So there hasn’t been much JZ in NI activity in quite a while. And I apologize about that. I had to leave Belfast suddenly to get back to California and was unable to finish my last post about South Africa.

But something happened in Cape Town that I wasn’t prepared for. Something I couldn’t shake, compartmentalize, or push to the margins. The result has been the formation of an organization called “These Numbers Have Faces.”

“These Numbers Have Faces” began as a relationship, has transformed into a partnership, and is now moving forward pursuing sustainable and exciting change in South Africa. We are set to launch this project very soon and I promise you’ll hear much more about it via our website, myspace page, or personalized email.

Even though I don’t live in Belfast anymore, it’s hard for me to believe that JZ in NI is actually over. I’ve been avoiding it for the last 6 months because I didn’t want to face that fact. Luckily, “These Numbers Have Faces” is the beginning of something new and I’m excited to share it with you and see how we can work together. Thank you all for reading, responding, and caring, please stay in touch…
-Justin Zoradi

Make Trade Fair...

In our residence hall and chaplaincy centre in Belfast, Fair Trade has become a household name. We have Fair Trade posters on the walls, Fair Trade meals in the kitchens, and regularly encourage students to shop with a conscience by highlighting both the practical and biblical ethics for spending money. Of course I am thrilled that most our students recognize Fair Trade to be important, but with its message only backed by rhetoric and a catchy logo it became repetitive as the year went on. Without the personal experience with the people behind the products, Fair Trade was more of a routine than a cause we actually believed in. That is why our visit to the Sonop Organic Wine Farm outside of Cape Town was such a momentous experience for so many of us during our South African tour. This was our chance to see if Fair Trade stacked up to the hype and if our buying habits really could better the lives of people in the third world.

What is Fair Trade?

While Fair Trade is a booming social issue in most parts of the UK, it has been slower to take off in North America. Some of you may have no idea what Fair Trade even is, so here is a quick rundown…

-A Fair Trade certification logo like either of these assures consumers that the producer is committed to fighting poverty through trade. In many cases, third world workers are victims of a grossly unfair system where they are treated badly and paid unfairly for the work they do. Fair Trade guarantees that people are paid a decent wage, given basic health care, access to education, and technical training that can be used for future employment. For millions of third world workers, Fair Trade means the difference between hand-to-mouth existence. Fair Trade also guarantees environmental sustainability and most often features organic and/or chemical free products.

-By supporting Fair Trade, consumers are truly giving a hand up rather than a hand out. When people are paid well and treated fairly for their labor, they are allowed the opportunity to work themselves out of poverty and plan for the future. When Fair Trade is in place, laborers tend to take ownership over their work, stay in jobs longer, and work harder. These factors obviously help the producer in creating a better product for the consumer.

-In 2005, the Fair Trade system benefited approximately 1 million workers and farmers in 58 developing countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America. Including their dependents, 5 million people were given the chance to achieve economic interdependence, social empowerment, and improved standards of living.

-The Fair Trade mark appears on over 1500 different retail products worldwide, including chocolate, coffee, cotton, most fresh fruits and vegetables, honey, juices, nuts, rice, spices, sugar, tea, wine, cut flowers, ornamental plants, and even fairly traded soccer balls.

(For more in-depth economic and global marketplace questions about Fair Trade, please visit the links at the bottom of this post)

The Tour….

Our tour of the Sonop Wine Farm began in the cellar where we learned how the grapes were processed into wine. We explored where the wine was barreled and learned how to appreciate the complexity of wine in the tasting room. After a nice lunch at Sonop’s guest house, we were finally ready to get down to business about how Sonop’s Fair Trade certification affects the workers who grow, harvest, and produce the wine.

All the workers of the Sonop Vineyard live in a village of about 20 houses on the grounds of the vineyard itself. Clyde Williams is the Fair Trade Project Coordinator and explained to us all about Sonop’s Fair Trade policies and how they have affected the local people. As we approached the village, Clyde explained that Sonop's commitment to Fair Trade pays employees well enough to purchase their own land and home in the village. Because workers have ownership over their homes, they remain well kept, with neatly mowed lawns, and places for children to play. Every member of the worker’s family are also given basic health care and each home is fitted with hot running water and electricity.

If being paid fairly and treated well wasn’t enough, the workers of the village have also been given vineyard plots to create their own farming business; a project appropriately called Winds of Change. Workers choose which types of grapes they wish to grow, what kind of wine they wish to make, and then harvest the grapes on their own time. Sonop pays for the bottling and selling of the local project and all the profits from Winds of Change wine go to the Winds of Change Primary School where the children of the village attend. Not only do workers have complete ownership over the Winds Of Change brand, but their efforts will directly educate their own children by paying for teachers, supplies, and recreation equipment. Notice the photos of the Winds of Change School and our group with some of the children inside. While the workers are still employed by Sonop, they are also owners and managers of their own farming business. To date, more than a million bottles of Winds of Change wine have been sold generating in excess of Rand650,000 (about $93,000) for social and economic development in the village.

On the village tour we also had the privilege of meeting an employee named Lola. She is pictured here with my boss Steve after showing us her home and family. Lola used to work in the fields tending the vines but has recently been hired as a receptionist in the main office. Instead of putting an ad in the paper to find a new employee, Sonop figured they should look inward and give the job to someone already in the company. Even though she isn’t formally educated, Lola was offered the job and now has skills she never dreamed of having. More importantly, Lola is also a recovering alcoholic and praises Sonop for the impact they have made on her life. She says that because of Sonop’s Fair Trade policies and the way she was able to work her way out of poverty, she was able to beat addiction and be a better mother to her children. In her opinion, Fair Trade saved her life.

Leaving the group to take photos, I came across David and Phillip cutting branches in the vineyard. Happy to pose for a photo I asked them if they were satisfied working at Sonop. In broken English David explained to me that he loves working at Sonop because he often gets new clean uniforms, has a warm house for his family, and his children will be able to complete the schooling he never did.

The Infamous Fence...

As if our experience at Sonop couldn’t get any better, we soon stumbled upon “the fence.” This is the part where Fair Trade really hit home for all our students. Next door to the Sonop Wine Farm is another vineyard that is not Fair Trade certified. It is a vineyard of similar size with a similar product. The geography looks the same and the workers are typical poor Xhosa speaking Africans. Unfortunately, the living conditions and sense of purpose and ownership are drastically different. Separated only by a barbwire fence, the workers on the non Fair Trade vineyard live in dilapidated tin roofed structures. There is no grass or structures for the kids to play on and graffiti paints the sides of the underdeveloped homes. The community has no running water or electricity and they are forced to get their water out of a “bore hole” a few hundred yards up a hill.

Minimum wage in South Africa is 5.85 rand per hour (about $0.83). The Fairly Traded Sonop Farm pay their workers 8.90 rand per hour (about $1.27). Clyde said that from his knowledge, Sonop pay their workers six times more than the vineyard next door, meaning that the workers through the barb wire fence are paid only $0.21 per hour.

Because there is definitely no school for the workers next door, their children are allowed to come across the fence and are educated at the Winds of Change School. According to Lola, their neighbors also come across on occasion to borrow hot water and run certain types of electrical appliances.

Soon the questions came firing in as our students really caught wind of what was going on here. For the first time many of us were straddling the line between Justice and Injustice. Students wanted to know if the neighboring vineyard had any inclination to becoming Fair Trade themselves. Clyde said that the head staff from Sonop had repeatedly met with the leadership next door to talk about the benefits of Fair Trade on both the employer and employee. But according to him, “the guy next door just isn’t interested and refuses to meet with us anymore.”

Seeking Jesus in the shopping mall…

It was in these moments standing at that fence that Fair Trade really began to make sense. It was in the faces of people like Lola and David, the kids in the school, and the broken hearted across the way that we realized how important our consumer choices really are in changing people’s lives.

We realized that day that we aren’t just buying products to fulfill our needs, but with our money are sponsoring projects that may or may not meet the needs of others. In the same way we straddled that fence, each time we go to the grocery store we have to make a choice; will we invest in Justice or Injustice? Now we may cast our votes in elections every four years, but we vote with our dollar every day. So the question remains, will we cast our vote for companies that pay fair wages, treat people humanly, and benefit local communities? Or will we vote for exploitation, for greed, and for corruption?

As I stood at that fence I couldn’t help but think of Amos, one of my favorite Old Testament prophets. Even though God released Israel from slavery and oppression in Egypt, the Israelites found themselves doing the same things they had prayed for liberation from. Furious at their wicked ways, Amos fumes….

“You trample on the poor and force him to give you grain. Therefore, though you have built stone mansions, you will not live in them; though you have planted lush vineyards, you will not drink their wine. For I know how many are your offenses and how great your sins. You oppress the righteous and take bribes and you deprive the poor of justice in the courts.” Amos 5:11-12

While I may not directly “trample on the poor” or deprive them of “justice in the courts,” its safe to say that many of the companies I "vote for" probably do. Most often I turn a blind eye to this fact, but in this time of reflection I had to ask myself if the ethics of Jesus I claim to follow really have a say when I step inside the supermarket. Shopping isn’t neutral you know. It isn’t an activity that Jesus hasn’t already claimed as his and laid dominion over. And if our Christianity is truly bigger than church on Sunday and that weekly bible study, then the way we shop should also reflect the coming kingdom of God.

I often wonder where we got this idea that finding the cheapest price is the only requirement for being a good shopper? And while price is important, should our morality affect the products we buy as well? We must never forget the people behind the products; those who toil and strain to lavishly fill our refrigerators and wardrobes. Not only does the money we spend fill our stomachs but it can directly fill the stomachs of others. I sometimes wonder if they are affected more by my shopping than I am.

After seeing Fair Trade first hand at Sonop, I've concluded that shopping is a spiritual discipline that requires engagement and education so that we are knowledgeable enough to lift the label on the products we buy and love our “neighbor” on the other side of the deal. Just as Jesus is busy reshaping and reconciling all types of sin, also is he busy reclaiming the marketplace as a place of fair and just business. Let us then help Him in this process and use our shopping to alleviate poverty rather than reinforcing it. Make trade fair…

For more information on Fair Trade policies and how to get Fair Trade products in your local supermarkets, please visit these websites…

Make Trade Fair

Fair Trade USA

Fair Trade Foundation UK

Equal Exchange

Global Exchange

Fair Trade Federation

Presbyterian Coffee Project

Lutheran World Relief Fair Trade Project

Ten Thousand Villages Fair Trade Project

Fair Trade Resource Network

*I understand that Fair Trade is a controversial issue and many of you may have different opinions on third world development and global trade regulations; this is a place to start that dialogue. I don’t have all the answers nor am I an expert on Fair Trade, but I do know what we saw in South Africa and am basing many of my opinions on the learning process of that day.

Blessed are the Poor....

“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Each morning our teams would pray this prayer to remind ourselves why we are here in South Africa. In heaven there is no poverty. There are no starving children. There are no leaking shacks of cardboard and tin. So if we take Jesus’ prayer at face value, when we build a house for a worthy homeowner in the Wallacedene township, we are bringing God’s kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. We are restoring a tiny piece of a broken world to the way God intended it to be. Now I have said this prayer hundreds of times; most often with little enthusiasm. I remember my Dad teaching it to me as a child. But never before has it made so much sense, never has it hit so hard, never has it felt so applicable as it did in the last six weeks…..

I suppose the trip can be summed up with a comment made by one of our students named Miriam in a group meeting. When asked how it felt to finally hand our homeowner Thembisa the key to her new house, Miriam confessed, “This was the best day of my entire life.” I’m sure Thembisa felt the same way. And that is why this project was so effective; it greatly impacts both parties simultaneously. While seen as a commendable act of charity from a western perspective, I would go as far to say that our lives were changed just as much than the eight homeowners who received houses in the last six weeks. Obviously a new home is a momentous event for someone living in a dilapidated shack, but there are now 75 Northern Irish students who have been permanently affected by this trip; students who are actively rethinking their vocations, their spending habits, their moral responsibilities, as well as the politics of their country. I assure you their lives will never be the same.


Blessed are the Poor…
I reread the Beatitudes a few times during the course of the trip but always had a tough time getting past that first line. After all we’d seen; the poverty, the destruction, the injustice, the disease, and the violence, how can Jesus say “Blessed are the Poor?” They sure don’t seem blessed to me. If anyone is blessed it is us. We’re the ones with good food and nice clothes and warm houses. How can Jesus say those things with the state the world is in today?

This is a photo of my friend Life and I. His Xhosa name is Makhosandile but thankfully he asked us to simply call him “Life.” And this is the photo of Life’s house. The poverty of this community became real to me when I learned that the pipes in the communal outhouse next to Life’s home have been broken for some time. No one has the money to fix them and now the sewage has spilled all over the ground and has seeped onto the floor of Life’s shack. He and his neighbors sweep it up and have tried to erect barricades to stop it, but the amount of waste is often too much for their efforts. While I live in a house with 2 fully functional toilets, most nights my friend Life sleeps with an inch of sewage below his bed. Blessed are the poor? This can’t be what Jesus means….

I was playing soccer in a township called Guguletu located about 15 minutes outside of Cape Town. After the game I was eating an apple and nearly finished with it when a young boy came up and asked if he could have the rest. While a bit shocked that someone would want a piece of fruit nearly ¾ complete I gladly gave it to him. To my horror, as soon as he was about to take his first bite, an older boy came up, punched the younger boy in the stomach and stole the apple from him. I was able to sneak the younger boy a full apple sometime later but still remain angry at the world we live in. One so imbalanced that boys are beat up for scraps of food while I waste them at every meal. And Jesus still says blessed are the poor? How can this be?

Lastly, a story written by my boss Steve…
“My friend Gordon and I spent an afternoon in the cemetery on the Njanga township just a few hundred yards where we built houses for Mandisa and Mrs. Umte. It was a bleak day. Table Mountain, always so strong and awesome, was shrouded in mist and the rain was blowing in. The cemetery was bleak at anytime and we bumped into Barrington who was digging graves. Tens and twenties were marked out in rows and he was digging them out. He explained the depth of adult graves and then more harrowingly the depths of the children’s graves. That is where we were stood as we chatted to him. There were rows and rows of still births, children a few days old, a few years old. It was somber. It was tragic. And I meditated as I had been doing on “Blessed are the poor.” “No!” I silently screamed at God in this Biblical landscape and Psalmist moment. No. This is not what Jesus meant.” (Thanks to my friend Gordon Ashbridge for the cemetery photos)

So what did He mean? How can Christ’s teachings, lifestyle, and radical kingdom agenda hinge on the blessings of the poor when their lives seem so “unblessed?”

While the initial shock of vicious living conditions like the one in this photo brought some of our students to tears in the first few days, as the building went on and our relationship with the community strengthened, weird things started to happen. The horrors of poverty were still prevalent but our perceptions of what they had in relation to us began to blur.

We began to see that what the poor lack in wealth they make up in community. Every person on every street in the Wallacedene Township know their neighbors. With little money or need for a fence, personal privacy goes out the window. But with the loss of privacy comes the virtue of forced interaction and engagement with others. The result is breathtaking. As means for survival they take care of one another, they speak up for one another, they live for one another. Because their lives are so intertwined, what affects one affects the entire community.

With no television or computer and little space to sit indoors, people are outside socializing all the time. Dropping off some friends in a local township neighborhood late one night I was shocked to see so many people outside on the street. Music blared into the night as people ate, danced, and laughed out in front of their houses. Asking my friend Anda what in the world was going on tonight he replied, “Nothing. This is what it’s like every night. Is it not like this where you live?”

Soon enough jealousy set in. They may want my Nikes but I want their social lives and community spirit. It was in these moments of realization that Jesus began to whisper to me…..Blessed are the Poor.

One of my favorite students on the trip was a fellow named Mark, our resident prankster and comedian. In a sombre moment during a group meeting he confessed, “And the kids, all those kids we’ve been playing with all week, they don’t live for the newest toy. They’re not asking for Playstations, all they want from us are hugs….”

Another story from my boss Steve….
“One day we gave sleeping bags to our favorite builders Xulani and Lucas. The next day we asked Xulani what he had done the night before. He waxed lyrical about that sleeping bag and wrapping up with his children on the couch. It was extravagant luxury for him. And I thought of the difference for Xulani as a father and me as a father. For him there is little to do but spend time with his kids. For me, my life is filled with so many options, as are my children’s. I can go on the internet, write my emails, watch a soccer match, listen to my Ipod etc etc. They are all the vestiges of wealth that keep me away from quality time with my children.” Blessed are the poor…. (see photo of Steve with Xulani and his family)

You remember my friend Life; the one with the plumbing problems. I met Life because he lives around the corner from one of the houses we were building and he came over everyday just to help out. He wasn’t being paid or even earning equity hours on a home for himself, he simply wanted to be apart of the process. Or as he said, “I want to help out in building this house, because even if I am not getting one, I know someone from Wallacedene is, and what is good for her is good for all of us.” How many of us randomly help our neighbors in building projects because it is good for the community? Or do we instead covet what it is our neighbors have from the peephole in our fence?

Examples like these began popping up everywhere and the words of Jesus finally began to make sense. Maybe it isn’t our possessions and comforts that make us blessed but rather the way in which we interact with our community. Or as my boss Steve puts it, “It is not their poverty that makes them happy. It is their lack of wealth.” And wealth of course is a dangerous thing. In its purest form it has many advantages, but its corruptive nature is what builds iron gates and high fences to keep our neighbors out rather than inviting them in. Maybe this is why the early Christians lived together, ate together, and shared what they had. Or as it is written in Acts 2….

“All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Now I don’t mean to paint a rosy picture of townships like the ones we worked in. These are dangerous places with serious social ills that have fostered all sorts of criminal activity. And by no means am I saying that we should all sell our possessions and live in poverty. But what I want to challenge is this western idea that we have this Christianity thing nailed down; that the secret message of Jesus has been discovered in our 1st world halls of power and churches of prosperity.

I also want to try and get inside this phrase of Jesus so that it might do two things: Give us an empathy with the poor that we might join God is his mission for their justice, liberation and salvation… and more importantly be challenged by the poor so that we might join God in his mission for our justice, liberation and salvation. (steve stockman)

“Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” While there are no shacks in heaven, I’m happy we got to show our homeowners a tiny slice of God’s kingdom. But I’m not so sure if heaven is full of quiet suburbs either, so I’m happy they got to show us a thing or two about “the beloved community” in return. It is these experiences I suppose that reflect the upside-down teachings of Jesus’ kingdom revolution. We may have a lot of stuff, but they have some things we will never have; things that are priceless. That no amount of money or stock options or business contacts can ever buy. Because these things can’t be purchased, they have to be lived. And I know it may be a shot to the old American pride, but where they allow us to help them; we have to allow them to help us…

Back to Belfast.....

I've safely returned home from South Africa. It's hard to put into words all that has gone on in the last 6 weeks, but I guess that is why this blog exists. Technically my work here in Northern Ireland is complete, but I think I need some time in Belfast to react and respond to all we have experienced. I have never seen opposing worlds collide like in South Africa; everything seems like a blend and a blur of rich & poor, injustice & justice, hopelessness & hope. Sometimes it feels that the deeper we get, God presents us with more questions than he does answers.

I have 4 posts in my head that I hope to complete before returning to California in early September. I confess this is going to be a lonely time for me. Nearly all of my friends are gone for the summer and I am living in an empty house for the next month. Yet I am excited for the possibility of what can come out of adequate processing time. So often I think we don’t allow ourselves enough space to process things, so I hope this next month will lend itself useful in my writing. I’m intrigued to see what happens… -jz

JZ in SA?.....

I leave for South Africa tomorrow for the next 6 weeks. As most of you know, I am co-leading a trip of 70 students from Queens University Belfast to engage with issues of global poverty, HIV/AIDS, fair trade, and peace/reconciliation. Because of limited internet access, I won’t be doing any posts, but still plan on doing a fair amount of reading/writing whilst there. I hope to come home with a good amount of material that I am already looking forward to sharing with you.

If you are into the prayer thing, please pray for our trip and the students & leaders involved. We are a bit nervous about certain safety issues as South Africa has seen some recent political tension and has a very high crime rate. Most of our time will be spent on townships building houses and working with churches and organizations committed to reducing poverty, bringing about social change, and empowering local people. Pray for the work we are doing with them and for those who may be affected by our visit.

There are two things I want to see while in South Africa....

First, I am looking forward to seeing a needy family given their first safe and sturdy home that will ensure their kids stay dry and the family feels safe and protected. I am interested to see what it feels like in contrast to how naturally I demand a roof over my head, a lock on the door, and nice things inside to play with.

Secondly, I am anxious to watch the handful of students who will be severely disturbed by this trip (in a good way). The ones who will begin to see the world differently, the ones who will ask engaging questions, and the ones who will come home and act accordingly. As far as Northern Ireland is concerned, I think "They are the ones we have been waiting for."

Thank you to those who faithfully read this blog and say nice things. I am both nervous and excited to see how this experience will shape the content of this website.....

I'll be able to check email here and there so feel free to say hello: jzoradi@gmail.com
Until August,
-jz

"But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor. God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them."
(Bono at the National Prayer Breakfast)

We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For….

It’s been almost a month. Sorry for taking so long, my brother Ryan was in town for a while and I’ve been busy cleaning up all the broken hearts he left back in Northern Ireland.

Some interesting things have been happening lately; some things we’ve been working on for quite a while. As most of you know, I do the majority of my work with middle-class Protestant students from Queens University Belfast. And they’re a brilliant bunch, these future lawyers and doctors and engineers, but are a bit slow at times to deal with some of the pressing issues their country has been facing for the last 35 years. And it’s not their fault; most of them were raised by loving Presbyterian parents in the green hills of rural Northern Ireland. Their childhoods were dominated by sheep rather than the divisive politics and contentious neighborhoods mostly associated with this place. Despite the disconnect, each one of them tells a story of how the Troubles have effected their lives in some way. So over the course of this year, rather than bury those emotions, we’ve been pushing them to engage with issues of conflict and division and how that might relate to following Jesus.

And they are hesitant at first. These are sticky conversations and the Northern Irish are famous for their stoic and unemotional responses. Some in fact, have simply blocked out certain events too traumatic to disclose. But as we gear up to take 70 of them to South Africa this summer, where the students know full well that Peace and Conflict Resolution is on the agenda, the bolts have been loosening a bit…

In the last few months, our staff has facilitated orientation meetings based on a reconciliation project from the Presbyterian Church called Preparing Youth for Peace. It’s geared specifically toward Protestant students like ours and brings the fundamental teachings of Jesus into current Northern Irish post-conflict settings. The goal of course is that the students would not only engage with division intellectually and emotionally, but be transformed into wanting to do something about it. Here is a five minute clip of the introductory video we show to spur on conversation. As expected it has a U2 song in it, but I still think it’s pretty good….
(the latest version of Macromedia Flash Player is required)



One of the main things our orientation hinges upon is that of personal responsibility. We hope the students will understand that privilege and opportunity are not rights, but actually gifts from God that demand both engagement and action. A position of privilege should never be an excuse for apathy in the face of conflict or injustice of any kind, but rather a unique opportunity to do something remarkable.

With that in mind, I read an article claiming that present day Northern Ireland is actually more divided than it has ever been. Belfast journalist John 0’Farrell claims that while recent peace agreements have slowed down bombings and shootings, the British government, has in fact, encouraged community segregation from the top down. Some may disagree with O’Farrell’s strong rhetoric, but it is impossible to deny that Northern Ireland is in desperate need not only for governmental peace initiatives, but also for practical, relational, and grassroots peacebuilding from the citizens themselves.

Apartheid
Cover Story – New Statesman
John O’Farrell
November 28th, 2005

They don't shop in the same shops, swim in the same pools or even wait at the same bus stops. Peace has brought more segregation for Northern Ireland's people, and the government is colluding in the change.

One day recently in south Belfast a Catholic priest told a room full of Protestants that they were "like the Nazis" in how they treated Catholics. At about the same time in north Belfast a group of loyalists picketing a Catholic funeral service threatened mourners that they would "dig up your graves." Sectarianism (prejudice or discrimination based on religion or cultural association), the force that fuelled more than three decades of bloodshed in Northern Ireland, hasn't vanished with the coming of peace.

The world greeted the end of the Troubles with relief, thinking that at last the people of this difficult place could learn to live together, and so slowly move towards normality. Of course there would be difficulties, of course there would be an emotional hangover from all the violence, but some day in the not-too-distant future, Catholics and Protestants would trust each other. That is not happening. The shooting and bombing may be more or less over, but Northern Ireland is not set on a path - even a long and winding path - towards a modern, consensual normality. Instead, the bigoted world-views that cause people to call each other Nazis and to threaten to dig up corpses probably have an even tighter grip than they did when the Troubles began 40 years ago. And the British state has colluded in this.

The apartheid is also vivid on the ground, and it is there that its effects are most poisonous and long lasting. Territorial markings such as painted curbstones and graffiti screaming "Kill All Taigs" (Catholics) or "Kill All Huns" (Protestants) act as frontiers, intimidating outsiders and keeping insiders in line. In the Ardoyne district of Belfast, four out of every five Protestant residents will not use the nearest shops because they are located in Catholic streets, and the same proportion of Catholics will not swim in their nearest swimming pool because it is in a Protestant street. Most 18-year-olds in Ardoyne, of both religions, have never in their lives had a meaningful conversation (about, say, family or sports) with anybody of their own age from the other side of the "peace line" that runs along Alliance Avenue.

And those peace lines - usually high walls snaking along the demographic faults, crossing roads and slicing streets in two - are proliferating: there are twice as many today as there were a decade ago. With them go other things: separate bus stops, for instance. Buses passing through the gate in the wall between White City (Catholic) and Whitewell (Protestant) in north Belfast must stop on either side so that no one has to wait among people of a different religion. Meanwhile, among Northern Ireland's next generation, nine out of ten children attend segregated schools. Integration of education isn't even on the agenda.

The cost of underpinning Northern Ireland's segregated society is roughly £1 billion each year. This includes security costs - having three times as many police per capita as London, building "peace" walls and cleaning up after riots - as well as the price of the vast duplication of services required to spare the two communities from having to share schools, health facilities, swimming pools, and bus stops.

This new apartheid is not being challenged in the changed, relatively peaceful atmosphere; it is being turned into an institution, from the top down. This is because the people who framed the post-Troubles Northern Ireland believed it was a way forward: that by acknowledging and accommodating sectarianism they would tame its scarier edges, and that "moderate" variations of Protestant unionism and Catholic nationalism would emerge the winners. The opposite has happened.

Increasingly, the fate of 1.7 million UK citizens is in the hands of two extreme parties (Catholic Sinn Fein & Protestant Democratic Unionist Party) that hardly bother to compete with or relate to one another, but seek above all to ensure dominance of their own communities. And the state merely acts as their facilitator.

Outside the ghettos, you might think, things must be different - and they are, but not in ways you would expect. While most western democratic parties devote a great deal of effort to formulating policies that please the middle classes, who are more likely to vote than the working classes, politics in Northern Ireland is distinctly proletarian. The workers, anxious and engaged, vote in huge numbers, while the middle classes stay at home.

In particular the Protestant middle class has opted out and some are among the constituencies with the lowest voter turnouts in the United Kingdom. Educated Protestants who have Catholic friends and feel secure in their British identity tend not to have much time for sectarian victimology.

While the conflict that some called the Long War raged, well-meaning people dreamed of peace, normality, justice and reconciliation. Now that it is over, what they have got instead is a very expensive, heavily policed and officially blessed apartheid.

Now obviously this editorial is controversial as it seems to paint the Northern Irish peace process in a terribly pessimistic light. And I don’t agree with everything from the article, I think he tends to focus on the negative a bit too much, and I’m annoyed because it critiques without offering hopeful alternatives. But the reason I used it in our orientation with students and posted it here is because of an idea far bigger than what one journalist can create. This article is effective because it shocks our students into understanding that the conflict isn’t going to end if we leave the process to bureaucratic governmental policies. This article proves to me that we cannot cast our vote, tune out, and hope for the madness to simply fade away.

In the last ten years, we’ve seen the seen the British/Northern Irish governments do a fairly decent job of committing itself to phasing out terrorist activity and bringing relative “peace” to the area. But what they haven’t done, nor should they be responsible for, is transforming the hearts and minds of actual citizens that will finally bring this conflict to an end. Political parties may be able to change laws and implement policies from the top down but they can’t change the opinions of people on the street.

Persuading the IRA to decommission its weapons last summer was a fantastic step forward in the peace process, and I commend the dual partisan effort that brought it into being; but it doesn’t stop IRA supporters from wanting to kill their adversaries. And while condemning the Protestant Orange Order as sectarian and prohibiting their divisive marches from entering Catholic areas, is in my opinion, a good thing; the government hasn’t ended the desire of some Orange Order members to purposefully frighten and intimidate their Catholic neighbors.

Now should we lobby, persuade, and motivate our governments to pass just laws and policies? Of course. But it doesn’t end there. Flying the appropriate flag or voting for the worthy candidate is not the end all to social activism. A commitment to social change isn’t a new bumper sticker every four years, but a lifestyle choice of conviction, sacrifice, and commitment.

As our students have begun to engage with these issues, it seems they’ve started to realize that for actual change to occur in their communities, peacebuilding must exist on both macro and micro levels. And I think they’ve begun to see that an end to this conflict may in fact be up to them. Not their siblings, not their children, not their grandchildren; them.

Now there is some resistance of course when students start to realize that they may have a responsibility to ending division. Some of the more stubborn say things like, “I’ve never thrown a petrol bomb. I’ve never thrown stones at police. I saw my friends beating up a Catholic once but I walked away. I don’t have a responsibility because I have never done anything wrong.” And they are right, they haven’t done anything wrong. But they haven’t done anything right either. By not stopping their friends from beating up the Catholic kid, their silence condones the situation. After much debate they usually get it when we quote the Coldplay line, “Am I a part of the cure? Or am I a part of the disease?”

Besides pop music, what’s been even more convicting for our students during discussion has been when the teachings of Jesus come into play. We try and remind the students that we, as Christians, as followers of the ultimate heart transformer, the Prince of Peace himself, have an even deeper responsibility to ending conflict, division, or injustice of any kind. (look into my post entitled Another World is Possible for further thoughts on that idea.)

While each and every one of our students have been members of the Presbyterian Church since they were children; many have a tough time reconciling the teachings of Jesus with a conflict that hits so close to home. Protestants and Catholics alike seem to cringe around here when you quote from Jesus directly….

“If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even the pagans do that? But I tell you, love your enemies…”
-Matthew 5:46 - 48

While dealing with issues of division sometimes feels like an uphill battle, the response so far has been great. For the first time we have students, who would otherwise be disengaged from this conflict, agreeing that they have a direct responsibility toward ending it and are catching wind of Jim Wallis’ famous words….“We are the ones we have been waiting for.” I think they are starting to understand that with great privilege comes great responsibility; which is the whole point of our South Africa trip this summer. Besides building homes and exploring HIV/AIDS & Fair Trade projects, the major goal of the trip is for our students to see Northern Ireland from an alternate perspective and learn about the cost, sacrifice, responsibility, and commitment that true peacebuilding requires. Upon returning from South Africa, while I anticipate many of them to make more informed voting choices in the next elections, I also sense more direct involvement in practical, relational, and grassroots cross-community peacebuilding; the kind that really changes hearts and minds.

As a practical response with some of our more committed students, I’ve started an art project down at the Mornington Community Project that I hope will transform some hearts and minds. As the number of kids and volunteers has grown in our youth club, we’ve been desperate for a way to separate art projects and homework stations into different rooms. With the help of some American volunteers a few months ago, we cleaned out a storage room and painted the walls sunshine yellow. And in the last three weeks I’ve brought down 7 Protestant art students from our chaplaincy to work with the Catholic kids in painting murals on the walls of our new art room. And it’s been an exciting endeavor to say the least. The children are thrilled as they’ve seen their ideas come to life; we’ve never had as little homework being completed in the 10 months I've been here. The project has brought more kids into the youth club and has transformed an otherwise dingy room into new working space.
Here are some photos of the five murals from start to finish and a few shots of the new art room in its completed form…..

Mornington Football Club Logo and Player...

Tupac Shakur: Poet, Prophet, Pop-icon of inner-city Belfast....

The Luck of the Irish....Rainbow and Leprachaun

Snooker Player....

When the Irish Dance and Sing, the Bells in Heaven Ring....

The Art Room in Full Effect...

Not only has this been a fun project for both children and volunteers, it’s also been an important cross-community event as well. A lot of the artists would rarely, if ever, spend time in working class Catholic neighborhoods and probably have few, if any, Catholic friends. Not to mention, with the firm artistic commission of the children, these Protestant volunteers are painting some very strong Irish cultural statements; images that would sometimes be seen as sectarian and intimidating to those considering themselves Northern Irish/British. (Tupac however is quite the reconciliation figure; as both working class Catholics and Protestants idolize him)

But I think the cross-community impact is even more significant coming from the other side. Once again, as we saw in the last post about Bryan and Johnny, we have Catholic kids who are most likely not realizing that their new artist friends are Protestants. And stuff like that messes with their heads. They may go home at night to their parents saying nasty things about the "orange bastards" up the road. And while sectarian slander may be the norm in their communities, the children are hopefully realizing that the “enemy” are real people, with names and personalities, who are now their new friends. And I think we’re breaking down some walls here and helping to transform both parties’ mindsets and opinions of what they initially thought of the “other.”

One of the writers who has influenced me most is Father Elias Chacour and his timeless autobiography, Blood Brothers. As a Palestinian Christian, Father Chacour has been working for peace and reconciliation in Israel for the last 50 years. A three time nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, he has started numerous cross-community centers, retreat facilities, and schools. His most recent venture is the Mar Elias Educational Institution, which to date is the only non-Jewish college in Israel; enrolling some 4,500 students of Palestinian, Jewish, Muslim, and Druze heritage. Blood Brothers has been translated into 28 languages, and despite his age, Elias Chacour remains a committed peace activist and worldwide lecturer. He writes, from Blood Brothers,

“Let us be about changing hearts; not simply institutions. Peace is like a chain. And every link is important in its rightful place. Political agreements, while important, will never bring about true peace. Therefore my challenge, really, my provocation – for you to get up, to go forward, to do something, to take the risk and to make a difference….for justice and peace. There is much yet to be done. May you be found among the faithful who are working for justice, righteousness, and true peace that can come only through the reconciliation of those who are indeed blood brothers.”

The Changing of the Times....

This could be one of the most significant things to happen to me since I’ve been in Belfast.

“Remember that there is meaning beyond absurdity. Be sure that every little deed counts, that every word has power. Never forget that you can still do your share to redeem the world in spite of all absurdities and frustrations and disappointments.”
-Jewish Theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel

These profound words from Abraham Heschel are a brilliant intro into what occured a few weeks ago. As most of you know, I spend a few afternoons a week down at the Mornington Belfast Community Project co-leading an after school youth club. Located on the Lower Ormeau Road, Mornington sits right in the middle of a neighborhood usually referred to as being one of the most contentious and economically deprived areas of Northern Ireland. The Nationalist Catholic population of the Ormeau Road are a proud but cautious people, as they have suffered a handful of sectarian attacks on their community by the neighboring Protestant housing estates to the north, east, and south.

One of the main reasons I go to Mornington is because of a young man named Bryan; who is far and away one of the coolest kids I’ve ever met. He’s diligent in his studies, honest in his viewpoints, friendly, passionate, and has continued to be one of my greatest insights into Northern Irish life. So I don’t tarnish his hard earned reputation…Bryan is also one of the most offensive, violent, foul mouthed, stubborn, explosive, and complicated kids we have in club. In fact, I believe it was him, who, on my first day at Mornington left me in absolute shock with an unimaginable slew of obscenities and insults. His quick temper and reactionary positions, while oftentimes valid, usually have him furniture throwing, thrashing, and fighting nearly every day. Despite his outbursts, I desperately love this kid and am dreading the day I have to say goodbye to him. I wonder if he’ll ever be able to understand just how special he has made this year for me…..

We’ve also had some new kids at club lately, so I’ve also been spending a good amount of time with another boy named Johnny. While a few years younger than Bryan, Johnny is silly and crude, honest and playful. Similar to most of the kids, Johnny really likes being in club, but hates doing his homework. Because of his refusal to even bring his homework sometimes, Johnny oftentimes gets kicked out due to a policy we have about homework completion. Knowing that he wanted to stay in club, I decided to find something we can do together that takes the place of homework. And so for the last few weeks off and on, Johnny and I have been writing poetry together. He loves silly stories and crude jokes so I thought we would put those into prose and trick him into enjoying a respected literary art form.

Obviously, with Johnny only being 11 years old these poems remain simplistic in nature. A lot of, “on a warm sunny day we went to the sea, I drank 3 cokes and had to pee” type stuff. They also tend to follow the same basic plotline of tag-team violence where Johnny and Justin journey together killing sharks, punching bears, or inciting soccer riots. It’s been a bit of a struggle for him to refrain from consistently ending each line with curse words or bodily functions. But despite the lewd content, I cherish this project because Johnny has unknowingly opened himself up to an incredibly fulfilling and powerful art form. I also think simple rhyming broadens his intellectual development, helps him construct basic sentence structure, and can also be quite soothing psychologically and emotionally.

So last week, Johnny and I were working on a piece centered on a fishing trip he and I are taking together. The end result of course is the fish incapable of being killed with the normal fishing equipment like a rod, bait, and hook; so while I hold the line like a piñata, Johnny proceeds to punch it to death. No surprises there. We sign our names at the bottom of our poetic adventure as he smashes his pen down in triumph exclaiming, “that one was a f...ing cracker! It’s going up on my wall!” And after each competed poem Johnny is pretty worn out creatively so it gives me the space to ask about his family and personal life. He tells me his Dad is a builder and his Mom works in a chippie (fish & chip shop). His parents are usually nice to him except when they “drink too much on Saturdays.”

I am always intrigued with the boys at Mornington and their relationship with the Protestant neighborhood across the railroad tracks. So in this time of confession I asked Johnny if they were still fighting with the “wee Orangies” (loyalist Protestants) across the road. He replied that it happens every once in a while and followed his remarks with a handful of sectarian obscenities and accounts of how they continue to terrorize his neighborhood. I asked him if he remembered that I had caught him only a few days prior, throwing stones with some other boys over the railroad tracks into the Protestant estate. He bashfully smiled, apologetically admitting that the wee orangies aren’t always the perpetrators.

I was feeling confident about our interactions and decided to take our conversation to a place I never initially intended it to go. I asked James if he has ever talked to any of the wee boys from across the railroad tracks. He confessed he hadn’t and restated his position with a few more bigoted comments. I then asked Johnny how he would feel if he found out there were Protestants who were secretly coming to this club. His eyes tripled in size as he exclaimed, “What!? If there were f...ing orangie bastards at this club, well me and Bryan we’d kick their f...ing faces in. This is our club, they aren’t allowed.”

While a bit taken back by his venomous response, I continued on and calmly told him that I was a Protestant and worked for a Protestant church. Surprised, he quickly caught Bryan’s eye across the room, “Bryan, did you know that Justin is a f...ing Prod?!” Until this moment I was unsure if Bryan even knew. We’ve been hanging out for months now, but I’d never really confessed my religious affiliation with anyone besides the staff members. Bryan, looking up from his homework coolly responded, “Ya I know. I’ve known that since the first day. But he’s our friend now. None of that other stuff matters if someone is your friend.”

At the exact moment of this interaction I don't think I realized how significant this really was. I may have even poked fun at Johnny for his inability to get a rise out of Bryan. But sitting on my floor later that night, I looked up from my book and was absolutely floored by the dealings that had taken place at Mornington that day. And while it remains one minor interaction of reconciliation amidst hundreds of sectarian remarks, I think Bryan’s response is one of courage and transformation. And based on the politics of his neighborhood, I would assume the exact opposite viewpoint has been burned into him since he was a young child. Therefore, at 12 years old, his confession of tolerance and reconciliation under his social circumstances is of radical opinion.

So I’m hopeful that my relationship with Bryan will continue to have a significant impact on his life and on other kids like Johnny from the neighborhood. I’m also optimistic that the relationships the Mornington kids can build with the Protestant volunteers will help in discouraging them from both the childish acts of sectarian stone throwing, as well as the downward spiral of adult criminality and paramilitarism.

Now for all we know, I may have romanticized the importance of this event, but for some reason still sense it to be vitally significant. And I want to make it known that this is not something that I have done on my own. My prideful diligence for justice and reconciliation is not what created this supposed move toward conflict resolution. This is a direct manifestation of a living and active God who has motivated Protestant volunteers to use their time more constructively; all the while softening the hearts of working class Catholic kids who desperately need hope.

And it's not like I 'hear the voice of the Lord' or anything, but the sense I keep getting from Him about the Mornington kids is that of committment. That if I want things to change for the better I have to keep showing up. I've realized just how chaotic and unstructured most of these kid's lives are, so maybe the best thing for them is that volunteers each week dilligently make that appearance. Whether we feel like it or not, we have to keep showing up....

And from what we’ve seen here, reconciliation all boils down to the imperative necessity of humanizing “the enemy.” I can’t help but think again of Flannery O’Connor’s brilliant line from The Habit of Beings…

“It is hard to make your adversaries real people unless you recognize yourself in them – in which case, if you don’t watch out, they cease to be your adversaries.”

And I think the humanizing initiative for conflict resolution is similar in all scenarios. Whether it be complex social issues that polarize elections, localized violent conflicts like the one here in Belfast, or even global issues of war and terrorism. And I wonder if it is valid enough to say, that as Christians, maybe we shouldn’t express opinions or mount actions about people whom we have never met. I wonder how Ku Klux Klan members would deal with issues of race if they knew people who were African American. And I wonder how fundamentalist Christians would respond to the ‘abomination’ of homosexuality if they actually had friends who were gay. The list goes on and on of course. And it may seem idealistic, but maybe the same can be true with issues of global conflict. How would Muslim extremists respond if they had friends who were New Yorkers or Londoners? And when it comes to American/British dealings with international conflict, it seems so much easier to approve of military strikes on a country whose name we can’t pronounce, whose borders we can’t find on a map, with inhabitants we can’t communicate with and will never meet.

This post has been a bit unusual. More narrative driven than anything else, with few quotes, and not really focused on the “kingdom living” pragmatics I had intended the next post to be about. But if we can learn anything from Bryan and Johnny down at the Mornington Community Project, it is that our preconceived notions and opinions of others can be shattered when you actually meet the 'other.' Let us encourage eachother then to emulate the actions of a few working class pre-teens from south Belfast and meet the adversary you secretly despise. And we all have them. You may not hate them or fight them in the streets but you sure as hell don’t trust them. It could be someone of a different skin color, or socio-economic standing, or sexual orientation, or political leanings, or religious traditions. But we all know how easily we each pass opinions and judgements about people we know little about. And it may not seem like it, but it is dangerous to give into those fears. As we’ve seeen here in Northern Ireland, fear of the other and a paranoid siege mentality is what has caused so much strife in this tiny country. I think the world needs more Bryan O’Neils and Johnny McCafferys.

"If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? But I tell you, love your enemies...."
-Jesus, Matthew 5:46-48

“Ask the poor. They will tell you who the Christians are.” - Gandhi

“What the world needs is people who believe so much in another world that they cannot help but begin enacting it now…. May we begin beating our swords into plowshares now, and the Kingdom will begin to be not simply something we hope for when we die but something we see on earth as it is in heaven, the Kingdom that is among us and within us.” -Shane Claiborne

This quote is an appropriate transition from the last post where we discussed the importance of sincerely believing another world to be possible. While I may have presented the intellectual backing for this type of imagination, I offered little practical means of achieving it. Therefore, pretentious as it may sound, I hope this post to be a practical beginning step in how we might begin to live and act like the kingdom of God is already taking shape.

In both Matthew 22 and Luke 14 Jesus tells us how to throw a party. He calls it a banquet, but that’s because he was talking to some hyper-religious people so he had to disguise the word. Jesus’ ideas on partying go something like this…. He tells the parable about a rich king who invites all these important people to a wedding banquet. But for some reason no one wants to come to this guy’s party, so after sending out his army to burn down the cities of those who refused, the king tells his servants to go out on the street corners and invite anyone they can find. Rich or poor, good or bad, it doesn’t matter just as long as the banquet hall is filled to the brim.

Jesus breaks down the party politics to this, “When you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Besides the parties we should throw, Jesus also talks quite extensively about the party he’s gonna throw once the kingdom comes. Remember this is the party we are all working toward; this is the big one, the ultimate bash we really hope we get invited to. And it seems from the way Jesus talks about the kingdom of God, the guest list at this party appears quite similar to the party planning advice Jesus previously offered us.

I may be interpreting the text wrong, but it looks like the Kingdom of God won’t be filled with the religious elite, lavishly wealthy, politically powerful, and strikingly beautiful type guests; but rather the poor, destitute, lonely, and oppressed. The ones we might typically find on our street corners.

Addressing the chief priests and elders Jesus says in Matthew 21,
“I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and the prostitutes will be entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.”

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied.”
(Luke 6:20)

“Many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.” (Matthew 19:30)

For some reason, it seems as though the people we’d least expect to enter any type of high-profile party are actually the VIP members on heaven’s guest list. So what does that mean for us? It’s unlikely any of us will truly be poor, destitute, marginalized, and oppressed. To make sure everyone is involved in the kingdom, Jesus is very clear in Matthew 25 that we will be judged according to how we treated the 'least of these.'

“Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance…. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.” (Translation….you invited me to the party)

“Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in….I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”

As we can see, one of the few times Jesus is judgemental is on the subject of the poor. So if we want to begin acting like the Kingdom of God is already here, I think we need to start inviting the poor and oppressed to the party. If our Jesus spent most of his time with the poor, why do most of us not have any friends that are poor? And if they are the ones who ‘will inherit the earth,’ we might as well start becoming their friends in the meantime. In the kingdom of God there will be no gap between the rich and poor, so I think we should begin acting like it doesn’t exist.

The person who has influenced me most on this topic has been writer, activist, and circus performer Shane Claiborne. Shane has, in my opinion, just completed the most comprehensive and exciting Christian discipleship manifesto of my generation. (Bold statements I know, but trust me). His new book, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical could well be the most inspiring, uncomfortable, heartfelt, and biblically grounded work I’ve read in a long time. I had the unique privilege to spend a weekend with Shane and others from his community about a year ago; let me assure you that the revolution is at hand when encountering people like Shane. Some crazy things are happening within the pages of this book that have inspired much of my writing, living, and thinking during the last year. Check out the website of Shane's community The Simple Way for further information on many of these ideas.

From his book The Irresistible Revolution, Shane writes briefly about some research he did for his senior thesis titled, 'The American Jesus.'

“So I did a little survey, probing Christians about their (mis)conceptions of Jesus. But I learned a striking thing from the survey. I asked participants who claimed to be ‘strong followers of Jesus’ whether Jesus spent time with the poor. Nearly 80% said yes. Later in the survey, I sneaked in another question. I asked the same group of strong followers whether they spent time with the poor, and less that 2% said they did. I learned a powerful lesson: We can admire and worship Jesus without doing what he did. We can applaud what he preached and stood for without caring about the same things. We can adore the cross without taking up ours. I had come to see that the great tragedy in the church is not that rich Christians do not care about the poor but that rich Christians do not know the poor.”

I don’t want to just be a believer in Jesus and applaud what he stood for; I want to follow in the guy’s footsteps. Followers envision the kingdom before it arrives and act like it’s already here. Followers don’t merely love Jesus, they act like him too. They care about the things he cared about; they spend their time with people he spent time with; they give love to the people that he loved. And if this is the case; if we really want to follow Jesus; then we have to befriend the folks he cares most about.

Activism in the Offering Plate…..

From Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller writes,
“My friend Andrew the Protestor believes things…..Andrew says it is not enough to be politically active. He says legislation will never save the world. On Saturday mornings Andrew feeds the homeless. He sets up a makeshift kitchen on the sidewalks and makes breakfast for people who live on the street. He serves coffee and sits with his homeless friends and talks and laughs, and if they want to pray he will pray with them….Andrew doesn’t cloak his altruism within a trickle-down economic theory that allows him to spend fifty dollars on a round of golf to feed the economy and provide jobs for the poor. He actually believes that when Jesus says feed the poor, He means you should do this directly. Andrew is the one who taught me that what I believe is not what I say I believe; what I believe is what I do.”

For years, in response to issues like this, I always felt satisfied that my church tithing or monthly charity donations were sufficient enough. Yet as I read about the early church and study other famous Christian activists and theologians; I realize that I’ve been missing the mark. And don’t get me wrong, the money we give is fantastic, let’s keep doing it. Financial donations are essential for so many wonderful projects to stay above water. But I think if we try and take Jesus’ commands seriously on the topic of the poor, there is no way we can justify a 10% tithe as good enough. Do Christ’s teachings on the poor and marginalized reach any deeper than our pocketbooks?

I am completely in support of organizations like World Vision, Christian Aid, and the Salvation Army. But non-profit organizations, while they do fantastic work that mere individuals could never do, unfortunately create a buffer zone between the rich and poor. They act like a 3rd party mediator between class systems collecting funds from one side and passing it on to the other. By reducing our theology of the poor simply down to charitable donations, the giver and receiver never actually have to meet.

Shane Claiborne from The Irresistible Revolution,
“It is much more comfortable to depersonalize the poor so we don’t feel responsible for the catastrophic human failure that results in someone sleeping on the street while people have spare bedrooms in their homes. We can volunteer in a social program or distribute excess food and clothing through organizations and never have to open up our homes, our beds, our dinner tables. When we get to heaven, we will be separated into those sheep and goats Jesus talks about in Mathew 25 based on how we cared for the least among us. I’m just not convinced Jesus is going to say, “When I was hungry, you gave a check to the United Way and they fed me,” or “When I was naked, you donated clothes to the Salvation Army and they clothed me.” Jesus is not seeking distant acts of charity. He seeks concrete acts of love: “You fed me…..visited me in prison….you welcomed me into your home….you clothed me.”

In no way am I coming down on non-profit charity organizations, they do terrific work. This critique is more focused on the Christians themselves that think their financial contribution each month is sufficient. And in a sense it is; by tithing we are obeying God’s dominion over our money, but I think we can do more. Besides our cash and coin, Jesus wants our time, our gifts, our voice, and our resources to help his children. Writing checks are handy because they ensure our detachment from the poor, but to offer anything else means we will have to meet them face to face. And if we want to begin living like the kingdom of God is already here, than it is necessary that we do so.

And I don’t mean to say these things to guilt trip you or make you feel bad if all you do is give money to your church. This is a fairly new concept for me, so please don’t feel ambushed; we are all in this together. But besides what I see as a biblical mandate for spending time with the poor, by reducing our dealings with them down to a charity donation, I honestly believe we are missing out on a special invitation from Jesus himself. I think he commands us to personally and directly help the poor not only for their benefit, but also for ours. By building friendships with people who are different from us, we will find an immeasurable amount of joy, compassion, and hope within the kingdom of God that we are unlikely to find elsewhere. The poor are known for offering community, love, and grace that the rich can only dream about. And that is partly why I think Jesus spent so much time with them. Obviously, they were the ones who needed him the most, but I am pretty sure ol’ Jesus was having a good time with them as well. Can you imagine? A couple of tax collectors, a few thieves, some whores, and an endless supply of booze coming from the Jewish guy? Seems like quite an evening….

New Friends....
In the last two months alone, I’ve begun to experience this joy first hand as I’ve developed a friendship with an immigrant family from Yugoslavia. I share this story with you not to publicly display my acts of charity, but rather to share the reality of the hope and sense of community that can come from befriending people Jesus encourages us to befriend.

It’s a smart idea to beg for money outside of a Christian bookshop. And my conscience got the best of me when I knew I couldn’t walk into a store centered on Jesus and ignore the poor mother and daughter on the street outside. And that is where I met Mariella, a 38 year old mother of seven children and her 2nd oldest daughter Andrea, a wide eyed 13 year old taking on much more than she should at her age. After chatting that first day and encouraging my mother (who was out visiting at the time) to buy them groceries, I’ve been unable to stay away from this family. We meet every weekend at the same coffee shop to swap stories and tell jokes. We laugh and dream together. They tell me what Yugoslavia was like and I dispel all the Hollywood myths about California that Andrea learned from television. We spend a lot of time talking about the financial and health issues of their large family; I do what I can to get them the appropriate food and medicine.

It turns out Mariella, Andrea, and the rest of the children escaped from Yugoslavia after their home was burned down in the Yugoslavian civil war. Mariella's husband joined a Serbian rebel group determined to defend their homeland but hasn’t been seen for six years. After being burnt out of their home, they met a man who promised to give them a better life far away from Yugoslavia. After giving him all the gold items they had, they sat cramped in the back of a dark van for a week, until the doors finally swung open in the middle of Belfast. The family of eight slept in the park that first night.

Andrea and Mariella beg for money on the street by day and sell roses at night to students coming out of the bars. Our relationship started out just drinking coffee and buying groceries each week, but it's started to develop into something really special. I’ve recently gotten them in touch with an organization that helps out refugees and asylum seekers; I’m hoping this group can provide more legal and professional help than I can. It’s also been fun bringing some of my friends down to meet them as well. Rhoda and Christine donated bags of unwanted clothes to the older girls. Andrea smiled when she met Rhoda for the first time saying, “I love the clothes you gave me. They keep me warm and are very fashionable!”

A few of my friends and I put some money together and paid for a kidney stone procedure that Mariella needed to get done before she could get a job. Most of the places we looked into refused to pay her anything more than about £2.00 an hour; nowhere near enough money to feed seven young kids. Thankfully, it looks like she just found a job this week at a Fish and Chip shop that will pay her in cash and should be enough to keep the family stable for a little while. Mariella is excited to have me come and visit her at the Fish and Chip shop when she is working.

What’s been most amazing is the way this family has transitioned from a charity case into actual friends of mine. They just moved into a new house out in East Belfast that a Slovenian couple has let them live in really cheap for a few months until they can pay the 1st months rent. Somehow they had saved up extra money from begging and the first night they moved in I was invited to their house for a celebration dinner. A few friends of mine and I showed up unsure what to expect. But we had an all around wonderful time eating Yugoslavian food, drinking wine, laughing, and playing soccer in the street. I’ve never witnessed such generosity from a family that literally has nothing. The children may have starved if it wasn’t for the weekly grocery donations, and here they are throwing me a party and stuffing our bellies with food.

The girls of the family really want their hair to be cut and styled all trendy like. So next week I am brining my hair stylist friend out to their house where she is going to cut and fix up all their hair real nice. Andrea called me twice yesterday making sure that I tell my friend exactly what she wants. “Can she make it layered and soft with those cool swoopy bangs?”

My friends and I are creating something special with this family that extends well beyond the systems of the social hierarchy. I’m learning about a new culture, experiencing generosity and hope like I’ve never seen it, and have witnessed the line between rich and poor, privileged and unprivileged, ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’….slowly fade away.

“It’s a beautiful thing when folks in poverty are no longer just missions projects but become genuine friends and family with who we laugh, cry, dream, and struggle. One of the verses I have grown to love is the one where Jesus is preparing to leave the disciples and says, ‘I no longer call you servants…….Instead I have called you my friends.’ (John 15:15) Servanthood is a fine place to begin, but gradually we move toward mutual love and genuine relationships”
–Shane Claiborne

Where do we go from here?.....
There are some 3000 verses in the bible that talk about poverty and the poor. It seems we serve a God who cares deeply about how his followers treat the “least of these.” And if we want to invite them to the parties Jesus talks about, they probably need to be our friends first. Yet many are still confused about what they can directly do and how much it will even help. And there is a tough line between charity and justice that could be a whole other post, but what we want to focus on here is the initial relationship. If we want to start living like the kingdom of God is urgently at hand, I encourage you to become friends with someone who is poor. And not because I think you should, but because Jesus did it first. You will be surprised how fulfilling and equally hopeful your experience might be. It’ll open your eyes to a whole new side of Christian faith, and while you may think you are brining the gospel to them, all the while they might be the ones bringing it to you….

Because this post is already long enough and I am a bit embarrassed about making this totally public, I have included some helpful tips on how you can begin to meet and befriend someone different than you in the comments section of this post. If you care to read a few tips that I’ve mustered up and tried to implement myself, please go and check it out. And let that comment page be a place where you can leave any ideas, critiques, or helpful hints you may have as well. Thanks for reading…

“The greatest cause of atheism is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips, then walk out the door and deny him with their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable.”
Brennan Manning, The Ragamuffin Gospel

The picture says it all. I had promised the next few posts would be centered on how we might begin to try and "live like the kingdom of God is already here." Unfortunately, things have been so absurdly busy this week with our South Africa orientation that I have been unable to finalize something before I leave tomorrow for Costa Rica. I'm really excited about some of the new stuff, but it may be a few weeks until I can get the next post up. Sorry.

I've added a new video on the posting from March 3rd http://jzinni.blogspot.com/2006/03/tiny-glimpse-into-kingdom-of-god.html. The video is live footage of Loyalist Michael Stone opening fire on funeral mourners in Milltown Cemetery in 1988 and then the Catholic retribution afterwards on two off-duty British soldiers who accidently made a wrong turn. Some scary stuff to say the least. Thanks for reading.... -jz

Another world is possible. Another world is necessary. Another world is already here….

I recently got an email from a cousin of mine, who at 5:40 am was able to spout off nearly 25 things that he felt were currently ruining the world. I admire his ability to list almost every social, spiritual, and political catastrophe all in one breath, but also his willingness to admit honest feelings of hopelessness and confusion. And I can resonate with those emotions. There are times when one tiny street of Belfast seems far too much for me, let alone an entire creation groaning under the weight of oppression. And the common reaction to a world plagued with despair, (particularly among western Christians set on their one way ticket to heaven), is that of indifference. Like that poignant line from Hotel Rwanda….

“I think if people see this footage, they’ll say Oh, my God, that’s horrible. And then they’ll go on eating their dinners.”

I don’t think you need any convincing that we live in a world gone mad, but you may need some convincing to do something about it. And in a world of desperate need, I believe Christians have a specific calling to be directly involved in many of the world’s most horrific social, spiritual, and political tragedies. And I can understand the feelings of apathy. I’ve been there; I’m still there most of the time. But the reason many of these problems seem absolutely hopeless, is because we struggle to actually believe that another world is indeed possible. I think in order to change the world; we have to first believe in the possibility that it can be changed.

And that is the whole point of this post…..we must understand the obvious need for works of charity, justice, mercy, and compassion within our communities; but also the necessity of a faithful and charismatic belief system that trusts God to be at work restoring and reconciling a broken world. So many people I know, myself included, suffer from major emotional and spiritual burnout when the darkness of a hurting planet seems too much to bear. But if we discipline ourselves to see the world as Jesus saw it, we would never view the world as a lost cause, but as a place constantly being transformed into the kingdom of God. And if we were to catch a glimpse of this vision, that tiny flicker of hope for a better world, I believe Christians would be unable to stop themselves from faithfully committing their lives, at all costs, to reversing social and spiritual ills in the daring pursuit for a time when they cease to exist.

“Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.”
-Indian activist and author, Arundhati Roy

What if we truly believed that another world was indeed possible and on her way? How then would we live? Would we drown our days in the latest fashions, celebrity magazines, addictive video games, and escapist television fantasies?

I believe the future belongs to those who can dream it into being. The visionaries, the idealists, and the radical optimists are the ones who truly change the world, because they can foresee a world different from the one that is now. And if history serves us right, that is the only way it has ever been. Or as Margaret Mead states, “Never believe that a few caring and committed people can’t change the world. For, indeed, that’s all who ever have.”

It is social movements with spiritual foundations that have upset the structures of American history. Whether it be abolitionism, woman’s suffrage, child labor laws, or the civil rights movement; all of these events were crafted by a few visionary idealists who dreamt a new world into reality.

From Engaging the Powers, Walter Wink states,
“History belongs to the intercessors who believe the future into being. This is not simply a religious statement. It is also true of Capitalists, Communists, or Anarchists. The future belongs to whoever can envision a new and desirable possibility, which faith then fixes upon as inevitable. This is the politics of hope. Hope envisages its future and then acts as if that future is now irresistible, thus helping to create the reality for which it longs.”

Proverbs 29:18 says, “Without a vision, the people perish.” Jim Wallis always quotes this passage and follows with, “The bitter meaning of that sentence has become painfully clear to me now, right in my own neighborhood. When a vision is lacking, people quickly degenerate into their worst selves and begin behaving in destructive ways.” The first thing we need to save our communities from so-called ‘destructive ways,’ is to actually believe in the possibility of a world without destruction. Jim goes on to say that we must, “believe in spite of the evidence and then watch the evidence change.”

Yet with history on our side, many will still put their trust in political parties and social systems as the answer to the world’s most pressing problems. So easily can we take the weight off our backs and put it onto theirs. 35 million Americans living in poverty….ah well it must be President’s fault. And while there may be some truth in that, Christians pride themselves as being champions of the poor; so what if it’s our fault? How can we scoff at our government’s vision for a better tomorrow while simultaneously refusing to create one ourselves?

Once again, Walter Wink with the quote of the night…..

“Jesus went beyond revolution. His struggle was against the basic presuppositions and structures of oppression – against the domination system itself. Political revolution fails because it is not revolutionary enough. It changes the rulers but not the rules, the ends but not the means. Most of the old repressive values and delusional assumptions remain intact. What Jesus envisioned was a world transformed, where both people and powers are in harmony with the ultimate and committed to the general welfare – what some prefer to call the ‘kingdom’ of God.”

Another World is Already Here….

Now I understand a lot of this stuff might be seen as “neo-spiritual, incense burning, search your heart for the god within” type crap. And I’m not really into that necessarily. But I am into what the Bible says about a new Kingdom and the Christian’s role in its arrival.

“Our Father in heaven…..
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Matthew 6:9-10)

“The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, not will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘there it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:20)

“Repent, for the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1:15)

Or as Martin Luther King mentions,
“The moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice”

We serve a God who adamantly hates injustice; a God who is at work redeeming the world from injustice right now; a God who promises to ‘roll down justice and righteousness like an everflowing stream.’ With a God like this there is no reason to ever give up hope….

“This is a moral universe, which means that, despite all the evidence that seems to be to the contrary, there is no way that evil and injustice and oppression and lies can have the last word. God is a God who cares about right and wrong. God cares about justice and injustice.”
–Archbishop Desmond Tutu

And with a God who hates poverty, disease, abortion, war, and oppression, many people ask why he doesn’t just fix it all right now. The longer he waits the more indifferent he seems to be. Yet in fact, our God cares so much for these issues that by some great mystery and enormous privilege, he has chosen to use his people, empowered by the Spirit, to complete this task. “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!” (Romans 10:15)

Over and over, when I ask God why all of these injustices are allowed to exist in the world, I can feel the Spirit whisper to me, “You tell me why we allow this to happen. You are my body, my hands, my feet.” -Shane Claiborne

Gary Haugen, founder of the International Justice Mission writes from his book, Good News About Injustice...

“The almighty God of the universe is prepared to use us, his people, to seek justice, to rescue the oppressed, to defend the orphan and to plead for the widow. How? By using the gifts, resources, relationships, expertise, and power that he has given us. Because the reason he has granted us these things is not merely for our joy (though great joy they rightly bring) but so that we might serve those who lack them.”

“To treat a child of God as if he or she were less than deserving of basic human rights is not just wrong, it is veritably blasphemous, for it is to spit in the face of God. With this being said, our faith in God demands the obedience of our whole being in opposing injustice. For not to oppose injustice is to disobey God. To oppose injustice and oppression is not something that is merely political. No, it is profoundly religious. Would you say Moses was a religious leader or a political leader? Was God acting religiously or politically when he set free a slave people?”
-Archbishop Desmond Tutu from God Has A Dream

The Christian Response…
And statements like these often raise eyebrows with many Christians who don’t recall signing up for a religion that demands so much from them. So many of us were converted to a Christianity that promised to release us from current emotional/financial burdens and rescue us from the fiery pits of hell. While those things are most definitely true (to an extent), I’m not so sure that was the whole point of Jesus' incarnation and eventual death on the cross. And there seems to be quite the obsession with Jesus’ death as well. We seem to be in quite a rush to get him born in that manger and up on that cross as quickly as possible. I could be way off here, but I think we have to ask ourselves....was Jesus simply born to die?

From Mere Discipleship, Lee Camp writes,

“The gospel is not an offer of after-death fire insurance, nor is it merely an offer of personal peace and serenity in the here and now. More, the gospel invites us to participate in the Kingdom of God, that long-awaited rule of God, in which the rebellion, with its corollaries of lust and violence and greed and self-seeking is undone. The gospel invites us to follow in the way of Jesus who embodies for us the way to the Kingdom.”

In my opinion, this whole Jesus thing is not only an ideology that prepares us to die, but one that teaches us how to live. While the death of Christ is momentously important for our forgiveness, so are the 33 years before his crucifixion. I think they come as a package deal. By following Jesus we are offered an eventual place in heaven, but also a place in a social, spiritual, political, and kingdom revolution that the life of Jesus has paved the way for. So quickly will Christians meet Jesus at the cross, but rarely do we find Christians willing to walk the road that got him there. Or like Shane Claiborne says, "I came to realize that preachers were telling me to lay my life at the foot of the cross but weren't giving me anything to pick up."

And I’m excited for heaven, but I think we put so much emphasis on getting there, that we forget of the job we are called to do here. There is something to be said with a God who has invited us to be his instruments of action in bringing about the kingdom of God. And when looking at Christianity in this way, we see that discipleship is by no means a blissful road of passivity and serenity; hiding from the big bad world en route to heaven. But rather an invitation into something radical, something life changing, something that makes our lives worth living.

To recap….
We can all agree the world is in quite a state. Things seem really bad and I resonate with the feelings of hopelessness. But let us "take heart! For Jesus has overcome the world." There is no reason to feel hopeless if we are viewing creation through the lenses of a coming kingdom. The victory has already been won and it is now up to us, empowered by the Holy Spirit, to oppose the sin of the self and of the external principalities and powers. Let's meet Jesus at the cross and lay our burdens down, but let's also walk that road with him and become passionate about the things he was passionate about; compassionate to the people he was compassionate to.

Yet before we get into the practicality of how to do this, we must sincerely believe that the Kingdom of God is urgently at hand. In doing so we must ‘repent’ of our disillusionment of its existence and commit ourselves to its glorious homecoming. Like the citizens before us who successfully changed history, we must imagine a better world and tenaciously dream it into being. And since we are a people of expectation, when we are so convinced that another world is indeed possible, let us begin to live like it is already here. Or as Shane Claiborne says,

“What the world needs is people who believe so much in another world that they cannot help but begin to enacting it now… May we begin beating our swords into plowshares now, and the Kingdom will begin to be not simply something we hope for when we die but something we see on earth as it is in heaven, the Kingdom that is among us and within us.”

In this post I’ve offered a vision for what the world could be, but little practical means of creating it. This was purposeful of course, but for the next few posts I want to dive into some practical ways that I honestly think could help us live like the kingdom of God is already here. And I promise my suggestions won’t be contrived or cliché. I won’t bore you with essays on why you should re-use your plastic grocery bags or bring your co-workers unexpected organic fruit baskets (Although I highly suggest you do both those things). But I’m gonna try to imagine that better world Jesus kept talking about; the one that eventually got him killed. I’m sure we’ll fall short, but that’s the beauty of it; we can’t lose when the battle has already been won. So we’ll see what happens. I leave you with the words of Shane Claiborne yet again….

“Now more and more people are staring to imagine that maybe another world is possible and necessary and actually quite imaginable. I’m, starting to wonder if, actually, we have gone sane in a mad world. In a world of smart bombs and military intelligence, we need more fools, holy fools, who insist that the folly of the cross is wiser than any human power. And the world may call us crazy…..”

down time....

Friends,
My parents are going to be in town for a wee while, so I'm taking a break from writing for the time being.
tell me how you are..... -jz

(this is the bottom of my street by the way. thank you Ada for the brilliant photograph)

A Tiny Glimpse Into the Kingdom of God....

Love, Not Deadly Force, is the Christian’s Weapon

In the aftermath of apartheid’s collapse in South Africa, in 1994, the new government under Nelson Mandela established a Truth and Reconciliation Commission whose task it was to investigate specific acts of brutality committed in the name of apartheid and to seek some measure of resolution that would enable the country to move forward.

At one meeting early in their work, the Commission gathered to reach a verdict on a particularly painful case involving an elderly South African woman. At the hearing, a group of white police officers, led by a Mr. Van de Broek admitted their personal responsibility in the death of her 18-year-old son. They acknowledged shooting the young man at point blank range, setting his body on fire, and then partying around the fire until the body had been reduced to little more than ashes.

Eight years later, Van de Broek and his fellow officers had again intersected with the woman’s life, this time to take her husband into captivity. And then, some time later, Van de Broek had come knocking at her door once more. Rousing her from bed in the dead of night, he brought the woman to an isolated setting by a river where her husband lay tied to a pile of wood. As she watched, he and the officers doused the man with gasoline and then ignited a fire. The last words her husband spoke to her, in the midst of the blazing pyre, were, “Forgive them.”

Now at long last the time had come for justice to be served. Those involved had confessed their guilt, and the Commission turned to the woman for a final statement regarding her desire for an appropriate punishment.

“I want three things,” the woman said calmly. “I want Mr. Van de Broek to take me to the place where they burned my husband’s body. I would like to gather up the dust and give him a decent burial.

“Second, Mr. Van de Broek took all my family away from me, so I still have a lot of love to give. Twice a month, I would like for him to come to the ghetto and spend a day with me so I can be a mother to him."

“Third, I would like Mr. Van de Broek to know that he is forgiven by God, and that I forgive him, too. And, I would like someone to come and lead me by the hand to where Mr. Van de Broek is so that I can embrace him and he can know my forgiveness is real.”

As the elderly woman made her way across the silent courtroom, Van de Broek reportedly fainted, overcome by emotion. And then the silence was broken when someone began singing, “Amazing Grace.” Others soon picked up the words of the familiar hymn, so that finally the entire audience in the courtroom was joined in song....

For centuries, the mainstream body of Christian believers, Catholic and Protestant alike, have regarded the gospel of peace as a high calling for the heroic individual, or a description of heavenly perfection, or as the eccentric teaching of a few radical groups – but not as a principle central to the gospel itself. I want to suggest that reconciliation with our enemies is not merely a part of the good news of the gospel we have received; it is the gospel –the very heart of our faith which Christians are called to embody in their daily lives and to share freely with all those who are not yet in fellowship with God.
(Taken from John Roth’s, Choosing Against War: A Love Stronger Than Our Fears)

Reconciliation Close to Home.....
Exciting things are happening in Northern Ireland as well. This last weekend marked the beginnings of a new BBC series called Facing the Truth; Northern Ireland’s first official public Reconciliation Commission. Similar in fashion to the post-apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission of South Africa, the Northern Ireland version brings together victims and perpetrators of the conflict to tell their stories in their own words, face to face with people once considered enemies. While the program remains controversial and even labeled as a step backward in the peace process; Northern Ireland remains hopeful of the lasting effects of reconciliation and forgiveness. And as a shock to all of us in this tiny country, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and leader of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission will be chairing the historic project in Northern Ireland.

The most anticipated installment of Facing the Truth aired this weekend. Archbishop Tutu facilitated the discussion between infamous East Belfast killer Michael Stone and the family of Dermot Hackett, a Catholic who Stone brutally murdered in 1988. A virtually unknown Protestant paramilitary, Michael Stone became the hero of the Loyalist cause in March of 1988 when he snuck into an IRA funeral in Catholic West Belfast and launched a grenade into a crowd of mourning families and friends. Injuring 60 people in the blast, Stone then shot three men dead before leaping over gravestones into the hands of the swarming Northern Irish Police Force. These events were seen live on national television and awarded Stone legendary status among Loyalist Protestants throughout Northern Ireland. The video of this event can be seen here...


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Stone was given a 684-year sentence in 1989 for six murders, five attempted murders, and the grenade incident in Milltown Cemetery; but has since been set free as part of the Good Friday peace agreement. The article of this historic meeting can be viewed here.

Sunday night, the murderer came face to face with the family members of Dermot Hackett. Admist a flood of tears from Hackett's widow, Stone surprisingly admitted little guilt. While he expressed remorse for the pain the deaths had called, Stone never offered a formal apology and continued to claim that, “those operations were military operations….I do not regret any fatalities that have occurred.” Video of this incident and an interview with Desmond Tutu can be viewed here.

While none of the Northern Irish Reconciliation meetings so far have been as successful as the South African one mentioned above, this is only the first attempt at public reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants victimized by the conflict. All in all, it seems the people of Northern Ireland are hopeful that the BBC program can be a positive step toward eventual peace and reconciliation.

“Christ made peace with all our enemies, too, on the cross. Let us bear witness to this peace to all.” -Dietrich Bonhoeffer, A Testament to Freedom

Being the Change You Wish to See: Reshaping the Myth of Redemptive Violence. Part III….

This is the final installment of a three part series. Please make sure to have read the previous two posts on redemptive violence before moving onto this one.

As I’ve explored in the last two posts, people groups from all cultures have invited redemptive violence to stretch its tentacles into the very fabric of society. From primitive human narratives to children’s cartoons….action films to international conflict; redemptive violence is, as Richard Slotkin puts it, “the structuring metaphor of the American experience.” And to recap for the very last time, Walter Wink asserts the myth redemptive violence to be the universal ideology that violence saves, that war brings peace, and that might makes right. It, and not Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, is the dominant religion of our society today.

As you probably could tell from all the question marks, I ended the last post quite perplexed. Reading back on it now, I wish I’d of spent more time on the conclusion and gathered my thoughts a bit more. I got sucked into a panic about the ‘war on terror’ and found myself both confused and worried how redemptive violence may affect the future of the United States. And from the way I’ve seen redemptive violence tear apart Northern Ireland; I’ll be the first to confess that my fear did get the best of me. Therefore, in this post, I have committed myself to finding a love deeper than my greatest fears. In the search for possible alternatives to this treacherous myth, I hope to stumble through new ways of thinking that can undo, reshape, and reclaim both the individual and the nation-state from redemptive violence. A hefty task I know; so don’t get your hopes up…

In God we Trust

"When are we going to learn that there is no true peace, no true security that comes from the barrel of a gun?" -Archbishop Desmond Tutu

The Archbishop's quote is brilliant. It’s so simple and yet it shocks me every time with its poignant accuracy. Go ahead and read it for a second time. From the countless hours spent in church, Christians should know all too well that true peace and security come from God alone. And because it is the reigning motto of our Christian country, Americans should also have no problem putting our full trust in God. On July 30th, 1956, President Eisenhower signed into law a congressional resolution that made the phrase, “In God we Trust” the official motto of the United States. Only a year earlier, on June 11th, 1955, Eisenhower endorsed a similar bill making it mandatory that all U.S. coins and paper currency bear the same inscription: “In God we Trust.” And yet, as our current foreign policy and military spending illustrate, it is not in God that we really trust around issues of conflict. We trust the barrel of the gun. We trust in the myth of redemptive violence. It is military might that will save us, not God.

To keep things ‘Jesusy,’ let’s explore this In God we Trust thing from a biblical perspective….Few themes resound more clearly or consistently in the biblical story than the command to ‘trust in God’ alone. From Genesis to Revelation, the people of God are repeatedly confronted with a choice regarding their loyalty; will they put their trust in God or will they turn their allegiances elsewhere?

John Roth provides the biblical breakdown…..

“The Old Testament narratives are filled with stories in which the Children of Israel were put to the test on this question. And frequently they came up short. Against God’s wishes, for example, the Israelites elected a king so they could “be like other nations” (I Samuel 8:20) Time and time again, God warned the Children of Israel against putting their faith in the chariots of steel (Psalm 20:7) or in princes (Psalm 146:3) or in fortified cities (Jeremiah 5:17) or in riches (Jeremiah 49:4; Proverbs 11:28) or in false gods (Jeremiah 13:25), rather than trusting in God alone. Even after God provided a miraculous escape from Egypt and promised them a land ‘flowing with milk and honey,’ the Children of Israel wavered in their allegiance and, while Moses was absent, began to worship a golden calf (Exodus 32:1-6). Indeed, the entire history of God’s people in the Old Testament teeters on this question of trust.”

In no way am I making the redundant unbiblical connection between America and Israel, but I do think that both nations have acted similarly on this issue of trust. It seems that neither Israel nor America can really trust God when the going gets tough. As it pertains to redemptive violence, we don’t trust God nearly enough within the boundaries of international and domestic conflict. We might trust Him in our personal lives; our relationships, our finances, our emotions, and our vocations. But do we really trust Him around issues of redemptive violence and military retribution? And the answer is no. To put it bluntly, God isn’t big enough or strong enough to deal with international conflict. But violence is; its power will save us. The barrel of a gun will grant us peace. And if we can kill everyone who opposes us, then we will be safe. Now we may shamelessly attach God's supposed blessing onto the credo of violent intervention already decided by the ‘powers that be,’ but rarely does it seem that God’s teachings really influence the intervention itself.

So we have to challenge ourselves here and ask the questions…. Is God's love for us and our trust in His love truly greater than our most catastrophic fears? When conflict arises, will we rely on redemptive violence to keep us safe or the God who reigns over all principalities and powers, systems and structures? It might seem like a no brainer, but we have to believe it. And we have to act on it when the ‘you know what’ hits the fan. We have to pray and pray and trust and trust and hope and hope that God will create and orchestrate alternatives to redemptive violence.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)

Expanding Theology….

“The answer to bad Christianity isn’t secularism, it’s better Christianity.”
-Jim Wallis

I’m not one to talk. At only 23 with zero theological training, I have little credibility to confront 300 years of American Christianity. But if we are going to redeem our country from the inevitable destruction of redemptive violence, we as Christians have to pursue more holistic theology that extend to all walks of life. If we believe that Jesus Christ is indeed a God over all things, including politics; we need to apply His teachings to everything we do. Morality does not end with my sexual relationships and drinking habits. Not only is Jesus concerned with our personal lives, but also with the actions of our country and its people. American policy, law making, economic initiatives, judicial systems, and military action have a moral center. Therefore, we must allow our Christian theology to shape America rather than America to shape our Christian theology.

“Christians, I suggest, are citizens of not one, but two, kingdoms: that of the nation state and that of the universal body of Christ. As citizens of the country we carry passports, obey the local laws and acknowledge the authority of the rulers. But the Christians primary citizenship is in the church of Jesus Christ, the gathering of Christ’s followers that transcends national boundaries.

Indeed, many Christians would be surprised to think that faith in Christ or membership in his/her church could ever be at odds with their loyalty to the nation, so sure are they that patriotic citizenship and faithful Christianity go hand in hand. Yet I wish to suggest that the biblical message to trust in God and our commitment as members of the church in Jesus Christ will inevitably be in tension with out patriotic allegiance to the nation.” -John Roth

In Engaging the Powers, Walter Wink quotes a man at an Ohio church meeting, “you’ve got to remember everyone: we are Christians, but we’re Americans first.”

In my humbled opinion, I think that many Christians, especially those in the public eye, are forgetting that faith in Jesus has no borders or boundary lines. Those who confess his name are found throughout the earth. “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.” (Galatians 3:38). Yet many of our prominent Christian figures have allowed their Christian theology to be shaped by America rather than America to be shaped by their Christian theology. As we explored in the last post, when we pledge our allegiance to the nation state prior to the Kingdom of God, protecting American values through methods of pre-emptive violence become morally justifiable.

The Rev. Gerald Derstine, defending U.S. government aid to the Contras fighting in Nicaragua, commented, “God uses war to cleanse the earth from wickedness. When it’s time for war, God allows certain evils to be exterminated.” The same orientation led the Reverend R.L. Hymers to pray with his church congregation for the death of Supreme Court Justices who support legalized abortion. And televangelists like Pat Robertson and Jerry Fallwell are only a little less crude in their support for apartheid, their opposition to disarmament, their advocacy of militarism, and their recent calling for the assassination of foreign leaders. Not to mention claims that it was the ‘sodomizing’ homosexuals of both New York and Indonesia that caused the September 11th attacks and devastating tsunamis.

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My friend Gareth told me a story about the time he was mugged in South Africa. When the man pulled out a knife and demanded Gareth’s wallet, my friend responded with, “hey man, I’m sorry but I’m in a hurry; I’m on my way to church.” To which the mugger replied, “Oh you are? That’s great, I’m a Christian too, now give me your money.”

Maybe a tough connection between a poor Christian thief from South Africa and religious leaders of America, but I think the point can be made. There is a moral problem in contemporary American Christianity when its so-called leaders ask God on national television for the assignation of foreign leaders or the death of Supreme Court justices. And it’s not that I think these televangelists are bad people, by no means is that the case; I think they desperately love God and want to do good things in the world. But I think many Christian leaders of our country are simply victims of bad theology. (Many of course would accuse me of the same crime). While they can quote the Bible word for word, they are missing a holistic theological vision in which the teachings of Christ have dominion over all things; including political action.

“You just need to look at what the gospel asks, and what war does. The gospel asks that we feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, welcome the homeless, visit the prisoner, and perform works of mercy. War does all the opposite. It makes my neighbor hungry, thirsty, homeless, a prisoner and sick. The gospel asks us to take up our cross. War asks us to lay the cross of suffering on others.” -Dorothy Day

Wink notes, “Right and wrong scarcely enter the picture. Everything depends on victory, where one has the thrill of belonging to a nation capable of imposing its will on other nations.”

This belief became dreadfully apparent when the Abu Ghraib prison scandals were uncovered in 2003. Bill Oreilly, a powerful Christian television host from a very 'Christian friendly' news network, refused to report on the scandal because it would be ‘demoralizing to the troops.’ In this situation, ‘right and wrong scarcely enter the picture.’ It’s beside the point that what those soldiers did was immoral and unjust, because it was more important that we continue the war effort and win. Everything depends on victory. Morality goes out the window, Jesus is pushed to the margins, and good journalism and truth telling become obsolete.

After the defeat of Baghdad, President Bush quoted the Old Testament prophesy from Isaiah 9:2, “the people walking in darkness have seen a great light…” to refer to American troops ending the regime of Saddam Hussein. While this was a fantastic military victory and potentially liberating for millions of people, the passage the President quoted was written about the coming of the Messiah, the Jesus of Nazareth, not American troops. No political or religious leader has the right to twist Messianic prophesy into the service of war.

“Since such nationalism cannot accept the existence of a higher power, it must destroy any forms of Christian faith that go beyond mere cultural inheritance. Nevertheless, national security ideologues saturate their language with religious platitudes. Their documents are drenched with phrases cribbed from the Bible and from papal encyclicals, and they may even be active attendees of church. But it is clear that what they mean by Christianity is merely the perpetuation of the privileges of a tiny capitalistic minority by whatever means necessary.” -Walter Wink

If we want to break free of the hold redemptive violence has on our country….we as Christians have to proclaim better theology, more holistic theology, theology that hinges on the teachings of Jesus Christ and the global community of believers. No longer can we serve the God of the Bible and the god of the nation-state. In pledging loyalty to the State before the Kingdom, we cannot resist but choose redemptive violence every time. Consequently, the sooner we proclaim our loyalty to the kingdom of God, the sooner redemptive violence flees from our hearts.

“My concern is not whether God is on our side. My concern is whether we are on His.” -Abraham Lincoln

Recognizing our own sin….I am the problem

“It is hard to make your adversaries real people unless you recognize yourself in them – in which case, if you don’t watch out, they cease to be your adversaries.” -Flannery O’connor

Another key factor in redeeming redemptive violence is the recognition of our own sin and degradation. As one of the most basic tenets of Christian spirituality, the majority of Christian people understand confession of sins as the way to seek forgiveness and transformation. And yet compartmentalization strikes again when it seems that our Christian country and its people oftentimes refuse to recognize inner evil within the boundaries of war, peace, and international conflict. During his 2004 reelection campaign, our humble Christian President could think of no mistakes the administration might have made upon the invasion of Iraq; yet would be the first to point out the wickedness and dire brutality of the enemy.

I would consider it dangerous theological and political policy to invoke the name of God to wage war and dehumanize the enemy, all the while never denying the evil that exists within every human heart.

“Christ commands us to see not only the splinter in our adversary’s eye, but also the beam in our own. The distinction between good and evil does not run between one nation and another, or one group and another. It runs straight through every human heart.” -Jim Wallis, God’s Politics

It would be a tragic for me to even attempt an interpretation of Walter Wink here. So I’m gonna let him do the talking. This is brilliant by the way…..

“Is there no escape from this myth of redemptive violence? Yes, there is, but it is difficult. To face the fear of enemies would finally require us to acknowledge our own inner evil, and that would cost us all our hard-earned self-esteem. We would have to change, laboriously, struggling daily to transform and redeem our shadow side. We would have to see ourselves as no different in kind from our enemy (however different we may be in degree). It would mean seeing God in the enemy as we learn to see God in ourselves – a God who loves and forgives and can transform even the most evil person or society in the world. Such insight would require conversion from the myth of redemptive violence to the God proclaimed by the prophets and by Jesus. We would have to abandon our preferential option for violence and replace it with the preferential option for the oppressed. We could no longer rely on absolute weapons for the utter annihilation of an absolute enemy. We could no longer justify unchristian means to preserve at all costs the hollow shell of a “Christian civilization” that has, in effect been filed with the creed of redemptive violence.”

As Wink alludes to, we have to believe in the transforming power of Jesus Christ that proclaims no one to be excluded from God’s grace, forgiveness, and radical change; no matter how evil, malicious, corrupt and wicked they might appear to be. This notion doesn’t justify horrible deeds or neglect the fact that criminals need to be brought to justice, but it does ensure their humanity. In no way do I mean to appear ‘soft’ on terrorism & murder, but I don’t think we understand the gospel of Christ if Osama Bin Laden is demonized as less human because of what he has done. By recognizing that no one is entirely evil or irredeemable, we truly proclaim that all are made in God’s image. Nothing we can do can make God love us more, and there is nothing we can do to make God love us less. This is proved inherently true by the adulterers, liars, and terrorists God chose to write the Bible; the prostitutes, beggers, murderers, and thieves Jesus built his church on; and the poor, vulnerable, oppressed, and sick that will ultimately inherit the kingdom of God.

The Politics of Hope….

Any social ill, whether it be poverty, apartheid, disease, racism, war, sectarianism, abortion, or redemptive violence will never be addressed and changed without the hearts and minds of the people changed as well. Legislation won’t save the world, but I think that individuals who allow themselves to be transformed have a pretty good shot. Or as Gandhi says, “Be the change you wish to see in the world.”

In my opinion, I would consider the above segments on Trusting God, Expanding Theology, and Recognizing Sins to being vital steps toward creating an applicable Christian worldview. Our worldviews must be taken seriously because they ultimately shape our daily actions and ethical behavior; from our simple decision making to spending habits, election choices to issues of injustice. As I’ve begun to formulate my own worldview and stumble through some of these theological issues, I see a great need for a larger vision. A vision for what the world could be...

Thankfully, I’m not planning on writing this vision; that would be an absolute disaster. But for the next post I’m going to expand on the visions of others who have radically changed history because they envisioned the possibility of a better world. Maybe their words will help move us forward. Thanks so much for reading…

The Myth of Redemptive Violence and the National Security State:
Conflict, Nationalism, & Hegemony…..

This post is the second installment of a three part series. Please make sure to have read the previous post, Killing in the Name of….The Myth of Redemptive Violence before moving onto this one.

In the United States of America we have the democratic privilege of allowing viewer interest to determine media programming. Television shows, movies, magazines, & music will either profit or plummet based on a scale of consumer partiality. Media products usually stay in rotation if the people “vote” for them by watching, reading, or listening. This perspective could obviously be debated, but for the purpose of this post, there is no fascist government conspiracy or communist homosexual agenda trying to take over the media and force contentious scenarios onto helpless viewers. We the people, have in fact, chosen the media we consume. Sadly, like we explored in the last post, media programs tend to gravitate to the lowest common denominator of mythic simplicity. Therefore, the Myth of Redemptive Violence remains the story of our time. To refresh your memory, Walter Wink claims the myth redemptive violence to be the universal ideology that violence saves, that war brings peace, and that might makes right. Within redemptive violence, murder is seen, not as a final or last resort but as a necessary Saviour that both eliminates evil and contributes to the redemption, restoration, and reconciliation of society. It, and not Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, is the dominant religion of our society today. Remember, these repeated principles of redemptive violence have not been forced upon us. The western media only dictates what we already believe to be true. It gives us what we want….

If the mythical tradition of redemptive violence is indeed what we desire and believe to be true, does it only exist within unrealistic media fantasies? Will its message stay confined to the safety of after-school cartoons and shoot em’ up Hollywood thrillers?

Walter Wink would suggest otherwise, noting that, “an even more significant aspect of the Myth of Redemptive Violence is its contribution to international conflict. In this myth, the survival of the nation becomes the highest earthly and heavenly good. Redemptive violence serves as the spirituality of militarism and by divine decree it utilizes violence to cleanse the world of enemies of the state. And the name of God – any god, the Christian God included – can be invoked as having a specially blessed and favoured the supremacy of the chosen nation.”

With writing like this, Walter Wink has taken redemptive violence to the next level. We are no longer relaxing near the campfires of oral tradition or the sticky floors of $2 movie theatres. Wink has painted redemptive violence as an inevitable force that dictates foreign policy and international conflict. He has deemed it alive and well in the British Houses of Parliament, American sessions of Congress, and the heated streets of Belfast.

Speaking of Belfast….When civil unrest began smoldering between Protestants and Catholics in the 1960’s; Northern Ireland had the potential to be the greatest modern day example of Christian reconciliation and forgiveness. Once Catholics were granted civil rights, the two small communities of Northern Ireland, (compared to other ethnic conflicts), had few cultural differences outside of political ideology. Northern Irish Protestants and Catholics shared similar language, skin color, and class status. Both communities reported high church attendance and deeply steeped religious convictions. They read the same Bible and prayed to the same God. And yet tragically, fear of the ‘other’ allowed Catholic and Protestant paramilitaries to co-opt religious tradition and capture the political stage. As expected, the country surged with violence when defending the cultural/political heritage of Ireland or Great Britain took precedence over the Christian teachings they shared. Instead of loving God and loving others, Northern Ireland saw many of its inhabitants belligerently waging a holy war in God’s name against their Christian brothers and sisters. In short, Northern Ireland chose the god of their desired nation before the God of the Bible. They chose the god of redemptive violence rather than the Prince of Peace.

And when two 'Christian' communities pledge allegiance to the god of redemptive violence, revenge becomes morally justifiable. Therefore, throughout Northern Ireland the same scenario would be reenacted over and over again: Republican Catholics, for the cause of Irish unity, would bomb a Protestant pub in a direct attempt to murder Protestants who opposed Irish unity. In retaliation, and for the cause of a continued British authority in Northern Ireland, Loyalist Protestants would strike a similar pub in a Catholic neighborhood only days after. The Catholics would strike back, Protestants soon after. And this is how it continued to go. Bomb for bomb, bullet for bullet, tit-for-tat, the myth of redemptive violence both the catalyst and moral justification.

In a place with the perfect setup for Christian love in action, redemptive violence became the ‘spirituality of militarism’ and dragged the country into civil war. While the majority of citizens were not involved in any form of paramilitarism, both Catholics and Protestants fell myth to an under-siege mentality that morally justifies violent response in defense of the respective nation. It is redemptive violence pure and simple. Violence saves, war brings peace, might makes right. And in a world where cultures can be embraced, politics negotiated, and religious difference defused by ecumenism, the Northern Ireland conflict proves the nationalistic arrogance of redemptive violence. As Wink notes, “It is the survival of the nation as the highest earthly and heavenly good….. It is nationalism made absolute”

And when nationalism is made absolute, people become expendable; the cause however, does not. Consequently, Northern Ireland has witnessed redemptive violence justifying horrific images of skulls and guns and blood to fearfully intimidate those on all sides of the conflict. And when images like these loom on the side of a child's home, most often their initial fear is turned to hatred. Their hatred turned to bigotry. Bigotry turned to violence. Redemptive violence is, in itself, a religious type of indoctrination. It is propaganda from the devil himself; a golden halo fitted on the head of revenge.

The 1970’s were the most violent years in the history of the conflict. From 1972 to 1976 the average number of killings in Northern Ireland was running at about 320 a year. These tit-for-tat murders, mostly in Belfast, meant that someone was being murdered nearly every day for five years. Now compared to America, those figures don’t seem too impressive. I’m sure loads of people are murdered each day in the States. But due to the size of Northern Ireland and the concentration of this conflict, the myth of redemptive violence, per capita, has produced a September 11th type attack every six weeks on this tiny country for the last 30 years. Can you imagine September 11th happening every six weeks for 30 years? If this were the case, roughly 3000 people would have died 255 times…with a final death toll at 765,000 from the same conflict over three decades.

Wink notes, “The myth of redemptive violence is, in short, nationalism become absolute. The myth speaks for God; it does not listen for God to speak. It invokes the sovereignty of God as its own; it does not entertain the prophetic possibility of radical judgement by God. It misappropriates the language, symbols, and scriptures of Christianity. It does not seek God in order to change; it embraces God in order to prevent change. Its metaphor is not the journey but the fortress. Its symbol is not the cross but the crosshairs of a gun. Its offer is not forgiveness but victory. Its good news is the not the unconditional love of enemies but their final elimination. Its salvation is not the new heart but a successful foreign policy. It usurps the revelation of God’s purposes for humanity in Jesus. It is blasphemous. It is idolatrous. And it is immensely popular.”

This quote is immense. If you didn’t read it well enough, read it again…..

This is where I come to a difficult spot in writing about this topic. I’m sure you’ve all seen it coming from the very beginning, but here is the part where I have to connect the blasphemous ethos of redemptive violence to the United States of America. And I’ve been dreading this for the last week. I’ve had major writers block. That’s why this post has taken so damn long. I’ve been dreading writing this because I feel like a hypocrite. I feel like a fake. And I don’t feel credible enough to even post this.

The reason being……I am fully aware that redemptive violence drives American foreign policy. I think it’s pretty hard to miss. And as much as I wish they were, the quotes from Wink aren’t about Northern Ireland, they are about America. It is my country he is calling idolatrous and jingoistic when it upholds violence as the ultimate problem solver and morally justifies military action for the sake of financial and national security. And it’s not that I disagree with Wink; I think he is right. Americans do believe in the salvation of violence. We also believe violence to have the power to redeem, restore, and reconcile. But who could blame us? We believe it because it works. Look what it has done for our country. Because of our commanding role in international conflict; we are economically, militarily, and culturally the most powerful nation on earth. Now there is cost of course for these lucrative credentials. To maintain our global status, the United States will spend $470 billion this year on military ‘defense’. $470 billion. I’d say with numbers like these it’s pretty clear that Americans, or maybe just the American government, wholeheartedly believe in the safety of violence. (Try to expand the graph to its regular size if you can)

*Allies include: United Kingdom, France, and Germany. Since these graphs were published, the 2004 military budget has increased to nearly $470 billion. This is mostly as a result of the $87 billion granted by Congress for the reconstruction in Iraq (among other projects)

“The belief that violence saves is so successful because it doesn’t seem to be mythic in the least. Violence simply appears to be the nature of things. It is what works. It is inevitable, the last and, often, the first resort in conflicts. If a god is what you turn to when all else fails, violence certainly functions as a god.” -Wink

I’d also tend to agree with Wink in his biting critique of the religious justification for violence. Naturally, calling upon God to justify war and dehumanize the enemy is by no means a new idea or simply an American or Northern Irish one. Most wars in human history have invoked the dominant deity to rationalize violent action. Nevermind the Crusades, in the last 100 years 'God' has justified violence for both the ‘good’ and ‘bad’ guys. These include…. the recent democratic victors and Palestinian terror cell turned political group Hamas, Al Quada, the Americans, the Germans, the Israelis, the Iranians, the Japanese, the Hutus of Rwanda, the IRA/UVF of Northern Ireland, etc, etc.

'Conquering ones enemies becomes a holy crusade, in which the destruction of evil justifies whatever means are thought necessary. Thus the Germans, in World War I, were convinced God was on their side: Gott mit uns – “God with us,” or so proclaimed the inscription on the belt buckles of German soldiers. Given God’s approval and sanction of one’s endeavours, one’s enemies become, even, less than human, less than deserving of full moral recognition. So Christian President Truman described the strategy against the Japanese near the end of World War II: ‘when you deal with the beast, you have to treat him as the beast.’ Near the end of the Cold War, President Reagan dubbed the Soviet Union the “evil empire” while commonly alluding to the United States as the “city set on a hill” (Mathew 5:14). And shortly after the beginning of the war on terror, President George W. Bush identified Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as the “axis of evil,” while depicting the United States as the bearer of God’s light. Along with such crusade language, the President co-opted language reminiscent of Jesus’ claim to ultimate allegiance. “Around the world, the nations must choose. They are with us, or they’re with the terrorists.” Such an only slighted veiled allusion to Jesus’ demand – “whoever is not with me is against me” – would have us co-opt Jesus into the agenda of empire rather than the agenda of the Kingdom of God.'
-Lee Camp, Mere Discipleship

This brings us back to why I feel so hypocritical in making the aforementioned claims about American redemptive violence…..

First off, I feel duplicitous because I know how many good things have come out of the United State’s allegiance to redemptive violence. Whether morally justified or not, I recognize that American intervention has saved lives, liberated people groups, and toppled oppressive regimes. But I feel like a hypocrite most of all, because everything that I see wrong with redemptive violence; the idolatry, the nationalism, the hegemony, the arrogance……has made it 100% possible for me to succeed in this world. The militaristic power and privilege of American history has granted my family physical safety, financial security, and inclusive access to education, health, and housing benefits. (I would add that being white has played a role as well). But for the most part, the wars my country has won because of a supposed righteous cause to ‘cleanse the world of evil’ has given me the opportunity to be here in Northern Ireland sitting in my room writing this.

How then can I spew off religious and political jargon about American nationalism, blasphemy, and hegemony if I have directly benefited from the things I claim to critique? I find it necessary, but also difficult to attack American policies if I represent exactly what it is America is fighting for. (Yet maybe that gives me more of a right?....) Either way, America fights for the nation yes, and the freedoms we hold dear, but they mostly fight for the white privileged elite minority with $125,000 private educations. The people who will run the country. The people like me....

So I’m confused where to go from here. I see redemptive violence as something completely inevitable but totally awful at the same time. And I see my own country as a nation that has wholly given itself to this myth, but has done so entirely on my behalf.
And despite my confusion in reconciling this, I can’t forget what redemptive violence has done to a place like Northern Ireland. And this should be a cause for alarm to places like the United States. I think we need to pay attention to what has happened here, because like Northern Ireland, the United States also boasts an unusually high number of religious people who are very proud of their heritage. While I am totally thankful that my country permits and supports my religious beliefs, in Northern Ireland we’ve seen a dangerous mix of religion and heritage function as a damaging catalyst for extreme redemptive violence.

This is a very uncommon example, but in 2001 because of police restrictions on ceremonial Protestant parades, North Belfast witnessed malicious attacks on young Catholic girls walking to Holy Cross primary school. Go here for video (click on Denis Murray’s report beneath Frontline News). And this is preposterous behavior by a very very small minority of Loyalist Protestants, but it serves to illustrate what can happen when groups feel constrained, victimized, and not listened to. Under these circumstances, ridiculous violence can seem morally justified.

Redemptive violence also seems to spark protests and riots like this somewhere in Belfast almost every July of every year.... (may take a few minutes to load depending on internet speed. The reporter at the end is amazing by the way)


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Once again, as you can see, this is completely unjustifiable behavior. But upon feeling threatened, victimized, and under siege, people groups oftentimes feel authorized to react with outlandish yet seemingly warranted behavior.

And this stuff freaks me out because I can see the United States responding in similar fashion if it were to feel threatened, restricted, victimized, or under siege. But instead of throwing rocks, we throw missiles. We don’t just burn cars or buildings, we burn entire countries….

I'm scared where the ‘war on terror’ is headed next. And I’m speculating here, but what if something awful happens and the United States again feels threatened, victimized, and under siege? How would we respond? And what if things get worse? Could redemptive violence take such a hold on our country that terrorist bombers and American bombs become tit-for-tat like they did in Northern Ireland? Would that be possible? Al Quada hits New York. We obliterate Afghanistan. They bomb London. We attack Iraq. They stike LA, we level Iran, They’ll go Chicago, we’ll go Syria. And I don’t mean to use the slippery slope here, and that may be way overdramatic, but could this be how the war on terror is gonna go? And I know there are so many other factors but can you imagine redemptive violence running rampant from both sides, with everyone involved justifying a holy war in God’s name? Can what happened to Northern Ireland on a small scale, happen to the United States, our allies, and the Middle East on a much larger scale?

“Violence is the ethos of our times. It is the spirituality of the modern world…..The threat of violence, it is believed, is alone able to deter aggressors. We have learned to trust the Bomb to grant us peace…..”
-Walter Wink

Have we learned to trust the bomb to grant us peace? Are we going to be at war for the rest of my lifetime because we have given ourselves to the belief that violence will ultimately save us? Will we forever be the metaphorical ‘good guys’ with a powerful military as the secret weapon of saving grace? Can violence ultimately solve our problems forever? Are there any alternatives? As you can see with all the questions I’m confused here about a lot of things, so I have to extend this to yet another post. Sorry to all of you who are sick of reading about redemptive violence. In the last instalment of this series, I am going to discuss possible alternatives to both the Northern Irish and American obsession with redemptive violence. I don’t know where this is going, but I’ll try and figure out if there is any possible hope, what it may look like, and how we can potentially apply it. I could use your suggestions. Until then….

"God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war."
Bono at the National Prayer Breakfast, Washington DC
February 2nd, 2006.....

I don't normally do posts spur of the moment, especially if I already have another one planned, but this is far too important to ignore....

Here is the video of Bono speaking yesterday at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington DC. In attendance were President George W. Bush, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, Senator Barack Obama, Jim Wallis, and many other influential religious leaders, activists, and politicians. I would claim that taking 21 minutes and 41 seconds to watch Bono's speech could be one of the best things you spend time doing today. (it may take a few minutes to load depending on internet speed. If not loading fast enough try going HERE)


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These are the lines in Bono's speech that I can't stop thinking about....

"God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill… I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff… maybe, maybe not… But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor....

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house… God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives… God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war… God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.....

It’s not a coincidence that in the Scriptures, poverty is mentioned more than 2,100 times. It’s not an accident. That’s a lot of air time, 2,100 mentions. [You know, the only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the poor.] ‘As you have done it unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto me.’ (Matthew 25:40). As I say, good news to the poor."

Killing In The Name Of….
The Myth of Redemptive Violence. Part 1

Before we begin, I have to give credit where credit is due. I am entirely indebted to renowned theologian and biblical scholar Walter Wink of the Auburn Theological Seminary. His writings from 'Engaging the Powers' and 'The Powers That Be' are the sole reason behind this post. I’m not sure if any theological work, save John Howard Yoder, has influenced me more on the Christian ethics of politics and conflict.

In the eyes of the world, Northern Ireland is seen as a hotbed of violence and division. Our civil conflict often gets wrapped in with the likes of the Israeli/Palestinian ‘tiff’, South African apartheid, civil war in the Balkans, revolutions in Latin America, and the numerous ethnic conflicts throughout Africa. Here in the North we have found ourselves part of the crowd labelled by the outside world as a “culture of violence.” Henceforth, Northern Ireland only makes the news when bombs go off and riots flare.

In defense of Northern Ireland and the majority of its citizens opposed to paramilitarism and division....I’d like to claim, that despite our history, most countries of the world can also be defined as cultures of violence. And the western superpowers, especially the United States are not exempt from this fact. I’m aware that this notion is in no way uniquely profound. I’d say most Americans would recognize their country to be a violent one; our social/political history is proof of that. But what I do find profound has less to do with the specific conflicts we have been involved in, but why it is we are involved in them. What is it about the American/Northern Irish psyche that contributes to a ‘culture of violence?’

Which brings us back to the title of this post. Killing in the name of….The Myth of Redemptive Violence. Most of you are probably wondering what the heck redemptive violence even is and how on earth it could possibly relate to you. Well stick with me here, because Walter Wink is about to blow your mind…..

Wink claims that the identity of virtually every civilization or culture is rooted in a story about its beginning. These stories provide a narrative account of a group’s earliest history and also establish a moral structure for the group’s deepest, most enduring, values. As you all can hopefully remember from 6th grade history class....before the written word and the printing press, these narratives were passed down by means of oral tradition. Otherwise known as telling history and mythical folklore around campfires. While the details of these narratives differ widely across time and space, they frequently share a basic structure or plotline, which I will gladly tell you now…..

Most stories begin with an account of a battle between the force of evil (the Other) and the forces of good (Us). Often the odds are heavily stacked in favor of the forces of evil since evildoers do not hesitate to use tactics of cheating, lying, deception, and ruthless violence. By contrast, our own deepest qualities are rooted in the civilizing principles of goodness, decency, honestly, love, and compassion. At some point in this battle – usually just as the forces of evil are about to prevail – the powers of good find themselves compelled, against their wishes, to respond to evil with a brutal violence of their own, descending to the level of the evildoers themselves. But this is a righteous violence, a redemptive violence if you will. While deemed tragic, it is violence absolutely necessary if goodness is going to prevail against the forces of evil.

I know, a bit wordy and philosophical, but stay with me…..

Wink theorizes that the Myth of Redemptive Violence is the universal ideology that violence saves, that war brings peace, and that might makes right. It, and not Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, is the dominant religion of our society today.

Wink claims that Redemptive Violence is our story line. It is our history, it is our underlying belief system, it is our folklore. Still not sure? Let’s start on the micro scale. Something we all can relate to….At this point in time the medium we use to gauge American culture is generally the media. Television, Movies, Music, Magazines etc. Tragic yes, but it does reflect our present day narrative. It is where we go to determine modern American culture. So go ahead and turn on your television and notice how Redemptive Violence is the subplot of virtually every major Action, Western, and Martial Arts films you and I have ever seen. As well as the story line and moral lesson for most of the after-school cartoons and comic books many of us grew up on. And if you have seen as many action movies and cartoons as I have, there is no doubt that the Myth of Redemptive Violence is burned into your brain as the way the world solves its problems.

To make things a bit more exciting, lets take the comic books/cartoons most American boys grew up idolizing.... Ninja Turtles, X-Men, Spiderman, GI Joe, Superman, Batman, ThunderCats, etc etc. You have the good guys, who just want to live their normal everyday lives as mutant turtles, yet each episode must resort to a righteous/moral violence in order to rid the world of a terrible evil. And each week the same story is reenacted over and over again. Despite its predictable repetition, we never grow tired of watching it. We love it every time.

Wink mentions that few cartoons shows have run longer or been more influential than Popeye and Bluto. In a typical segment, Bluto abducts a screaming and kicking Olive Oyl, Popeye’s girlfriend. When Popeye attempts to rescue her, the massive Bluto beats his diminutive opponent to a pulp, while Olive Oyl helplessly wrings her hands. At the last moment, as our hero oozes to the floor, and Bluto is trying, in effect, to rape Olive Oyl, a can of spinach pops from Popeye’s pocket and spills into his mouth. Transformed by this gracious infusion of power, he easily demolishes the villain and rescues his beloved. The format never varies. Neither party ever gains any insight or learns from these encounters. Violence does not teach Bluto to honour Olive Oyl’s humanity, and repeated pummelings do not teach Popeye to swallow his spinach before the fight.

The idea of Redemptive Violence once again….. Violence Saves, War brings Peace, Might makes Right.

Wink speculates that the psychodynamics of the television cartoon or comic book are marvelously simple: Children identify with the good guy so that they can think of themselves as good. This enables them to project onto the bad guy their own repressed anger, violence, rebelliousness, or lust, and then vicariously to enjoy their own evil by watching the bad guy initially prevail. When the good guy finally wins, viewers are then able to reassert control over their own inner tendencies, repress them, and reestablish a sense of goodness. Salvation is guaranteed through identification with the hero.

This structure cannot be altered. Shredder, Bluto, Cobra Commander, whoever the bad guy may be, does not simply lose more often – he must always lose. Otherwise this entire view of reality would collapse. The good guys must always win. The social structure must never change. In order to suppress the fear of erupting chaos the same mythic pattern must be endlessly repeated in a myriad of variations, that never in any way alter the basic structure.

And it’s the exact same in all the action movies we love and watch again and again. From Gladiator to Terminator to Rambo to Pearl Harbor; all are based on the myth of redemptive violence. I think that one of my all time favorite films, The Boondock Saints is unconditionally the greatest cinematic example of redemptive violence. Two Irish Catholic brothers on a mission from God to rid the streets of Boston from criminals, drug dealers, pimps, and mafia men. In one film you have church devotion, rosary beads, holy prayers, handguns, blood, and sweet sweet revenge. Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be Done. It’s absolutely brilliant. Watch this clip to see what I mean....(may take a few minutes to load)


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And the common denominator of all these films and cartoons….defeating evil is a holy war fully justified by society and God. Violence is ok if it is for the greater good. Once again, violence saves. And not only does it save, but it is redemptive, restorative, and reconciling. There is no need for democracy. Legal proceedings and state sanctioned justice are a bore. Superheroes reflect a nostalgia for much simpler solutions.

“What we see instead is a mounting impatience with the laborious processes of civilized life and rather a restless eagerness to embrace violent solutions. Better instant justice than the risk of red tape and bumblings of the courts. The yearning for a messianic redeemer who will set things right is thus, in its essence, a totalitarian fantasy.”

According to Wink, “The myth of redemptive violence is the simplest, laziest, most exciting, uncomplicated, irrational, and primitive depiction of evil the world has ever known….

Once children have been indoctrinated into the expectations of a dominator society, they may never outgrow the need to locate evil outside themselves. Even as adults they tend to scapegoat others (the Commies, the Americans, the gays, the straights, the blacks, the whites) for all that is wrong in the world….

No other religious system has ever remotely rivalled the myth of redemptive violence in its ability to catechize its young so totally. From the earliest age children are awash in depictions of violence as the ultimate solution in human conflicts.

At this point you may be thinking, “JZ, this is ridiculous. These are a bunch of cartoons and movies whose main function is solely entertainment. Batman taking the Penguin to court rather than beating him up would make for horrible television. You are taking this way too far. And so what, I happen to like Gladiator and am wildly entertained by it. Your new post is pissing me off. JZ in NI sucks.”

In my defense from those malicious claims...in no way am I saying these movies or cartoons are necessarily bad. Nor am I saying you shouldn’t watch them. I most definitely will be. This post is not about media violence itself and what its imagery may do to your kids. The point is why we keep watching cartoons and films with the exact same plot. The point is why we believe violence to be a simple and justifiable solution to conflict. And the point is how the mythic structures of society concerning violence might actually affect our real lives. Redemptive violence didn’t come about because of Hollywood films and Hanna/Barbara cartoons. It was already in existence, the movies just show us what we already believe to be true. This idea has been in existence for centuries, since the beginning of civilization. Take a look at the Babylonian creation myth, the Enuma Elish. Therefore, the myth of redemptive violence is bigger than your DVD collection. It is bigger than the media. It is bigger than America. Yet it envelopes our entire society and culture. It defines our history.

So let’s take it bigger than the media and thundercats. How does redemptive violence affect me, you, and our world? Well I’m going to get to that in the next post but try and let this initial idea begin to sink in. Start paying attention to the, ‘violence saves and redeems’ mantra and see if you can pick it out in everyday American culture. In the next post I’ll connect redemptive violence to conflict in Northern Ireland, American politics & belief systems, and the role of Christianity in a ‘culture of violence.’

If selling a war is good for the economy; then I am for it....

“America can’t have it both ways. We can’t be both the world’s leading champion for peace and the world’s leading supplier of arms.”
-former US President Jimmy Carter, 1976 presidential campaign

President Carter’s words rang true when I saw a great film last November called Lord of War starring Nicholas Cage. It was probably released in the States quite a while ago, so this may be old news, but I highly recommend you going to see it. Based on a true story, Nicholas Cage plays Yuri Orlov, a greedy weapons supplier who illegally arms some of the world’s most vicious governments and terrorist organizations. While Cage revels in the abundant income of war profiteering, he soon begins to witness the intimidation, murder, and child soldiering his weapons are sustaining. Faced with an uncomfortable moral conflict, the film climaxes with Cage’s capture and a horrible truth about the western superpowers economic reliance on his arms dealing. Overall, a fantastic rental from your local independent video store. You can view the trailer here…. (may take a few minutes to load depending on internet speed)

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While action packed with drugs, guns, and explosions, Lord of War also reveals some harrowing statistics that drove me to explore both the profit incentives and murderous repercussions of the arms trade. I want to list a few facts and figures I’ve discovered from this film before delving into some further analysis, moral application, and political/economic ramifications…..

-It is the five permanent members of the UN Security Council that export and profit most from weapons dealing – (the UK, USA, France, Russia, and China.) Together, they are responsible for 88% of reported conventional arms exports.

Top 15 arms exporters in 2000

United States - $34 billion worth of exported weapons
United Kingdom - $5.2 billion
Russia - $3.1 billion
France - $2.9 billion
China - $2.4 billion
Germany - $1.9 billion
Sweden - $700 million
Australia - $600 million
Canada - $600m
Israel - $600m
Ukraine - $600m
Italy - $400m
Belarus - $300m
Bulgaria - $200m
North Korea - $100m

-Arms dealing is lucrative business for western superpowers. And due to the hefty sales, (especially the USA & UK) the top 5 dealers are reaping gigantic incentives economically, politically, and militarily.

-The United States is by far the largest exporter of weapons in the world, selling almost twice as many weapons as the next 14 countries combined. Military sales account for about 18% of the national budget, far and away the greatest proportion of any other nation. Some say American governments cannot reduce arms sales because of the consequent fall in GDP. (John Ralston Saul's The Collapse of Globalism, 1995)

-From 1989 to 1996, the global value of direct commercial arms sales was $257 billion, of which 45% was exported from the US. According to the 2005 annual US congress reports, 58% of all US arms trade contracts are made with developing countries. (wikipedia encyclopedia Arms Trade)

-It is estimated that yearly, over $900 billion is spent on arms.

-While most arms dealing by major governments is done legally between allies, the five UN security member countries have historically armed some of the following countries and/or rebel groups residing in these countries:


Afghanistan, Angola, Chechnya, Colombia, Congo, El Salvador, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Liberia, Northern Ireland (IRA), Nicaragua, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Sierra Leone, Syria, Uganda…..and the list goes on


-According to controlarms.org…
Since September 11th, some countries have relaxed controls in order to arm new-found allies against terrorism. For example, the US government massively increased its military aid to dozens of armed forces including some which even their own State Department identified as having a ‘poor’ human rights records. In the UK, British arms exported to Indonesia rose from £2 million in 2000 to more than £40 million in 2002, a twenty-fold increase, despite the gross pattern of human rights violations committed by the Indonesian armed forces.

-Every year, throughout the world, roughly half a million men, women, and children are killed by armed violence – that’s one person every minute.

-16 billion units of ammunition are produced each year, that’s two for every person on the planet. Almost all of them (88%) were sold by UK, USA, France, Russia and China.

-There are over 550 million firearms in worldwide circulation. That’s 1 for every 12 people in the world.

-speak.org mentions that, "Tens of millions of people have been killed in wars since 1945. By the end of the 1990s nearly 90% of war-victims were non-combatants and at least half of these were children. The arms trade fuels these wars, wasting life, natural resources and vast sums of money. Despite this, the UK government uses arms exports as a tool of foreign and military policy and places this policy above both human and real economic costs."

The World Watch Institute reveals….

- Just $50 million (the price of a single jet fighter) can equip a small army with 200,000 assault rifles


- Lightweight small arms increase the ability of children to participate in armed conflict: An estimated 300,000 children under the age of 18 are currently engaged in armed conflicts in approximately 30 countries



- 70 million Kalashnikov assault rifles - most of which are still functioning - have been produced in 100 different versions since 1947

Sorry for the abundance of statistics, but for me personally, arms dealing has taken on new meaning while living in a place like Northern Ireland. People I know personally from this tiny island have been terrorized by paramilitary outfits who rely heavily on arms dealing for political intimidation. And before the ceasefires and Peace Agreements of the 1990’s, independent Irish-American arms dealers heavily funded the IRA in their violent campaign for Irish unity. People in Northern Ireland take that fact very seriously and thankfully after 9/11 our country has almost entirely ceased it’s monetary and military donations to the Irish Republican Army. (notice the Protestant mural objecting the USA's contribution to militant Irish Republicanism)

It’s also hard for me to swallow that the two countries I call home (US & UK) have been behind some of the most lucrative and immoral weapons dealings to date; many of them with groups stained by horrible human rights infractions. While this type of unconventional trading thankfully isn’t the majority, 58% of all US arms trade contracts are made with developing countries. And ironically enough, some of these same governments and/or groups have embarrassingly turned our own guns back on us after changes in foreign policy. (Current examples being Afghanistan & Iraq)

Now to be fair, while I may seem entirely opposed to arms dealings, I am grateful for a powerful American and British military that protects my family. While I may be skeptical of their product, I can’t deny that weapons manufacturing companies like Lockheed & Martin, the Carlyle Group, and Boeing do provide jobs for American people. I am also grateful for helicopters, planes, and army vehicles that can be used for amazing humanitarian and disaster relief efforts. The donation of helicopters to save the lives of tsunami victims in Sri Lanka is a fantastic gesture. And if the US wants to sell guns to the UK as they fight a joint war on terrorism….well…. it is hard to spot the wrongdoing. (That is the sale itself, the war is a different story)

But I do have a problem with the secrecy of the arms trade by my own governments. And I have a problem with the moral implications from the most “moral” country on earth, that is possibly arming dangerous and human rights abusing governments. And I have a problem that the five most outspoken countries for “peace” continue to introduce more weapons into the world. Weapons that could possibly arm, maim, and kill children. Weapons that have murdered people on the streets of Belfast, Northern Ireland. Weapons that might further the cause for genocide, civil war, poverty, and debt. Check out this interesting and subversive Amnesty International Arms Campaign ad.... (may take a few minutes to load depending on internet speed)

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So whether we believe arms dealing to be good or not, (and it may be bit of both), we have to question this issue as followers of Jesus. And I’ve been accused of idealism, of hippy pacifism, and of kumbaya theology…..and I’m ok with that. I call it hope, you may call it idealism. Whatever. But if we attempt to take the Bible seriously, to follow the Man all of humanity hinges on, we see a Jesus who is passionately opposed to violence and greed in all forms. A man who testifies that if, “We live by the sword we will surely die by it” and who inspires Paul to assure the Corinthian church that, “though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.” (2 Corinthians 10:3)

The prophet Isaiah says that real security does not come from weapons but from justice. Steeped in the tradition of the prophets, we are called to be peacemakers, and yet the two nations I live in are introducing more and more weapons into the world each year. While the continued export of military supplies can be used for good, many believe it to be a profiteering initiative that fuels conflict, insecurity, and poverty. We must hold our politicians accountable for this murderous trade and remind those in authority that pro-life ideology includes more than an unborn fetus. And while abortion may be the gravest killer of them all; a holistic pro-life ethic extends the culture of life to unborn American babies, prisoners on death row, civilians in war, arms dealing casualties, and those dying from diseases. Whether we pull the trigger or not, people killed in wars with American and British weapons are not collateral damage. Our bullets are lodged in their chests. Their blood is on our hands.

So what if by some miracle George Bush and Tony Blair shot straight with us? What if they confessed to secretive arms dealing and negligent policing of illegal trading? And what if they allowed for a democratic vote that would decide once and for all if we should stay involved in the arms trading business? Now at first, I’d like to think that most people would vote for ending the arms trade. On a humanitarian level it seems like a no brainer. We give guns and tanks to places that don’t have any…. they use guns and tanks to fight wars and kill people. No one likes the sound of that. But what if George and Tony then confessed to just how much arms trading has impacted our two nations economically. How it makes up 18% of the US GDP and plays a part in keeping our food affordable, gas reasonably priced, and taxes relatively unchanging over the past few years. And the reality is that if we were to stop arms trading, the American and British economies would fluctuate. Even if only by a portion, would we still vote for ending American and British arms dealing? What if gas was $4.00 a gallon rather than $2.50 for a few years? Would we vote for it then? What if we stopped arming a government from some country we’ve never heard of, but owed an extra $500 on our taxes next April? Would we vote for it then?

So I think this raises an interesting ethical conflict that I’m struggling with myself…..how much do I hate American and British guns being sold all over the world? I may see arms trading as inexcusable and immoral but it's sudden collapse might actually effect my life. How much do I really despise civil wars that I will never see or child soldiers I’ll never meet? Do I hate arms dealing enough to sacrifice my own comfort? My own finances? Do I really want to “make poverty history” if it means I have to sacrifice my big screen TV this year? Do I really want the AIDS epidemic to end if it makes me personally less comfortable?

And the tragedy is, I don’t think a vote like this would pass. Even with all the horrifying facts about arms trading, the American and British people want cheap gasoline and groceries. And it’s hard to contest that. Will we lower our standard of living to allow others to raise theirs? I’d like to say that I would sacrifice my finances and personal comfort for people who are hurting elsewhere. And I would encourage you to as well. But I’m supposed to say that. I have to say that. You trust me to say that. Should I trust you.....

"A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom."
Martin Luther King, Jr.

Further resources....
controlarms.org
Campaign Against Arms Trade
speak.org.uk
Amnesty International

Hello friends,
sorry it's taken so long to get a new post up. My girlfriend was visiting for a while and I'm now back in CA for Christmas. I'm working on some ideas and will hopefully have a post up before the new year. Thanks..... -jz

"kids sit on street corners
sipping bottles of cheapest wine,
the taste of their transcendence
is not the sacramental kind.
there is no time for religion
when you long for bread alone
and their only picture of jesus mercy
are faces in ancient stone.
lord i don’t want to be a symphony
or a choral in a marble hall,
don’t hang me in some gallery
spray me graffiti on the subway wall."

This poem was by written by my boss Steve Stockman. He wrote it about South Africa, where he and I will be for most of next summer. I don’t know much about South Africa, but I do know Belfast, Northern Ireland and immediately I think of the Catholic kids I work with down at the Mornington Community Project. A place where symphonies and galleries are foreign concepts; graffiti is the only kind of religion that makes sense. Even with their youthful laughter and innocent smiles that I swear could bring all these walls down....they are children living in neighborhoods of trash and rubble. They are children smashing bottles in the street; and cutting themselves in the process. They are children gathering bricks to hurl at police cars and decorating their neighborhoods with sectarian slogans. Yet they are children continually thankful that a few times a week there will be someone to help them with their homework, kick the football about, and whether they know it or not....reassure their existence as a child of God. Jesus didn’t come for the well, he came for the sick. And it is in the neighborhoods broken by violence, poverty, and division that we find Him. Where hopefully they will find me too. Lord, spray me graffiti on the subway wall. Spray me graffiti on the corner wall. Spray me graffiti on the barbwire and the broken glass and the boarded up windows. Paint the neighborhood with your love and then add a drop of mine…..

A while back my boss Steve and I were driving my friend Jeremiah to the airport after a great week in Northern Ireland. We were reflecting on our time and soon realized that all we did during the week was walk around and look at the broken down, impoverished, and violent parts of Belfast. We didn’t leave the city, we didn’t do anything “romantic,” and I don’t think we saw more than a few things that would be considered visually pleasing. I was commenting that being from a really beautiful part of the world and having travelled a fair bit, not too many things with natural beauty really impress me anymore. Probably not entirely true and a bit cynical as well, but Steve laughed and said, “Justin isn’t impressed with the things that God has made, but the things the Devil made, he is very impressed with.” We all had a good laugh about it but there is no denying that the hatred and destruction of this city is very intriguing to me. I lie awake at night thinking of where I will explore next. Then on the weekends venture out through the heart of some of the most dangerous neighborhoods this city has to offer. I’m not really sure whether it’s just curiosity or if I’m truly motivated by the creativity of evil, but in the process I’ve learned a few things about Jesus as well....

First off, like I mentioned above, I’ve learned that Jesus is very present in the midst of destruction. It’s a myth that he only resides at the altars of our churches or sunsets over sandy California beaches; because I find his presence alive and well in the places white robes and heavenly angels aren't supposed to be be. The places that look as though evil reigns supreme. The places that are crime ridden and full of filth and social excrement. And when I realize that Jesus is visible and moving in the toxic waste dumps of society, I’m forced to question my view of the gospel. Like the flower growing up between the cracked pavement, I’ve begun to realize that this Jesus thing is really messy. That it’s disorganized, confusing, and can’t be pinned down to a formula for every person. That it’s not nice, clean cut, nor as simple as black and white. I've found there to be grey area sometimes that remains jagged, and raw, and dangerous. But despite the chaos, I’ve believe this is the only way it can be. Because it’s real life. Following Jesus isn't supposed to be a fairytale or an exotic holiday. It may be filled with hope and forgiveness but it’s raw, intense, and unsafe by nature. CS Lewis, referring to Aslan in 'The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe,' writes, “Safe? Said Mr Beaver…who said anything about safe? Course He isn’t safe. But He’s good. He’s the King.”

I also like how Donald Miller puts it in 'Blue Like Jazz'….

“The magical proposition of the gospel, once free from the clasps of fairy tale, was very adult to me, very gritty like something from Hemingway or Steinbeck, like something with copious amounts of sex and blood. Christian spirituality was not a children’s story. It wasn’t cute or neat. It was mystical and odd and clean, and it was reaching into dirty. There was wonder in it and enchantment.”

And grasping this lately has been liberating. Because often I’ve felt like my faith isn’t “feeling” the way it is “supposed” to feel. And that would usually make me sad and guilty until I realized this year that it's OK to feel messy and disconnected. God can't love me any less and I’m not "backsliding." Because no matter what I do, I am loved and named and known by a God who is asking me to help bring about His Kingdom here on earth. And it's a tedious job, which is why this revolutionary gospel has to be based on grace. A scandalous and unfair type of grace that makes no sense. The kind that promises that no matter how dirty and vile I am, Jesus will let me off the hook if I promise to follow Him. So I’m trying to do so into some really scary places where I know He is moving and working and will keep me safe. Where He’ll see me round the corner and say, “Justin, there you are. I’ve been waiting for you. Forget about what you’ve done. I already have. I can’t love you any less. Just take this brush, for I need your help to repaint this city….”

So I’m still planning on stumbling through this whole “Christian” thing. Trying to get it right. Blowing it. Blowing it some more. Despite how messy it feels each day, I’m gonna try and follow Jesus into the places that he mourns for and fights for the most. On the front lines so to speak. And I’m gonna go to these places and try to stand tall in the midst of poverty, despair, and violence.

I got an email from my friend Kate Bowman from Calvin College where she told me recently about her friend Sarah, who is living and working with those affected by the conflict in Sudan. (Blows Northern Ireland out of the water by the way.) Kate quoted Sarah in saying, "I am not sure you can ever really overcome or fix what is wrong in this world, but at least you can be present in its midst. I am concentrating on being present." I think these are simple and profound words. I know I won’t solve the conflict in Northern Ireland. And It's doubtful I will bring about any major change in the next year. I probably won’t even be a very good “witness” for Jesus either. But I’m gonna give it a shot. I'm going to concentrate on being present in the midst of a culture steeped in violence and see what God can create. He is the quite the artist you know....

i'm caught in the twisting of the vine.....

There are all sorts of biblical and religious traditions that make up the "Christian lifestyle." Some of the rituals we follow, others we don't, and I'm sure I neglect more than I adhere to. However, one of the most obvious of the Christian traditions that most Protestants disregard is the sacremental consumption of wine during communion. Now I know Jesus didn't technically "instruct" us to use wine, but it seems He chose it very specifically as a representation for his blood. Why then do we neglect in using it? If you ask me it's an absolute betrayal of the last supper. Jesus decides on this substance and we choose the cheap subsitute. Do Protestants think Jesus chose wine coincidently? Maybe just by accident? Would Riptide Rush Gatorade or Tropical Sunny D done the trick just as well? Or do we think He simply chose wine because it happened to be the closest beverage at the table? Is this an issue of proximity?

Now obviously those questions are a bit silly, but I think we need to recognize how purposeful Jesus was in selecting wine. Similar to the radical message He preached, wine is an invigorating and intoxicating substance. It burns the throat with potency and desire. A powerful antiseptic, it can both clean your infections and burn your eyes. After too much, one may swagger in drunken glee or find themselves gutted on the bathroom floor. Wine is organic. It is raw and real and leaves its fiery mark in the stomach of those who consume it.

Now, in comparison to grape juice….which is nothing but a watered down, sugary, and domesticated beverage for toddlers. A dreadful representation for the life-giving blood of Christ, it is sweetened and chemically enhanced as it pours from a recycled carton leaving that grimy plaque substance on your teeth.

Frederick Buechner from Wishful Thinking will now outshine my definition ....

"Unfermented grape juice is a bland and pleasant drink, especially on a warm afternoon mixed half-and-half with giner ale. It is a ghastly symbol of the life blood of Jesus Christ, especially when served in individual antiseptic, thimble-sized glasses. Wine is booze, which means it is dangerous and drunk-making. It makes the timid brave and the reserved amorous. It loosens the tongue and breaks the ice, especially when served in a loving cup. It kills germs. As symbols go, it is a rather splendid one."

So can someone tell me why most Christian denominations use grape juice? Seriously, clue me in because I have no idea. Do we believe that the Catholics are so crap that we have to do all we can to be as "un-Catholic" as possible? Maybe we fear a potential relapse from a recovering alcoholic in the congregation, so we scrap a direct symbol from Jesus Christ to ensure Larry Henderson stays off the drink. I suppose that would be considerate. But maybe it is because Christians are so concerned about the idea of alcohol consumption itself, that they created a substitute for the blood of Christ rather than compromise social ethics. The BLOOD of Christ; disregarded in a legalistic cultural context. Seriously, I'm in the dark over here. Someone please tell me there is an asterisk somewhere in the Apocrypha that cross references a justification for grape juice. It would really help.

So Jesus knows in the next few days he's gonna get whacked. He gathers all the apostles together for the last supper. They do some washing up, the table is set, Judas is a prick, and Jesus takes a cup of wine, offers it to them, and says, 'this is my blood I have shed for you...' And the next day goes out to die a horrific death that we commemorate on Sunday with a shot of Welch's? Communion is one of the most significant events in Church tradition and yet we have domesticated and watered down an obvious biblical symbol. And for what purpose? Is the rejection of a thimble full of alcohol simply a Christian effort to maintain social and cultural purity? Now I understand that Communion is symbolic and more about a personal covennant with God rather than the substance itself. And I don't approve of giving children alcohol because it is "illegal" and I can see myself at 12 drinking the wine and then pretending to be drunk with my friends in church. So maybe we could offer both wine and grape juice in every communion service and give people the option. It just seems as though a potent red wine stinging your throat would make the sacrements more real. But that's just me. Maybe I'm wrong here but it seems ridiculous. Grape Juice. Like from when you were six. I’m converting….

Engaging the Powers….

A few weeks ago I caught wind of a Sinn Fein rally I knew I had to attend. To refresh your memory, Sinn Fein is the extreme political wing of the Catholic IRA headed by ex IRA member Gerry Adams. In the past, Sinn Fein have both justified and encouraged the atrocious bombings and violence of the IRA and yet still try and claim no connection to paramilitary activity. In recent years however, while the political agenda toward a united Ireland has stayed the same, Sinn Fein’s means for change has transitioned from the barrel of a gun to the ballot box. Firmly believing in democracy as the way forward, Sinn Fein have proven themselves to be one of the most well organized and efficient political parties in Northern Ireland. All this aside, they are still connected with the IRA and the Northern Ireland Protestants absolutely despise them. (See flyer to right)

The event I attended was a rally to drum up support for a continued fight toward a united Ireland. For inspiration, they had flown in the South African Minister of Intelligence to speak about the connections between the South African struggle for freedom from Apartheid and the Catholic struggle for freedom from “British Imperialism” in Northern Ireland. Now I personally wouldn’t phrase it as “British Imperialism,” I find that a bit strong rhetorically, but I wasn’t planning on voicing my opinion in a banquet hall of IRA terrorists. Ironically enough, the meeting was at the Belfast Hilton. And they kept going on and on about how they were an oppressed people enslaved by British rule and yet the whole time I couldn’t believe an oppressed people would be holding their rally at the Hilton. Once again, more of my personal feelings throughout the evening I wasn’t planning on sharing. Half of the meeting was in Irish so I couldn’t understand much besides the proverbial IRA chant, "Tiocfaidh ár Lá!" (Our Day Will Come!) The backdrop behind the stage was a remarkable mural of legendary IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands and South African revolutionary Nelson Mandela; standing together their two arms becoming one impressive fist of resistance. Above the mural was inscribed, “I have the spirit of freedom that cannot be quenched.” We watched a video, chanted some slogans, and the South African guy got everyone psyched up along with various other “comrades” of the movement. The IRA decommissioning had just completed and they made jokes about missing their machine guns and how it feels a bit empty not having their hardware stashed under the pillow at night. I laughed and cheered attempting to fit in, nudging the guy next to me, “isn’t that the worst?” ha ha ha….

I attended this event with a friend of mine and it would be safe to say we were the only Prods in the whole place. As we entered the hotel, my friend's demeanour changed almost immediately and he was insistent that I didn't speak or get a photo with anyone. I also felt a bit patronized when he actually shushed me three times as I tried to ask him questions before it started.

The highlight of the evening for me was not the careless propaganda or visual imagery, but rather the privilege/terror of sitting three rows behind The Shankill Bomber Sean Kelly. In 1993, Sean Kelly detonated a bomb in a fish and chip shop on the Protestant Shankill Road in an attempt to kill Ulster Defence Association (UDA) commander Johnny Adair, who supposedly worked in an office on the second floor. Adair was gone for the day and the blast left nine innocent people dead, two of them children. Sean Kelly has spent the last 12 years in jail but had just been released under the Good Friday agreements two weeks before I sat behind him at the Sinn Fein rally. You should have seen the blood drain out of my friend's face when Sean Kelly entered the building. He kept whispering, "shit that’s Sean Kelly, shit that’s Sean Kelly.” And I admit, I was so excited to be at a thing like this and see guys like Sean Kelly that I wasn’t being very compassionate about the predicament of my protestant friend. It just didn’t register with me that the people surrounding us might revel in leaving him half dead out back by the dumpsters. Pretty inconsiderate to say the least.

So there is Sean Kelly, three rows in front of me, fresh out of the slammer. He had all these scars on his head but was really quite pleasant the entire evening; hugging people, holding open doors, and kissing babies. He seems to be quite the celebrity in the militant Catholic community and I found him enthusiastic, genuine, and overtly gregarious the entire night. So it was weird sitting behind an infamous mass murderer, but even stranger to see him interact with everyone in such a loving and carefree manner.

I saved these photos of the rally for the end because they are horrible. I really need to work on my undercover photography. But you see, no one else in the whole place was taking photos and I rightfully assumed that it wasn’t all that smart to do so. Sinn Fein rallies aren’t your typical tourist destinations. Therefore, I had to wait for a time when everyone stood up chanting and cheering so they wouldn’t notice me sneak a quick one. But in my nervousness of being confronted for photography leading to my friend being kneecapped for Ulster Protestantism, I forgot to turn the camera setting to ‘Indoor’ and so they came out pretty crappy. A beginners mistake of course. And you can make out Sean Kelly in the first one, standing in front of me with the shaved head. Wait a minute. No, I take that back….. These photos were scary to take so it’s justified if they came out a bit dark and blurry. I’d love some tips though, so to any photographers out there (i.e. Dana Sanders), let me know the best way to capture IRA gunmen with the right lighting and shutter speed without them knowing. And you thought weddings were challenging….

So the Sinn Fein rally was a good time but I knew I could do better with the Protestants because I happen to be one. The Protestant paramilitary outfits (UDA, UVF, UFF, LVF, etc) don’t have much political power and rarely/never host public rallies at the Hilton. But the one thing the Protestants have done better than anyone else is distort and pervert the Bible to justify the killing of Catholics. So if I wanted sectarian bigotry first hand, the best place to go would be to Church. Now of course not every Protestant church is like that, most are not, but there are a handful of Free Presbyterian churches in Northern Ireland that preach blatant sectarian hatred from the pulpit. Like Sinn Fein, extreme Protestants have justified and oftentimes encouraged violence toward Catholics with textual support from the Bible. In their mind, they are waging a Holy War of sorts in defense of Northern Ireland.

The leader in Bible perversion and hateful diatribe is the Reverend Dr. Ian Paisley and his church Martyrs Memorial Free Presbyterian located in Protestant East Belfast. To make matters worse, Dr. Paisley is also the leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), the most popular and sectarian Protestant political party in Northern Ireland. To give you an example.... In 1988 Pope John Paul II was invited to speak at the European Parliament where Dr. Paisley and the DUP hold a representative seat. As soon as the Pope began his address, Dr. Paisley stood to his feet and interrupted the meeting calling the Pope the "Antichrist" and the "Whore of Babylon." He was forcefully dragged out of the Parliament session yelling and waving a homemade sign that read, "Pope John Paul II is the Antichrist." The BBC coverage of the event is amazing and you can listen to here: Pope John Paul II the Antichrist. Unfortunately you will have to give your email to listen, but it's pretty incredible and you can just unsubscribe to their emails soon after. Also check out 5 Reasons Why Catholic is Not Christian from Rev Paisley's personal website.

As you can guess, Rev Paisley's church is steeped in Protestant tradition and a dress code is strictly enforced. They also only preach from the King James Bible as all other editions are seen as “perversions of the word of God.” The rumor is that Rev Paisley really brings out the politics at the evening service, so my friend Jaffa and I got dressed up and thought we’d do our best to try and fit in. Upon arrival, I was immediately embarrassed for two reasons: First, when I entered the church I was a bit nervous and said “good morning” to the greeter at 7:00 pm. Secondly, it was soon apparent that I was definitely the most underdressed one there as I was not wearing a suit jacket. The sanctuary is fit with rows of uncomfortable wooden pews and features a 12 foot high pulpit that Rev Paisley preaches upon. Each side of the alter is fitted with a British Union Jack and the Northern Ireland Ulster Flag with plaques underneath commemorating “those who have lost their lives in defense of Protestant Northern Ireland.”

Ian Paisley is one of those negative celebrities for me. Kinda like the Sean Kelly thing, so I got all giddy and star struck when he stepped out from the door behind the altar. He’s pretty old nowadays and it took him a few minutes to get all the way up to the top of the pulpit. I bet now he regrets building it so high. He looks like a nice enough old man and then he proceeded to shout for 90 minutes straight. The man’s vocal stamina is spectacular. He shouted the announcements, he shouted the prayers, he shouted the hymns, and he definitely shouted the sermon. This guy could have been the best frontman hardcore music has ever seen. I have never witnessed someone so full of rage, passion, and intensity. He shook his fist and shouted down at us from the pulpit; commanding the ship and directing the orchestra all in one. It was brilliant. Very neo-Jonathan Edwards. And I genuinely do believe that Rev Paisley loves the Lord but then he got started talking about “the opposition” (Catholics) His sermon was on Martin Luther and how courageous he was standing up to the Catholic Church during the Protestant Reformation. And I agree that Martin Luther was incredible and Protestantism wouldn't be anywhere without him. But I sorta think Rev Paisley took it a bit too far when he started saying this type of stuff.... (this is paraphrased and strung together a bit because I couldn’t write fast enough. Don’t forget he is yelling)

Luther didn’t believe in compromise. He wasn’t nice to anyone who wasn’t nice to God. Luther believed in truth! He believed in truth that confronted the supremacy of darkness and the hellish sodomy and child abuse of the Beast that is the Catholic Church. She is the dark condemnation that promises life but gives death. We are saved not by a priest or by mass or by a pope, we are saved but by Jesus Christ. If we are at PEACE with Christ we are at WAR with the Pope!!

Here I am, 15 feet from the guy, furiously taking notes and trying not to laugh at how insane this is. My head almost exploded when he said that we are at "War with the Pope." When the preaching finished, we joyously sang the classic hymn “Onward Christian Soldiers” and when I sang the words, "Onward Christian soldiers, marching us to war, with the cross of Jesus going on before..." I knew I couldn't leave this church without meeting the Rev Ian Paisley. I did feel a bit let down because I hear he usually throws in a few sectarian jokes about Catholics thoughout the evening. But Rev Paisley was in no joking manner as the final prayer ended with him asking for God's help to take on the “Republican Terrorists of Northern Ireland.” A stunning performance to say the least.

I approached an important looking member of the church in the foyer after Jaffa and I picked up loads of Free Presbyterian propaganda off the info table. Now here is the part where I “stretch the truth” to secure a meeting with Rev Paisley….So I tell this church member that I'm an American only here in Belfast for a short while and it would be a dream come true if I could meet the Reverend Paisley. This man’s eyes lit up and he sped off to inform the Reverend that an avid fan wanted to meet him. I guess the America thing worked because a few minutes later, out came Rev Paisley into the foyer. I excitedly shook his hand and told him where I was from and how amazing it is to meet him. We small talked for a bit and I asked if I could get a photo with him to show the family back home. He agreed but told me to come back to his office to take the photo and have a wee chat. I couldn't believe how brilliantly my plan was working.

Once in his office I went on and on about an honor it it to meet him and how much his sermon inspired me and what an influential figure in the Protestant community he must be, blah blah blah. And I'm trying to justify my deceit here because I wasn’t really lying per se. It WAS an honor to meet him, his sermon DID inspire me, and HE is quite the influential figure in the Protestant community. He just didn’t know about the negative celebrity thing and that I would be writing about this on the internet. He asked me what I’m doing in Belfast and what my church background was. I sorta bypassed those questions and raved more about Martin Luther and how important he was for Protestantism. So Rev Paisley invited me to sit down with him behind a desk and Jaffa took the photo. My smug grin says it all….(*photo has been removed for security issues. contact me if you would like to see it).

And people have been asking me why I didn’t get back there and start taking him on about his theology and let him know how much I disagree with him. And that didn’t even cross my mind because it was truly an honour to meet him and I feel sorta bad that I “stretched the truth” in order to do so. And it wasn’t my place at all to pick a fight with this man in his own office. What would I have gotten out of that anyway? Truthfully, there was no way I was going to be confrontational because he was such a good guy. Warm and pleasant, Rev Paisley was genuinely pleased to meet me. And granted, he thought I was on his side but I think he still would have been nice even if he knew I wasn’t. And this was surprising and sorta messed me up because I have pegged the guy for so long as an absolute nutcase. Now don’t get me wrong, I still think his theology and politics are absolute crap, but I was surprised at how delightful he was.

And here we are again, the same story I keep finding myself in….

Sean Kelly brutally murdered nine innocent Protestant people. He blew their bodies to bits and burned them alive in a neighborhood restaurant. Ian Paisley, a Christian man, vehemently hates Catholics and has been the Protestant instigator of bigotry and division throughout Northern Ireland for the last 40 years. I wish so desperately that I could see both of these men as the vile terrorist and heretic scum that I want them to be. I want to paint wide sweeping strokes of black and white generalizations so I can sleep easier tonight. I want to hate Ian Paisley. I really do. It would be perfect. I want to spit on his fundamentalist hymnal and throw bricks through the windows of his church. I want to denounce Sean Kelly as a terrorist monster and incite a lynch mob to ruin his life the same way he ruined others. Yet as I interact with both groups of people; see them in public, shake their hands, watch their movements.... All of my preconceived notions and judgements are completely shattered. Completely. I wish life were easy enough to separate good and evil and leave it at that. Conversation ended. Sean Kelly I hope you enjoy your time in hell, I'm off to the cinema. But as I've spent only a few minutes near each of these men and their followers, I see them no different than me. Rage, hatred, and perversion are just waiting to burst out of my chest. It could be any minute now. Sean Kelly and Ian Paisley; two men beautifully crafted in the image of God. The good in them is manifested when they aren’t wearing the masks. Aren’t standing in positions of power. Aren’t draped in the flag they’d kill or be killed be for. We find it in everyday scenarios; in our meeting halls and church offices. People are people whether we like it or not. Moral superiority is a myth when the Kingdom of darkness and the Kingdom of light interweave like strands of DNA through every human heart....

we are not alone
we feel an unseen love.
we are sons and heirs of grace
we are children of
a light that never dims
a love that never dies
keep your chin up child
and wipe the tears from your eyes.
stand ready and tall
reflect the light….

-thrice

Rethinking the Nature of the World: Part II

Days before his murder, El Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero told a reporter, "You can tell the people that if they succeed in killing me, that I forgive and bless those who do it. Hopefully, they will realize they are wasting their time. A bishop will die, but the church of God, which is the people, will never perish."

Archbishop Romero was shot and killed two days later while delivering mass on March 24th, 1980. In an effort to stop the spread of communism, American funded right wing military forces slaughtered 75,000 innocent victims in the El Salvadoran Civil War. Most of the slain weren’t political revolutionaries but rather the poor peasant farmers who believed the communist cause would ensure food and protection for their families. Cadavers clogged the streams and irrigation ditches while tortured bodies were thrown in garbage dumps and onto the streets of the capital city weekly. Heavily armed by the United States, over the twelve year period President Carter/Reagan sent an estimated $1.5 million in military aid EACH DAY to prohibit the socialist rebels from gaining political power in El Salvador. Archbishop Romero, in a letter to President Jimmy Carter, "You say that you are Christian. If you are really Christian, please stop sending aid to the military here, because they use it only to kill my people."

As has often been the case in the 20th century, Archbishop Romero was martyred even though he had taken neither side in the conflict, but had tried to maintain Christ’s own position of asking the warring parties to forgo violence and hatred, and to seek a reasonable compromise and reconciliation with one another. Like Jesus, he was put to death for his teaching.

As the violence escalated, the other El Salvadoran priests and bishops wisely fled the country. Yet Romero stayed with the people of his church; the peasants and underprivileged, those who had nowhere to go as the death squads rolled in.

“Even when they call us mad, when they call us subversives and socialists and all the epithets they put on us, we know we only preach the subversive witness of the Beatitudes, which have turned everything upside down”
-Archbishop Oscar Romero

As I read about Archbishop Romero I find myself both fascinated and terrified by his faith. Fascinated because this conflict isn’t in our American history books and terrified because I’m forced to ask myself if I would I stand with the less fortunate, the oppressed, and the sick if I knew I’d be killed for it. And the answer is no. Absolutely not. I’d be on the first plane out of the country.

And as usual it is our King who teaches something different. This Holy radicalism. This subversive orthodoxy. Jesus was put to death because he pursued a Kingdom where the poor have a seat at the table, the peacemakers are blessed, and the lepers inherit the Kingdom of God. Our world can’t handle that type of ideology. Lepers inheriting the Kingdom of God? We’ll kill it before it starts. I know I will.

And I sometimes wonder if Christianity has ever held to this type of radical ideology. The kind that believe Jesus’ teachings so fundamentally that its followers would be martyred for the poor like Archbishop Romero. Like Jesus.

I am jealous of the early church congregations. Those erected right after the death and resurrection of Christ. These small house churches, highly illegal throughout the empire, the ichthus Christian fish discretely painted on the house door. Sneaking through the streets at night, the lit candles of the secret society, the remnants of Jesus still whisper. I bet they could feel him too. I mean really feel him, like he was there. And some could still hear what his voice sounded like and could remember Him healing people. Or wiping away the tears of prostitutes and orphans. The fire in his eyes as he overturned the tables in the temple. And many would recall his death. And it would break their hearts again and again. And the church would be raw and real and intense and passionate because Jesus was still lingering. And we don’t have that anymore in 2005. Jesus is long gone; his human form leaves no physical trace in our world. And I wonder if that’s why our churches are the way they are sometimes. Kinda boring. The typical announcements and power-point presentations. Crying babies. Shitty coffee. And don’t get me wrong, I love the Church and believe in its ordination from God and potential for grace and love like the world has never seen. I also believe in the Holy Spirit. I absolutely do. But what if we had both? The remnants of the Son and the Holy Spirit. How then would we live? What would be different? How would our actions reflect our faith?

I want to highlight here how the men and women of the early church allowed their lives to be radically shaped by Christ. Their actions, beliefs, and practices are like nothing I have ever heard. (These are not original thoughts or research by the way. I’ve taken most of it from a lecture by Jonathan Bartley of the Ekklesia theological think tank and the writings of theologians Walter Wink and Chet Meyers)

The early church had a very fundamental understanding of what it meant to be a citizen of the new Kingdom. They believed it was coming. And coming soon. Their lives reflected this urgency as they daily prepared themselves for the oncoming Kingdom. And with this sense of urgency came a theology mostly defined by how they acted in the world rather than the specifics of belief and doctrine. The primary concern was how to apply their foundational faith with the practicality of working for the Kingdom. The what’s next? The how do I take these beliefs into the public square?

What inspires me most about the early church members was their passionate stance for intentional community and social justice. They believed in the new family in Christ that was even more important than their own. In the new family they lived in tight knit highly organized communities where they ate, lived, and worshiped together.

Within this community was a fiery resistance to the injustices of their world. Firmly believing that all people were made in the image of God and deserved to be treated as such, the early church members were very public about their stance against slavery and inequality within the Roman Empire. Their passion for justice was so intense, that at times early Christians were known to actually trade themselves into slavery so that others could go free. Can you imagine that?! Now I am not suggesting we start doing this. But what would it look like if contemporary churches actually began implementing this into our mission work? Our churches would send teams over to India, Bangladesh, and Sierra Leone. We’d swap places with the young girls of the sex trade, the single mothers in Nike sweatshops, the child soldiers of Uganda, the slaves of Sierra Leone’s diamond mines. This may seem ridiculous and unrealistic yet this was a very practical way for early church members to as Isaiah says in verse 58, “break the chains of injustice.”

Early Christians also believed in a radical way of engaging with the creation and distribution of wealth. Like Christ’s teachings of the rich young ruler, many early Christians sold ALL they had and gave it away to the poor. Not just the 10% tithing check and the $20 a month to the child we sponsor in Liberia. They sold all of it and relied on God and their community to sustain them. To make things even more ridiculous, within the community all money was pooled together and evenly distributed. Everyone had access to everyone’s finances and all needs were met with generosity and grace.

Lastly, following the nature of Christ, the early church members were deeply subversive to the social order of Rome. They proudly proclaimed that Caesar was not their God and nothing that the State embodied religously/economically/militarily deserved worship or holy admiration. Idolatry and allegiance were major issues for early Christians and while Caesar may have been imprinted on their coins, he was never on imprinted on their hearts. And what I’ve learned from these radical followers of Christ is that wholehearted pursuit of Jesus means the complete destruction of our allegiance to the empire. We can live in it, we can serve our civil duties to it, and we can be proud of it. But if the lines blur between patriotism and nationalism we are in direct opposition to the Kingdom of God. And it is this nationalism that is so dangerous because it births a religious type commitment and faultlessness of the nation-state.

So the early Christians are destructing their allegiance to Rome, publicly denouncing Caesar and the empire’s pagan beliefs, they are trading themselves into slavery, giving away all their money, living in these silly communities, and preserving devotion and obedience to an illegal Jesus. These Christians were a threat to national security. If there were airplanes to travel on they wouldn’t have been allowed through security. So what did the Romans start doing? You guessed it…..they started killing them again. They fed them to the lions, chopped off their heads, threw them in fires, and hung them on crosses. Usually public execution is a pretty good deterrent, but these early church folk were persistent and they kept acting like Jesus even though everyone in their Wednesday night small group was getting murdered. And what’s really scary is that they were martyred willingly with courage and grace. They are out there telling the guy who is about to chop off their head that they forgive him for what he is about to do. And this is insane behavior and it really began to piss off the Romans, because now even their best instrument of persuasion (killing you) wasn’t stopping this Christian thing from flourishing all over the empire.

So it’s the 4th century and Constantine comes to power and he sees how ridiculous these Christians are behaving and yet how popular their beliefs are becoming. Constantine realizes what would happen if they could domesticate this Christianity and make the counterculture part of the culture. Make the anti-authority the authority. You know the old saying, “if you can’t beat em, join em.” So Constantine gets baptized (supposedly a true conversion experience) and starts the first 'Christian' empire, fit with crosses on the shields and everything. Now, in order to even be a citizen in the Roman Empire you have to be baptized and pledge allegiance to both God and Rome simultaneously.

And this must have been hard for the Christians of the early church. This radical Jesus figure who clashes with the religious/political authority by loving like no one has ever loved, is now the symbol for the totalitarian empire. The pacifist tradition of the early church is now ruined as Constantine exploits slaves, fights wars, and plunders villages in the name of God. How would they go about reconciling Jesus’ teaching for love, peace, mercy, grace, and justice in the midst of the empire that tortured and murdered the Christ they now claim to adore?

St. Augustine is around during this time period and attempts to reconcile this predicament by suggesting either we take heed to Jesus’ teachings and allow them to occupy every aspect of our lives; public and private. We give up all that the world has to offer and radically pursue a Kingdom that is gonna get us killed. Or we don’t and Christianity will continue to evolve and develop a split vision worldview with Jesus’ principles sidelined and pushed to the margins. And this is the much easier option. That is why we do it. That is why I do it. We won’t really have to love our neighbours or pray for those who persecute us. We won’t really have to give all we have to the poor. And we won’t really have to turn the other cheek. Instead we’ll just change those commands into more comfortable guidelines. So from now on we won’t drink, smoke, or swear. We won’t have sex until we are married and I won’t be attracted to other men. Whew, I think I can handle those. Domesticated and nice. Comfortable and safe. I don’t want to be harassed or hurt for my faith, I just want Jesus to keep me out of hell. And what a win-win situation we have here. The economic, political, and social perks of the empire with the promise of eternal life all rolled into one. And this is not our fault; this type of behavior has been going on for centuries. All the way back to the 4th century, Constantine’s Nicene Creed proves it to us…

“By the power of the Holy Spirit He became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; He suffered death and was buried.”

Now I obviously believe in the Nicene Creed and I understand there is historical context and reasoning for why it was phrased like this. However, was Jesus’ purpose only to be born of Mary and then crucified? Was he simply born to die? And he forgave us of our sins, for which I am very very grateful, but what about everything else he did in those 33 sinless years? Does that teaching even matter anymore? I’d like to say that it does and I’d like to be hopeful that maybe we will take them seriously once again. But in order to do so we have to bring Christ’s teachings back from the sidelines and end the privatization and safety of our faith. And like the early church, like Archbishop Romero, like Jesus, we have to destruct our allegiance to ourselves, to Rome, to Great Britain, to America, to political ideologies, to fame, to money, to MTV, to whatever it is you want to call it. Will we be the ones to bring back the ethics of Christ in a culturally relevant way? Will we be a church that allows Christ to claim every aspect of our lives? Will we, if necessary undermine the social order rather than holding it together? Constantine wants to make Christ the symbol for the empire. Will we resist and prove ‘we are not of this world?’ Here’s to post Christendom……

“Living for Jesus will make you a radical and dangerous person. You will be at odds with the system not a part of it.”
-Jesse Moore

(I will be back with updates/reflection about Northern Ireland soon enough. Thank you all for putting up with this stuff in the meantime)

Rethinking the Nature of the World: Part I

I need a wee break from writing about Northern Ireland, so I’m gonna dive into some other issues I've been thinking through lately....

No verse was referred to more in my church youth group than, “We are In the world but not Of the world.” (John 15:19 paraphrased) Remember that one? Preachers and youth pastors bring it up all the time as a means to discourage youngsters from doing keg stands or having sex with each other. They say, “As Christians we don’t play by the rules of the world, therefore you shouldn’t go out and do x y and z.” And I agree with the pastors 100%. And if that rhetoric is going to discourage high school kids from doing cocaine or watching MTV than I’m all for it. But is there more to being ‘not of this world’ than just following the list of rules that happen to make us different from non-Christians? And you know the rules I’m talking about. Here’s the quick rundown….

Do’s – Go to church on Sunday. Read Bible and ‘Purpose Driven Life.’ Be nice to checker at grocery store. Have personal relationship with Jesus so you don’t go to hell. Own copy of the ‘Passion of the Christ.’ Re-watch on Easter. Put American flag sticker on car.

Don’ts – Don’t be gay. Don’t drink. Don’t smoke. Don’t be gay. Don’t swear. Don’t masturbate. Don’t vote for Bill Clinton. Don’t be gay. Don’t get someone pregnant you aren’t married to.

And don’t get me wrong, some of these rules are very very good to follow. Drinking 19 beers is stupid. So is getting someone pregnant you don’t want to raise a kid with. And going to church is really important and so is reading the Bible. I’d recommend it. But is that it? Is that the extent of Christianity and us being “not of this world?” Does it get any bigger than just making moral behavioral choices and having a personal relationship with Jesus? Because if this is what being a Christian is all about, I want nothing to do with it. If this is us being different from the world, feel free to count me out.

Here is a hilarious video depicting Jesus as the legalistic nutcase many Christians make him out to be. And I may be wrong, but I just don't think Jesus was terribly concerned about all these rules during his short time on earth. Enjoy this clip....



There is this quote by Canadian author Douglas Coupland that we like here at the chaplaincy. It gets me really psyched to be alive and makes me want to pump my fist in the air….

“If you are not spending every waking moment of your life radically rethinking the nature of the world – if you are not plotting every moment boiling the carcass of the old order – then you are wasting your day.”
-Douglas Coupland Girlfriend in a Coma

Now that is how I want to live my life; ‘radically rethinking the nature of the world’ and ‘boiling the carcass of the old order’. And can you imagine if we took our love for Jesus mixed with Coupland’s call for social change? What a way to live. But then I make the mistake of taking this type of passion and intensity to church. Slouching in the pew, it seems like an opposing message is taught from the pulpit. Why do I feel like the church doesn’t want me to plot radical change or bring down the old order? In fact, it sometimes seems that they like the old order a bit too much and don’t want me messing with it.

But as I read through the Scriptures and at this Jesus guy, all I see him doing again and again is “radically rethinking the nature of the world and boiling the carcass of the old order.” I mean seriously. He keeps doing that crap. All the time, every time….even on Sunday. Both His life and death bring down the old order of religious legalism and cultural oppression. The guy is dining with whores, crooks, and thugs and calling them more faithful than the religious elite. He’s liberating the oppressed. Subverting the Roman authority. Turning water into wine. Blessing prostitutes. Loving the Centurion. Casting out demons. Healing lepers. Forgiving tax collectors. And publically embarrassing church leaders. He offers a scandalous type of grace, hope, and love to people in desperate need and in doing so is running amuck in every city he goes. Paul writes in Colossians 2:15, “And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” He disarmed the powers and authorities! Then He makes a public spectacle of them! Jesus’ entire life goes directly against the social and political hierarchy and it pissed off the church leaders and state authorities so much that they killed him for it. You read the first three chapters of Mathew and you can tell they are gonna nail this guy. Literally. Now I know that God ordained his death and all, but they killed Him because He kept going on and on about this “Kingdom” that was in direct opposition to the current religious order. In His Kingdom…

“The rich are welcome if they are willing to sell all that they have, become as lilies of the field and little children, worship God rather than mammon, and become poor. In this new social order everything is redefined from the bottom up; but the bottom does not then participate in the power grabs that have characterized the top. No, those who are the greatest in Jesus’ Kingdom are to be like those who serve (Luke 22:24-27). This is a kingdom in which the master comes home from a banquet and serves the waiting slaves (Luke 12:35-38). This is a Kingdom where the ruler is enthroned on a cross – the Roman Empires’ instrument of torture – and in such an enthronement wins freedom and life for his people. And then he calls his follower to do likewise.” – Brian Walsh, Colossians Remixed

And at the trial beforehand, of course the crowd frees Barabas. It was a no brainer. He may have been a political criminal but the guy had supporters in the audience. But Jesus had no loyalties. He had zero allegiance to the Jews, Romans, Gentiles, Samaritans, Politicians, or Church Leaders; no one except the poor and vulnerable.

And this is the way I think Jesus wants us to live. With no allegiances to anything except the Kingdom. And what it must look like to take this devotion for Jesus with a Kingdom ethic and let it explode in the public square. Doesn’t it seem so much bigger than just maintaining that personal relationship and simply abiding by the rules all the time? And I don't know if God really cares how many cigarettes we smoke, or if we say the F word too much, or if we haven’t been to church in a while. He just seems to be concerned with something so much bigger. And with these crazy ideas about Grace and Love and Mercy and Justice and how he wants us to simply follow Him; no matter how messy our personal lives may be.

Then why is it when I go to church I rarely hear about the biblical call to ‘boil the carcass of the old order’? Where is the Jesus I read about that turns the world upside down with his “blessed are the poor, for they will inherit the Kingdom of God” type theology? Where is the stuff that is so revolutionary that it subverts, upsets, and overthrows the cultural, social, political, and economic powers of our world? It seems that being a Christian nowadays is more about private faith and following the rules than public faith upsetting the social order with scandalous grace and love. Are we suffering from a split vision worldview?

Brian Walsh (you can tell I love this guy) writes…..
“A split-vision worldview that divides faith from life, church from culture, theology from economics, prayer from politics and worship from everyday work will always render Christian faith irrelevant to broad socio-cultural forces. And that is exactly what the empire wants – a robust, piously engaging private faith that will never transgress the public square. Allow religion to shape private imagination, but leave the rest of life, the public and dominant imagination, to the empire.”

If Jesus overturns the money changers in the temple, why are our churches preaching the health and wealth gospels of corporate allegiance? How can it be that the Christians are the ones beating the drums of war and cheering on the forces of preemptive military action? When in the Text our King says, “All who draw the sword will die by the sword” (Matt 26) and “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world” (2nd Cor 10). Jesus directly disobeys the religious and political authority of his day, and yet current Christianity seems to be in blatant submission to the Empire whose priorities oftentimes do not reflect that of God's Kingdom? And when I say Empire, I mean not the Roman Empire of the past, but the present Empire of western military might and economic prosperity and lustful consumption and civil Obedience. Are we boiling the carcass of the old order or simply devouring it raw? Why are Christians seen as the social/political conformists in our world when the Jesus we serve is the ultimate non-conformist? I thought we were ‘not of this world’…..

Lee Camp, from in his book Mere Discipleship: Radical Christianity in a Rebellious World
“When governments tell Christians to wage war, Christians wage war. When governments tell Christians to pledge their allegiance, Christians pledge allegiance. When governments tell Christians to prepare for the mass slaughter of million of innocent lives, Christians give both their consent and their support. Rather than loving our alleged enemies, we prepare to kill them – and when called to kill them, we do so. Moral laziness does not take the criteria of the just war tradition seriously. And that moral laziness gives way to nationalism, to blind obedience to the nation-state, to bowing down to the idols erected by the fallen principalities and powers. We worship the wrong god.”

There are some authors/activists that have really influenced me a lot with this subversive orthodoxy type stuff. People like Wendell Berry, Brian Walsh/Sylvia Keesmat, Thomas Merton, Dorothy Day, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Daniel/Phillip Berrigan, Jacque Ellul, Dorothy Hennessey, John Howard Yoder, Oscar Romero, etc etc. And they speak about devotion to Jesus in a way I have never heard before. Devotion so deep and intense they are willing to take on the principalities of power and sacrifice everything to live it out. Some end up blacklisted, others in jail, a few even murdered like Jesus himself. And yet their behavior isn’t anything new. There once was a time when all Christians acted in this way. All of them. They loved Jesus so very much they were willing to risk everything for Him. My next post will expand on the history, radicalism, and bravery of the men and women of the early church…..

“Good fences make Good neighbors”
-Robert Frost, Mending Wall

This post has taken me awhile, I apologize for the delay. My dear friend Jeremiah has been in town for the last 6 days and I haven’t found much time to write. We had a great week touring the sites and learning from one another. He’s getting better looking each time I see him. We did a few days devoted to Protestant Loyalism and a few days devoted to Catholic Republicanism and basically just explored the city on foot for hours at a time. The photos are of him in Protestant Sandy Row and the Belfast Cemetery on the Catholic Whiterock Road.

The culmination of our week was spent at the historic peace wall that runs through the backyards of Belfast’s most volatile and violent neighborhoods. Like the dividing walls of Israel/Palestine, the Berlin Wall, or the one separating North and South Korea, the houses of these Catholics and Protestants literally back into one another with a 30 foot high wall in between. Even with only 3 feet of concrete separation, these divided neighbors will never see or speak to one another. Notice the picture of houses fit with slanted fencing in order to divert bricks, blast bombs, and petrol bombs that are lobbed over the wall onto the houses below.

Five roads also run between the Protestant Shankill neighborhoods and the Catholic Falls neighborhoods with castle like gates in the middle that can be shut at a moments notice by the Police or British Military. Similar to the local bookstore or restaurant, these gates also feature a helpful hourly schedule displaying when they will be open or closed. Note the photos from the Catholic side peering through the gates onto the highly decorated Protestant side. Three feet of separation and a whole new world of tradition, culture, and ideology await.

The most popular stretch of the peace wall is an artistic yet impoverished tourist destination covered with hopeful messages and contrasting UVF/IRA graffiti. Most of the writings are from visitors on black taxi tours driven into the area to quickly jump out, write a cliché phrase on the wall with their signature and country below, and then hop back in the taxi on the way to the Best Western. To be truthful though, some of the writing is thoughtful and creative. There is some nice artwork, good Bible verses, and a few religious murals/slogans for peace. But most of it seems deliberately hateful or just stupid. I think my favorite is “Fuck this shit. Go find the Leprechauns.” Thank you Adam from New Jersey for your encouraging words….


The afternoon Jeremiah and I spent at the peace wall was momentous because our conversations began to explore and address the issues of division and hatred that plague our world. Looking up at this so called “peace wall” we decided that this wall doesn’t symbolize peace in any way. In fact it does just the opposite; a gigantic wall can never be symbol for peace. It is only a blatant symbol for division. It separates neighbors and makes sure they never interact with one another. Boys of the same age on both sides kick footballs against the wall but never to each other. Families on both sides struggle to put food on the table and keep their teenagers in school. Young militants throw blast bombs filled with nails over the “peace wall” onto children below. Soon enough, new blast bombs are thrown back. We decided that those who put up “peace walls” of division have clearly lost their imagination for a better world.

And it is easy for me to blame Northern Ireland and Israel and the Communists for losing their imagination by putting up walls of division and defaulting to violence. But as usual, this type of sin has engulfed us too....
Why do we aspire to live in upscale fortified estates with special gate codes and guards? How is it justified that I never use public transportation and drive to work alone, in my car, with my radio, with my personal space? And what about our flat screen televisions that keep us occupied and locked in at night so we don’t have to interact with our neighbors who all happen to look, act, and think strikingly like us? A friendly wave when we get the mail is not good enough. And all these walls whether solid or figurative are trying to achieve the same purpose; to keep out the people God has called us to befriend and love.

And whether we live in the guarded gate communities of Santa Barbara or the broken streets of Belfast or Jerusalem, we ALL put up “peace walls” inside our own hearts. How can I expect the walls of Northern Ireland to come down if I don’t deal with the walls inside me? It’s not the Catholics or Protestants or IRA or UVF or Jews or Palestinians or Santa Barbara Rich or Detroit Poor that are the problem. I am the problem. I purposely put walls up around communities and people groups that I don’t want to interact and associate with. I have walls up around Compton and Orange County simultaneously. I loathe the poor lazy black people and the rich materialistic whites at the same time. Yet no one would ever know because my walls are invisible yet equally as divisive. And like blast bombs thrown over walls in Northern Ireland, I launch insulting bombs of racism and disgust over these invisible walls onto people I never want to see.

How can I speak of peace and love when I loathe the white, rich, well dressed, Starbucks drinking, health and wealth gospel preaching, SUV driving people of Orange County? (No offense to my friends and family in Orange County of course.) And how can I speak of peace and love when I think my $20 check to World Vision each month will solve the problems of the world’s poor? I waste food at every meal, avoid impoverished neighborhoods, only talk with my white middle class friends, wear clothes I know were made by abused 3rd world children, and pretend to not see the homeless man passed out on the street. Do I really want justice for the oppressed, clothes for the naked, and food to the hungry if that means I have to actually interact with them? How can we expect the Northern Irish or Israelis to tear down their walls if I can’t seem to tear down mine?

In Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller writes,
“I started wondering whether we could actually change the world. I mean, of course we could – we could change our buying habits, elect socially conscious representatives and that sort of thing, but I honestly don’t believe we will be solving the greater human conflict with our efforts. The problem is not a certain type of legislation or even a certain politician; the problem is the same that it has always been. I am the problem.”

Russian writer and Nobel Prize recipient Alexander Solzhenitsyn adds,
“If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them! But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

A lot of these issues are personal ones that we all need to work on. They are also forgiveness issues that only Jesus can help us with. But as I try and repent of my sin and smash the walls I create, Jeremiah and I decided to try and do something practical at the “peace wall” last Saturday. On the way there, I thought up this idea of writing something really meaningful on the wall. Something revolutionary. Something that speaks of true justice being that of forgiveness rather than vengeance. Something that maybe someone would read and be affected by. And here we are, the silly American tourists with cameras and markers trying to write something important to a people group who may never read it. It took us about an hour to think up our dumb little phrase. It must have looked ridiculous as we stood there in the freezing cold discussing Christian catch phrases on scratch paper. Finally, we decided on this:

Violence is for those who have lost their imagination…..
Justice and Peace are found not through vengeance, but through Forgiveness, Courage, and Love.

We thought it was pretty good. Not all that revolutionary, but it’s effective. If you come visit I will show it to you. When this idea first came to me, I think I envisioned a 20 foot tall Holy Spirit induced masterpiece of artistic and literary brilliance that would bring the city to its knees. Like if Michelangelo and Ralph Waldo Emerson had fused art and literature together into one glorious tour de force. But we’re simple thinkers with terrible handwriting and all we had was a crappy black marker. So we wrote it on this big dove with Ephesians 2:14-18 on it. We did not paint the dove. There is no way we could have done that. Ours is the wee scraggly thing on the tail. We also put 2 Corinthians 5 below our initials. We meant to put 2 Corinthians 5:18-19 but we couldn’t remember which verse it was exactly that said…

“All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.”


Oh and as you might have noticed we also spelled vengeance wrong at first and had to go back to put the A in. That is why it looks a bit sloppy. For the record, Jeremiah thinks it is spelled 'vengence'


So we all have these walls inside our hearts. And we are all violent and vengeful and would throw blast bombs over walls at Catholic children if we grew up in Northern Ireland. And once again, cheers to the Northern Irish for putting their sin right out onto their own streets. The most truthful out of everyone, they erect real walls while mine remain hidden and invisible. But maybe if me and you and a few others can begin to smash our own walls between the poor, the rich, the black the white, the Protestant and Catholic, the Muslim and Jew, then we might have a chance at bringing down the concrete walls that segregate and divide our global community.

“In Christ there is no East or West, In Him no South or North; But one great fellowship of love throughout the whole wide earth.”
William A. Dunkerley, 1908

This is a young Catholic boy on the Falls Road, the historic IRA controlled neighborhood of West Belfast. For the record, I didn’t take this photo. I wish I would have. With a picture this intense there is no need for a catchy title. I can't believe the anger and militancy of his face. And that is what I want to explore in this post and for the next year that I'll be in Northern Ireland. What is it like being a child growing up in the middle of this conflict? Why do some of them have this uncontrollable hatred in their eyes and what can I do about it? My focus will mostly be on the children in the poor and divided areas of Belfast that I have been visiting as often as possible. And truthfully, it is also mostly centered on the young boys of these neighborhoods because they are the ones I know best. To reiterate, I don't live directly in the areas I speak of, but I've been volunteering, hanging around, taking photos, and doing some research exploring how this ethic of hatred and violence is passed down through generations in the impoverished areas of Belfast.

Like most lower class neighborhoods, these kids live in rundown housing estates. They play football in burnt out vacant lots and have little adult supervision. Unemployment, illiteracy, and addiction are major problems, as well as breakdowns of the family system. While most inner city urban areas across the western world struggle with the same issues, growing up in lower class Catholic or Protestant Belfast is unique because of the daily political and cultural tensions.

I'm fascinated by the photos of Protestant children playing in front of Loyalist paramilitary murals. I can’t imagine what kicking a football against those painted walls each day does to a child’s worldview. I wonder what lens they see life through when their childhood heroes are the Loyalist and Republican terrorists emblazed on the walls of their homes. And what this must do to them physiologically; the constant artistic depictions of guns, black hoods, and blood.

And that is exactly what the paramilitary groups want. The desensitization of violence and hatred; the younger the better. Similar to street gangs around the world, young boys in poor areas of Northern Ireland are recruited early to dabble in paramilitary activity. By the age of 9 or 10 they may be approached by an older boy or family member and given bags of stones or small weapons to use against police or other opposing gangs. And just like their brothers and fathers who belong to the real organizations, the young ones begin to play out their own little wars against rival Catholics or Protestants. The junior UVF vs. the junior RIRA; the cycle of violence marches on.

Northern Irish novelist Martin McGartland writes of his childhood....
"I began to join the older boys in stone-throwing - the "sport", as we saw it, of tantalising and needling the Bristish Army. More important though, were the battles we young Catholic lads fought with Protestant boys, mostly teenagers, throwing stones at each other. I don't know if I ever hit anyone, and I don't think anyone ever hit me, but those battles made the adrenalin flow and I could not wait to grow up so that I could become part of the Republican movement."

And there is a sense of pride in this I’m sure. A sense of belonging and importance. The rush of throwing stones at police at age 10 must be exhilarating. Forget baseball cards, this is a real hobby. And if you live in a rundown neighborhood with nothing to live for, why not join up? Your life isn’t really worth that much anyway. And hopefully one day, as an official member of the UVF or IRA, an infinite supply of drugs, girls, guns, power, and protection awaits.

Catholic and Protestant children go to segregated schools with segregated sports teams. Segregated churches on segregated streets. They wear segregated school uniforms and segregated street uniforms. Protestants wear blue and support the Glasgow Rangers while Catholics wear green and support Celtic. And children cherish their Celtic or Ranger tops, proudly displaying tradition and allegiance to their football club and culture. I find it ironic however that both teams share the same sponsor. At a young age children might receive a Celtic scarf or Rangers hat and the sectarian indocrination begins from there. While justified as simply supporting a football club, in actuality, these jerseys are blatant symbols for violence. It was first religion and now football that have co-opted to push radical political agendas.

And there is a good chance that most children have never even met the child down the street in the different colored top. Many of our own students confess to never stepping foot in a Catholic neighborhood. All these poor young kids know is what the older ones tell them from what the older ones tell them. That they hate Taigs (Catholics) or hate Huns (Protestants). They display their gang graffiti with the cliché KAT (kill all taigs) or KAH (kill all huns). It’s easy to distinguish neighborhoods by the artwork.

I’ve been spending two afternoons a week at the Mornington Belfast Community Project. It’s a café, youth center, and employment service located in a lower class Catholic neighborhood about 3/4 of a mile from where I live. The Mornington neighborhood is the third most deprived neighborhood in all of Northern Ireland with the 18-25 year old male unemployment rate at 68%. The children show up about 3:00, fresh out of school dressed in their wee Catholic outfits from St. Malachy’s or Holy Rosary Primary. They bang on the back doors and shout through the windows making up stories that they need to come in early due to some bogus circumstance. We do art projects together and eat cookies. I help kids with homework and try to tell them they matter. We talk about football, how much they hate school, and when I ask the boys to come back inside they tell me “to go fucking fuck off you bloody yank.” I know they’re kidding and we have a good laugh about it. I give them high fives and they smile a lot. Their 11 year old teeth already beginning to yellow.

To be honest, they’re quite a handful; and they are rough and tough, especially the boys. They come in hyper and violent. Punching each other and swearing profusely. And the language thing is interesting because I’m tempted to reprimand them for saying such horrible things all the time. But the swearing is mostly due to a cultural context of the neighborhood that is so hard to reverse. They talk like this to survive; to appear tough and authoritative in their broken world. It also doesn't help that this is how they are spoken to by their own families at home. Despite the poverty and chaotic lifestyle, they do their homework with efficiency and determination, oftentimes skipping snack to get a head start on their math homework. But it’s disheartening because no matter how well they do in school this year, the statistics show that in five years most of them will have already dropped out. So we are trying to get in between that fact and encourage and empower these kids to believe they are important enough to stay in school and get a good education.

Today we had so many kids that I left the center early to play football with about 15 boys. On the way we stopped in a graffiti covered alley where they showed me their hateful artwork and taggings. Eleven year old Ryan was very proud of the British Union Jack flag bursting into flames that he drew. Below it was scrawled "Fuck all Huns." He beamed with pride as I acknowledged his artistic efforts. We played football in a vacant lot covered in graffiti and barbed wire. They scoured it beforehand looking for loose change. One boy lit up a half cigarette he found used on the ground. He smoked it arrogantly while the others looked on with envy. As we began playing, young boys perched on a shed nearby and began to throw rocks at us. Some of my teamates became angry when they were hit and shouted and cussed and threw rocks back. It's fascinating because all these boys, Catholic and Protestant seem to have this obsession with stone throwing. Before the football match, two boys got in a fight where they initially landed a few punches, but then as I broke them apart simultaneously ran off finding rocks to hurl at each other. They throw stones at the Mornington building, cheering when a chunk of plaster falls off. They swap stories about hitting Police Landrovers with bricks, each boy trying to top the other with an even taller tale of bravery and athleticism. After football, I found them out on a busy street waiting for nice cars to drive by so they could pelt them with small stones. "We only throw wee ones and only at the nice cars. They're not from here anyway." And let's not forget, that every last one of us would be doing the same thing if we grew up in this neighborhood. These kids are loveable, thoughtful, generous, and caring. They just happen to live in a culture that encourages violence, hatred, and destruction.

It’s been proved that children who don’t get into drugs, stay in school, and have high self confidence don’t make very good paramilitaries. And because of the recent IRA decommission, the recruitment problem from Republican Paramilitaries has become less of a factor as it has in previous years. So we’re hopeful and each day I think we make some progress with these kids. Telling them they matter, encouraging them in school, playing football, or just being a friend. We hope that piece by piece we can discourage them from drugs and violence and maybe begin to reverse the sectarian social/political conflicts of the neighborhood.

49a Derryvolgie Ave, Belfast NI: A New Hope

Over the weekend, 88 students moved into our residence hall. So far, “the craic’s been ninety.” American translation….things have been really fun. They continually ask about California and if I know famous people. Most believe Newport Beach engulfs the entire state and are shocked to discover none of my friends have breast implants. I try not to show it, but it does boost the ego a bit when some of the girls have officially deified my state.

Today I have hope for Northern Ireland. I have hope because Jesus reassures me in John 16:33, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” And how fitting this verse is for places like Northern Ireland. There is hope when Jesus promises to bring peace and forgiveness. Forgiveness is so crucial by the way because this is a country that hardly ever says, “I’m sorry.” And while Jesus is continually overcoming the world, I can’t get over the fact that he actually allows us to be involved in the process. Or as Gary Haugen puts it in Good News About Injustice, “the almighty God of the universe is prepared to use us, his people, to seek justice, to rescue the oppressed, to defend the orphan and to plead for the widow.” Furthermore, when he says us, he means you and me. As in, the inadequate, hopeless, selfish, and sinful little pricks that we are. What a gift....

So I’m hopeful in the larger sense. Peace is going to happen eventually and I know I’m apart of it in some way. But I sometimes still catch myself, frustrated that I haven’t really done any tangible reconciliation work. And yet everyday God reminds me that these 88 students are part of the solution. These 88 well educated Protestant middle class students. Ones who grew up just like me can bring peace to Northern Ireland. And seriously, what if they are the ones? What if these students in the pictures will be the major players in quelling sectarian violence and hatred throughout their lifetimes? I know it seems ridiculous but I like to think they are. And what if Jim Wallis is right and “we are the one’s we have been waiting for.” This type of hope makes each day worth living. Northern Irish writer/poet Seamus Heaney puts it best…..

“History says don’t hope on this side of the grave. But then, once in a lifetime the longed for tidal wave of justice can rise up; and hope and history rhyme. So hope for a great sea-change on the far side of revenge. Believe that a further shore is reachable from here.”

And it’s crazy to think like this because most of these students really have no interest in Northern Ireland politics. I was shocked when I first heard this and couldn’t believe that they live here and don’t know anything about what’s going on? Their lives must have been so exciting and scary and interesting! In their own cities people are murdering one another and blowing up buildings in the name of religion?! How could they not be enthralled? This never happens in Santa Barbara! But after all these years they are completely sick of it. They change the channel when the city is up in flames. IRA decommission; who cares. Loyalist rioting; just more of the same. Northern Ireland is only in the news when people die. Without violence this place means nothing to the outside world. My new friend Julie mournfully expressed tonight how she isn’t proud to be Northern Irish anymore. She doesn’t know if she’s British or Irish and completely tunes out when political debates arise. She said, “It must be great to be an American. To have a national anthem and a flag and to live in country that you aren’t ashamed of.” Whether we agree with America’s policies or not, at least we have a flag that everyone in the country agrees on as our representative symbol. But in Northern Ireland, flying any flag means that you are going to piss off ½ the population. In this country, symbols of pride and tradition really only serve to create animosity toward the other side. They cause division rather than cohesion.

Besides the patriotic confusion, probably the major reason why our students are apathetic toward the Northern Ireland conflict is because very few of them are from areas where sectarian violence occurs. So I can understand why they don’t care, neither would I. If you are middle class and well educated, there is no reason to get involved in lower class cultural struggles that don’t concern you. Who cares about the UVF or RIRA if their hateful graffiti isn’t decorating your neighborhood. I suppose it’s like one of us traveling through LA and deciding to swing down into south central for the evening. What’s the point? It’s lower class, may be dangerous, and there is no reason to go there.

So we have 88 middle class Protestant students with us furthering their education at the country’s most prestigious university. They are mainly indifferent toward the political issues of Northern Ireland and live in our residence hall located in a safe area of Belfast. The “leafy suburbs” as my boss calls it. Now if you wanted trouble, it’s only a five minute walk. But the street we live on is nothing like the neighborhoods ½ mile away. Despite all these things seemingly against us in educating our students, they may be our best assets because we can start from scratch with a safe place to teach them…..

Our entire staff has a vision for a “great sea-change on the far side of revenge.” It’s beginning to take shape already just in the conversations I’ve been having with our students. And the reason why it’s working is because we’ve co-opted a radical vision from this guy Jesus. Maybe you’ve heard of him; his theology is ludicrous. And it’s starting to mess with these kid’s wee heads already. Their faces contort and confuse during sermons. They cringe when we suggest that being a Christian doesn’t entirely revolve around praying and reading your Bible. Even more so when we propose they get out and do some of the things from that crazy Bible. Slowly but surely we hope to share that Christ’s vision of an upside-down Kingdom is so revolutionary that it subverts, upsets, and overthrows the personal, social, political, and economic powers of our world. This Kingdom rejects violence, hatred, and revenge; no matter what the circumstance. And it adheres to love, justice and mercy; no matter what the circumstance. (Micah 6:8) The ethic of this Kingdom is love. Radical love; the kind that defies culture and tradition. Or as Brian Walsh explains in Colossians Remixed…

“So what kind of an ethic is this? It is a resurrection ethic that refuses to bow the knee to the empire and its idols. It is an ascension ethic that refuses to be subject to the principles of normality. It is a liberated ethic that dares to imagine a world that is alternative to the present brokenness. It is an eschatological ethic of hope that engenders a this-worldly praxis in anticipation of a coming kingdom.”

We teach that if we want to take this Jesus stuff seriously it has to engulf every aspect of our lives. Not just our quiet time because the Kingdom is bigger and more important than all our previous allegiances. We’re not Irish or British or Americans. We’re not Republicans or Democrats or Unionists or Nationalists. We’re not Capitalists or Socialists. Or brands, consumers, employees, or corporations. We are citizens in the Kingdom of God and our allegiance is only to the Kingdom. All other things come secondary and you can’t serve two simultaneously. Or as my boss Steve says, “You can’t have one hand living with Jesus while the other hand lives in the shopping mall; eventually, you’ll have to let go of one hand.” Nothing is neutral from our devotion to Jesus Christ. We preach, “Nothing matters but the Kingdom, but because of the Kingdom everything matters.” Therefore, the way we shop matters. Where we live matters. How we treat people matters. Where we work, what we drive, the food we buy and how we eat it. All of these things matter because there is “not a place on earth that Christ hasn’t laid claim to.” (Abraham Joshua Heschel)

And this stuff is exciting. It gets me pumped. And the students are stunned because it plays with their heads and shouts at them, “You are involved in something here. God is changing the world and he wants you to be apart of it! Yes you. You are important, you play a role, and you matter. Life does not revolve around television dreams. You were made for something so much bigger!” And we like to think that maybe God uniquely made each of them to come together and put an end to the violence in Northern Ireland. Because they can do it. And why the heck not? What if this is the “longed for tidal wave of justice rising up?” They have the cultural credibility, the money, the education, the support, and hopefully after this year; the holistic Kingdom vision that will make it impossible for them not to go out and untangle the knots of Northern Ireland sectarianism.

“I believe in another Kingdom that belongs to the poor and to the peacemakers. I believe in a safe world, and yet I know this world will never be safe as long we try to use violence to drive out violence. Violence only begets the very thing it seeks to destroy. My King warned His followers, "If we pick up the sword we will die by the sword." How true this has proved to be throughout history.”
-Shane Claiborne

"Segregation is the adultery of an illicit intercourse between injustice and immorality."
-Martin Luther King Jr

Last week I was with my new friend Colin Caughy (what a fantastic N. Irish name) on the Crumlin Road, one of Belfast’s many streets that feature alternating Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods. Every block is a new culture and color scheme; needless to say, the tension is a bit high. We arrived at a corner where a Protestant neighborhood became a Catholic one and were intrigued to see a crowd of mothers and daughters whooping and hollering. To the applause of their community, we witnessed Protestant boys attacking both Catholic youth and Police Landrovers simultaneously with bottles, bricks, and stones. I’d say pretty impressive rioting, multi-tasking and all. Word travels fast, because some bigger kids joined, and then bigger kids, and soon BIG kids were throwing rocks. And I mean throwing them, hard, and at little kids too. Then a woman approached us; maybe 40 years old, a mom, one just like mine, and exclaimed, “If them wee boys be throwing stones, you big lads better get stuck in. C’mon go.” As she motioned to us to join the fight, Colin politely declined for the both of us and we walked away very very fast.

That evening, the whole incident came full circle and I think I realized for the first time that these people really hate Catholics. I mean hate them. And they hate the police too. And they applaud their youth when they hit little Catholic boys in the face with bricks. When they knock them unconscious and make them bleed. Make them bleed a lot. Make them bleed real human blood. And it is this type of hatred that I just can’t get my head around. And I understand Northern Ireland politics and history pretty well for an outsider. I’ve read the books, I’ve talked to the right people, I know who the politicians are, hell, I’m doing a whole website on it. But I still cannot begin to grasp the bitterness and loathing that some people have for one another.

And it’s interesting because a lot of these wee Protestant boys have never actually gone into the Catholic neighborhood. It’s 15 feet away, but they have never been there. And they have never talked to these other boys, they just know that they wear crucifixes around their necks and for that deserve to be hit by stones. Then there’s the Mother endorsing this type of behavior. And if she solicits total strangers like us for this, I can’t imagine what she is telling to her own children. And in the face of this woman I picture my own mother and the mothers of my friends and I can never, not in a million years, see them supporting and encouraging this type of violence.

And it's easy to blame this Mother for moral treason. I sure did. And her thug kids too. What a bunch of screw ups. They are the immoral filth that are ruining our world. But we must remind ourselves that these are not bad people. Not at all. In fact, most are really good people, they are just poor. Many of them genuinely love God. They love their families and their country. They make sacrfices for others and tuck their children in at night. Yet the way they act on the street is part sinful nature but mostly because aggressive behavior is the moral ideology of the culture. And it's a consuming culturally imperialistic ideology as well. In lower class Catholic and Protestant neighborhoods, you hate “them” for the sake of tradition and territory. Redemptive violence is the lay of the land and you strike first because if you give “them” an inch “they” will take a mile…end of story. And it’s just Northern Ireland. It's how things work.

I believe that American Christians, or Christians who just so happen to be Americans..... oftentimes, because of our culture, tend to separate ourselves from violent sin because we believe in the myth of moral superiority. We believe in a myth that says the “Axis of Evil” is them out there, on that side of the world, but never inside our own hearts. And that's just bad theology. We think we would never behave in that sort of way and yet we are all sick sick, seriously vulgar people. Oh the things I have thought about doing to others but have restrained myself because of cultural context. But if we grew up in North Belfast, I can’t even tell you how much I would hate Catholics. I’d kill em all. And if I lived in Germany in 1930 I would raise that beautiful swastika flag and smile big, laughing at the extermination of six million Jews. Because it is for the greater good. The ends justify the means of course. And you and I, with genocidal fever and dull machetes; boy we’d be hacking Tutsis to bits in Rwanda. And all of us, every last one….in the high courts of Pontius Pilate would be chanting in unison, “Crucify him. Crucify him.” We’d spit on him and gamble for his clothes too.

What I find so unique to Northern Ireland, they lay sin right out in their own communities. It spills from their hearts and directly onto the streets. Cheers to them for being the most honest out of everyone. And the Americans.... we send it over in the shapes of bombs and guns to the Middle East, while we divert our eyes to the television and sing the songs of the Empire. The sins of revenge, narcissism, and greed rain down. And we've already forgotten all about it...

And you can probably tell that I’m a bit beaten down by this whole thing. But it’s hard not to feel hopeless sometimes when you see children hit other children with rocks because of cultural perversion. Here I am just arriving in Belfast with all this optimism and ambition. I got my social justice books and Martin Luther King posters and cool political t-shirts. The Bible in one hand the newspaper in the other; ready to change the world. And in the first month witness some of the worst most blatant disrespect for the Kingdom of God that I have ever seen. And the reality is, I can’t tackle something this big. It’s just too big. There is too much evil in it. And I don't understand it, so who am I to think that I can metaphorically walk in the middle of a sectarian conflict and stand upon a barricade shouting, “Brothers and Sisters, I come in peace to share with you the good news of Jesus Christ. This Jesus I know teaches of a love that cuts across the political divide and will unify both Catholics and Protestants into one holy community.…” The only unification process taking place would be as both groups team up to beat me to death.

What I’m awkwardly trying to say, is that I alone as an outsider with zero credibility cannot stop people from killing one another in North Belfast. But I have a few ideas of who can. Eighty Eight of them in fact. Right here in Northern Ireland. So I’m hopeful and I know God is moving and that I am apart of the process. And with his grace and a holistic Kingdom vision I think we can make some progress toward peace. Together. I’ll reveal the plan to you soon enough…..

The Aftermath.....

Thankfully, the last few days have been much calmer as Belfast saw nowhere near the hostility and destruction of the previous weekend. Regardless of how many riots broke out each evening, this last week has still been full of tension and uncertainty. I don’t know if it was the way the sun hid behind the clouds or if the wind suddenly changed directions, but every afternoon around 4:00 an eerie tension would settle in. It’s hard to describe but you could just feel it. Wondering, waiting, unsure of how bad the violence would be tonight. Would it be better, would it be worse, would this ever stop? I think it was Wednesday of last week; I turned to my boss Steve and said, “You can just feel it huh? The tension.” He nodded in consent.

But adding to the apprehension was an element of blatant inconvenience that the rioting brought. Even the initial allure of destruction in the streets wears off, I assume especially fast for those who have been dealing with this for decades. Truthfully, it still hasn’t worn off for me, I’m utterly enthralled, but I can tell that it is really frustrating to most people. The roads would be blocked off every afternoon making the traffic an absolute nightmare. I heard one guy shout that it took him three hours to get home the evening before. In fact, we had a truck delivering electric wiring equipment to our new office that was hijacked last Thursday and burned up. The driver was unhurt and we lost the equipment and the truck, but what an inconvenience for us and the delivery company. I also read stories of Paramilitaries stopping cars and checking driver’s licenses in order to choose which cars to hijack and use as flaming police barricades. If your name is Laura Davidson, a friendly Protestant smile and nod. But an Irish/Catholic Seamus O’Mally or Ciara McGrady and you’re dragged out, robbed, and your car is blown out on the Shankill Road.

And the reason for the senseless destruction, which I’ve come to realize is much more political than just 130 yards of historic marching pavement…...
The Protestant members of Belfast are feeling disconnected, encroached upon, and isolated from the community as a whole. While still the majority in this country, they feel as though they are not listened to anymore, their political goals are not taken seriously, and the Northern Irish Government has continually favored Catholic political parties. Or as they put it, “The Nationalists have been getting everything out of the peace process, and we've been getting nothing." (Notice the "Sinn Fein Commitment to the Peace Process" Mural. In the center of the mural is Catholic Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams displayed as half politician-half IRA terrorist.) Therefore, the blatant disrespect for the Protestants effort to march on the Springfield Road last week is yet another example of this favoritism toward Catholics. Protestants also believe that when the Catholic IRA commits atrocious acts of violence, they are awarded political leverage and validation from the people, the Government, and the Police Force. Obviously, the Protestants want the same respect and it only makes sense that for their voice to be heard, they too have demonstrated a violent and destructive ideology.

Anarchy in the UK....


Some of you may have heard, but over the last five days there has been the worst rioting and violence Northern Ireland has seen in years. In neighborhoods throughout the city, Protestant Loyalist paramilitaries and youth divisions have taken to the streets in vicious clashes with Police and British Military . Seriously though, this is the most insane stuff I have ever seen in my entire life. The sky is filled with smoke, the helicopters have been keeping us up at night, and you can hear the blast bombs going off in some parts of the city. This is hatred like I have never seen before.... It’s absolutely terrifying and yet totally exciting all at the same time. Thank you to those who have checked up on me.

Draped in traditional scarves and armed with bats, Loyalist mobs have torched the city hurling petrol bombs and blast bombs at NI Police and British Soldiers. They perch on roofs firing automatic weapons and pelt down homemade grenades and blast bombs filled with nails. Protestant Paramilitaries have enlisted armies of male youths, some as young as five years old to launch rocks, bottles, bricks, and paint bombs in attempts to injure riot police. Teenage girls have even been spotted throwing bricks and bottles. Rioters dragged passing motorists from cars and lit their vehicles ablaze in attempts to blockade police. Some insurgents were seen stealing a tractor and ramming it through the pillars of a gas station island. They they then used the tractor’s capability to rip out the ATM machine from the wall and carry it back to their homes.

Sunday night, a bus full of elderly citizens was hijacked at gunpoint on its return home from a church service. The victims were robbed of money and mobile phones and the bus was driven back to a flash point and incinerated to thwart off police Land Rovers.

The irony of it all, these rioters are demolishing their own neighborhoods. These are Protestants hijacking and igniting the cars of fellow Protestants. They are upending telephone poles and tearing down entire billboards of the streets they actually live on. Community owned stores and businesses have been completely burned to the ground by their own neighbors.

Loyalist Sandy Row: Before and After

Saturday 10th Sunday 11th

These photos can't fully do justice to what has gone on. Please view the videos from the BBC coverage on the following websites. The footage is unbelievable, it's like nothing I have ever seen. The articles are titled as follows and you'll click on the video link right below the opening pictures:

Rioters Intend to Kill Police
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4235278.stm

Loyalist Violence Erupts in City (video link to right of photo)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4238442.stm

Violent Clashes Erupt in Belfast
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4233850.stm

As you can tell, anarchy has erupted in Belfast. Yet it’s an organized anarchy of sorts; they have been planning this for some time. Loyalist paramilitary leaders sit up in buildings text messaging younger soldiers telling them where to go, what to do, and how to get more supplies. Rioters have successfully organized in all major Protestant neighborhoods throughout the city. For the last 5 days, starting in the mid afternoon, Protestant community members stand out in the middle of street and begin to block off traffic. Slowly they turn away cars and secure neighborhoods for the evening's festivities (see 1st photo of daytime Protestant assemblage below). In raids the Police have discovered homemade blast bomb making factories around the city, and have learned of nine year olds taught to add in sugar to molotov cocktails so the enflamed substance sticks better to police vehicles.

Why is this all Happening?
In Northern Ireland, both Catholics and Protestants are very proud of their heritage and tradition. During certain times throughout the year, both hold marches, parades, and protests to commemorate important historical events and let everyone know how proud they are of their religious/political legacy. (Think the 4th of July but with the Redcoats living down the street.) The Protestants had a traditional march called the Whiterock Parade planned for September 10th organized by the Orange Order, which we would see synonymous with the Elks or the Rotary Club. This year they were asked to re-route the parade by the Belfast Parade Commission because certain neighborhoods have changed in Belfast and the precession would go for 130 yards on the Springfield Road, a major Catholic/IRA controlled neighborhood. 130 yards...as in 390 feet. Last year, the Orange Order were allowed to march on the Springfield Road and violence escalated as Catholic Nationalist youths attacked police in protest. Because of last year's events, the Parade Commission logically decided to change the route. Protests and civil unrest began almost immediately from the Protestant Community. (See the white flyer photo below of Loyalists calling protest; notice “God Save the Queen”). The Orange Order has been marching on these roads for 200 years and members pleaded with police to let them continue onto the Springfield Road. When the police remained unwilling, the Orange Order tried to force themselves onto the road and the riots erupted from there. While still the majority in Northern Ireland, Protestants feel scared that they are being encroached upon by the growing Catholic neighborhoods. They are fearful of losing their heritage and have a slight premonition that the Northern Irish government favors Catholic political parties.

It is believed that Loyalist Paramilitary groups have been waiting for a cause to incite conflict with police. And this was their perfect opportunity. Police believe the parade was simply a catalyst to hijack tradition and pervert it into urban warfare. A single event, on one road, now has the city under siege in nearly half a dozen locations. And all of this for 130 yards of pavement. 130 yards....

Inside the Loyalist Battleground: My experience at the Albertbridge and Shankill Road Flashpoints....
In a few afternoons during the ceasefires I visited two major flashpoints where the rioting has been some of the worst. The Albertbridge and the Shankill Road have been described as the heartland of Protestant Loyalist activity. Upon arriving, I'm reminded of footage similar to that of Baghdad or Sarajevo. Bombs have dropped and these neighborhoods look like absolute war zones. Cars are blown up and burnt out, storefront windows smashed, everything is on fire, debris fills the streets. The Loyalist thugs loiter about during downtime, surveying the damage, some of their faces covered by scarves and hoods. Similar to the break you get after each round of boxing. As the police/military pensively wait, a thick tension builds. All are eager for that first stone to be thrown so the chaos can begin again. As an outsider insistent on taking photos, it could be the most scared I've ever been in my entire life; mostly because we felt the riot could start again at any moment. Let me just warn you, the photos I took of this event on Albertbridge Road last Sunday are terrible. Terrible not because they are graphic, but terrible because they are just really bad photos. I was using my friend Suzanne’s camera which I didn’t know how to use, so some of the shots are blurry. Also, taking photos at these sorts of things is pretty sketchy anyway, that actually could be why they are blurry. From what I hear, Loyalist criminals don’t really like their photos taken and they hate the media. Something about that whole "exposing" thing the media tends to do....

Pictures: Armored Police Landrovers on the Albert Bridge, Debris on Albert Bridge, Burned out bus on Shankill Road (notice the little girls next to it), More debris on the Albert Bridge, Crowds gathering for riots on the Albert Bridge, Rubble on the Shankill Road, Broken windows on the Shankill Road. Me, very very safe and unhurt working on this blog.....

Exploring Paramilitary activity in Northern Ireland....

The majority of people in Northern Ireland don’t hate those who disagree with them about religion and politics. Most want to go to work, send their kids to school, feel safe, and live in peace. Sadly, deep seated racism and bigotry have influenced extreme wings of both groups, and out of this hatred have grown militant criminal organizations. These groups are so loyal to their religious tradition and political principles that they succumb to a “by any means necessary” ideology. These means usually entail....

-extensive military training
-heavy involvement in the illegal arms trade
-funding from terrorist militias and guerrilla forces
-the control of neighborhoods through extortion and drug trafficking
-winning elections and gaining political power

To put it into context....imagine Tony Soprano and Al Capone being the US Senate Majority and Minority Leaders. These organizations also have varying names, so here is the rundown to spot them in the murals.

The extreme Protestants are also called the Loyalists (because they are loyal to the crown) and feature many different paramilitary organizations: Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF), Red Hand Commandos, Orange Volunteers (OV), Ulster Defense Association (ADA), Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF). All of these groups are working to achieve the same political goals and yet currently are also fighting against each other over drugs, weapons, and territory.

The extreme Catholics are the Republicans whose major paramilitary organization is the Irish Republican Army (IRA). The IRA has been involved in numerous terrorist bombings throughout the UK and have trained and equipped rebel forces in Colombia, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Chechnya, Palestine, and other “rogue” nations throughout the Middle East. The IRA also have sub-groups like the Real IRA (RIRA) and the Continuity IRA (CIRA).

Just as a reminder, these people are all “Christians.” They are defined as Catholics and Protestants. They read the same Bible and pray to the same God. They are all Irish and all pretty much look the same. The bad teeth are no exception. But as my boss Steve says, "Sectarian racism from the pulpit causes firebombs in the streets." It is because of hateful theology combined with extreme politics that these paramilitary/terrorist organizations have been able to keep Northern Ireland caught in a cycle of violence for the last 40 years.

Lately there has been relative “peace” in Northern Ireland. Both groups signed the Good Friday Ceasefire Agreement in 1998 and the volatile neighborhoods of the last 30 years are seen as fairly safe places to be, at least during the day. As of about a month ago, the IRA historically announced its disarmament and decommission. The city is rebuilding itself well, tourism is thriving, and the British Military no longer have Belfast under a state of martial law. However, the intensity of Northern Ireland’s conflicted history still resonates. Hateful murals loom on street corners and sporadic sectarian violence is prone to occur, especially during times of seasonal marches and protests.

Why there is conflict in Northern Ireland....

I don't know if I've ever been more fascinated by a political conflict than I am by the one in Northern Ireland. Because of this, I find it necessary to do a few posts about "the troubles" themselves before I get into how I am being personally effected by them. Giving an in-depth history lesson on this silly website would be boring, so I've compiled some small facts and insights that I hope you find as intriguing as I do. If you would like a more in depth history lesson please go here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/troubles/index.shtml

-Northern Ireland has 1.7 million residents. Geographically it’s about the same size as Connecticut but with half as many people

-Belfast is the capital city with 370,000 inhabitants

-Northern Ireland is not Ireland. They are similar yet separate countries. Northern Ireland is part of Great Britain, while Ireland or the Republic of Ireland is its own country. Check out the map

-Most people in the Republic of Ireland are Catholics (about 95%), but nearly an equal number of both Catholics and Protestants live in the North (about 55% Protestant to 45% Catholic). Herein lies the problem….

-The Protestants of Northern Ireland are loyal to Great Britain and to the Crown. They prefer for Northern Ireland to remain under British rule. The Protestants proudly fly the British Union Jack flag.

-The Catholics on the other hand are loyal to the Republic of Ireland. They want Northern Ireland to become independent of British rule and join with the Republic making one unified Ireland. The Catholics fly the tricolor flag of Ireland and have traditional roots in Gaelic language, culture, and sports.

-Things get interesting because Northern Ireland is a very small country and the capital city of Belfast is a patchwork of community rivalries. Most Catholics and Protestants live in divided areas, but in some of the more impoverished areas these neighborhoods are literally on top of each other. There will be 300 yards of a Protestant street flying the Union Jack flag with the curbs painted red, white, and blue, and the next 300 yards of street will be a Catholic neighborhood with signs in Gaelic and the curbs painted green, white, and orange. These streets continue to intersect each other all over the city and the close proximity is a major cause of sectarian violence.

What I'm doing in Northern Ireland....


Above are photos of Queens University, my boss the Rev. Steve Stockman, and Derryvolgie Hall where I live.

I work for the Presybyterian Chaplaincy at Queens University in Belfast. Living in residence with students, I'm organizing events and campaigns that offer practical responses for how devotion to Jesus affects issues of peace, reconciliation, social justice, ecology, and fair trade. The major part of the job is also planning and executing a 2 month long trip to Capetown, South Africa where students will put their faith into action. Ninety of our students will build houses with Habitat for Humanity, volunteer with HIV/AIDS victims, visit Fair Trade farms and vineyards, and learn extensively about non-violent conflict resolution through the study of South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Furthermore, I will be spending a lot of time with the students in our residence community, drinking tea and "having good craic" while they watch the OC or Desperate Housewives or something.