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The Lived Theology and Power Workgroup

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Meeting Highlights

Second Meeting
New York, NY
April 19-21, 2002

Narrative

The Workgroup on Lived Theology and Power held its second meeting in New York City on the weekend of April 19, 2002. The group convened on Friday afternoon at the Harvard Club where Gerald Schlabach, Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas, gave a presentation on his paper, "The Christian Witness in the Earthly City: John H. Yoder as Augustinian Interlocuter." In presenting his paper, Gerald borrowed from the contemporary discussion of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. The first reading is that presented by Professor Sherry Turkle in "Lord of the Hackers". It is a negative reading of Tolkien in the light of our contemporary computer culture. An alternative reading is provided by Gerald's Mennonite colleague Kathleen Kern in "Middle East, Middle Earth," an article that recently appeared in the Mennonite Weekly Review. As Gerald developed Kern's reading of the Middle East in the light of Middle Earth, Professor Schlabach sought to explicate Yoder's recovery of true power in terms of two interpretive keys: 1) the "little people" as the real actors of history, 2) who reject and ultimately destroy the ring of domination.

Mark Gornik, Director of the City Seminary of New York, made the second presentation of the weekend entitled "Presence, Power and the Spirit in the Global City." His talk addressed the rising influence of African Christianity in New York City and the role of religion in the global cities. Reverend Gornik explained that contrary to stereotypes, New York City has some of the most vibrant and growing Christian communities of any major urban center in America. However, this Christian presence in New York is no longer dominated by traditional White Protestant or Roman Catholic communities; rather it is marked by immigrant communities from the southern hemisphere, often Pentecostal or Charismatic.

As an anecdotal illustration, Mark talked about his "subway test" in which he often looks around the subway car during rush hour and find people reading the Bible. In most cases, these people are African, Latino or from one of the new immigrant communites in the city. Gornik's point is that the shift in the center of gravity in global Christianity from the north to the south, so well-documented in Philip Jenkin's book, The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity, mirrors the reality of the church of his global city, New York.

On Saturday morning the group traveled to the South Bronx where they met with Lee Stuart, lead organizer for South Bronx Churches, a congregational-based group that organizes community members to effect constructive changes in their neighborhoods and city. Ms. Stuart, who addressed the group in a chapel inside St. Jerome's Catholic Church, began her presentation by asking the workgroup what the primary theological virtue is, or what Christian virtue did they teach most. One by one, group members gave various answers—faith, hope and love being the most popular—but no one gave the answer Stuart wanted: power. "The primary theological virtue is power, the ability to get something done. The church shies away from power, even though we worship an all-powerful God. But power is the virtue that enables us to move from 'the way the world is' to the 'way the world ought to be'. Power is the only way to advance all the other theological virtues—love, justice and peace."

Stuart then explained how South Bronx Churches, or SBC, organizes for power rather than for specific ends—even though specific ends are obviously pursued—and that the purpose is always for recognition, participation and decision-making. Stuart then took the workgroup to a section of the South Bronx as concrete demonstration of her theology of power. The group witnessed the extraordinary transformations of once embattled neighborhoods that are the fruit of the Nehemiah Project's twenty block construction of homes for the poor-—a SBC-based initiative that involves frequent confrontations of slum-lords and city housing bureaucrats. Stuart also led the group through one of the houses and explained the features of the home and the homeownership program.

The workgroup members then took the subway across the Bronx to the Latino Pastoral Action Center (LPAC), where they with met executive director Ray Rivera, a Pentecostal Hispanic minister ordained in the Christian Reformed Church. In his presentation. Rivera described his lifelong search for a "wholistic theology" that serves the total person. In this regard, LPAC is first and foremost a concrete theological expression. "Unapologetically Christ-centered," the Latino Action Pastor Center is based on four principles: personal and structural liberation in Christ; healing in the spirit; koinonia or community; and a call to personal transformation and perpetual growth in the Lord. Of particular interest to the group was his discussion of the parallels between the Israelites in captivity and the inner city poor.

On Sunday morning the group convened for an extended time of reflection on the previous day's site visits and discussions. Charles Marsh asked each member of the group to formulate questions related to the goals of the Project on Lived Theology that had come to mind as a result of the presentations and site visits. The conversation that proceeded was lively and vigorous and helped to clarify our theological work and to establish a foundation for substantive collaboration. These questions included the following:

  • How does a working eschatology form both a theoretical and practical idea of power?
  • How does the ecclesiology of community organizers impact their conceptions of power?
  • What is the difference between the power of the Holy Spirit and state power?
  • We talk about the problems of the disenfranchised a lot, but what about the problems of the enfranchised when it comes to the struggle for justice?
  • By what criteria do groups distinguish between human power and God's power? How does one determine that God is working in social existence?
  • Is the power of the church in processes of social change merely instrumental? How does our answer to this question shape the agenda of questions by which we interrogate power?
  • What are the global city mission implications of Yoder's theology?
  • Is power the central theological virtue?
  • Is Yoder's discussion of Christian social witness implicitly appreciative of Niebuhr's analysis of power?
  • Faith, hope and love are considered the three cardinal Christian virtues, with love being the greatest, because only love survives the eschaton. What then is the relationship of power to the central Christian virtues, both now and in the eschaton?

The final discussion on Sunday began with Mark Gornik's assertion that the talk given by Lee Stuart of the South Bronx Churches, which had been criticized by some in the workgroup for not integrating theological reflection into a program for community action and development that focused on the concept of power, was in fact profoundly theological. Mark pointed to such things as the meeting place chosen (St. Jerome's Church in the South Bronx), the Industrial Area's Foundation strategy of working with churches (of which the South Bronx Churches is an affiliate), and Stuart's implicit dependence on Catholic social thought, i.e., the idea of the common good and subsidiarity.

This contention was supported by Shawn Copeland, who characterized Lee's effort as reflective of Jesus' maxim to be "wise as serpents and innocent as doves." The question then becomes how to maintain one's theological integrity?

Gerald Schlabach spoke on the Catholic social concept of subsidiarity, and the way in which although it recognizes the good of participation, this good of participation must ultimately be taken up into the larger concern for the common good. In this respect, Yoder's piecemeal approach to working for social change in order to bring gospel values to bear on social ills allows one to build new institutions and then set them free as one goes on to the next thing.

Russell Jeung then raised the issue of whether groups such as the South Bronx Churches are really building for the common good or for a specific local community, and if the latter, then is it not really just a special interest group acting out of self-interest? Are their efforts really integrative, working for social wholeness, or based on concepts of power and conflict in order to achieve certain goals.

To this Shawn Copeland sought to explain the concept of the common good in Catholic social teaching. The good life is the life of virtue, not just a happy middle-class life. The common good is not the arithmetic sum of goods, yet at the same time there is the recognition that people should have some goods, vital ones that sustain them. So when people are trying to improve the lives of others, helping people have something does not necessarily imply accepting all the values of materialism. Human good is not perfect and without sin. Thus what Lee Stuart is trying to do is to work for latinos and blacks in a situation of poverty and marginalization without setting them against each other. This is reflective of the common good.

To this Jeung asked out of his own experiences with community development in Oakland the following question: if the unity of the group is based upon self-interest rather than the Eucharist or some such common good, are you not teaching the kids to seek their self-interest? This question elicited much discussion. Much of it revolved around the idea of how Christians have theological language to articulate the common good, but in order to build coalitions we use the common language of instrumental individualism.

Readings

Readings from Gerald Schlabach:

  • Yoder, John Howard. The Christian Witness to the State. Institute of Mennonite Studies ; No. 3. Newton, Kansas: Faith and Life, 1964.
  • Yoder, John Howard. The Royal Priesthood: Essays Ecclesiological and Ecumenical. Ed. by Michael G. Cartwright. Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1998.
  • Schlabach, Gerald. "The Christian Witness in the Earthly City: John H. Yoder as Augustinian Interlocutor". Unpublished paper, University of St. Thomas, 2002.

Readings from Mark Gornik:

  • Jenkins, Philip. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
  • Sassen, Saskia. Globalization and its Discontents. New York: The New Press, 1998.
  • Stuart, Lee. "The Bronx Leadership Academy Highschool: The Challenges of Innovation." City Schools: Lessons from New York. Ed. by Diane Ravitch and Joseph P. Viteritti. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2000.
  • Stuart, Lee. "The Development of Moses as a Leader". Unpublished paper, 1996.
  • "Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus". The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1.

Readings from Charles Marsh:

  • Boyte, Harry C. CommonWealth: A Return to Citizen Politics. New York: The Free Press, 1989.
  • Marsh, Charles. "The Civil Rights Movement as Theological Drama - Interpretation and Application". Modern Theology 18:2, April 2002.
  • Norden, Eric. "Playboy Interview: Saul Alinsky". Playboy Magazine 19:3, March 1972.
  • Warren, Mark R. "Creating a Multi-Racial Democratic Community: Case Study of the Texas Industrial Areas Foundation". Paper presented for the conference on Social Networks and Urban Poverty, Russell Sage Foundation, New York City, March 1996.

Papers/Presentations