YIMBYism

On By Jesse ZinkIn GospelLeave a comment

Some years ago, I met a man named Stanley Tom. He lives in a village named Newtok in the Kuskokwim River delta in western Alaska. At the time, Newtok was literally eroding away. Since then, the process has only sped up (and grabbed headlines in the Guardian not long ago). Newtok is a casualty of global warming—its riverbank is being eaten away and it is sinking into the tundra around it.

At the time, Stanley Tom was the one in charge of moving the village. You could see the toll the work had taken on him—he looked exhausted, beaten down, and about ready to give up. He understood that the challenges facing his village were due to global warming, but he also said that his village was doing what it could to address the issue:

We all did quit using trash bags already in the stores. We’re using shopping bags. And we’re trying to help the problem that they are telling us, you know, and I don’t think we’re the big impact. We’re just a small amount and we’re trying to help the problem right now.

I live in England now and every day on my commute I pass by these windmills.

IMG_9711Windmills are controversial in England. In a village not far away, there’s a proposal for a new wind farm which is generating intense opposition. The same is true all over England. Whatever the merits and demerits of each individual case (and they may be considerable), it is true that wind farms are a classic example of NIMBYism—not in my backyard.

But every day when I go past these turbines, I think of Stanley Tom and the village of Newtok and I realize that I believe in YIMBYism—yes in my backyard—and I do so because of my Christian faith.

Global warming is already creating unequal burdens on people around the world. Stanley Tom and the people of Newtok are one example of those who bear those burdens particularly heavily. The Bible says that we are to “bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.” (Galatians 6:2) Because I believe that I am knit together into one entity called the body of Christ with other people around the world, I believe I am called to help Stanley Tom bear his burdens.

Yes, it is true that having wind farms creates problems for people around where I live. But it is also true that they help (in a very small way) address some of the challenges Stanley Tom is facing. When I see those wind turbines, I think of how they are helping Stanley Tom bear his burdens. That, to me, outweighs the obstacles they pose.

My meeting with Stanley Tom is indelibly imprinted on my mind. I will never be able to forget his stories about how global warming is affecting his home and his daily life.

So forget NIMBYism—let’s be YIMBYs.

Justice and grace: the widow of Zarephath and the widow of Nain

On By Jesse ZinkIn Gospel3 Comments

Our political discourse is shaped by the language of justice. In England, there is a big debate about “shirkers” vs. “strivers.” The latter deserve government benefits because they are working hard to improve the lot, the former certainly not. A major argument for same-sex marriage is that it would be unjust to deny two people who love one another the right to be married. Drone strikes in Pakistan and Yemen are justified by explaining that they are just punishment for the crimes of the victims. Whatever you think about any of these issues, the key thing is that they all use the language of justice.

But is justice really the best way of approaching the world? The lectionary readings for this coming Sunday make us think otherwise.

In the first reading (I Kings 17:17-24), the prophet Elijah raises the dead son of a widow. The entire encounter is framed in terms of justice. When her son dies, the widow is convinced that it is just punishment for something she has done (v. 18). Elijah appeals to God in terms of justice—it is not fair that he should leave her without a man to support her (v. 20). God is apparently convinced by this reasoning and raises the son from the dead (v. 22). Justice prevails. But one implication of the reading is that if the situation had been different—if the woman wasn’t a widow, if she had another son—God might not have raised her.

The parallels between the Luke passage (Luke 7:11-17) and the Kings passage are so close that Luke is almost certainly trying to make a point. He certainly wants to claim that Jesus was a great prophet like Elijah. But I think Luke—along with the entire Christian tradition—wants to say something more about Jesus. We see what that something more might be by looking at the differences between the two passages.

The major difference is that the motivation for Jesus acting to raise the son is not justice but compassion. Rather than imploring God to act justly, he simply reaches out his hand and raises the son.

The people in the funeral procession are astounded. One of the things they say in response is, “God has looked favourably on his people!” (v. 16) That phrase, “looked favourably,” is only used three other times in the Bible and all by Luke. It is used first when Elizabeth realizes she has conceived John the Baptist (1:25). It is used again by Elizabeth’s husband Zechariah when John the Baptist is born in the canticle that has become known as the Benedictus (1:68-69):

Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,

for he has looked favourably on his people and redeemed them.

He has raised up a mighty saviour for us

in the house of his servant David.

Although Zechariah is holding his long-awaited son in his hands, he realizes that God has something greater in store for God’s people—the long-promised Messiah is coming.

Luke also uses “looked favourably” in Acts, when the apostles are trying to decide if non-Jews can follow Jesus. James realizes they can when he realizes that God has “looked favourably” on the Gentiles (15:14). The saving work of God is not just for the Jewish people, but for all people from every race, culture, and tradition.

So when Luke uses “looked favourably” in this passage, he is invoking the entire sweep of God’s saving action. God comes to each one of us while we are lost, wandering, and spiritually dead in sin, has compassion on us, and raises us to true and abundant life.

Christians have a word for this compassion—grace. And the key thing about grace is that it is not just. What makes grace so wonderful is precisely that it is unmerited and undeserved. God didn’t have to be convinced of the justice of our cause to come to us. God came to us in Jesus Christ because God loves us. This is the good news.

There’s one final difference between the two stories to highlight. Elijah raises the son in a home. Jesus raises the son on the road out of town. We are that son, lost on the road. The only other time Luke uses the word “compassion” is in the story of the prodigal son when the father sees the son “far off” on the road, has compassion on him, rushes out to meet him, and brings him home (15:20). We, too, are wandering far off, but God comes to us in Christ and brings us home to God’s loving embrace. (Paul makes a similar point in Ephesians 2:13). That is the depth of God’s love for us.

But the world still insists in thinking in terms of justice—and sometimes Christians do too. But grace, the central idea of the Christian gospel, is not just—and that’s what make it so wonderful. The calling for Christians is to realize how lost and dead we are, to realize the depth and unjust nature of God’s love for us, to be transformed by this love, and then to share it with others who are similarly lost, broken, and dead.

God’s love is not just—and we thank God for that.

Justin Welby pleases no one

On By Jesse ZinkIn Church of EnglandLeave a comment

The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, spoke today in the House of Lords on the legislation that could legalize same-sex marriage in England. It is noteworthy that he even spoke. There was some thought that the bishops in the House of Lords would just abstain, though I think that would have generated as much comment as anything they could and did say. It is the perils of Establishment that the archbishop should be compelled to speak on this issue and at this time.

Given what was known about him when he took office—namely, that he is a self-described “conservative evangelical”—he said some things that were surprising:

It is clearly essential that stable and faithful same sex relationships should, where those involved want it, be recognised and supported with as much dignity and the same legal effect as marriage.

But then he expressed his ultimate opposition to the legislation, for reasons that have much to do with the nature of the particular legislation under consideration.

It is this opposition (creatively reinterpreted by some headline writers) that has seized the initial headlines and has already light up my various social media streams with negative comments. But I imagine that in the not very distant future there will be people from the opposite end of the spectrum who start hitting him for what seem to be positive comments about same-sex relationships.

The end result? I think this is a speech that will please no one. Neither liberals nor conservatives in the church will have to look hard to find reason to be outraged. (Being outraged has lately become a cottage industry in the church, as in our politics.)

As I read the speech, I thought back to Rowan Williams, who similarly managed to please no one during his tenure in Canterbury. Perhaps that’s just the nature of the job and the peculiar nature of episcopal ministry, in which you are not just attempting to advance an agenda (as political leaders are) but serving as a “focus of unity” in the body of Christ, an entity that is like nothing else that exists in the world. But when these exigencies meet the real world of politics, the result is the vitriol that is quickly sprouting around the Internet.

It made me think back to this sermon the archbishop gave some weeks ago.

He concludes by saying:

In the end it is not up to us. We put everything we can into it but in the end it’s God’s call. And that’s very, very good news. So we don’t have to believe in ourselves, in our processes, in our inspiration, let alone in an archbishop of Canterbury.

Amen to that.

Windsor Continuation Report and South Carolina

On By Jesse ZinkIn Episcopal Church, UncategorizedLeave a comment

My recent essay that questioned the Diocese of South Carolina’s decision to leave the Episcopal Church has generated a fair bit of comment on blogs around the world, not to mention the two response essays in The Living Church itself.

There are two posts on the Anglican Down Under blog (here and here), though I quickly lost the thread of the discussion in the comments as it descended into a string of ad hominem attacks, or ones only loosely connected to the argument I was making in the first place. I do note that several people have noted in various places that South Carolina could quickly get three bishops together if it had to. I acknowledged this in the initial essay, but also noted that this would demonstrate the ad hoc nature of their existence.

But on the TitusOneNine blog, Christopher Seitz of the Anglican Communion Institute makes a perceptive—but I believe mistaken—claim:

This essayist misses the point that “extra-provincial” in the present period does not refer to the cases he lists, but emerges in the context of our conflicts and was proposed as a way forward by the Windsor Continuation Group. It is a category overseen by a primatial committee. We have information on this at ACI. Incidentally, even the PB of TEC supported it.

We might first note that while the report of the Windsor Continuation Group was “received” by the Anglican Consultative Council, little action has been taken on any of its recommendations. As a result, Seitz’s implicit assertion—that South Carolina has simply taken up some status available to it in the Communion—is not correct, nor is it what South Carolina has been claiming for itself in the last several months. Regardless of which primates supported the idea, it has not, to my knowledge, become an active and viable option in the Anglican Communion, as the absence of a primatial committee in South Carolina makes clear.

Nonetheless, I went back and read the WCG report. Here is what it has to say about extra-provincial dioceses:

100. One way forward – although initially dismissed by some of the parties concerned – would be for ACNA to seek for some clear provisional recognition which seeks to keep it in relation to the Communion, but which acknowledges its provisional and anomalous nature. WCG has explored on previous occasions the idea of “escrow” – the creation of a body which could take on the oversight of these groups on behalf of the Communion, but which recognises the provisionality of such bodies. The group wonders whether there is any mileage in the model of extra-Provincial jurisdictions? In at least one case, such jurisdictions have been recognised as provisional – e.g. in Sri Lanka Such a provision is fraught with difficulties. Such a scheme could not guarantee any particular outcome, the nature of which would be dependent on many factors, including the progress of the Covenant process. The provision would have to be hedged around with all sorts of restrictions, to avoid such a scheme becoming a haven for discontented groups, and institutionalising schism in the life of the Communion. Who would be the metropolitical authority? If all other obstacles were overcome, the WCG would favour a Metropolitical Council similar to that which operates for Cuba rather than linking the new entity to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

In other words, the WCG report itself highlights the need for metropolitical authority, which is precisely the point I was making in my initial essay. Rather than contradicting my claim, it seems the WCG accurately forecast the problems that would arise with such an unusual status.

(I would post these comments directly to the TitusOneNine blog, but it appears as if it is no longer taking new users.)

No commenter, to my knowledge, has responded to the historical facts I lay out in the essay concerning the South Carolina episcopacy—namely that South Carolina went many years without a bishop and its first bishop was consecrated at a General Convention. These seem of central importance to the current conversation.

Still, I welcome the conversation. It is noteworthy to me that none of the more reliably “liberal” Anglican/Episcopal blogs have entered this discussion, even though I think these ecclesiogical issues are of critical importance in ongoing debate about the future direction of the church.

On another note, here’s an example of another use of my writing. A group from the Diocese of Fredericton in New Brunswick, Canada went on a mission trip to Ghana and used my book, Grace at the Garbage Dump, to help them reflect on what they were experiencing. Read the full report here. Then download the study guide for the book and do the same on your next trip!

A lesson from history for South Carolina

On By Jesse ZinkIn Episcopal Church1 Comment
When was this man’s predecessor consecrated? And why does it matter?

Last autumn, the diocese of South Carolina left the Episcopal Church. A primary justification for this departure was that South Carolina was created as a diocese in 1785, before it acceded to the constitution and canons of the Episcopal Church in 1790. The departure, therefore, was a mere return to its pre-accession status. The implicit claim here is that a diocese only needs itself to be a church—with a bishop, the sacraments, the Bible, and the creeds, they’ve got all they need. Mark Lawrence, the bishop of the diocese, has pointed to the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral as evidence of this claim.

I have an article in the current edition of The Living Church that challenges this line of thinking. And I challenge that line of thinking by pointing to an historical fact: the first bishop of South Carolina, Robert Smith, was not consecrated until 1795—and at a General Convention. In other words, for nearly ten years, including the five before it acceded to the Episcopal Church’s constitution, South Carolina was without a bishop. By the standards its current leaders are now using to justify their departure, that makes it at best a proto-diocese.

(We should note that in the early years of the Episcopal Church—despite the name—several dioceses went long stretches without bishops, for a variety of reasons. South Carolina was not unique in this regard.)

This historical fact is the grounds for the larger claim of the article, namely that provinces—groupings of dioceses—matter to Anglicanism: we need them so that we can ensure our bishops are properly chosen and consecrated. The fact that Bishop Smith was consecrated at a General Convention demonstrates this. Moreover, I argue that this larger sense of belonging is actually part of the good news of the church. But read the article for the rest of the argument.

The Living Church editors also solicited two responses to my piece, which take different views. You can read one here. (UPDATE: The second response essay has also been posted.)

History matters, if only as a corrective to the self-justifying arguments that are so common in the church today. Would that we had more people in the church studying it.

Patiently living with difference

On By Jesse ZinkIn Anglican CommunionLeave a comment

Rowan Williams is no longer archbishop of Canterbury but that doesn’t mean we can’t still write about him! I was struck by the conjunction of two things: that Williams was a theologian whose work always emphasized ecclesiology and that he served as archbishop in the middle of what might be called an ecclesiological crisis. That interest gave rise to the recent article published in Ecclesiology titled, “Patiently Living with Difference: Rowan Williams’ Archiepiscopal Ecclesiology and the Proposed Anglican Covenant”:

“…we have reviewed Williams’ goal of mature, trust-full relationships in which people recognize that they must receive from those who are different to them even as they acknowledge their inability to do so. This is a compelling vision for the world of the twenty-first century, and a deeply prophetic one that deserves to be preached and made the basis of the church’s existence. The way to do so is not, I think, to insist upon adoption of a particular document and limited set of principles. Rather, the solution seems to be to articulate this vision while patiently honoring its process, a Williamsian solution if there ever was one. This will not please all Anglicans nor will it necessarily diminish the damaging rhetoric that abounds on all sides. But Williams’ own words seem pertinent here: ‘Even in local and prosaic settings, how very tempting it is to say that we want our results now, before the end of the year. We have to justify what we’re doing in the shortest of short terms and that is a curse for churches, universities, charities, community regeneration projects, all sorts of things in our society. And we need deep breaths and long views again.’ Ultimately, perhaps, as the covenant dies, the Communion can take a few deep breaths and return to the long view embodied most compellingly in Williams’ own work.

Separately, I reviewed the new book, Rowan Williams: His Legacy for The Living Church. That review is also online:

Williams’s tenure was marked by an inability to say “I have no need of you” — even and especially when so many others were demanding that he do precisely that. This deeply biblical position is surely at the root of any legacy Williams leaves and is, moreover, the place to begin building a church that is “more truly itself.”

There’s no shortage of writing by and about Williams, and for that I am grateful—even when I contribute to that list!

“Honest, reflective journal…”

On By Jesse ZinkIn Grace at the Garbage Dump1 Comment

John Bowen reviewed my book, Grace at the Garbage Dump, in a recent issue of The Living Church. You have to subscribe to read the whole thing, but here’s a tiny excerpt.

Grace at the Garbage Dump is the honest, reflective journal of one young American, seeking to make a difference for Christ in the world, and learning basic lessons of discipleship—humility, servanthood, risk-taking, patience, love, and the value of small things.

Don’t subscribe to The Living Church? You should. It’s a great place to read about the ideas and debates that are shaping contemporary Anglicanism.

And—completely unbeknownst to me—the same issue of The Living Church carried my review of two recent books by the Presiding Bishop—and questioned what Nike’s “Just Do It” slogan has to say to The Episcopal Church.

Backpacking Through the Anglican Communion: A Search for Unity

On By Jesse ZinkIn Backpacking Through the Anglican Communion4 Comments

Exciting news! It’s time to raise the curtain on Book #2!

IMG_1594My next book, Backpacking Through the Anglican Communion: A Search for Unity, draws on the tens of thousands of miles I’ve travelled in recent years to show what Anglican life is like at the grassroots level around the world—in places as diverse as Nigeria, Ecuador, England, and China. Some of those travels first appeared in partial form on this blog; many of them did not.

More than a simple travelogue, the book also challenges the dominant narrative of disunity that so colours debates about the future of global Anglicanism. I show how the loudest voices in the Anglican Communion are rarely as representative as they think. In fact, when conversations about divisive issues—sexuality, Biblical interpretation, authority—are undertaken in a spirit of mutuality and vulnerability, they deepen—and not fracture—relationship.

IMG_3661IMG_2946Finally, the book is an argument that unity actually matters and that in our globalizing and fracturing world, Anglicans have an incredible opportunity to witness to the world—an opportunity we are singularly failing to grasp at this moment in time.

Backpacking Through the Anglican Communion: look for it in early 2014 from the Church Publishing family. And if you live outside the U.S. and want it published where you live, let me know so we can start talking about it now. Contact details are here.

“A safe place to do risky things”

On By Jesse ZinkIn Anglican CommunionLeave a comment

I’ve just finished Andrew Atherstone’s brief biography of the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. For a book that was produced on such short notice, it is excellent. Atherstone does a terrific job of trawling through Welby’s publicly-available writings to paint a picture of the interesting, intriguing, and complex person now in the see of Canterbury.

Some of the interesting bits of the book have been quoted elsewhere. One bit that stuck with me, though, which I have not seen elsewhere is Welby’s emphasis on risk as a Christian virtue. When he was at Liverpool Cathedral, he encouraged members of the congregation with the phrase, “This Cathedral should be a safe place to do risky things.” It is a view, Atherstone argues, that has informed Welby’s ministry.

So I’ve been thinking about risk and the church lately. And to that end, I am off on a visit to the church in South Sudan that begins this evening. I’ll be bringing my copy of Atherstone’s biography to donate to the library at Bishop Gwynne College so students there can also reflect on our new archbishop. Stay tuned for posts from South Sudan (and in the meantime, read about my past visits there).

Telling the stories of others

On By Jesse ZinkIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Chinua Achebe’s death has brought me back to his debut novel, Things Fall Apart. It is a beautiful piece of literature that has helped me understand the nature of inter-cultural work. But one part of it stops me cold each time I read it. It comes at the very end when the colonial District Commissioner comes across the suicide of the novel’s protaganist and thinks:

The story of this man who had killed a messenger and hanged himself would make interesting reading. One could almost write a whole chapter on him. Perhaps not a whole chapter but a reasonable paragraph, at any rate.

The irony, of course, is that the comments come at the end of an entire book about the protagonist.

As someone who has written a book about a community of Africans, these words are a constant warning to me. Everyone’s story is full of complexity and I am always trying to find ways to be honest to the story yet not let the writing get bogged down in that complexity. It is not an easy task.

Ultimately, however, Achebe was best known for encouraging Africans to tell their own story—that is what he modeled and it is what his growing number of successors continue to do so eloquently. This, I think, is the key: how do we create a world in which everyone has the ability to tell their own story, free from outside interference and the attempt to shape the narratives of others?

While we’re working on creating that world, I am constantly humbled by the District Commissioner’s thought: in what ways, am I reducing the stories of others to paragraphs and chapters when whole books are needed?