“I’m sure things are rough in Africa right now, but we have our own problems that we need to take care of here.” Or maybe you’ve heard someone say, “I’m all for helping other people, but why do we keep giving assistance to Africa when nothing changes?” As I have been following the sparse news on the drought and famine crisis now wreaking havoc across the Horn of Africa I follow the coverage, I read the articles — and then I inevitably scroll down to the comments section.

Those articles that describe food aid sent to Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia are often riddled with strongly worded, sometimes vitriolic, opinions. Despite knowing blog comments are often be an abyss of disturbing and infuriating words, I’ve been shocked by what I read. Almost all of the comments went to the tune of those above.

So, why? Why should we give to what seems like a black hole for donations? Why should we continue to give when it seems it hardly makes a dent?

One simple reason is that a difference can be made. In fact, you can make a difference right now. Reports as recently as this fall estimated that 13 million people were affected by the crisis, and 750,000 were at risk of starvation. While tens of thousands have already died, that initial estimate of at-risk people has dropped to 250,000 thanks to the role the U.S. government, in partnership with dozens of non-governmental organizations — including several faith based organizations like World Vision and Catholic Relief Services — have played in meeting the massive human need provoked by this crisis.

The other reason you should care is a simple matter of perspective.

When I lived in Nepal, I quickly learned that people address friends, acquaintances and strangers the way they do family members. When speaking to an elderly woman, you call her amma (mother). A man who is older than you is dai (older brother). A young girl is nani (my daughter). It doesn’t matter if you’ve never met them; they are people and that makes them family.

My six year old niece affirmed this perspective when she told us about a dream she had. She said she dreamed that God spoke to her and said, “Everyone in the world is your family.” It’s a simple, beautiful idea. All of us are God’s children. I am my brother’s keeper. And believing this changes everything.

Why do we give? Because God’s family is not limited to a national border. Because if your mother is suffering from hunger, you feed her. And if your sister has walked miles through arid land and risked violence and rape as your niece slowly dies of starvation on her back, you do everything you can to relieve that suffering. Everything.

Amidst the brokenness of the world, it is difficult to know where to start. The problems we face together often seem endless and overwhelming, and I don’t have the answers. But I do know that if everyone in the world is my family, then my brothers and sisters, nieces and nephews, children and parents in the Horn of Africa are starving. Why do we give? Because they are our family. And we must.

Over the 12 or so years I spent in the corporate marketing world as an advertising executive for global entities like Citigroup, MasterCard, and the ad agencies that animate their brands, it became an increasingly perplexing problem. Even as I developed high-profile campaigns and promotions for my clients, I felt distracted and uneasy with the work. Sitting in meetings, it seemed everyone was speaking an odd language I couldn’t wholly follow, a vernacular inspired by a buy-in I could not seem to achieve. I gave myself pep-talks. I beat myself up for not appreciating my “glamorous” job. I tried my best to heed the corporate creed pleading loyalty to a doctrine that while arguably logical on a spreadsheet, made zero sense internally. Why was I so bored at board meetings? Why couldn’t I force myself to care more about the office politics or the latest buzz products in the financial sector? Maybe I just didn’t have what it takes.

Three and a half years ago I followed a call to seminary, and quickly realized that my trepidation in my former career had nothing to with me… and everything to do with me. Nothing was wrong with my career efforts, my business practices, or my level of intelligence. But the core of my being — the person I am at heart — rejected every slippery acquisition presentation that promised ever-higher profit margins, every business plan that banked on the instinctual insecurities and mutated desires of consumer culture. The ultimate goal of my work all those years had been to shape human behavior into a spending pattern, to open up a bottomless hole of desire and then promise to fill it with something that could actually cause people to lose more than they gained, or at the very least leave them ultimately unsatisfied so their longings could be exploited again and again. Even considering the relational, emotional tug of the MasterCard “priceless” commercials, the experiential payoff of each sweet scenario depends upon a preceding purchase path; dependent upon credit worth and buoyed by buying power, the moment of truth is based on lies.

No, nothing was wrong with me, per se. But because of my faith, reality — or truth — takes a form that would spark little recognition within those towering office buildings: a truth embodied by a man whose nature was to give everything and take nothing, who did not have a place to lay his head yet held the weight of the world on his shoulders, and who was willing to risk and lose life to give others a chance at it. I’m not so sure that the reality of Christ has a return on investment (ROI) that would be attractive to the big banks. They are two very different ideas of what’s “priceless.”

At Union Theological Seminary the academics did not tend toward sentimentality, but I learned more in those three years about the action of loving God with all my heart and loving my neighbor as myself — the social justice aspects of my Christian faith — than in the lifetime of Christianity I had claimed. Yet I also realized that there is indeed a Holy Spirit that I learned about back in my early, conflicted upbringing as a Southern Baptist in Alabama. It is a Spirit that lives within us if we will allow it. Once it takes up residence it will not allow us to live by any other standard than that of Mark 12 and the Greatest Commandment without sounding an alarm in the core of our beings.

The companies I worked for were putting profits before people consistently, investing in short-turn profit runs over the long-term common good, and even though at the time I was generally naive about the level of my complicity (at age 21, I simply thought advertising would be a cool, creative job), something in my core being would not let me feel comfortable with it. In my particular job, I certainly had not been propelling humanity forward day by day. In order to succeed, I was being required to think backward.

In light of the great commandment to love God with all our hearts and to love our neighbors as ourselves, it’s easy to see that many (most?) of our societal norms are backward: the consumption of far more than is needed by many while others barely survive or do not survive, the widespread preferential treatment of people who exhibit certain physical qualities or social status, an economic system based on the callous exploitation of animals, natural resources, and the beauty and utility of creation. Yet we are impervious, desensitized, senseless. We don’t get it. Besides, giving of ourselves to nature, to others, without expectation of a generous ROI, would threaten our precious “standard of living.”

Yet this was not the expectation or the standard by which God came to Earth, as we of the Christian tradition are called to remember especially during this Advent season. This, it seems to me, is also the message of Occupy Wall Street. There is a Spirit that will not let the occupiers rest in a world of gross inequality and oppression of the vulnerable as it stands. Media, politicians and pundits are continually confused about what they’re up to; OWS is simply refusing to be forced to think and act backward in order to succeed.

While criticized for a perceived lack of leadership, decorum, demands, or action plans, OWS picked up on something far more profound, something that has the potential to change the world. If it came in the form of a business plan or a savvy political scheme led by a select few who had the power or clout to make it take off in popularity, it would not be a forward-thinking idea with a better sense of priorities than our current systems. (Hint: forward-thinking does not equal more profitable.) Besides, isn’t it oxymoronic to demand compassion? Isn’t it counter-intuitive to carefully construct a publicity campaign for spontaneous acts of passionate protest, for extemporaneous takeovers to inspire extreme makeovers in the most crucial sectors of society?

Occupy Faith NYC, a multi-faith group of clergy who support the new democratic spirit of OWS, sensed the subversive potential present in the rag-tag appearances of the movement. Faith communities of all types have unified behind OWS because the movement comes the closet of any effort of late — religious or non-religious — to illuminating the sheer life-and-death nature of our choice to obey the principles of economic justice, social responsibility, and merciful dealings that all scriptures and inter-religious ideologies promote.

In the Bible, God asks the people repeatedly to care about one another as they care about themselves, to want the best for everyone regardless of circumstance, even it if means compromising or taking less than one might believe one has earned or otherwise deserves. Is it impossible for human beings to actually care about one another? Or it is that many of us who are powerful — or even just comfortable — don’t know how to care for others because we don’t know what it means to truly care about ourselves anymore?

In his new book The Price of Civilization, world-renowned economic advisor and scholar Jeffrey Sachs describes the current economic crisis as a moral crisis, a product of “the decline of virtue among America’s political and economic elite.” He begins his entire thesis narrative by saying:

A society of markets, laws, and elections is not enough if the rich and powerful fail to behave with respect, honesty, and  compassion toward the rest of society and toward the world. America has developed the world’s most competitive market society  but has squandered its civic virtue along the way. Without restoring an ethos of social responsibility, there can be no meaningful and sustained economic recovery.

But before we fix our glare on politicians, Wall Street, capitalism, corporations and absurdly compensated CEOs alone, Sachs reminds us that “[the] breakdown of politics also implicates the broad public. American society is too deeply distracted by our media-drenched consumerism to maintain the habits of effective citizenship.”

People generally know more about the Kardashians than American socio-economic policies and political procedures, and people generally buy into more of their ideas, brands, personas and products, too. So, which one shapes our goals and priorities?

Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation of Economic Trends and advisor to the European Union, wrote The Empathic Civilization to argue that the arch of history bends toward an increasingly compassionate and unified global culture, if for no other reason than our common, ill-fated environmental conundrum. He points out that no matter who or where we are, we all ultimately want and need the same thing: to keep our planet from self-destructing, and to ensure positive economic, social and environmental prospects for our children and those we love.

To realize our shared goal, it is imperative to recognize that although there are individual or nationalistic advantages at stake, which make agreeing on the right course of action a contentious proposition, our fate as a species depends on our ability to loosen our tightly-wound self interests and cooperate. Only then can we pull off the sizable revolution that will be “saving the world” and restoring humanity to a sustainable future.

As a pastor, a theologian, and an activist, I have to believe Rifkin is right: human beings are on a trajectory of experience, growth, and change that evokes our empathic sensibilities, encouraging the practice of compassion toward the “other” more intensely with each passing decade. With the advent of technology fostering global interconnectedness, the rate of realizing the benefits of collective care increases with each passing day.

But to propel us along this trajectory, we must face challenges, we must correct setbacks, we must point out our missteps to one another, we must speak out about systemic malfunctions. Charity cannot sustain us; the systems that either provide or deny avenues for education, training, support, and opportunities must be reworked to promote human dignity and allow real change that lasts. This is why we urgently need protests, movements, occupations. This is how human kind provokes the movement of God in the world:

The Lord rises to argue the case;
And stands to judge the peoples…
It is you who have devoured the vineyard;
the spoil of the poor is in your houses.
What do you mean by crushing my people,
by grinding the faces of the poor?
says the Lord God of Hosts. — Isaiah 3:13-15

The tempting truth is that in our profit-driven world, backward makes bank. But as people of faith, alive with the Spirit, we are called to live out of our conscience into a new consciousness. This is the coming of a new reality that some may call the kingdom of God, some may call social responsibility, and some may call an empathic evolution of humanity. God’s presence is called forth by our rejection of the status quo, and our desire for new way of being. In this Advent season, let us be occupied by a forward foretaste of hope.

A version of this article first appeared at the State of Formation blog. 

From the beginning, hip-hop played a leading role redeeming disenfranchised urban communities around the US. Bambaataa’s song “unity,” led to healing NY’s gang stratification. The track “White Lines” by seminal artist Grandmaster Flash (pictured above left), led the charge in combating cocaine addiction. And when crack hit the streets – turning homes into shuttered buildings that sought to capture the soul of the inner-city communities – songs like “Night of the Living Baseheads” by Public Enemy, provided a prophetic voice of truth tragedy.

But now the game has changed. While one can look around and find artists who aspire to honor the culture of hope, the vast majority of the artists who dominate the landscape, the ones heard on top forty radio and who claim traffic on iTunes, are clearly of another system. Once corporate America began to see hip-hop as a revenue venue rather than a culture, rap music began to separate from the more fundamental values of hip-hop. It traded the hope for reclamation and redemption of community for individual advancement and monetary improvement – as represented in the opulent “bling” era of hip-hop that prevails in pop culture.

As rap became the dominating force in expressing hip-hop, the art formed was commercialized, packaged, and exported – in both its authenticity and inauthenticity – to a waiting world. Today there is not a culture uninfluenced by hip-hop. Remote African villages, reflect the globalization in the 50 cent, Eminem and Nelly T-shirts that villagers don and the random lines of top 40 rap songs that flow out of the mouths of babes. Go to Korea, Japan, Hong Kong, or a number of other Asian nations and you will see the heart of the resurging b-boy culture. The citizens of Brazilian favelas are showing the same heart and desire to change as American urbanites did in the late 70’s and early 80’s. Internationally, rap has become the music of the aspiring and the heart of hip-hop culture is trickling into region after region, positioning itself as one of the most important social forces on earth.

These trends beg the question: What would happen if today’s most influential hip-hop artists were to come together, embrace the scene’s original values, and decide to focus their art into fostering social change. The Knowledge, Power, Respect campaign is one way to address this question and channel the power of hip-hop. The campaign is asking seven prominent artists – Akon, Jay Z, Kanye West, Rihana, Lil’ Wayne, Eminem, and Will.i.am – to promote the ideas of knowledge to their listeners.

Knowledge is not just about formal education; it’s about understanding the world and ourselves within it. It’s about coming to grips with how it is we come to know things; it’s about our fundamental epistemology. Not every person will (or should) receive an advanced degree, but regardless of our formal educational status, all of us should embrace what it means to be knowledgeable citizens of the world and seek out deeper personal and social knowledge.

So where does power and respect come into play? It is well documented that knowledge and education are conduits for social change. We believe that the encouragement to knowledge will lead to an empowerment for the disenfranchised and eventually a social respect for those in hip-hop culture and blighted communities.

Growing up, my mom always made the best snacks for me and my friends. You couldn’t go just anywhere and enjoy the kind of buffet my mom set out on the table: brownies, chips, sandwiches and soda… what more could a pre-teen ask for? Who am I kidding? I still love the stuff. Even though a few of my more notorious friends would spill soda on the carpet, it was still a joy for her to host, offering her gifts of hospitality.

Cooking has become a huge part of my life; so too has feeding the people I love. It’s no longer enough for me to feed people pizza. Every person needs to have their own personally designed pie with freshly made Neapolitan-style dough in a kitchen that’s too small to keep up. We have a poster in our kitchen by artist Nikki McClure that says “Share Your Table” (see the full poster below). It is a testament to the kind of people we want to be.

Love looks like a lot of different things. Serving another person makes the “love” list in my book. Serving also happens to be part of my day job. There are people in this world that aren’t exactly my favorite, but I’ve found a freedom in serving the people who aren’t going to say thank you. I believe it to be one of the noblest occupations.

I love the fact that people always hang out in the kitchen. It’s cramped and gets bloody hot in the summertime; but it’s also cozy, and people know that good things usually come out of kitchens. There is nothing I love more than one of our rooms full of people eating, especially if it’s something I’ve worked hard to give them. In a sense you’re feeding them with more than food. You’re feeding them your history.

After all, eating is the great equalizer. Food is the most basic human need. What better way to enter life with the beloved of God than by feeding them, pulling up another chair and keeping their glasses full?

Now the Tea Party has had enough of the Republican Party’s Leadership dragging their feet — dare I say, ignoring — these core conservative values. They have decided to push these values with or without formal support from Republican Party leadership. And while I disagree with the Tea Party on many issues, I actually admire them for not being used and ignored any longer.

At last night’s GOP Presidential debate in Aimes, Iowa, Congresswoman Michelle Bachman, perennial darling of the Tea Party movement, brandished her social conservative bonafides on a number of culture war issues. She reaffirmed her support for a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage. When questioned about her vote in favor of raising taxes to end the 2005 Minnesota government shutdown, she threw down the pro-life gauntlet, saying:

“When the deal was put together, Governor Pawlenty cut a deal with the special interest groups, and he put, in the same bill a vote to increase the cigarette tax, as well as a vote that would take away protections from the unborn, and I made a decision. I believe in the sanctity of human life; and I believe you can get money wrong, but you can’t get life wrong, and that’s why I came down on that decision… I didn’t cut deals with special interest groups where you put the pro-life issues together with tax increase issues. That’s a non-negotiable.”

Bottom-line: Bachman’s verbal mix-up saying the tax-increase bill would take away protections from the unborn notwithstanding — the actual bill included pro-life “informed consent” provisions, which she likely meant to highlight — her unwavering commitment to this issue led her to vote for a tax increase. And she defended that decision.

The Republican Party relied heavily on these Values Voters to re-elect Bush in 2004. And while I sincerely believe that Bush was personally invested in and supported pro-straight, pro-life issues, his administration focused their attention on pushing the agenda of fiscal conservatives.

Fiscal conservatives used the Bush years to further deregulate the financial markets, cut taxes on the wealthiest Americans, unravel decades of environmental protection precedents, and promote lucrative deals between military contractors and oil companies during wars in Afganistan and Iraq. The deregulation of the financial sector allowed high risk loans to filter through the global markets like a cancer, the Bush tax cuts cost America nearly $2 trillion in revenue, and the money made by private contractors cost thousands of lives and increased our national debt by another $1 trillion.  Meanwhile, Bush used and then ignored the concerns of the Values Voters who helped elect him.

After the Obama election, these Values Voters re-energized around the Tea Party movement. Now Tea Party Leaders are pushing for conservative stances on sexuality but adding a strong anti-immigration stance and a commitment to reducing spending. And rather than working with Republican Leaders and fiscal conservatives, they are going rogue. Voting their values and passionately shooting down even Republican legislation that isn’t Values Voter friendly. And I applaud Values voters for electing officials that represent them. They aren’t letting Fiscal Conservatives to court them during the elections and them ignoring them while in office.

Now don’t get me wrong. I strongly oppose the Tea Party on most issues. But the Tea Party has reminded me of the power of conviction. If they want to push their conservative moral agenda then I say, more power to them — let your freak flags fly. Meanwhile, I’m gonna let my progressive Christian flag fly too. And hopefully those of us who are progressive can start a movement that doesn’t let the Democratic Party court our votes and then ignore our issues.

We appear to be better than Kenya because our poor are richer than Kenya’s poor, but what many forget is that the top 1% of America’s earners are far richer than Kenya’s. American leaders are struggling to cut and or tax their way through a veritable financial jungle. Nearest I can tell, the current battle seems to be over who should pay for the future of America.

So, in order to help people see things in a new light I want to compare America to East Africa. Let’s take two examples, side-by-side, and compare: Minnesota USA vs. Kenya, Africa…

In Minnesota a family on government assistance often lives in subsidized housing, though through relationships I’ve built with some families, I’ves seen up to 10 people living in a one or two bedroom apartment. Below you’ll see the 2 bedroom low-income apartment I lived in during college with 5 people. In Kenya a low-income or no-income family receives no government help and lives in a shanty made of garbage.

All neighborhoods in Minneapolis, MN have free public schools and feature classrooms with at least 1 computer. Free Public Education is rare in Kenya. Most Kenyan schools cost around $300 a semester and have a few books, a blackboard, and no computers.

Minnesota also has a health care program called MinnesotaCare which provides free health care for citizens who are on welfare programs, although not everyone is covered, many are. In Kenya all medical bills are paid in cash, there is no health care insurance for most people. So many people die from treatable illnesses like malaria and pneumonia.

America might have a higher standard of care for its most vulnerable, but if the income inequality is the same in both countries what could America accomplish? What happens when you compare America against its own potential? In America, the riches 1% make an average of 440 times as much money as the bottom 50% of Americans.** Comparing low income apartments and mansions changes the way I see the choice between cutting government assistance or taxing the rich.

Schools in America are not all performing at the same level. The group Closing the Achievement Gap headed by Alma and Colin Powell reported in 2009 that there was a large gap between the average high school graduation rate of 53 % in urban schools, compared with 71 % in the suburbs. It’s true that America provides free public education to all, but the outcomes seem to be radically different. And let me just mention that we spend 15 times more money on military than on education ($45 Billion vs $689 Billion).***

And Americans spend about the same on the Military, Health Care for the poor and elderly, and Social Security. Do Americans really value war that much? So what kind of America could we live in? Who will pay for our future? Do we want to cut funding to our students and low income earners or will we ask our richest citizens (remember 440 times richer!) to bring our country into the future?

You might even want to ask yourself an oldie but a goodie…WWJD?

* http://hdrstats.undp.org/en/indicators/146.html

**http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/business/worldbusiness/29iht-income.4.5075504.html

***http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/120xx/doc12039/HistoricalTables%5B1%5D.pdf

The honest truth is the more you don’t talk about God the harder it will be to talk about God for Christians and non-Christians alike. It’s sort of like dating after a long absence, it only becomes more awkward the longer you wait.

Why do scriptures put such an emphasis on the need to spread the gospel: the “good news”? Well, it’s because Christ offers life and life in abundance. Jesus draws near to those who draw near to him. To those who lean on him and trust in him in their day-to-day.

Christ came to die for sinners. All of us are in need of a savior, yes, even the Christian who may not be saved simply because they attend church or call themselves believers. The gospels offer a transformation of the heart: a lifestyle change so profound that the scriptures describe it as coming from death to life. The gospels aren’t a self-help guide, because Christians have believed that the ability for one to truly help themselves is actually very limited, especially when it comes to matters of the heart and matters of character. All are in need of a God who is surprisingly aware of the details and needs of every person–even every creature–on the earth.

The less you talk about the God, the less likely you will make him known to anyone. Again the Christian life isn’t fundamentally about you. Evangelism doesn’t refer to a certain style or way of talking. It is the process of making God known. We use our mouths, resources, and lives to testify to what we believe in. What do you ultimately believe in? What would your closest friends say?

Evangelism is the process of testifying to what God has already done and is doing in your life. Jesus asks, do you love me more than these?

How should we handle this word? Is there a way to engage racial issues without calling someone a racist? Should we just stop using the word all together because people get defensive if it is suggested towards them? Interestingly enough, thinking about the term, “racist,” makes me think about driving a car.

You know the scenario. It’s rush hour. You are driving along and someone unapologetically slices over two lanes and cuts you off. You slam your breaks and take evasive action in order to spare your car and self from the ramifications of an incautious driver. As the car takes over the lane in front of you, all you want to do is honk your horn and yell “You Idiot”, “Jerk”, “A**hole” or some other negative phrase. Some of you not only want to do this, you go through with it; others accompany words with certain non-verbal actions.

Often we don’t consider our words. We use language so flippantly that we don’t think about the right usage of speech or the social communication that occurs underneath the actual words we say.

In the instance of the disruptive driver: was that person really an idiot? Or did they just do something idiotic? Is it justifiable to claim that one action automatically places them in league with those that make consistently poor life decisions? What if their decision to cut across lanes was because they had a bad day at work? Or because they needed to get over to the off ramp and that was the one opportunity they had to get off at their exit, otherwise their trip would be increased by another 30 minutes of backtracking? What if . . .? You get the point. There are a great deal of compounding variables.

Community and diversity expert, Maura Cullen, calls it the “pile on principle”. Sometimes ill-conceived actions are not due to our true character, but rather because we have experienced annoyance after annoyance and we have not had the opportunity to rest and make the clear decisions that we would usually make. This doesn’t justify the man or woman who pulled in your lane, but it provides space for grace. Of course some people really will cut us off for no reason, but it is dangerous to assume intention in a very limited interaction.

The same thoughts can be attributed to the word racist. If someone says “you people,” prefers to hang out with those that are “more like them,” or even says a racial slur, does that make them a racist? Or have they done something racist? Have they had a bad day and allowed society’s glamorization of racial slurs (even in satire) impact what comes out through their mouths? Are they really thinking about what they are saying?

It’s a question of character vs. isolated action. Again, there are some people who are indeed living lives of consistent racism, but we must be careful how and when we use that label. Otherwise, the word gets diminished and we lose the ability to differentiate between combating the racist acts that we all are capable of perpetrating and being labeled as “hyper-sensitive”.

We do a great disservice to those of all races and ethnic backgrounds when we label people struggling with diversity, race issues, and the like as racist. Instead of allowing people to be imperfect, we expect a world where everyone is politically correct and allow no room for individuals and society to grow. We must approach issues of race with hospitality, which does not mean permissiveness, it means allowing everyone to come into community and relationship as they are, hearing perspectives, and moving forward towards growth.

This is how God welcomes us. God does not come into community with us by lambasting us about all of our shortcomings. We are asked to see ourselves as broken and sinners, but God does not lead off with the latter. Rather God asks us to dwell with him as we are, not so that we might stay in our current state, but that we can become more righteous and greater reflect God’s image.

Racial slurs and racist actions are never appropriate, but if we demonize those who are coming into an understanding of race and racial etiquette, rather than cultivate growth, we are going to harvest citizens (including Christians) who are confused, frustrated, and downright indifferent toward the true, difficult, and hospitable work of racial reconciliation.

It’s perhaps fitting to the title of the festival–the wild goose is a Celtic symbol for the untamable Holy Spirit–that though I keep circling around certain themes and ideas, my goal of putting them in to precise words strung together in neat sentences has thus far proven elusive. Even so, the contrast between my weekend at Wild Goose and my return to life inside the beltway has thrown a few things in to sharp relief:

1) The Christian narrative carries more substance than our political frameworks allow.

With my blackberry back in hand, and facebook and twitter only a click away, it didn’t take me long to discover the most recent volley in the ongoing culture wars, lobbed when Rep. Todd Akin declared “at the heart of liberalism, really, is a hatred for God.”  The erroneous and destructive either/or mentality betrayed in Congressman Akin’s statement is one we are well familiar with: one can either be a liberal, or believe in God; either a Christian in the mold of the Religious Right, or a heretic, etcetera, etcetera.  Wild Goose completely obliterated these paradigms.

Present at the festival were women, men, and children from all across the country, from a variety Christian backgrounds. There were 20-somethings exploring the emergent church and new monasticism, young families from evangelical and non-denominational congregations, and indomitable mainliners more than twice my age. Some were more conservative, others progressive.

The cohesive force that drew such a motley crew of disciples together wasn’t a desire to forge a single Christian identity, but an understanding that the Holy Spirit is moving within this moment in Christian history, and if we let it lead us, the result will be something none of us can anticipate. Wild Goose did not have a political agenda, but an overarching theme to emerge is that Christianity is far bigger than our politics allow it to be and it will not be pigeon holed into convenient left/right, liberal/conservative frameworks.

2) Politics matters

One of the sessions at Wild Goose that surprised me by how engaging I found it to be was with Frank Schaeffer, son of the influential conservative evangelist and theologian Francis Schaeffer. His parents, Francis and Edith, were intimately involved with the early rise of the Religious Right and in cementing its relationship with the Republican Party. Since that time, Frank has left the cause and no longer identifies with that movement. While his talk was largely about his own journey of faith, there was one compelling tangential argument that caught my attention. Schaeffer asserted that there is a direct connection between the tactics adopted decades ago by the Religious Right to demonize government and current pushes for deregulation and the dismantling of social programs like Medicare.

It bears repeating that Wild Goose was not born out of any political agenda and drew people from across ideological perspectives. The festival was about the future of the Church and how the Church engages our broader culture. But that conversation does have political implications. At the heart of current public discourse is the question of who we are fundamentally called to be as a people. That is a conversation the Church must engage. 

This week in Washington, debates rage on about the debt ceiling, and some in Congress are threatening to force the country into default. The result would be an inability for us to pay our men and women fighting overseas, deep cuts to Social Security and Medicare when families are already struggling, and adding billions more in interest to the debt. Are we a country that promotes family? Are we caring for those who dedicate their lives to public service? Are we defending the cause of the widow and the orphan? The Church must never find itself in bed with any political party or structure, but our politics have moral implications. And, as Schaeffer testified, how the Church engages moral issues in the public sphere has political implications. As we discern the future of the Church in our specific American context, how the Church chooses to use its moral authority and act as the conscience of our political structures does matter.

3) Theology matters

This is where I might differ from some of my fellow festival attendees in our manner of speech, if not in actual substance.  A lot of commentary has been made about how shifting trends in Christianity, especially among younger generations, is refocusing on praxis over dogma, how to act rather than what to believe.  As such, not a few times at the festival theology was spoken of as something that is irrelevant, or can be divisive and harmful.  But a closer listening to those making such claims revealed that what they were arguing against wasn’t theology, but bad theology. 

Bad theology divorces belief from action; it breeds self righteousness and division because it isn’t tempered by humility and an understanding of sin; it establishes litmus tests for who’s in and who’s out. And at their heart, the arguments being made against bad theology were in fact theological.

It is a theological claim to say that God created us to be in relationship and community, that human beings are limited and cannot know as God knows, and that the scope of God’s love and grace is broader than our imaginations. And all of those theological claims have implications for how we live our lives. As the Spirit continues to move, having the theological language to express what is happening in the life of the Church will be critically important in connecting us with all that has come before and helping us forge a way forward.

The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew stated in an address a few years ago

True progress is a balance between preserving the essence of a certain way of life and changing things that are not essential.  Christianity was born a revolutionary faith – and we have preserved that.  In other words, paradoxically, we have succeeded in not changing a faith that is itself dedicated to change.

That is the spirit I saw on the camp grounds of North Carolina.

Much is being made about this period in the history of Christianity; scholars are calling it a watershed moment that will shape the Church for the next several hundred years. Though there is a lot of renegotiating of our past, and reevaluating the role of our institutions and traditions, those committed to the work are committed first and foremost to preserving the faith.

As we struggle to discern where the Spirit is leading us, we know that it is not toward something radically new, but deeper in to that revolutionary, wild goose of a faith that has been at the heart of who we are all along.

A concoction of Kool Aid’s high fructose corn syrup and artificial dye, mixed with a little flour and water, and plunged into simmering oil, these fried dough balls were introduced as the latest fair food in San Diego. Despite the synthetics, customers raved about these treats describing them as if they were a good wine, “It starts off tart and tangy, and then finishes really sweet…” said one fairgoer.

But others consider this a recipe for the decline of American health; a critique that is not far off the mark considering 34% of American adults age 20 and older are overweight and 34% are obese.

We are a nation of consumers, of food, media, technology, gossip, anything we come to believe is pleasurable and enjoyable and will elevate our standard of living. But the truth is that over-consumption, rather than feeding our craving, only desensitizes us in the end. The more we consume, the less we appreciate, and the less we are satisfied.

It’s a human condition, and the ancient Israelites were susceptible just as we are today. Shortly after God had delivered His people out of slavery in Egypt, where they were abused, overworked, and their children were killed, the Israelites were wishing they had never left their bondage for one simple but astounding reason: the food. “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt!” they exclaimed to Moses, “There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death” (Exodus 16:3).

They craved the decadence of Egypt, where they feasted on savory meat and fresh melons (Numbers 11:5), where their hands were shackled but at least their stomachs were full.  But God knew their needs and had a plan to provide.

You know the story: God caused quail to descend upon the camps in the evening, and wafers of bread to grace the ground in the morning with the dew. The Israelites called the bread “manna,” meaning, “What is it?” God gave them careful instructions on eating this bread from heaven. They were to only collect enough for each person for one day and no more, except on the day before the Sabbath when they would gather enough also for the day of rest.

But the Israelites were so accustomed to the tables of Egypt that they didn’t listen; they gathered more manna than they could eat in one day and hoarded the rest in their tents, despite the promise that each day would bring new bread. Rather than trust a miracle, they preferred to rely on their own resourcefulness. By the next day, the manna had always rotted.

We also desensitize ourselves in overconsumption. We do not realize the depth of our need, seeking only surface satisfaction. We do not take pleasure, too busy calculating how to amass more. We consume unfeelingly, valuing the dry quantity over the delight of taste, “like wafers made with honey” (Exodus 16:31).

Exodus tells us the Israelites ate manna every day for forty years, a generation raised off of a miracle, though they often protested and complained about it. The manna was God’s way of caring for His people in the wilderness, but it was also a representative of another kind of daily grace as Jesus taught us to pray centuries later, “Give us this day our daily bread…” (Matthew 6:11). Give us this day our daily mercies. Let us learn to look to You for each day’s needs, relying not on our own resources, but praising You for your providence and drawing sweetly nearer.

Musician Joel P. West sings,

“Beauty is simple but we, we find favor in a mess of synthetics
We are hungry”

Like Israel longing for its gilded cage in Egypt, our indulgences keep us in captivity and are always second-rate, despite what we may think. Whether a steady diet of deep-fried Kool Aid, a daily Starbucks habit, daytime TV, or superfluous shopping, our indulgences may distract us temporarily, but there is a hunger that runs deep for that which only God can give.

And God holds out a steady hand to give it—a sustenance that is simple but rich, humble but enough, and will fill our stomachs and our souls. Like the Israelites who said, “What is it?”—we dine on mystery. Something given, something supernatural, something whole. Grace that is new and overflowing every morning.