which the Tamil National Alliance seized victory in 18 of the 26 contested councils amid alleged voting buying and intimidation.
My journey by car took a strenuous eight hours of driving and with stops leaving from Vavuniya at eleven in the morning to reach the Colombo International Airport to catch the midnight flight to Singapore in the morning at six. After some rest I gave an address in a first ever half-day public Interfaith seminar on Religious faiths and Sexual Orientation.
On this trip I was made aware of the spirit of D T Niles whom I regard as my spiritual mentor. I began my ministry in 1954 fresh out of seminary from Boston University to deliver an address reflecting on Rajah Manikam’s “Christianity and the Asian Revolution.” Around the same period I met up with D T who was influential in setting the course of my ministry. He personally invited me to have my first ecumenical conference in 1965 in what was then in serene surroundings of the “colonial” Queens Hotel along the picturesque lake in Kandy. It was a meeting on “Confessional Families and the Churches in Asia.”
This was followed by an invitation to be the Conference Preacher in the Methodist Conference in which D T was the President. Here was a giant of a preacher inviting me a novice preacher. As expected you cannot refuse D T and he even gave me the “text” which he took from a classic Chinese poem – “The trees would like to be still but the winds keep blowing.” The winds continue to blow all these years. That imagery stuck in my mind.
Surprisingly when I was interviewing the candidates who applied for teaching positions at the CSL Center for O and A level students and Adults I opened up the application form of Niles Jayanayaki William. The name of Niles leapt from the form and before me was one of the members of the extended Niles family. She had just retired from teaching at the age of fifty last year and came to the CSL Center to take a computer course. When she found that we needed English teachers she applied. To me it is an act of providence and she is exactly the kind of person that I was looking for. She was able to finish her university education in English and was teaching since then in the government schools. I am not surprised if the spirit of D T is behind this too!
The level of English in the schools now is pathetically low and compounded with the lack of teachers even those below the required minimum for teaching. But English periods are scheduled for schools from primary to A levels. It was not difficult for me to identify that we need help to upgrade the low level ofEnglish instruction and I am of focussing on students from two years before the O level to A level and the adults in the community.
Unless the level of English education is improved they will not be able to take advantage from the courses which we will teach to use the Computer. There is neither Sinhala or Tamil full and direct access to the internet except through using the English keyboard. There is excitement about Computer courses but if they do not have a minimum command of English they cannot benefit from the Internet.
The CSL Center is poised to provide free quality English instruction to reach the students and adults who have the capacity to upgrade themselves. Free computer training is an extra tool for their educational development.
For another project I am looking for responsible people who can administer a micro financing scheme to help the poor generate income through developing small business. The money is already available but I need people on the ground to manage the programme.
There are some encouraging signs appearing. An NGO was organizing a walk from the south to Jaffna to raise money for the first Cancer Hospital there. Groups along the way participated in the walk. When it passed Vavuniya I was invited by Brigadier General Napagoda who is commanding the 56 Division to join him in meeting the walkers passing through the Army Camp and then had breakfast in his home before we followed them to the border crossing in Omanthe.
The trains are able to reach only Omanthe now and there is free access across the border to Jaffna. But travellers from the north still have to pass through the border and may face some security checks at this checkpoint point after they alight from the buses.
BG Napagoda then drove us for my second visit to Kela Bogaswewa which is about two hours through the jungle to some Sinhala villages. We saw elephant tracks and people repairing the irrigation canals and “tanks” for storing water during the rainy season for the rice fields. The last time I visited the clearing of the land mines was taking place for the area which was a battleground. With the villages returning and the water made available the fields will soon be lush with rice plants.
The Minister Agriculture whom I met earlier had informed me that Sri Lanka is now self-sufficient in rice but not enough to export.
I visited another former battle zone in Mannar on the way to meet Father Emilianuspillai of the Shrine of our Lady of the Rosary in Madhu Church. I have met Father earlier when he was serving in the Church in Vavuniya. He was preparing for the annual festival where around 500,000 pilgrims gather. The church buildings which were damaged have been restored. This church has a long history reaching back to around 400 years ago when the country was under Portuguese colonial rule.
Much more needs to be done for education and to open more land for agricultural purposes. There is lack of employment opportunities and people are struggling to survive under harsh conditions. The area is a safe place and I am trying to reach out to the religious leaders in Vavuniya to use the Centre to further interfaith relations and together develop community service to the people. Again resources are available but project carriers are hard to come by. Faith communities will have to assume responsibility to assist in developing the community.
The CSL Trust will continue to explore ways to help to bring about reconciliation and to promote peace and assist in development of the people.
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