"The age of youth was created for heroic service and not for pleasure."

This quote hangs in the living room of our staff house on 829 Franklin Avenue, Aliquippa, PA. Although it has been there all summer, it hasn't always held significant meaning for me. As the summer began, five weeks ago for me, I was excited to be here in Aliquippa doing something familiar. Working with the summer day camp (which currently constitutes Aliquippa Impact, Inc.'s main ministry) last summer was a joy and a challenge. Despite the summer's vast challenges, on the whole I thoroughly enjoyed myself. It was a pleasure to be with the kids most of the time. It was in the anticipation of this joy that I was looking forward to City Camp 07.

Well this summer has been different. I'm working a similar position with a bit more responsibility. Staff has changed, but everyone is totally reliable and competent. There are a lot more kids involved in the program this summer, and that has definitely added to the challenge of day camp.

Challenge. Challenge is probably the best way to describe this summer. Last summer was a challenge for me, but somehow I think if this summer had been just like last summer, it would not have been a challenge for me. It would have been to predictable, to comfortable. Prior to this summer I never knew what it felt like to be tired, exhausted and hopeless. It seems like challenges are at every turn, like there is always something else to remember or to do. It seems like there is never enough time to get everything done, let alone sleep and rest. I'm wiped out most of the time.

But somehow, there is no other place I would rather be. This is the most fulfilling thing I have ever done with my time and life. But, I hate it most of the time. It doesn't make sense at all, but somehow through this hardship there is joy, peace and contentment. But those things are not feelings. Somehow my feelings are the exact opposite of what we often think of as joy and peace and contentment.

Somehow this is what is meant by heroic service. There is no feeling of pleasure associated with it. Granted, sometimes my feelings do seem to be pleasure when I am working at day camp, but those feelings come and go just as quickly. This summer, most of the time my feelings are quite the opposite of pleasure. But, I know I am still serving, and I know somehow God is still using what I am trying to do. Most of the time God is using me even when I don't want to be at day camp. Its as if just by being present at day camp God is using me. Some days I feel like all I can do is show up, I don't have the energy to do anything else.

Is what I am doing heroic service? I don't think so. I don't think we are really doing anything spectacular here. But God is working through us, and in spite of us. And I'm more content here than I have ever been even though I am more tired and more miserable some days than I have ever been...

As I browse the Facebook's of my friends from high school I am reminded of how rare this idea is. Its easy to see that many of the kids who sat with me in class are pursuing pleasure. They may even find it sometimes. But those feelings are so fleeting. Feelings come and go so rapidly that I know there must be more to life than them. Somehow true peace and joy are choices that go beyond our temporal feelings. Somehow heroic service IS what we were made for.

Faith and Service

My junior year of college is over. I made the drive home from Georgia yesterday and arrived at the house that I grew up in around 8:15pm, after leaving at 4:00am. The lengthy drive allowed for some good time to reflect and anticipate the coming summer. Today, as I walked through the forest behind my house, the forest where I played as a child, I pondered my upbringing. Walking those familiar paths, smelling those familiar smells, has a way of making a person reflect.

I was raised, and was privileged to be raised, by Christian parents in a loving, safe environment. Faith came easy to me. I had a loving church gamily, positive Christian role models and a knack for learning. In our blessed American home, freedom of religion and economic affluence (at least compared to the rest of the world) seemed to come hand in hand. All in all, my faith cost me nothing, and I saw no problems with this fact. My limited experiences with service—a pair of short-term, two-week trips to Central America—were positive, and perhaps formative experiences, but they did little in effecting life change in me or those of whom I was allegedly serving.

It wasn’t really until last summer at the age of 20, that I realized the cost of Christian discipleship. In Aliquippa I found myself needed, challenged and overwhelmingly in-over-my-head. Here there were children deprived of safety, education and ultimately childhood itself. Here were people without hope, economic stability, or a future. Here, for the first time in my life, I was confronted with the holistic and tragic effects of sin on human life. It was from this I was spared and saved as a child, and by the grace of God alone.

In addition to this realization, I found that as I stepped out in the faith and Christian service that Christ calls us to, something profound began to happen inside of me. The faith that I’d claimed as a child became real to me, as it manifested itself in action and service. I’d believed what the Bible taught, for sure, but it meant nothing to me until it was acted on. Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” I’d believed in the call, but it was not until Aliquippa that I began to die.

Christians and Government

Today in my History of Theology class a discussion concerning the separation of church and state came up, in the context of an introduction to dominion theology. It was an incredibly interesting discussion, and the subject has been on my mind for most of the day. I found myself disagreeing with my prof and about half the class. Overall I would guess our class was 50/50 on the issue, half thinking that Christians in the government can effect morality via the governing authority, the other half rejecting that notion.

To me, the notion of affecting a nation's morality via the ruling authorities is a proposterous idea. This "top-down" mentality doesn't work with morality any better than it does with economics! (The trickle-down theory just doesn't work practically!) The movements that have had lasting effects on our country's politics and morality have been bottom-up, grass-roots movements. Look at the temperance movement, the women's suffrage movement, and the civil rights movement...In each case, it was the little people making the change.

When I pointed out in class that the Jesus and his disciples, and the early church for that matter, were grass-roots, I had a classmate try to tell me that the incarnation was a "top-down" approach. Maybe what he meant by this was that Christ came down to the nothingness of humanity from his place as God, but I don't think that is what this classmate meant. Christ did make himself nothing, and his example is the PERFECT example of effective change from the bottom up!

Jesus of Nazareth had every opportunity to set himself up as the emperor of the world. The Jews of his day, including many of his followers, were expecting the messiah to come and start an earthly kingdom, a "top-down" kingdom that would change the world. They were looking for political liberation and self-determination. But that is not what Jesus had in mind. Instead he turned the tables, and flipped things upside down. How did he start a movement? With an eclectic group of uneducated peasants from a captive nation! And what was his method for changing the world? Dying. Christ and his gospel are the antithesis of a "top-down" approach.

It was a great day when Constantine made Christianity legal in the Roman Empire. I imagine many Christians were joyful and thankful that they could serve God openly at last. The centuries of persecution were finally over. That peace was a great thing. But, didn't the church thrive under such persecution? Look at the book of Acts... What about today? Isn't the church thriving in China and other places hostile to the gospel? Is the church thriving in our present day Constantinian empire (the USA)?

I am not sure that I have fully resolved this next idea in my head, but it seems to make sense to me. The ability for Christians to live and worship freely is a great thing, and not something to be taken for granted. It has not always been this way, and will not, most likely, continue to be this way. But, at the same time, persecution is good for the church. It forces the church to rely on God, it weeds out the nominal, and it is a powerful witness to the world. Maybe tranquility for the church is nice for this world, but maybe it is not beneficial for our spiritual condition. Do not trials develop perseverance, character, and hope?

Apostate churches are not born out of persecution, but are born out of the church growing comfortable. I think there is plenty of evidence for this with the Israelites in the old testament. The entire narrative of the Old Testament seems to be the Israelites sinning and doing evil in the eyes of the Lord, being taken captive (much like persecution), and then repenting and serving God again before the cycle begins again.

So what does this mean practically? I'm not sure... Should we pray for persecution? Maybe... at the very least we need to be careful not to take our comfort and prosperity (read laziness and obesity) for granted. Days of comfort often end abruptly.

When its Hard to be a Pacifist

Its days like today that it is not fun to be a pacifist. I received an email yesterday and this is what it said:

"On Thursday, May 3rd at 10:25 AM a young soldier from Franklin County will be coming home.

Ryen was killed serving our country overseas and will be arriving at the Toccoa Airport on Thursday. The college is asking our students who can gather on Big A to support his family and show the community our support for one who was willing to sacrifice his life for his country."

When push comes to shove, I believe Ryen died for nothing. I believe that Ryen's life had value, but he was a soldier commanded to fight in an unjust war and the loss of his life for the "defense of this country" is meaningless. But that makes me sound as heartless as a war-hawk...Ryen's death is a tragedy, as is the loss of all human life. I don't know why it happened and I wish that it hadn't. His death was as senseless as those that have died in Darfur, or the shootings earlier this year in Aliquippa. Death, wherever it happens is a tragedy. My honest condolences go out to Ryen's family. It is the individual lives affected by war that make it so tragic. It is not nations that feel the pain of these losses, but fathers, mothers, sisters and brothers. It is the weak--children, poor, and marginalized--that suffer the most.

There must be a better way to peace.

"Sure as a hammer finds a nail, death is the only way to peace" ~Derek Webb

It is Christians dying for others--socially, emotionally and yes physically-- that can bring the world peace. Jesus inaugurated the kingdom through his death, and we are called to follow suite. Only through radically associating, and relating to the hurting can we effect peace in this war torn and restless world.

It is not guaranteed to be successful, but a human history of war has never brought peace: the "war to end all wars" (WW1) led to the "war to make the world safe for democracy" (WW2) which has led to more war, and a world hostile to human life (including democracy!). When will we learn?

“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” ~George Santayana

For all of Hilary's quirks, at least she is consistent...

I like to draw. I am concerned with politics. So I've decided to dabble in the art of political cartooning.

A Liberal in the Dirty South

Back home (Central New York) I am not considered to be politically left or right by most people. Back home, I can be a moderate. An increasingly frustrating thing for me lately has been the constant label of 'liberal.' Often it is said tongue in cheek, often it is merely implied. What frustrates me about this is not the association with the left, so much as the things that I talk about that give others the impression that I am liberal minded. Two issues come to mind that, by merely bringing them up label me as politically left down here in Northeast Georgia (especially at a conservative Bible college!).

The first is the urban poor in America. When did caring for the poor, something emphatically stressed in both the Old and New Testaments, become an exclusively liberal idea? Didn't Jesus, prophet to some, teacher to others, God to Christians, stress the need to feed the hungry and clothe the naked? Am I wrong in thinking that this is NOT an exclusively liberal idea?

The next issue I recognize as a more complicated one, but is not, in my opinion, one that should determine whether one lies on the political spectrum. War. I am a pacifist. In the minds of a majority of people down here, I am a pacifist, I am therefore a liberal. I am outspoken in my disgust for the Iraq war. It is not a just use of force, by any standards. Even proponents of 'just war theory' have to acknowledge the problems with our Iraq conflict. Plenty of conservatives (politically) doubt the justice of our current conflict.

Generally speaking, I consider myself to be a political moderate. I am not big government. I am not big business. I am not militaristic. I believe in the value of education and infrastructure. I think we should try and create a government that fosters social equality for all races and ethnicities. My views on the poor and war should not label me 'left' or 'right'. Why does this frustrate me so much?

Far to often people use these labels as defense mechinisms so that they do not have to engage in a real discussion. If someone is a 'liberal' or 'conservative' and you fall in an oppositional camp, you don't have to take them seriously. That seems to me to be the only explanation. A lot of people don't want to think about these issues critically so they label those with conflicting views to be members of an oppositional camp in order to make illegitimate their position and prohibit dialogue.

One more thing that frustrates me. Political conservatism does not imply or necessitate religious conservatism, and visa-versa. One can be politically left and religiously right. I have had few come out and say it, but I have had some imply that because I care about issues seemingly left politically, I am somehow a religious liberal as well.



I don't normally get this angry when I post, and much of this is inarticulate and not well thought out. Just some thoughts on my mind this morning.

Anabaptists, Pentecostals, and Homophobia

I never finished The Politics of Jesus, though it is definitely on my list of books to read. I am an expert at returning books late to the library and unfortunately The Politics of Jesus was well overdue so I needed to return it. In its place, I checked out A contemporary Anabaptist Theology as well as Artists, Citizens, Philosophers: seeking the peace of the city, an Anabaptist Theology of Culture. I'm further along in this second book and I am finding it quite fascinating. I'll post more comments on it hopefully as I get further along.

In addition to familiarizing myself with the Anabaptists, I watched the riveting and controversial documentary Jesus Camp this week. For those of you unfamiliar with the film, it is a documentary about an extremely charismatic pentecostal children's camp in North Dakota. Critics of the camp argue that they are manipulative and forcefully indoctrinate their children with right wing conservative propaganda. Although I think most critics are a touch harsh, I must admit that their were parts of the film that made me feel uncomfortable, namely when a group of children prayed over a cardboard cutout of George W. Granted, however, I am not the biggest Bush fan anyway. Regardless of my opinion about this particular pentecostal church, I find myself having to remind myself that this particular church does not represent a majority of Pentecostals, and it certainly doesn't represent all evangelicals.

In an ironic bit of Jesus Camp Ted Haggard is captured preaching against homosexuality and mentioning that "sin will find you out." Obviously this film was shot and released before the current scandal hit the media...I was listening to Tony Campolo's thoughts on the whole issue when I heard him mention Haggard's meth addiction. I didn't remember hearing about it before, and as Tony pointed out how ridiculous it is that evangelicals (as a majority) are not outraged about his use of meth, I found myself agreeing. Why are we so homophobic? Why are we not as equally outraged by Ted Haggard's addiction to an elicit substance as we are his homosexual actions? As I talked to one of my professors about this, it was brought to my attention that our difference in opinion on this subject is most likely due to our beliefs on sin. As a result of this conversation, I now have a lot more questions about sin. Is there an hierarchy of sins? Are some sins worse than others? Why have evangelicals (in general) picked homosexuality and abortion as their "worst" sins while neglecting the atrocities of war and injustice to the poor (this last one which is mentioned biblically far more than these others)?