On Sunday after church, I met a Kenyan Quaker who shares both my name and my age. We also share similar tastes in beer and music. However, despite our similarities, one possession remains exclusively his: memories from Kenya’s post-election violence in 2007 and 2008.

Eric was living in the slums of Nairobi at the time, which saw some of the worst clashes that eventually claimed an estimated 1,300 lives. Although Eric’s account of having been witness to rape and murder was disturbing, more disturbing still was the calm, matter-of-fact tone with which he recounted those chaotic weeks, including the death of one of his close friends.

How is it that this hopeful nation of pious Christians and Muslims, which leads the region in education and development, could have descended into a state of chaos that saw scores killed, an untold number raped and beaten, and an estimated 650,000 people displaced and sent into hiding? Unlike Rwanda and Burundi, where the presence of two, distinctive tribes fomented mutual distrust and climaxed in bloody conflict, Kenya possess no less than forty-two tribes which are physically indistinguishable from one-another. Under such conditions, how can wanton violence arise?

The answer is that the violence had both everything and nothing to do with tribalism. Based on what I’ve read and heard in the last three weeks, I will try to provide my version of the narrative:

When the British colonized Kenya, they employed what was by then a typical strategy of ‘divide and conquer.’ Individual Kenyans–who belonged to disparate and fluid sub-tribes whose particularities were ignored–were organized into immutable ethnic units on the basis of common language and moved into territories whose boundaries Britain had literally drawn in the sand. Although Kenyans had not previously adhered to the concept of strict land ownership, this arbitrary redistribution of territories (which rewarded the most cooperative tribes with the largest and most fertile ‘grants,’ and punished the tribes that actually resisted British rule) nevertheless saddled Kenya with strong intertribal animosities that still simmer today. Violent skirmishes over land boundaries remain a regular occurrence – but it must be stressed that land, rather than tribe, is the real issue behind those clashes.

The British also chose to groom two tribes, the Kikuyu and an elite cadre among the Luo, to be their proxy rulers. Those two groups therefore share a grossly disproportionate amount of wealth, power, education and opportunity as compared to all other Kenyans, and the result is a class divide that masquerades as a tribal one. The Kikuyu in particular, who constitute the largest, richest and most powerful tribe in Kenya, are the target of many negative stereotypes resulting from their envied position. It is the Kikuyu, I have been told, whose wives beat their husbands, and who raise homosexual children, and who are lovers of money.

But how do these tribal identities, which were reinforced and made to oppose one-another through colonial manipulation, play out in the elections? David Zarembka, the lead coordinator of my NGO and a hero of mine, explains:

“This is how tribalism is used by politicians for their own benefit. First, the politician proclaims that he or she is the leader of his or her tribe. In order to get their fair share of government resources, the tribe must support their leader. If it does not, then other tribes which do support their leader will get the resources and the tribe that does not will be left destitute. If the leader is convincing enough and get[s] 90% or more of this tribal vote, he will be [the] indisputable leader of the tribe. With this, he or she will negotiate a position in the government [by pledging his or her tribe’s votes to a political coalition]. In the end, the ‘tribal’ leader has hoodwinked his tribe because the benefits will accrue to him or her and his or her families and closest supporters. The average citizen will see little benefit. When that leader is accused of corruption or misuse of office, he or she will wave the tribal flag so that his or her tribesmen will unite behind him or her, stating that this is a political ploy to destroy the tribe. For reasons that I can not understand, this works. Regardless of the fact that few benefits trickle down to the average tribal citizen; that the tribal leaders’ family and cronies become exceedingly wealthy; that this tribal politics destroys the unity of the country; and that conflict rather than a working together to improve the whole nation results, this unjust system continues” (A Peace of Africa, 199-200).

And, when in 2007 Kenya’s current president Mwai Kibaki, a Kikuyu, blatantly stole the election, tribal machinations were blamed as the root cause of democracy’s despoilment. The resulting feelings of confusion, betrayal and rage, supercharged by and understood through Kenya’s tribal framework, unfortunately had no other recourse but to be catalyzed into violence, which “was frequently enhanced by the concept, ‘You are trying to kill me, so I will kill you first.’ Of course, the other side thinks the same thing so preemptive violence occurs” (222), and hence the scenes of utter chaos that Eric witnessed. All of that being said, it is a fortune beyond fortunes that most of the post-election damage occurred to property rather than people, and that the death toll did not approach even 1% of the figure from Rwanda’s tribal conflagration.

Additionally, hope exists. There’s good reason to believe that the 2013 elections will proceed much more smoothly than the 2007 ones. The area where I’m staying, Kakamega, which is overwhelmingly Luya, is evenly split between Mudavadi, a Luya, and Odinga, a Luo, which seems to indicate that voters are moving beyond their basic tribal loyalties. Indeed, even a large number of Kikuyus support Odinga, despite the availability of Kenyatta, a Kikuyu, as a candidate (although it could also be a factor that Kenyatta is currently being tried by the International Criminal Court!). On the flip side, however, the Luo continue to support their candidate exclusively, which suggests to me that the transformation toward true democracy is slow and by no means ubiquitous. It’s worth noting that when I asked my host to confirm that the Luo are ninety-nine percent in favor of Odinga, he corrected me: “point nine.”

As always, the Bible contains great precedents that, if promulgated and understood, could do much to help. Colossians 3:11 tells us that “there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.” This same sentiment is echoed in 1 Corinthians 12:13: “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body–whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free–and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” If Kenyans, and indeed the world at large, were to implement this lesson of radical egalitarianism, there would be no tribalism, classism, chauvinism or any negative -ism imaginable.

But we live in a fallen world, and any improvements that Christianity can offer must occur incrementally. To that end, my organization and I held a two-day workshop this week, during which we introduced approximately twenty representatives of Kenyan Quaker meetings to a program entitled Turning the Tide (TtT). The purpose of the program, which was introduced by British Quakers as a response to the 2007-8 post-election violence, is to provide Kenyan activists with tools and methods of thought that can be used to analyze social issues, break them down into manageable sub-issues, identify potential allies, and finally campaign to fix said issues. The program was well-received, and I am hopeful that the grassroots efforts that TtT empowers will have a real effect on creating an engaged, informed and effective electorate in Kenya–one that is powerful enough to resist the ideological and political manipulations of Kenya’s cruel power-brokers.

I was also very pleased that a portion of the TtT program was dedicated to the examination of Romans 12:17-8, where Paul exhorts Christians to “live at peace with everyone” and to “not repay anyone evil for evil.” Another noteworthy lesson centered around an interesting interpretation of Matthew 5:38-41, where Jesus’ instruction to turn the left cheek in fact is a form of nonviolent resistance, insofar as Biblical Israelites slapped people with the back of their right hand, and thus slapping the left cheek would require a difficult contortion of the arm. Also, it was claimed that Roman officials were only allowed to compel subjects to carry their luggage for a distance of one mile, and thus Jesus’ instruction to go a second mile was actually intended to get those Roman officials in trouble with their superiors. Finally, the injunction to give a prosecutor one’s shirt also when taken to court for one’s coat was again interpreted to be a form of nonviolent resistance, insofar as doing so shames the prosecution for being so cruel, and would probably result in the prosecutor giving up the case out of embarrassment. Although I find the historical validity of these claims dubious, I nevertheless was pleased to see the Scriptures used as a justification for nonviolent resistance to the corrupt misuse of power.

After the workshop, as I warmed myself around a campfire with a dozen Quaker men, a heated political discussion erupted between them. Thankfully they were speaking in English, and I was able to follow along in its entirety. The energy, conviction and optimism that characterized their discourse was entirely unlike the apathy, cynicism and manufactured platitudes that typify American political debate, and even more surprising was the humor and lack of ill will that was present even during their fiercest moments of dissension. In the United States, as any American reader knows, the subject of politics is usually avoided precisely because Americans cannot remain civil when they disagree.

Early on in the discussion, I was relieved to hear all of the men affirm the notion that votes should be cast based on platform rather than tribal interest. Yet, toward the end of the discussion, that sentiment vanished when someone polled for everyone’s opinion regarding a hypothetical runoff between Kenyatta and Odinga, and someone immediately quipped “better a Kikuyu than a Luo.” To my surprise, the rest of the men quickly and quietly indicated their agreement. Clearly, the tribal specter is by no means defeated.

It may take generations, but slowly and surely tribalism is receding in this county. May God, assisted by the grassroots efforts of the African Great Lakes Initiative, speed its timely departure.

Last week, I gave a heuristic answer to the question regarding a proper relationship between Christianity and technology. To summarize, I recommended that Christians disabuse themselves of the idolatrous notion that technology can “save” us, or that it can reliably provide us with a more satisfying life, and I concluded that we should take periodic ‘fasts’ from technology, because doing so can give us a more objective perspective on whether or not a given technology is indeed conducive to our happiness, and–much more importantly–to our spiritual betterment.

As I reflect on my writings, however, I notice that in my analysis I treated happiness and spiritual betterment as synonymous. Was I actually fair in doing so? Or is the path of God sometimes (or often!) less gratifying than… the other path?

I quoted a passage from Jaques Ellul’s The Technological Society last week that is rather pertinent to this investigation. I will reproduce it presently, in full: “Religion is no longer the framework of society… [r]ather, it integrates itself into society, adjusts to it, and adopts the notion of social utility as its criterion and justification” (56, emphasis added). Here Ellul contends, by claiming that technology has forced Christianity to argue its case on the basis of utility, that previously Christianity did not depend on its alleged utilitarian superiority to prove its primacy. By extension, Ellul would predict that a Christianity which cannot prove its “social utility” will, in present times, be abandoned and forgotten.

In Kenya at least, Ellul would seem to have a point. So far I have attended one church service, and indeed the two-hour sermon focused exclusively on the protection God affords to His faithful. Radio stations, television programs and magazine editorials regularly proclaim the same message: God intervenes on the behalf of God’s followers. Privately, multiple individuals have expressed to me their belief that He will grant anything that is asked for “in faith” (a thought which does seem to have some Biblical precedent; see Luke 12:31), and the same people have on several occasions asked me to assuage, in my capacity as an amateur theologian, their confusion over why bad things happen to good people. Above all, however, this apparent tendency of Kenyans to believe that Christianity affords a superior life is best exemplified by the status of Joel Osteen’s name as a household one; indeed, when I tell people that I am from Houston, they almost always ask if I’ve seen the great prophet of prosperity theology (which I have, once, much to the delight of my Kenyan friends and neighbors).

But for Ellul’s claim to be fully correct, it must also be demonstrated that Christianity did not previously rely on any claim to be the superior system for achieving social utility. To this end, we will examine the Didache, one of the oldest surviving Christian documents, which details the early theology and church practice of mid-first century Christian communities. It declares:

“There are two ways, one of life and one of death, and [there is] a great difference between the two ways. Therefore the way of life is this: first, to love the God who made you; second, your neighbor as yourself; and all that you would wish to not happen to you, also you do not do to others. […] But the way of death is this. First of all, it is filled with evil and cursing, murders, adulteries, expressions of lust, acts of sexual immorality, thefts, idolatries, acts of magic, robberies, false witnessing, acts of hypocrisy, acts of duplicity, deceit, pride, malice, stubbornness, greediness, abusive language, jealousy, arrogance, haughtiness, boastfulness. Persecutors of the good, hating the truth, loving the lie, not knowing the reward of righteousness, not joining the good or righteous judgement, not caring for the good but the evil, from whom gentleness and patience [are] far removed, loving what is worthless, pursuing reward, not having mercy on the poor, not toiling for the downtrodden, not understanding the one who made them, murderers of children, corrupters of the creatures of God, rejectors of the needy ones, oppressors of the afflicted, defenders of the rich, lawless judges of the poor, [people] steeped in sin” (1.1-2, 5.1-2).

Wow.

So the Didache, and by extension our earliest-known church traditions, seem to consider the Christian faith to be the greatest guarantor of a happy, satisfying and peaceful life. This conviction was codified by the third-century theologian Origin, who claimed explicitly: “[W]e promise, openly and not in secret, that they will be happy who live according to the word of God, and who look to Him in all things, and who do everything, whatever it is, as if in the presence of God” (Contra Celsus, Book III, Chapter 57). Origen further challenges the pagans, “[L]et him prove that the end which is predicted by any of the others is superior to that which we promise, and consequently that it is true” (Chapter 81).

Apparently, Origen was perfectly confident in Christianity’s ability to provide a superior utility compared to any other philosophy or religion, and indeed he rested the very validity and acceptability of the faith on that ultimatum. Ellul’s claim that Christianity has, only in modern times, “adopt[ed] the notion of social utility as its criterion and justification” therefore seems to be false.

However, our conclusion is missing one important detail: a closer look at the nature of this so-called utility.

Although the early Christians certainly believed that Christian “love and humility provide human beings with a powerful way of disarming such a violent society as theirs and ours” (Roberta Bondi, To Love as God Loves, 10), and thus that a Christian society would possess greater social utility than a non-Christian one, they also recognized that individual Christians “entered… upon a life of danger” that would not allow them, “when it was their fate to be slain as sheep, on any occasion to resist their persecutors” (Origen, Chapter 27, 3). Early Christianity, then, was a far cry from the religion promulgated today; God was not expected to reliably intervene for the material or otherwise temporal benefit of Christians; rather, a great many followers of Jesus faced lives that were poor, nasty, brutish and short. So how could Origen possibly contend that Christianity is the fast-track to happiness?

Origen could make this claim because happiness, to the early Christians, meant something quite different from our modern interpretation of the same. We moderns tend to define happiness as a warm and pleasant but fleeting feeling, perhaps originating from the receipt of a gift, intimacy with a loved one or a moment of simple relaxation. But the early Christians saw happiness not as a temporary feeling but as a lasting, existential state of being, acquired when one possessed “freedom from the enslaving quality of appetites and emotions” (Bondi, 23). Understanding this distinction, we can now see why Joel Osteen and Origen both promise their listeners happiness, yet one predicts new cars, spouses and promotions while the other foretells of persecution and martyrdom!

I’ve now been in Kenya for almost two weeks, yet due to problems with the financial apparatus of the small NGO I am working for, my partners and I have been unable to secure the funding we need to hold workshops on the new Kenyan Constitution, and we have also had to cancel or postpone our training of election observers for Kenya’s upcoming general elections. This was at first a huge disappointment to me; now one-quarter of my time in Kenya has passed, and I haven’t done any of the work that I came here to do. However with each passing day, my frustration is replaced with a deeper understanding and appreciation of Jesus’ meaning in the words of Luke 14:11, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”

Seeking (and and having no other choice but) to humble myself, I have adopted the profession of the fundi–a workman–and I have spent my days clearing land with a machete, mixing cement by hand, shoveling, milking cows, cooking and installing windows. I’ve actually learned a number of useful skills this way, as well as a very interesting smattering of Swahili, and, although the workshops and trainings are expected to begin at long last next week, I at this point would not mind if they were again postponed in favor of more manual labor alongside the Kenyan yeomanry.

A wise man advised that during my time in Kenya, I should refrain from ‘jumping into action,’ as Americans are wont to do, and that I should instead take some time to ‘listen for the Spirit,’ as it were. In a sense, the last two weeks have provided me with the opportunity to do exactly that. Each day I come home from my labors tired and dirty, to a house without running water and with sporadic access to electricity. And I love it. Freedom from technological and recreational distractions seems to sharpen my mind, focus my thoughts and improve my capacity to bond with people. Subsequently I take a splash bath, and then I share a simple dinner with my hosts–a doting and gracious couple of English teachers in their mid-fifties–with whom stimulating conversation is always had. Finally I retreat to my room, which is not much larger than a closet, where I read, I pray and I think.

The early Christian ascetic, Abba Moses, exhorted other monks to “sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything” (quoted in Bondi, 75). My room, in all its simplicity, and its proximity to other seekers with whom meals and much agape are shared, allows me to approximate the situation of these monks, and indeed I try to follow Abba Moses’ exortation to the letter. But what I did not anticipate, and what I am so thankful for, is thesublime contentment that this simple, communal and contemplative life is giving me.

Jaques Ellul was correct after all; the “social utility” that modern Christians increasingly demand is totally different from the deeply personal and spiritual utility that Christianity previously guaranteed. That previous utility, which I am thankfully being allowed to glimpse, takes the form an existential satisfaction with the world–and rebukes any notion of happiness as tangible but fleeting moments of worldly pleasure. Unfortunately, American and Kenyan churches continue to promise their followers measurable, temporal success, setting their parishioners up for a lifetime of disappointment, insofar as “[a] life that takes its meaning from eating, or sex, or owning things can never be fulfilled, because the desires can never be permanently satisfied” (60). Thus, my original question, investigating the relative happiness of Christians versus the adherents of any other system of belief, is ultimately misguided, because Christianity cannot, should not, and was never intended to be described as a way of feeding the temporal cycle of desire; rather, Christianity is a vehicle for the transcendence of our animal nature, whereby “[w]e become more humanby gaining freedom from the enslaving quality of appetites and emotions, [and] more able to love as we move toward God” (23, emphasis added).

I have been in Kenya for less than a week now, and the culture-shock is only beginning to wear off. Where to begin in describing this place? Travel from one location to another is done in overcrowded matatus – vans in which twenty or more people are packed like sardines – and they are infamous for their removal of speed regulators and their flouting of attempts at government regulation. Schoolchildren in brightly-colored uniforms trek many miles to and from their parochial schoolhouses. Packs of wild baboons creep out from the forests, scavenging through piles of roadside waste for unclaimed edibles. Aggressive Kenyan businesswomen climb the corporate ladder, testing the boundaries of traditional African gender roles. Masai tribesmen cling precariously to their pastoral legacy, weaving their cattle through city traffic in search of grass on public lands and undeveloped properties. Indian expatriates – who dominate local business – hawkishly monitor the work of their African employees. Work crews dig drainage ditches and pave roads using a combination of iron-age tools and 21st-century machinery. Second-hand suits fly off the shelves of local markets, and second-hand novels sell at a premium to industrious Kenyans seeking to perfect their English. Orphans–the product of AIDS and a powerful bathtub liquor called chang’aa–drift like ghosts through the city, clutching bottles of glue underneath their noses.

Common to all of these images is one theme: that of a society in transition. Technology and Westernization promise Kenya reform, renaissance and plenty, but come with a high price of squalor, pollution and cultural abnegation. An African proverb, I am told, warns that “only a fool tests the depth of a river with both feet.” Why, then, does Kenya unquestioning embrace these new forms of technology and wealth, without any apparent reservation?

I have posed this question to several Kenyans since my arrival, and the responses I’ve received have been eye-opening. Apparently the elders of Kenya’s many tribes have indeed expressed frequent discontentment with Kenya’s changing cultural landscape, but never have their rumblings coalesced into a systematic traditionalist, reactionary or Luddite movement. Also, Kenyans at large place a high value on their cultural traditions (e.g. the primacy of family, polygamy, the separate dining of men and women, taboos against homosexuality), but the same Kenyans, or at least those that I’ve spoken to, knowingly accept that most if not all of these cultural values are in decline due to the influence of Western technology and culture. To them, it appears a fair price to pay for the material benefits of a 21st-century, consumerist lifestyle.

Worldwide polls reveal, however, that the correlation between technological/material ‘development’ and happiness is both sporadic and weak, and in light of the negative byproducts and cultural homogenization that modernity entails, one is left wondering whether the tradeoff is worthwhile at all. Indeed, humans possess what John Dyer calls a “moving target” for our happiness, where improvements to technology simultaneously increase our expectations, triggering a cycle where we endlessly pursue newer and more powerful technologies without regard for their consequences, with the delusional perception that the next breakthrough in technology will finally bring about our fulfilment, which it never does.

This is the Kenyan dilemma, and it provides me with the perfect impetus for my own confrontation with a question that has long haunted me: What is the proper relationship between Christianity and technology? That is to say, can Christianity deal with the relentless, steamrolling frontier of technology in a way that culls its benefits while reducing its harms?

The most obvious stances on technology are the complete rejection of all technology, which would reduce humans to naked animals, and the complete acceptance of all technology, which would posit that humans are in no position to separate ‘good’ technologies from ‘bad’ ones. This latter position is called instrumentalism, and it holds that the use of a technology – rather than the technology itself – is what possesses a moral dimension. The most familiar example of this position is the statement: “Guns don’t kill people; people kill people.”

Can it also be said that “Nuclear weapons don’t kill people; people kill people”? Or does the same line of thought apply to heroin, weaponized anthrax or gas chambers? No; clearly technologies that can only be used for evil, even according to the instrumentalist position, are wholly evil insofar as they fail to produce one positive implementation. So it would seem to be the case that there are, in fact, intrinsically bad technologies, and that, to some extent, technology is not beyond our judgement.

However, the overwhelming majority of technologies fall into a moral grey area, having both good and bad uses. Fertilizer, for instance, can increase the crop yield of a starving village, or it can increase the blast radius of a terrorist’s bomb. Since they have no intrinsic moral dimension, should such technologies be accepted unconditionally, so long as they are not used for evil?

No. Scripture indicates that some ‘neutral’ technologies nevertheless need to be used prudentially, because they possess secondary effects that might be deleterious to our spiritual well-being. In 2 John 12, for example, the apostle explains that “I have much to write to you, but I do not want to use paper and ink. Instead, I hope to visit you and talk with you face to face, so that our joy may be complete.” Note: John could have transmitted his full message via correspondence, but he wisely observed that ‘complete joy’ and spiritual edification are best achieved through a voluntary ‘fasting’ from this convenient but impersonal mode of communication. Another example: when Jesus appeared to the disciples for the third and final time, he prepared a charcoal fire and a simple meal of fish and bread (John 21:9). We see here that God incarnate chose to use a simple technology in lieu of miraculous mana or multiplying loaves, because this way He sent a more egalitarian and deeply personal message to the world.

“We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us,” wrote John Culkin. For this reason we ought to exercise caution in which tools we use, how we use them, and with what frequency we employ them. Is there a formula, then, that can be applied to deduce when it is and isn’t prudent to use a morally neutral technology? That is to say, how can we know when the use of a technology is hazardous to our spiritual health?

This question is more important now than ever. Jacques Ellul, a new favorite theologian of mine, holds that modern “technique” poses a unique danger to humanity, in that it “is the main preoccupation of our time” such that “no human activity escapes this technical imperative” (The Technological Society, 21). Previously, “Christianity condemned luxury and money,” and “‘Is it righteous?’ was asked of every attempt to change modes of production or of organization. That something might be useful or profitable to men did not make it right and just” (37). But with the help of “the philosophy of the eighteenth century,” which “was utilitarian and pragmatic,” technology supplanted religious concerns as the primary measure of all things, and due to its “superiority of manifesting itself in a concrete way and of leaving its tracks for all to read” (46), we today witness “a kind of secularization of religion,” where Christianity “integrates itself into society, adjusts to it, and adopts the notion of social utility as criterion and justification” (56). Without religious and cultural constraints, “[t]echnique has been extended geographically so that it covers the whole earth. It is evolving with a rapidity disconcerting not only to the man in the street but to the technician himself. It poses problems which recur endlessly and ever more acutely in human social groups. Moreover, technique has become objective and is transmitted like a physical thing; it leads thereby to a certain unity of civilization [the cultural homogenization I bemoaned earlier], regardless of the environment or the country in which it operates” (78). So what is our answer to this rapidly growing problem?

John Dyer proffers in his book, From the Garden to the City, that “[i]nstead of living our lives according to the values of new technology,” we should “determine what our values are first and attempt to use our tools in service of those values” (157). But this is an imperfect solution. Advances in technology, and particularly the advances of modern technology, cause “complication, distraction, and chaos rather than simplicity, contemplation, and order” (165), and we typically cannot predict the changes that these technologies engender until they have already come to pass. For instance, studies indicate that internet saturation literally rewires our neural pathways, worsening our memory and shortening our attention spans, in much the same way that writing obliterated our former ability to memorize entire Socratic dialogues or oral sagas. But humanity had no way of foreseeing these changes, and in fact it is at all times impossible to make an objective, fully-informed decision regarding the adoption or rejection of a new technology.

But the imperative remains: insofar as “[a] good portion of the Christian life requires the ability to concentrate and focus on on ideas over long periods of time, to read and memorize Scripture (not search for it online), and to love God with our hearts and our minds,” “[w]e have to work against these tendencies in order to maintain balance between the natural and the unnatural” (165). One solution is to freeze technology at some point, as the Amish did. However, any level of technology chosen would be completely arbitrary, and, as John Dyer wisely notes, “we’ve not been called to go backward in time but to live faithfully in our own age” (176). The other answer, and indeed the the one I find most compelling, is to routinely “see what happens when we put boundaries on it [technology]” (177), with contemporary examples including ‘fasts’ from computers, the internet, Facebook, and other technologies that we can identify as detrimental to our spiritual health in excessive quantities. Of course, more discussion, more introspection and more skepticism of cutting-edge technology is also key to the Christian’s successful pilgrimage through a world of accelerating technical cacophony.

We are fortunate to have the example of John, who found that ‘complete joy’ often does not accompany the use of our most recent technical achievements. That said, one can only hope that Kenyans come to believe the same before their cultural heritage is lost completely, and before the sicknesses of modernity and urbanization, masquerading as the golden calf of technological salvation, contribute further to suffering, unrest, or worse.

Last week I attended Lobby Day for Bread for the World in Washington, DC with two of my co-workers at Shalom Farms. Bread for the World is a non-partisan ecumenical Christian advocacy group that works to promote policy that ends hunger here in the States and abroad. Christians from all over the country gathered in the capital last Tuesday to urge our representatives in government to “create a circle of protection around programs vital to hungry and poor people in the U.S. and around the world.” As I listened to the inspired and articulate speakers from Bread for the World and participated in conversations with fellow Bread lobbyers and Senate and Congressional staff people, I was reminded of Leonardo Boff’s presentation of liberation theology in Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor.

Boff explains that liberation theology begins with the poor, that is, “the poor occupy the epistemological locus.” It is from the standpoint of the poor that we are able, not only to “conceive of God, Christ, grace, history, the mission of the churches, the meaning of the economy, politics, and the future of societies and of the human being,” but also recognize “to what extent current societies are exclusionary, to what extent democracies are imperfect, to what extent religions and churches are tied to the interests of the powerful” (107). According to this paradigm, the success of a nation cannot possibly be determined by its GDP nor can the success of a church be measured by the donations it collects each Sunday. Rather, liberation theology looks to “the least of these” as indicators of the health, efficacy and moral soundness of systems and society as a whole. As Boff puts it, “from the standpoint of faith, the poor represent the suffering Savior and the supreme eschatological judge” (109). For Boff, the verdict is clear – the situation of poverty is a social sin, and we are all gravely culpable (109).

Liberation theology places the “last” – the marginalized and victimized – first and so denounces and disrupts the systems of inequality that produce such a class of people in the first instance. For Boff, this “option for the poor” must be enacted – “it means assuming the place of the poor, their cause, their struggle, and at the limit, their often tragic fate” (107). This is exactly the message and mission of Bread for the World – to advocate for those in need and to confront the powers that directly or indirectly produce that situation of need. A speaker at Lobby Day identified Moses’ prophetic mission as a fitting model. Moses’ demands of Pharaoh challenged the economic, political, and cultural norms of the day, effectively dismantling the very fabric of an unjust society. In the tradition of Moses and so many other instruments of God’s redemptive action in the world, Bread for the World seeks the liberation of the poor by “speaking truth to power.”

Boff, however, insists that authentic liberation is possible only when it originates in the poor themselves – that is, when “the poor become the agents of their own liberation” (108). If this is so, is there a place for advocacy? Or is the work of Bread for the World in vain? If we ourselves enjoy some level of privilege – human rights, civil liberties, public services, self-determination, health care, education – are we disqualified from working to secure these same opportunities for the vast majority of the world’s population that is not so fortunate? Surely this cannot be.

While Boff is adamant that “Only when the poor trust in their potential, and when the poor opt for others who are poor, are conditions truly created for genuine liberation” (108), he does not dismiss the participation of the “haves” in the liberation of the “have-nots.” On the contrary, Boff calls us to be “allies of the poor” (108). But this implies a particular kind of relationship. We must move beyond and indeed far away from any paternalistic model of “charity.” Instead, we must recognize the poor not simply for what they lack but for what they have – “culture, ability to work, to work together, to get organized, and to struggle“ (108). What’s more, Boff tells us, we must humbly acknowledge our own poverty:

It is not only the poor and oppressed who must be liberated but all human beings, rich and poor, because all are oppressed by a paradigm – abuse of the Earth, consumerism, denial of otherness, and of the inherent value of each being – that enslaves us all. (113)

Thus we come to find that liberation can only be realized by a collaborative upheaval of what Boff calls “the logic of means at the service of an exclusionary accumulation” and a collective adoption of  “a logic of ends serving the shared well-being of planet Earth, of human beings, and of all beings in the exercise of freedom and cooperation among all peoples” (114).

Like Bread for the World, Shalom Farms, the food security non-profit I’m working with this summer, advocates for the hungry. However, where Bread seeks change on the governmental level, Shalom is largely a grassroots effort working in neighborhoods, schools and church communities. I am becoming more and more convinced that it will take immense efforts and great faith in policy and on the ground to alleviate hunger, poverty and all forms of injustice. And that in both of these arenas it will be critical to maintain what Boff has emphasized and what scripture teaches – that the last shall indeed be first.

The phrase “lived theology” has been turning over in my head for the past several weeks in anticipation of my Lived Theology internship – What does it mean for theology to be lived? What are the implications of such a theology? How might theology be brought to life in one’s being? At some point during this first week of my intership I struck upon the idea of embodiment – that lived theology is embodied theology. Of course to live in this world is to be embodied. From the tiniest single-celled microorganism to the tallest redwood, to you and me, all that lives in this reality finds physical expression in a body. Thus theology that is lived would be theology that is embodied – word made flesh. As I come to recognize theology as something that is necessarily realized in embodiment then I can begin to think about my own embodied nature – and those of all the creatures that surround me – in what I believe to be a more reverential, humble, and ultimately truthful way.

The thinkers whose writings will accompany my work and theological reflection this summer have already proven instructive in this idea of embodiment. Modern agrarian mystics Wendell Berry and Norman Wirzba and Brazilian eco-liberation theologian Leonardo Boff in particular write extensively on the theological significance of the physicality of the world and the bodies that inhabit it. In his essay “Christianity and the Survival of Creation,” Berry urges us to move beyond the body-soul dualism that has for centuries broken man into two distinct parts, a body and a soul, placing the latter far above and before the former in theological import. Berry instead recognizes man as “a single mystery,” reminding us of the creation narrative which affirms that “The breath of God is only one of the divine gifts that make us living souls; the other is the dust” (314, The Art of Commonplace). Unlike so many antiquated modes of religious thought that denounce the material realm in an effort to access the spiritual one, Berry’s agrarian theological sensibility holds that “God too loves material things; He invented them” (301, The Art of Commonplace).

The brilliant and sometimes bewildering 14^th century mystic Meister Eckhart was certainly of the same mind when he wrote, “Earth cannot get away from heaven: let the earth drop downward or rise upward, heaven still penetrates it” (4, Sermons, Writings and Sayings). Thus a lived or embodied theology cannot be of that dualistic mentality that confuses escapism for piety, rather it must be firmly rooted in the sacred dust of our own body-souls and dwell richly in this good Earth. Such a theology will revere the sacred in not only the community of mankind, that is the Mystical Body of Christ, but in what Boff calls the “cosmic community” as it recognizes the “radical interdependence of living systems” (106, Cry of the Earth, Cry of the Poor). Berry describes this same “radical interdependence” in his own words when he writes, “Between any two humans or any two creatures, all Creation exists as a bond” (297, The Art of Commonplace). Norman Wirzba, in his agrarian mystic essay “The Dark Night of the Soil,” similarly affirms that you and I are essentially “communal and relational;” that each one of us is “a creature formed and sustained through the dynamisms of soil and soul” (153, Heaven’s Earthly Life).

A theology that upholds the sanctity of our bodily existence will concern itself deeply with the manifold relationships that sustain our creaturely state of radical interdependence. Thus, our recognition of ourselves as living bodies lays the groundwork for an ethic that preserves the sacred in the whole membership of God’s creation. Wirzba writes,

There is a correspondence among creatures, a mutual and created harmony and sympathy, that finds its unity and wholeness in God. If we are to come into the presence of God, we must learn to find our place in this created correspondence and live responsible and charitably within it (151, Heaven’s Earthly Life).

Berry too writes of the charity that is required by and grows from what I am calling an embodied or lived theology. “Charity even for one person does not make sense except in terms of an effort to love all Creation in response to the Creator’s love for it” (298, The Art of Commonplace). For Berry, to “love all Creation” is not at all the sentimental abstraction it may seem; rather it is the profound, relentless, and above all practical work of “right livelihood.” He describes the requirements of “complex charity,” writing, “Real charity calls for the study of agriculture, soil husbandry, engineering, architecture, mining, manufacturing, transportation, the making of monuments and pictures, songs and stories” (298, The Art of Commonplace), for charity cannot be practiced without skill. Thus, the response to a true recognition of the sacred in ourselves and our fellow creatures is the pursuit of a living and a society that is “responsible to the holiness of life” (309, The Art of Commonplace). This is the difficult yet necessary project of lived theology and the project that I hope to engage through my work this summer.

A wise woman (Mother Teresa, that is), once said, “we can do no great things, only small things with great love”. I love this saying, and it so aptly fits my last days of my internship. This whole summer has been an experience of great love.

My last week at ONE was one of reflection, gratitude, and hard work. Gearing up for our final intern event, which was held Thursday night at a restaurant on Capitol Hill, was full of last minute runs to the Hill to deliver invitations, gathering materials and merchandise for the event, and meetings to finalize event plans. The goal of the event was to gain potential new campus leaders for ONE. It was a huge success, with 120 new members signed up and around 20 potential campus leaders. This event showed me the sheer power in numbers that ONE is capable of mobilizing. But most of all, as I was packing up the signs and pamphlets, I felt so fortunate to be a part of something so much greater than myself.

When I met with my pastors last Sunday, I couldn’t have been more grateful for the time I have spent at ONE thanks to the Project on Lived Theology. They were exciting and thrilled to hear all that I have been doing this summer and how I could bring my experiences and ideas to help the youth program at my church. “Wow!” I thought to myself, “could I really make that much of a difference?” Well, the answer is yes. An African proverb that is a common saying around the ONE offices (and if you follow @ONECampaign on twitter, you will find this is a common tweet!) is, “If you think you are too small to make a difference, try spending the night in a closed room with a mosquito”. To look at this idea in a Christian perspective, one needs only to look at the story found in the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus turns five loaves of bread and two fish into many loaves and fish. Rich Stearns points out that the principle in this story is that “God never asks us to give what we do not have…But he cannot use what we will not give” (253).

So, can I make a difference? Yes, but I must be willing and I must also realize the very fact that I can give and that what I can give is valuable. I have loved my experience at ONE and I am passionate about everything that ONE stands for. What can I give? I can show this passion and this experience to young people, boys and girls, who attend my church. I can show them that living their theology can involve a variety of things. Perhaps one of them becomes a ONE member, and when they go to college, they become a campus leader and advocate for the world’s poorest people. Or perhaps, one of them volunteers at a local soup kitchen. Or maybe, one of them begins to pray every night for those less fortunate. I truly don’t know how to say it any other way, but I can make a difference because God loves me and since He loves me, I have an obligation to do something, anything, so that, as Rich Stearns says, I can “be used by God in a powerful and amazing way” (253).

Rich Stearns begins his book, The Hole in Our Gospel, with a quotation from Saint Teresa of Avila. When I first read the book early this summer, I skimmed over the quotation and continued reading, without a second thought. Just yesterday when I opened up the book that had been sitting on my bookshelf since June, I couldn’t keep my eyes off the page that held this quotation:

Christ has no body on earth but yours,
no hands but yours,
no feet but yours.
Yours are the eyes through which
Christ’s compassion for the world is to look out;
yours are the feet with which He is to go about doing good;
and yours are the hands with which He is to bless us now.

This is the gap that I have finally bridged this summer. I have found how deep my faith has taken me and how much farther I still have to go. I can make a difference, even if I am just one person. With great love, I can do anything. With Christ within me, I am obligated and bound to continue to “go about doing good”, for there is no better way to live my theology than by accepting God’s only begotten son into my whole being and living my life through His love.

One might assume that because I was in rural Nicaragua last week I may have been unaware of all the political chaos going on in Washington, but let me tell you—I got a bigger dose of world politics there than I ever have before. Though I may not have had internet or television for most of the trip, I most certainly got wind of events through word of mouth and local newspapers. It was actually fascinating to see American events from a Nicaraguan perspective and also to learn about Nicaraguan politics simultaneously. You see, despite the huge dissimilarities between the two countries, the Nicaraguans that I talked to can still heavily identify with many elements of American politics. Two major parallels that I picked up on were the following: 1) both countries have presidential elections coming up and 2) both countries have pressing, long term problems. For Nicaragua, it is the extreme poverty and lack of economic growth especially in the autonomous regions, while for the United States our major problem is the massive debt looming over our heads. But both instances, these are long-term problems that call for long-term solutions and leaders that think beyond their next election.

In his book, When Helping Hurts, Brian Fikkert focuses heavily on the importance of long-term over short-term approaches in alleviating enduring problems. He says that there are three forms of aid: Relief, Rehabilitation, and Development (107). Relief is immediate short-term aid that serves to lessen suffering in an urgent situation such as a natural disaster. Rehabilitation serves to “restore people and their communities to the positive elements of their precrisis condition” (108). Finally, Development is the long-term, ongoing change that ultimately transforms individuals and communities for the better.  One of the major problems that Nicaraguans talk about is that oftentimes their political leaders will give them temporary relief or rehabilitation (mostly just to get votes) but what they really need is development. They recognize that their own people become dependent upon these quick fixes and will stop exerting energy to find more enduring solutions. One simply cannot fix long-term problems with short-term solutions. Development is a slow process though and it can take generations to transform a community as impoverished and underdeveloped as Nueva Vida, Nicaragua. The effects of development tactics may not be seen for years to come, which can be discouraging for Nicaraguans and Americans alike. Development work also requires a huge amount of time and sacrifice. It’s often easy to get discouraged when things don’t go according to plan.  Let me tell you, most things do not go according to the plan. Even this literacy program has had a slower start than anticipated due to its developmental nature. There have been a lot of “bumps in the road” so to say, but at the end of the day we know that it is worth it.

Something that I have realized though is that these concepts aren’t solely for the NGO, the Peace Corps member, or the political functionary. The model of Relief, Rehabilitation and Development and the value of long-term endurance can also be applied on an individual, microcosmic level. In fact, I can see a lot of this in my own personal experience as a Christian. When I first accepted Christ, it was like Jesus offered me that initial step: Relief. With His grace and forgiveness He set me free from the “natural disaster” of my life and offered hope. Then, He helped Rehabilitate me through His healing and restoration of my relationship with God. These two moves prepared me for the long term growth—Development—that would mark my journey as a Christian. For me, my faith is not just a short, one time decision but a lifelong journey. It is a process of growth and personal transformation that takes patience, sacrifice, and trust. It isn’t always easy or painless, but its worth it.

Likewise, I think that the citizens of Nicaragua and America currently witnessing all of this political turmoil can agree that though it’s going to be a tough journey from here to turn around both countries, it is worth it in the long-run. Though things may seem dark at times, we can see the light at the end of the tunnel.  The people of Nicaragua I have met this summer certainly believe this and continue to blow me away with their perseverance, patience and hope.

I have a habit of always meeting interesting people in airports. I don’t consider myself a particularly outgoing person, but for some reason I always end up sitting by the most fascinating people and having long, intense conversations with them. I told you about Ena, whom I met in June on my flight to Nicaragua. Well, this week it was Rodrigo and Javier. Rodrigo is Nicaraguan but he has lived in several other Latin American countries and therefore offers a uniquely comparative view of these countries and their political systems and forms of poverty. Javier used to be an ambassador for Nicaragua and has lived in many places including New York City and London, so he too affords a diverse and well-rounded perspective. Both men were very educated and spoke English and Spanish extremely well.  They also weren’t shy to speak about their country and the problems they saw politically, economically and socially. I decided at one point in each conversation to inquire about what they thought their home country, Nicaragua, needed most right now. Without being prompted first or told about the literacy program, both answered that they believed Nicaragua needed education. They mentioned other things like infrastructure, investment, and microfinance—but the core foundation was the same: education. I was shocked that two men in two different conversations came to the same conclusion about their country. I was also extremely pleased; it felt good to know that I was doing something that was both important and essential.

Yet there is more to it. As I have mentioned before from my readings, education is not solely learning to read and write but an act of empowerment, a shift in worldviews. Rodrigo, Javier, and later a woman named Mary, all echoed these sentiments in my conversations with them. They thought that Nicaragua needed education not only for external reasons (such as for people to acquire better jobs and develop the economy) but for internal reasons too! They recognized that the people of Nicaragua needed a shift in their worldview. A mentality of dependence and helplessness needed to be replaced with a mentality of ingenuity and ambition, infused with values of hard work, love and responsibility. I got so excited! What I had been reading and doing aligned with the perspectives of many Nicaraguans themselves.

A lot of aid work seeks to change the system or the environment, but neglects the individual. Mary, a teacher in Puerto Cabezas, has taught all throughout Nicaragua and Guatemala. She has witnessed firsthand the change that education has brought about in people, both in those whom she has taught and in herself. It is her strong belief that education is most effective at producing lasting transformation when it is paired with the gospel and the values that it teaches. In her experience, simply including secular discussions in the curriculum about “moral” or “right” actions did not usually change a person in the long run, it was generally short lived. Mary recounts that she herself became a different person after a friend shared the gospel with her, noticing that she starting thinking in a less selfish, more trans-generational manner. In light of these encounters, Mary fully believes that it is only when someone starts a relationship with Jesus Christ that the change becomes a fully penetrating, enduring phenomenon. My own conviction is that this is true because of this simple biblical fact: God is the ultimate transformer. His Word is convicting and His grace compelling. 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, “we are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord…” The phrase “are being” implies that this change is also an ongoing process, it is not a one time deal. Just as the developmental aid work that I am doing in Nicaragua is a slow progression that takes time and effort, personal growth requires patience, sacrifice, and trust in God. But like Javier and Rodrigo pointed out, if we want to see our world environment change, we must first start with ourselves as individuals.

This week I have been preparing for my upcoming meeting with my pastors, the Reverends Cristina Paglinauan and Caroline Stewart. I’ve gotten some materials together to present to them and I have also spoken with Adam Phillips, my supervisor, about the direction in which I should go during the meeting. I foresee that it will involve me “pitching” how the Church of the Redeemer, an Episcopal church, can get involved with ONE. Before I begin this meeting, I think I need to ask myself where I stand as an Episcopalian and how my particular religion plays a role in political engagement.

I will start by examining an essay found in Sandra Joireman’s book Church, State, and Citizen: Christian Approaches to Political Engagement, entitled “The Anglican Tradition: Building the State, Critiquing the State”. A few points mentioned in this piece highlight the comprehensiveness of Anglicanism, its “ability to hold a variety of practices in tension and in unity” (102). This comprehensiveness is largely due to the fact that it is difficult “to identify common theological positions that unite all Anglicans” (101). Without widespread agreement on certain positions, Anglicans have been unable to unite as strongly, say, as Catholics have, for social justice purposes. I realize that this is a generalized statement, but I think it is worthwhile to consider. The author of the essay, Leah Seppanen Anderson, goes so far as to say “Anglicanism has often been a force for conservatism, an acceptance and even promotion of the political status quo” (105). Initially, I took this sentence pretty hard. But, then I took a step back and asked myself, very honestly, “Catherine, has your religion ever challenged you to reject the status quo and engage in political activism for the sake of social justice?” My answer: Not until I started my work at ONE through the Project on Lived Theology.

At this moment in my life, I have never been more aware of how my religion can directly affect the role I play in making the world a better place. I am not trying to downplay how important religion has been in my life. I wouldn’t be where I am today without it. I just don’t think I ever knew how being an Episcopalian would correlate to being a citizen. Church is what I did on Sundays, reciting the Nicene Creed, and following worship through the guidance of the Book of Common Prayer. When I volunteered for two summers at a learning camp for underprivileged children, I didn’t think I was “doing church”. I know now that I was. I also realize now that the feeling I get when I volunteer or help others is not a feeling of self satisfaction or self pride, but rather God’s love. There is no other feeling like it in the world. It is the love of a parent, a mother or father’s love for a child. It is unconditional and eternal. Above all, Jesus commanded, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind” and “thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself”. I think many Anglicans can forget the presence of God’s love in society. We can get caught up in day to day business and not even focus on God until Sunday church. What if we realized God’s love every second of every day?

This type of love is groundbreaking. It has the potential to unite Anglicans. It just needs to be harnessed.

I was in a meeting earlier this week in which one of the members of ONE’s government relations team came to talk about how to engage Republican candidates on ONE’s issues. He pointed out the way to really reach Republicans on matters such as poverty and disease. His tips were to appeal to their morality, to mention that something almost everyone can agree on is that no one wants a child to die because of lack access to water, sanitation, or food. This is not a partisan issue. It is a moral issue. For Anglicans, this could mean appealing to the universal agreement about God’s love. Can Anglicans not all agree that “God so loved the world that he sent his only begotten son”?   The question then arises:  how should Anglicans put this love into practice? Spreading the word is the easiest answer. Faith congregations hold so much potential in mobilization. There is so much more to be done and so much more love to be shared. This is the message that I want to send when I meet with my pastors on Sunday: if we can all agree on the value of God’s love, how can we truly unite to help the “least of these”?

I don’t exactly know why, but throughout this internship I keep coming back to the idea of evangelism. Though I have not been involved in any explicitly evangelical events nor read any books centered upon that idea this summer, the topic continues to resurface nonetheless. It manifests itself randomly in conversations, when browsing the web and in my daily internship experience. As I continue to subtly encounter it, I find my own paradigms and assumptions changing as I observe a novel phenomenon: silent evangelism.

Up until this summer, I had a very limited view of evangelism. If you had asked me what evangelism looked like I probably would have stood there racking my brain for minute and then rattled off something about handing out tracts, inviting people to Church, preaching the gospel to strangers on the street and telling stories of missionaries who converted whole tribes in Africa. Essentially, evangelism implied verbally telling another person a scripted version of the gospel (and ultimately converting them to Christianity).

If you asked me now what I think evangelism looks like I would paint a very different picture for you. Frankly, it would be a much quieter one. It involves mostly actions, you see. It looks like the students in Nueva Vida, Nicaragua who are striving to educate their community. It looks like CFC holding a pool party for children of local prison inmates. It looks like church members packing 500 backpacks full of school supplies for kids of soldiers and disadvantaged schools. It looks like LLC volunteers befriending immigrants and refugees in times of need. It looks like families packing 290,520 meals for Stop Hunger Now on a single Sunday morning in June.

I am not claiming that my initial perceptions were flawed or that street evangelism is wrong. I am just observing that evangelism can still take place without uttering a single word or handing out a gospel tract. It is like the quote by Saint Francis of Assisi that says “preach the gospel at all times, when necessary use words.” Usually the word “preach” indicates verbal communication, but in this quote Saint Francis clearly implies that words are not always needed. If anything, they should follow actions not precede them. Most everyone has heard the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Well, I am going to revise that to say, “an action is worth a thousand words.” This is especially applicable when it comes to international aid and cross-cultural interaction. Two people may not share the same language, but they can still communicate nonverbally through actions.

However, I also do not mean to discount the power of words. As I talked about in prior posts, stories and literature can be potent agents of transformation. In The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell explains how an idea, trend or social behavior can “spread like a virus” and cause a widespread “epidemic” simply through word of mouth. Words can be strong, no doubt. However, when it comes to evangelism, sometimes the most effective and influential method by which to spread “epidemics” of love and compassion is through our actions. In all of the examples I listed above people were loving and being loved, regardless of any subsequent conversion experience or immediate verbal acceptance of the gospel.

This week, in an attempt to further define evangelism, I turned to Internet dictionary resources. However, my efforts proved to be futile. No two definitions looked alike. Wikipedia even had an official dispute occurring over its page titled “evangelism.” A small notification in the heading advised me to visit the “talk page” where people of different backgrounds debated about the meaning of evangelism. Clearly, people had very different experiences and opinions on the matter. Individual denominations within the Christian faith even disagree about evangelism. It is my personal belief however, that despite all of these theological and ideological differences, the underlying motivation should remain the same. Evangelism, however it is done, should be done in the name of love. For the gospel is a message of love, and it is because of love that we even have this good news to share (John 3:16). In the end, love is a message that can be sent through both words and deeds.