Nonviolent Protest Continues Against Alliant Techsystems
By Steve Clemens
August 6th marked the 62nd anniversary of the atomic bombing of Japan. To remember those who died and those who continue to suffer the effects of radioactive poisoning from those two bombs and to remind us about current victims of uranium weapons, the Chicago-based Christian Peacemaker Teams organized a peace witness at the headquarters of the largest manufacturer of depleted uranium weapons in the U.S. – Alliant Techsystems (ATK) in Edina. About 40 people, many dressed in black clothing and carrying white roses to represent healing and remembrance for those who have suffered from nuclear weapons and DU participated in singing and calling out victims of depleted uranium weapons made by this company.
Vigilers held signs that read "Hiroshima: Never Again," and passed their white roses to others bearing signs representing victims of DU – Iraqi civilians, U.S. and Iraqi soldiers, children, Afghanis, etc. As the crowd sang out the words, "None can stop the Spirit, burning now inside us. We will shape the future. We will not be silent," eight participants carried their white roses up the driveway towards the front door of ATK, hoping to deliver their message of peace to corporate executives. When stopped by several ATK employees and Edina police, the eight attempted to engage them in dialogue. After police warned the group to leave or they would be arrested, the eight then knelt down in prayer and were arrested. They were Tarek Abuata (Bethesda, MD), Sally Ann Brickner (Green Bay, WI), Kryss Chupp (Chicago, IL), Steve Clemens (Minneapolis, MN), Delycia Fuestel (Lebanon, NH), Cliff Kindy (N. Manchester, IN), Martin Smedjeback (Sundbyberg, Sweden), and Colin Stuart (Ottawa, ON).
One week prior to the August 6th action, nine members of the AlliantAction Vigil Group – each owners of a share of ATK stock were arrested for attempting to attend the Annual ATK Stockholders Meeting for which they had all received invitations! When they tried to enter, they were told that because they had been previously arrested for trespass, they could not enter –even though they carried the invitations with them. Some who left after being challenged, went back up the driveway to be arrested in solidarity with those already under arrest. At least one Vets for Peace Member, Dr. David Harris as well as several associate members were part of the arrest group.
It has been reported in the local Edina Sun-Current that Alliant Techsystems is moving its headquarters next Spring to a site in Eden Prairie. The article states: “A relocation to its own building would give the company an opportunity to fortify its property with such protests in mind.” Principled nonviolence is always a threat to those who wish to hide behind trespass and private property laws to continue their illegal and immoral activities.
Dan Ellsberg is Still Passionate About Justice
Daniel Ellsberg at Augsburg College: Still Passionate for Justice
By Steve Clemens April 17, 2007
He is grayer now and walks slower, but Daniel Ellsberg at 76, still burns with the passion for justice and compassion that drove him to expose The Pentagon Papers more than 35 years ago. That act of defiance and courage helped push an ambivalent public toward a clear rejection of the Vietnam War. Today, Ellsberg wants us to break from our imperial past (and present) to hopefully end another war (Iraq) and prevent another looming one in the planning stages (Iran).
But rather than focusing directly on his own past, Ellsberg spoke about the history of the U.S. policy of genocide. He warned the audience at Augsburg College on a beautiful Spring day that the speech that would follow would not be easy for us to hear. This was not the type of speech for which you tell the speaker afterward that you “enjoyed it”.
Beginning with a definition of terror, he simplified it by stating that it was the deliberate killing of innocents, civilians, noncombatants for political reasons. Making it clear that distinctions as to whether the actor committing acts of terror were individuals or governments ultimately mattered little to the victims of violence, he said he had come to a personal opinion that even those acts committed by “revolutionaries” were not to be condoned, despite the glorification of some of own independence movement which laid the groundwork for other “revolutionaries” to follow. Quoting George W. Bush, he said he agreed with the President that all acts of terror are to be rejected but the rest of his talk exposed the blatant hypocrisy in this regard “by every President” since Harry Truman announced the “successful” use of the atomic bombs in 1945.
Ellsberg laid the groundwork for this charge of terrorism and genocide by reminding the gathering that the earliest followers of Jesus remained pacifist for the first 300 years. After being absorbed by the Roman Empire, and under the teaching of Augustine, and followed a century later by Thomas Aquinas, Christianity adopted a “just war” theory which, while allowing for the killing of combatants in war, still maintained an absolute prohibition on the killing of civilians and limited both the means and methods of warfare for those claiming to follow Jesus.
By the 19th century, as warfare became more murderous with the number and types of weapons, further attempts were made to limit warfare at The Hague and Geneva with Conventions drafted and adopted under their names. Even with the limits imposed, the horrific slaughter of World War I was primarily limited to combatants on both sides, with 60,000 British troops killed in one day! Ellsberg pointed out that toward the end of that war, militarists were exploring how dropping bombs from airplanes or rockets could “help” their side “win” their wars –ostensibly to end the wars faster and thus limit the slaughter.
Even before the U.S. entered WWII, President Franklin Roosevelt sent a message to the leaders of both sides in the European and Asian theaters denouncing the use of bombs in any civilian-populated areas. Ellsberg reminded his audience that even “the day that will live in infamy” (the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor) was not an attack on civilians but rather on a military target and almost all of the 3,000 who were killed were combatants even though war had not been formally declared.
Daniel Ellsberg painfully recited what followed: Hitler’s deliberate bombing of London and Rotterdam, the Allies’ bombing of Hamburg and Dresden, and the war-ending nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the U.S. Air Force. At first, the U.S. policy was to limit its bombing in Europe to daylight “strategic bombing” where deliberate attempts were to specifically target military facilities and assets, using the newly developed Norden bombsight. The British RAF however, used the tactic of night bombing German cities when precision bombing was prevented by the cover of darkness. As awful as this practice was, the U.S. remained complicit with it as we followed the night-time British bombings with “strategic” attacks the next day over the same “targets”.
In 1923, a powerful earthquake in Japan ignited fires which merged with other fires, multiplying the heat and destruction. What the “Masters of War” discovered in the process was the possibility of using bombs to create a “firestorm”: incendiary bombs in the right places and with the right weather conditions would allow the fires to feed off each other and suck all the air out, generating hurricane-force winds, and destroying anything that couldn’t withstand the heat in-excess of 1,200 degrees. Even asphalt burned. People who went into the canals to avoid the intense heat were boiled alive. Those in bomb shelters were asphyxiated before being burned when all the oxygen was sucked into the inferno.
Prior to the apocalyptic destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, British and American bombers were able to create firestorms in both Hamburg and Dresden, killing 40-60,000 civilians in each. Attempts were made to duplicate the firestorms in Berlin and although sections of the city were destroyed, the Allies were unsuccessful in creating a firestorm there. In the Pacific, the campaigns to capture Iwo Jima, Saipan, and Guam were essential for the plans of General Curtis LeMay. He had realized that the wood and paper houses in Japan were perfect targets for this new war-fighting strategy. More than 120,000 were killed in one night when 300 U.S. bombers dropped incendiary bombs on Tokyo and created the world’s third firestorm. Following the destruction of Tokyo, the next 50 largest cities in Japan were all bombed – however, the conditions were never “right” to create another firestorm.
Although the immediate deaths caused by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not as great as Tokyo, what made those bombs “special” was that it took only one plane and one bomb rather than 300 bombers flying at low altitudes – and a firestorm was guaranteed every time!
After laying out this gruesome history lesson for us, Ellsberg proceeded to bring the realities into the present. He described the task he was given by the Pentagon in 1961 when he was 30 years old: he was told that JFK wanted calculations on the number of fatalities which would occur if we exploded nuclear weapons on the cities of the USSR and China that we had targeted with our atomic and hydrogen bombs in our stockpile. After careful research, he concluded that 600 million people would die within 6 months in such an attack – and then discovered a mathematical error which gave the result of at least 1.2 billion people killed – just as the result of our attack, without figuring in a Russian response. Then he proceeded to say, “At that time, the USSR had only 4 nuclear weapons!” (China had none) and we were making war plans which would kill that many people. “Every President ever since [JFK] has had the same targets [for our nuclear weapons]” and has acquiesced in allowing those plans to remain. That is the reality of terrorism and genocide in U.S. policy today.
Ellsberg pointed out the irony in our firebombing of Hamburg- no Jews were killed because they had all been shipped off to concentration camps in Eastern Europe by then. The Jews killed at Auschwitz were forced into “shower rooms” 2,000 at a time where they inhaled Zyklon B gas which killed most right away. This he contrasted with the horror of being burned alive or boiled to death in the Hamburg firestorm. What took the Nazis many days or months to accomplish, American and British bombers were able to do in one night. He, as a Jew, was not trying to equate one death with the other but rather to remind his audience that we do not possess “the high ground” when it comes to genocide and terror.
Ellsberg described how bombs containing magnesium or white phosphorus can’t be put out by water. They burn right through the skin and sometimes even through bone. The British used magnesium bombs in Hamburg. The U.S. used “willy peter” [white phosphorus] in Vietnam which Ellsberg witnessed as a young Marine. Israel used it in Beirut, the U.S. (again) in Fallujah. Weapons designed to create terror.
When President G.W. Bush says, “All options are on the table”, in reference to a possible military attack on Iran, Ellsberg reminded us that “such a threat to use nuclear weapons against a country that does not have nuclear weapons is a war crime. And, when Hillary [Clinton], [Barach] Obama, and [John] Edwards [and Senator Amy Klobuchar] repeat the same to their AIPAC audiences, they too are committing war crimes.”
Ellsberg’s 75 minute speech was received soberly and quietly by the audience. The applause at the end was out of respect for the courage and determination of the speaker rather than “enjoyment” of the message. Like the cod liver oil I was given as a kid, it was hard to stomach but we needed to experience it. Although many could not remain for the 30 minute question and answer session which followed, the perspectives shared by Ellsberg then were not any lighter. If we go to war with Iran (and Seymour Hersch has revealed many of the plans in progress), or if another 9/11-like attack occurs, Ellsberg predicted the following: an immediate resumption of the draft, all Middle Eastern persons in the US will be herded into internment camps, and it will be the end of democracy as we recognize it today. He called for a new generation of whistle-blowers (and gave his thanks to Colleen Rowley who was in the audience) and left us with the responsibility to join him in resisting the path we are on.
By Steve Clemens April 17, 2007
He is grayer now and walks slower, but Daniel Ellsberg at 76, still burns with the passion for justice and compassion that drove him to expose The Pentagon Papers more than 35 years ago. That act of defiance and courage helped push an ambivalent public toward a clear rejection of the Vietnam War. Today, Ellsberg wants us to break from our imperial past (and present) to hopefully end another war (Iraq) and prevent another looming one in the planning stages (Iran).
But rather than focusing directly on his own past, Ellsberg spoke about the history of the U.S. policy of genocide. He warned the audience at Augsburg College on a beautiful Spring day that the speech that would follow would not be easy for us to hear. This was not the type of speech for which you tell the speaker afterward that you “enjoyed it”.
Beginning with a definition of terror, he simplified it by stating that it was the deliberate killing of innocents, civilians, noncombatants for political reasons. Making it clear that distinctions as to whether the actor committing acts of terror were individuals or governments ultimately mattered little to the victims of violence, he said he had come to a personal opinion that even those acts committed by “revolutionaries” were not to be condoned, despite the glorification of some of own independence movement which laid the groundwork for other “revolutionaries” to follow. Quoting George W. Bush, he said he agreed with the President that all acts of terror are to be rejected but the rest of his talk exposed the blatant hypocrisy in this regard “by every President” since Harry Truman announced the “successful” use of the atomic bombs in 1945.
Ellsberg laid the groundwork for this charge of terrorism and genocide by reminding the gathering that the earliest followers of Jesus remained pacifist for the first 300 years. After being absorbed by the Roman Empire, and under the teaching of Augustine, and followed a century later by Thomas Aquinas, Christianity adopted a “just war” theory which, while allowing for the killing of combatants in war, still maintained an absolute prohibition on the killing of civilians and limited both the means and methods of warfare for those claiming to follow Jesus.
By the 19th century, as warfare became more murderous with the number and types of weapons, further attempts were made to limit warfare at The Hague and Geneva with Conventions drafted and adopted under their names. Even with the limits imposed, the horrific slaughter of World War I was primarily limited to combatants on both sides, with 60,000 British troops killed in one day! Ellsberg pointed out that toward the end of that war, militarists were exploring how dropping bombs from airplanes or rockets could “help” their side “win” their wars –ostensibly to end the wars faster and thus limit the slaughter.
Even before the U.S. entered WWII, President Franklin Roosevelt sent a message to the leaders of both sides in the European and Asian theaters denouncing the use of bombs in any civilian-populated areas. Ellsberg reminded his audience that even “the day that will live in infamy” (the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor) was not an attack on civilians but rather on a military target and almost all of the 3,000 who were killed were combatants even though war had not been formally declared.
Daniel Ellsberg painfully recited what followed: Hitler’s deliberate bombing of London and Rotterdam, the Allies’ bombing of Hamburg and Dresden, and the war-ending nuclear destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the U.S. Air Force. At first, the U.S. policy was to limit its bombing in Europe to daylight “strategic bombing” where deliberate attempts were to specifically target military facilities and assets, using the newly developed Norden bombsight. The British RAF however, used the tactic of night bombing German cities when precision bombing was prevented by the cover of darkness. As awful as this practice was, the U.S. remained complicit with it as we followed the night-time British bombings with “strategic” attacks the next day over the same “targets”.
In 1923, a powerful earthquake in Japan ignited fires which merged with other fires, multiplying the heat and destruction. What the “Masters of War” discovered in the process was the possibility of using bombs to create a “firestorm”: incendiary bombs in the right places and with the right weather conditions would allow the fires to feed off each other and suck all the air out, generating hurricane-force winds, and destroying anything that couldn’t withstand the heat in-excess of 1,200 degrees. Even asphalt burned. People who went into the canals to avoid the intense heat were boiled alive. Those in bomb shelters were asphyxiated before being burned when all the oxygen was sucked into the inferno.
Prior to the apocalyptic destruction of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, British and American bombers were able to create firestorms in both Hamburg and Dresden, killing 40-60,000 civilians in each. Attempts were made to duplicate the firestorms in Berlin and although sections of the city were destroyed, the Allies were unsuccessful in creating a firestorm there. In the Pacific, the campaigns to capture Iwo Jima, Saipan, and Guam were essential for the plans of General Curtis LeMay. He had realized that the wood and paper houses in Japan were perfect targets for this new war-fighting strategy. More than 120,000 were killed in one night when 300 U.S. bombers dropped incendiary bombs on Tokyo and created the world’s third firestorm. Following the destruction of Tokyo, the next 50 largest cities in Japan were all bombed – however, the conditions were never “right” to create another firestorm.
Although the immediate deaths caused by the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were not as great as Tokyo, what made those bombs “special” was that it took only one plane and one bomb rather than 300 bombers flying at low altitudes – and a firestorm was guaranteed every time!
After laying out this gruesome history lesson for us, Ellsberg proceeded to bring the realities into the present. He described the task he was given by the Pentagon in 1961 when he was 30 years old: he was told that JFK wanted calculations on the number of fatalities which would occur if we exploded nuclear weapons on the cities of the USSR and China that we had targeted with our atomic and hydrogen bombs in our stockpile. After careful research, he concluded that 600 million people would die within 6 months in such an attack – and then discovered a mathematical error which gave the result of at least 1.2 billion people killed – just as the result of our attack, without figuring in a Russian response. Then he proceeded to say, “At that time, the USSR had only 4 nuclear weapons!” (China had none) and we were making war plans which would kill that many people. “Every President ever since [JFK] has had the same targets [for our nuclear weapons]” and has acquiesced in allowing those plans to remain. That is the reality of terrorism and genocide in U.S. policy today.
Ellsberg pointed out the irony in our firebombing of Hamburg- no Jews were killed because they had all been shipped off to concentration camps in Eastern Europe by then. The Jews killed at Auschwitz were forced into “shower rooms” 2,000 at a time where they inhaled Zyklon B gas which killed most right away. This he contrasted with the horror of being burned alive or boiled to death in the Hamburg firestorm. What took the Nazis many days or months to accomplish, American and British bombers were able to do in one night. He, as a Jew, was not trying to equate one death with the other but rather to remind his audience that we do not possess “the high ground” when it comes to genocide and terror.
Ellsberg described how bombs containing magnesium or white phosphorus can’t be put out by water. They burn right through the skin and sometimes even through bone. The British used magnesium bombs in Hamburg. The U.S. used “willy peter” [white phosphorus] in Vietnam which Ellsberg witnessed as a young Marine. Israel used it in Beirut, the U.S. (again) in Fallujah. Weapons designed to create terror.
When President G.W. Bush says, “All options are on the table”, in reference to a possible military attack on Iran, Ellsberg reminded us that “such a threat to use nuclear weapons against a country that does not have nuclear weapons is a war crime. And, when Hillary [Clinton], [Barach] Obama, and [John] Edwards [and Senator Amy Klobuchar] repeat the same to their AIPAC audiences, they too are committing war crimes.”
Ellsberg’s 75 minute speech was received soberly and quietly by the audience. The applause at the end was out of respect for the courage and determination of the speaker rather than “enjoyment” of the message. Like the cod liver oil I was given as a kid, it was hard to stomach but we needed to experience it. Although many could not remain for the 30 minute question and answer session which followed, the perspectives shared by Ellsberg then were not any lighter. If we go to war with Iran (and Seymour Hersch has revealed many of the plans in progress), or if another 9/11-like attack occurs, Ellsberg predicted the following: an immediate resumption of the draft, all Middle Eastern persons in the US will be herded into internment camps, and it will be the end of democracy as we recognize it today. He called for a new generation of whistle-blowers (and gave his thanks to Colleen Rowley who was in the audience) and left us with the responsibility to join him in resisting the path we are on.
Are We Dismissed Too Easily?
Are We Dismissed Too Easily?
By Steve Clemens. Feb. 1, 2007
On February 1st, a group of peace activists gathered in the undersized Hennepin County Courtroom in Edina, MN to once again face charges of “criminal trespass” for entering the property of Alliant Techsystems, our local war profiteer and notorious manufacturer and seller of indiscriminate and illegal weapons such as cluster bombs, depleted uranium munitions, land mines, as well as rocket motors for delivery of nuclear bombs via missiles. 78 defendants were on the court docket and most had showed up for trial, claiming their innocence even though the Edina City Prosecutor offered a deal of only a $5.00 fine for those choosing to plead guilty. Many defendants were anxious to have the opportunity to speak in court about their convictions which led them to this collective act of resistance to this present war (where some of these weapons have been used) and to corporations profiting from war and offensive weapons which masquerade as “national defense”.
Before the trial began, the Prosecutor requested to meet with a smaller representative group of the defendants. When he inquired as to what we’d like to see happen, Tom Bottolene, a long-time member and often-times spokesperson for AlliantAction, the group coordinating the weekly vigil presence in front of the offices of this war profiteer stated, “We’d like to see these charges dismissed.” Patrick Leach, the Prosecutor for the City of Edina where Alliant Techsystems (ATK) has their world headquarters, readily agreed. He expressed his concern about the cost to the city of having a number of police officers waiting around in court, ready to testify against us rather than out performing their public safety roles.
AlliantAction has faithfully voiced opposition to the weapons made by ATK for more than ten years, with several hundred having been arrested for nonviolent protest over the years. Four times in that 10 year period juries have found defendants “not guilty” of criminal trespass charges after they have carefully listened to testimony about ATK as a war profiteer and maker of illegal, indiscriminate weapons. When defendants have been allowed to submit copies of International Law outlawing indiscriminate weapons to the juries, they have been acquitted. After two consecutive juries returned with “not guilty” verdicts within a week of each other in Dec. 2004, the City Council of Edina passed a new trespass ordinance which removed our right to a jury trial by making the trespass charge a petty misdemeanor. Now we could only receive bench trials before a Judge.
When we had the ability to present our case to a jury, the groups of defendants often cooperated with the prosecutor prior to the trial by stipulating much of the case against us, thus negating the need for police officers coming to court to identify us and give testimony about the “fact” that we were on ATK’s property and refused (nonviolently) to leave until arrested. This allowed us to focus our trials solely on the questions we had about the weapons ATK made and sold and its legality under International Law. As a form of protest to our right to a jury trial being removed by the new Edina City ordinance, our trial group chose not to stipulate the evidence against us, putting the burden back on the state to prove we were guilty of the crime of criminal trespass.
In our conversation with the Prosecutor, we stated that if we were able to testify in front of a jury of our peers, we were likely to resume our previous tactic of cooperating and stipulating to the evidence and thus speed up the process of the trial. To better place this discussion in its rightful context, it must be mentioned that there is at present an active appeal which disputes the legality of the new Edina trespass ordinance and the oral arguments will be heard on Feb. 7 with a decision by the Appeals Court required within 90 days. If the ordinance is overturned because it is more restrictive than the state statute or because it was passed by the City Council in a defective and illegal manner, the trespass charges against us would be thrown out. In light of that context, the Prosecutor stated that he would move to dismiss the charges against us. Tom Bottolene and Char Madigan agreed to plead "guilty" in an attempt to preserve our legal position with the appeal.
Part of the conversation with the Prosecutor also centered on the relationship between the police and the protestors. The representative group of defendants agreed that we wish to continue to make it clear that our protest is against the war profiteer rather than the city or its law enforcement personnel. However, the question that still remains: Who will hold ATK accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity?
By Steve Clemens. Feb. 1, 2007
On February 1st, a group of peace activists gathered in the undersized Hennepin County Courtroom in Edina, MN to once again face charges of “criminal trespass” for entering the property of Alliant Techsystems, our local war profiteer and notorious manufacturer and seller of indiscriminate and illegal weapons such as cluster bombs, depleted uranium munitions, land mines, as well as rocket motors for delivery of nuclear bombs via missiles. 78 defendants were on the court docket and most had showed up for trial, claiming their innocence even though the Edina City Prosecutor offered a deal of only a $5.00 fine for those choosing to plead guilty. Many defendants were anxious to have the opportunity to speak in court about their convictions which led them to this collective act of resistance to this present war (where some of these weapons have been used) and to corporations profiting from war and offensive weapons which masquerade as “national defense”.
Before the trial began, the Prosecutor requested to meet with a smaller representative group of the defendants. When he inquired as to what we’d like to see happen, Tom Bottolene, a long-time member and often-times spokesperson for AlliantAction, the group coordinating the weekly vigil presence in front of the offices of this war profiteer stated, “We’d like to see these charges dismissed.” Patrick Leach, the Prosecutor for the City of Edina where Alliant Techsystems (ATK) has their world headquarters, readily agreed. He expressed his concern about the cost to the city of having a number of police officers waiting around in court, ready to testify against us rather than out performing their public safety roles.
AlliantAction has faithfully voiced opposition to the weapons made by ATK for more than ten years, with several hundred having been arrested for nonviolent protest over the years. Four times in that 10 year period juries have found defendants “not guilty” of criminal trespass charges after they have carefully listened to testimony about ATK as a war profiteer and maker of illegal, indiscriminate weapons. When defendants have been allowed to submit copies of International Law outlawing indiscriminate weapons to the juries, they have been acquitted. After two consecutive juries returned with “not guilty” verdicts within a week of each other in Dec. 2004, the City Council of Edina passed a new trespass ordinance which removed our right to a jury trial by making the trespass charge a petty misdemeanor. Now we could only receive bench trials before a Judge.
When we had the ability to present our case to a jury, the groups of defendants often cooperated with the prosecutor prior to the trial by stipulating much of the case against us, thus negating the need for police officers coming to court to identify us and give testimony about the “fact” that we were on ATK’s property and refused (nonviolently) to leave until arrested. This allowed us to focus our trials solely on the questions we had about the weapons ATK made and sold and its legality under International Law. As a form of protest to our right to a jury trial being removed by the new Edina City ordinance, our trial group chose not to stipulate the evidence against us, putting the burden back on the state to prove we were guilty of the crime of criminal trespass.
In our conversation with the Prosecutor, we stated that if we were able to testify in front of a jury of our peers, we were likely to resume our previous tactic of cooperating and stipulating to the evidence and thus speed up the process of the trial. To better place this discussion in its rightful context, it must be mentioned that there is at present an active appeal which disputes the legality of the new Edina trespass ordinance and the oral arguments will be heard on Feb. 7 with a decision by the Appeals Court required within 90 days. If the ordinance is overturned because it is more restrictive than the state statute or because it was passed by the City Council in a defective and illegal manner, the trespass charges against us would be thrown out. In light of that context, the Prosecutor stated that he would move to dismiss the charges against us. Tom Bottolene and Char Madigan agreed to plead "guilty" in an attempt to preserve our legal position with the appeal.
Part of the conversation with the Prosecutor also centered on the relationship between the police and the protestors. The representative group of defendants agreed that we wish to continue to make it clear that our protest is against the war profiteer rather than the city or its law enforcement personnel. However, the question that still remains: Who will hold ATK accountable for war crimes and crimes against humanity?
Two responses to the call to discipleship
Two responses to the call to discipleship: Mark 10:17-23; Mark 10:46-52.
Steve Clemens, CSM Shared Word. 10/29/06
Mark 10:17-23; 46-52
Jesus was setting out on a journey when a man ran up, knelt before him and put this question to him, 'Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments; You shall not kill; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not give false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.' And he said to him, 'Master, I have kept all these since my earliest days.' Jesus looked steadily at him and he was filled with love for him, and he said, 'You need to do one thing more. Go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me. But his face fell at these words and he went away sad, for he was a man of great wealth. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" The disciples were amazed at his words. …
Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (that is, the Son of Timaeus), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" Jesus stopped and said, "Call him." So they called to the blind man, "Cheer up! On your feet! He's calling you." Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. "What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asked him.
The blind man said, "Rabbi, I want to see." "Go," said Jesus, "your faith has healed you." Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.
The Biblical call to discipleship includes a call to repentance. Repentance represents discontinuity with the established order. But for those entitled within the system, the greatest social value is continuity. It is essential for the continuation of empire to have continuity. You can see this, if I may say so, in the recent endorsement of a political candidate for Congress made from the pulpit by the pastor of a suburban mega-church. Mac Hammond’s endorsement of Michele Bachman was a call to continuity with the present politics of tax cuts for the wealthy and pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps reality for the rest.
The 10th chapter of Mark’s Gospel gives us two different stories of the call to discipleship, the call to follow Jesus. The first story is often called “The Rich Young Man” or sometimes the rich young ruler although the Markan text doesn’t mention his age and only tells us he was a wealthy landowner. Jesus is often contrasting the greatest vs. the least, the first vs. the last. Here, the rich man in contrast with the poor blind beggar, Bartimaeus. Here the greatest/least contrast focuses on the issue of economic class and social privilege. Note: the rich man seeks to inherit eternal life. The phrase smacks of privilege and economic class! When Jesus recites the Commandments to the rich man, one of the statutes he lists is not part of the original 10: “Do not defraud”, a clear reference to economic exploitation. When the man replies that he has kept all of them (a questionable assumption given his wealth), the text says Jesus looks at him and loves him.
This is the only reference in Mark where Jesus is described as loving someone. It is in contrast to the love of wealth. In one of Jesus’ parables, he talks about one being possessed by one’s possessions. Jesus demand of this man was not different than his call to Peter and Andrew, James and John to “leave their nets” and follow. What is different in this story is Jesus’ stipulation to “give it to the poor”. Here again is the contrast and reversal by Jesus - now between “heaven” and “earth”: “give it to the poor (on earth)” and you shall have treasure (in heaven).
Jesus has concluded that this man is not “blameless” at all – he has gotten his wealth by “defrauding” the poor and Jesus is calling for restitution. Jesus “loves” him by trying to free him of his “addiction” to wealth.
But alas, he went away sad “for he was a man of great wealth”. This is the only discipleship rejection story in Mark’s Gospel. What the rich man was unable to do, the disciples have already done – they have left and followed yet they are “astonished” when Jesus points out how “hard it is for those who have riches to enter the Kin-dom of God”. But the disciples still don’t quite get it- in the synoptic gospels, the story of the rich man is followed by the brothers Zebedee, James and John requesting the position on the left and right of Jesus when he is glorified! So Mark reports another story – this time contrasting Bartimaeus with the rich man.
Jesus and the disciples are on the way to Jerusalem for the final showdown with the authorities- both religious and the military occupiers. It was probably a good location for beggars, hitting up those traveling to Jerusalem to make their religious pilgrimage. Bartimaeus cries out when he hears that Jesus is nearby. A large crowd is traveling with Jesus and tries to silence Bartimaeus. But Jesus calls him to approach. Unlike the rich man who wouldn’t or couldn’t liquidate his fortune, Bartimaeus sets aside his cloak – which he had probably spread out so passers-by could drop their coins, jumped up and went to Jesus. Some versions have him saying “I want to see again”.
The man at the top of the social pecking order chooses to reject the direct invitation of Jesus – but not Bartimaeus. Even though he is at the bottom of the social order, he doesn’t even wait for the invitation- he “follows Jesus on the way”. The first have become last, and the last first. “Again” might signal the need to recommit (again) if we get distracted (blind) along the way. Often, I find, that after starting to follow Jesus, we lose our way or get distracted and we must, once again, choose to follow Jesus.
Ched Myers in his book, Who Will Roll Away the Stone?: Discipleship Queries for First World Christians views this story from the lens of the 12 Step Movement. (Pg 174-175)
Let us return one more time to the story of the rich man, reading now from the perspective of repentance as therapeutic intervention. “Gazing at him Jesus loved him” (10:21. This is the pastoral response to someone who is addicted. Jesus invites him to join the community of recovery: “Come, follow me.” But to begin the process he must deconstruct his entitlement. Why? Because just as the alcoholic must at some point stop drinking in order to start recovering, the entitled must give up economic control in order to experience the Great Economy (10:29f). “How difficult it is,” remarks Jesus as the man slumps away, for those possessed by possession to “enter into” the sobriety of economic justice! To drive this point home Mark follows this episode with two stories that illustrate contrasting responses to the notion of discipleship as recovery. The first, a highly caricatured, tragicomic portrait of the inner discipleship circle, symbolizes their retreat from the via cruces (10:32-34) deeper into the illusions of entitlement (10:35-45). When Jesus tries to point out their addiction, they react with fierce denial (10:39). This vignette about codependent religion in a society captive to the pathologies of domination (10:42f) ought to make the church in the locus imperii shudder.
The second episode is a portrait of conversion as “the courage to change”: the story of Bartimaeus (10:46-52). This blind beggar stands in piercing contrast to the rich man and the ambitious disciples at every point. He is poor, landless, and disabled – a victim of the system, not its beneficiary. He dares not approach Jesus directly as a social equal with his request, as did the rich man and the disciples. He inquires persistently, not after the mysteries of eternal life or the top posts in the new administration, but after mercy (10:47f). Because of his low station, the disciples, ever anxious to enforce propriety, try to impede him (they had, of course, no objection to the rich man’s importunity). Yet Bartimaeus is willing to give up what little he has to achieve liberation; the beggar’s cloak he casts off represents the tool of his panhandler’s trade (10:49). Then comes an echo that is surely the sharpest arrow in Mark’s quiver:
Jesus said to the disciples, “What do you want me to do for you? They answered, “Grant us to sit on your right and left hand in glory!”(10:36f)
Jesus said to the blind man, “What do you want me to do for you? He answered, “Master, that I might see again!” (10:51)
This contrast brings us to the crux of the matter.
Jesus cannot answer the rich man’s question because he will not deconstruct his entitlement. Jesus cannot grant the disciples’ request because it is based on delusions of grandiosity. He cannot help these would-be followers because he is committed to breaking addition, not feeding it. So the rich man slinks away and the covetous disciples are scolded by their envious colleagues (10:41). But Jesus can welcome Bartimaeus because Bartimaeus knows he is blind. He is willing to make a decisive break with the system, he is willing to risk revising everything: “Let me see again!” So this time Jesus’ invitation to “Get up!” receives a different response. “He followed on the Way”: Bartimaeus embraces the discipleship journey of recovery, which is his healing (10:52).
Mark’s Gospel is not as concerned with the Confession of Faith but rather who you imitate or follow. While the upcoming elections are important for our civic life, our “politics”, as John Howard Yoder would say, is very much more than our votes. I’m not going to endorse any candidates from this “pulpit” like Mac Hammond did. Instead, I urge you to discern who/what you can or cannot support in our public lives in the context of following a man who was executed by the state with the express approval of the religious establishment.
Jesus’ call to the Rich Man, to Blind Bartimaeus, and to us is: Follow Me.
Ray and I heard a Brian Sirchio song at the Seven Storey Farm Barn Concert the other week that is relevant to our text. Ray will share it with us to conclude this shared word.
Bryan Sirchio. "Follow Me" (87 Times)
I met this preacher from Australia
He read the Bible searching for its dominant themes
And he counted 87 times when Jesus said... "Follow me."
Well you know that got me thinking
Maybe that's the bottom line of what "Christian" means
'Cause "I follow Jesus" is deeper than "I believe"
'Cause it don't take much to mentally agree
With a set of beliefs written down in some creed
Now don't get me wrong,
we need to know what we believe
But lately I've been wondering...
(Chorus)
Am I following Jesus, or just believing in Christ
'Cause I can believe and not change a thing
But following will change my whole life
He never said, come, acknowledge my existence
Or believe in me I'm the 2nd person of the Trinity
But 87 time he said... Follow me
But if I'm a follower of Jesus,
Then why am I such a good life insurance risk?
And why, when I do my giving,
do I still keep so much when so much hunger exists?
And if I follow Jesus, then why do I have so many friends
among the affluent, and so few among the poor?
And if I follow Jesus,
why do missiles and guns make me feel more secure?
And it don't take much to mentally assent
To a statement of faith we can confirm and forget
But following will change our lifestyle if we get it and
more and more I'm wondering...
(Chorus)
(Bridge)
Yes, we need to know what we believe,
to follow the Jesus who's real
God save us from the Christ's we create in our image
(you know what I mean...)
The Jesus who's as left wing or right wing as we
The one who baptizes our cherished ideologies
The one who always seems to favor our side
against some enemy
Now I don't mean to sound self-righteous
God knows I've got more questions than answers to proclaim
But its been over 20 years now since Jesus called my name
So forgive me if I'm mistaken
But there's something wrong with a lot of churches
in America these days
And I think the Spirit's trying to tell us
There's a question that the churches need to raise...
(Chorus)
Are we following Jesus? Or just believing in Christ?
'Cause we can believe, and not change a thing
But following will change our whole life
He never said, come, acknowledge my existence
Or believe in me, I'm your first class ticket to eternity...
But 87 times he said... Follow me...
Words & Music by Bryan C. Sirchio
© 1999 Crosswind Music Ministries
All Rights Reserved - www.sirchio.com
Steve Clemens, CSM Shared Word. 10/29/06
Mark 10:17-23; 46-52
Jesus was setting out on a journey when a man ran up, knelt before him and put this question to him, 'Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?' Jesus said to him, 'Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments; You shall not kill; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not give false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.' And he said to him, 'Master, I have kept all these since my earliest days.' Jesus looked steadily at him and he was filled with love for him, and he said, 'You need to do one thing more. Go and sell what you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me. But his face fell at these words and he went away sad, for he was a man of great wealth. Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, "How hard it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!" The disciples were amazed at his words. …
Then they came to Jericho. As Jesus and his disciples, together with a large crowd, were leaving the city, a blind man, Bartimaeus (that is, the Son of Timaeus), was sitting by the roadside begging. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout, "Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Many rebuked him and told him to be quiet, but he shouted all the more, "Son of David, have mercy on me!" Jesus stopped and said, "Call him." So they called to the blind man, "Cheer up! On your feet! He's calling you." Throwing his cloak aside, he jumped to his feet and came to Jesus. "What do you want me to do for you?" Jesus asked him.
The blind man said, "Rabbi, I want to see." "Go," said Jesus, "your faith has healed you." Immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus along the road.
The Biblical call to discipleship includes a call to repentance. Repentance represents discontinuity with the established order. But for those entitled within the system, the greatest social value is continuity. It is essential for the continuation of empire to have continuity. You can see this, if I may say so, in the recent endorsement of a political candidate for Congress made from the pulpit by the pastor of a suburban mega-church. Mac Hammond’s endorsement of Michele Bachman was a call to continuity with the present politics of tax cuts for the wealthy and pull-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstraps reality for the rest.
The 10th chapter of Mark’s Gospel gives us two different stories of the call to discipleship, the call to follow Jesus. The first story is often called “The Rich Young Man” or sometimes the rich young ruler although the Markan text doesn’t mention his age and only tells us he was a wealthy landowner. Jesus is often contrasting the greatest vs. the least, the first vs. the last. Here, the rich man in contrast with the poor blind beggar, Bartimaeus. Here the greatest/least contrast focuses on the issue of economic class and social privilege. Note: the rich man seeks to inherit eternal life. The phrase smacks of privilege and economic class! When Jesus recites the Commandments to the rich man, one of the statutes he lists is not part of the original 10: “Do not defraud”, a clear reference to economic exploitation. When the man replies that he has kept all of them (a questionable assumption given his wealth), the text says Jesus looks at him and loves him.
This is the only reference in Mark where Jesus is described as loving someone. It is in contrast to the love of wealth. In one of Jesus’ parables, he talks about one being possessed by one’s possessions. Jesus demand of this man was not different than his call to Peter and Andrew, James and John to “leave their nets” and follow. What is different in this story is Jesus’ stipulation to “give it to the poor”. Here again is the contrast and reversal by Jesus - now between “heaven” and “earth”: “give it to the poor (on earth)” and you shall have treasure (in heaven).
Jesus has concluded that this man is not “blameless” at all – he has gotten his wealth by “defrauding” the poor and Jesus is calling for restitution. Jesus “loves” him by trying to free him of his “addiction” to wealth.
But alas, he went away sad “for he was a man of great wealth”. This is the only discipleship rejection story in Mark’s Gospel. What the rich man was unable to do, the disciples have already done – they have left and followed yet they are “astonished” when Jesus points out how “hard it is for those who have riches to enter the Kin-dom of God”. But the disciples still don’t quite get it- in the synoptic gospels, the story of the rich man is followed by the brothers Zebedee, James and John requesting the position on the left and right of Jesus when he is glorified! So Mark reports another story – this time contrasting Bartimaeus with the rich man.
Jesus and the disciples are on the way to Jerusalem for the final showdown with the authorities- both religious and the military occupiers. It was probably a good location for beggars, hitting up those traveling to Jerusalem to make their religious pilgrimage. Bartimaeus cries out when he hears that Jesus is nearby. A large crowd is traveling with Jesus and tries to silence Bartimaeus. But Jesus calls him to approach. Unlike the rich man who wouldn’t or couldn’t liquidate his fortune, Bartimaeus sets aside his cloak – which he had probably spread out so passers-by could drop their coins, jumped up and went to Jesus. Some versions have him saying “I want to see again”.
The man at the top of the social pecking order chooses to reject the direct invitation of Jesus – but not Bartimaeus. Even though he is at the bottom of the social order, he doesn’t even wait for the invitation- he “follows Jesus on the way”. The first have become last, and the last first. “Again” might signal the need to recommit (again) if we get distracted (blind) along the way. Often, I find, that after starting to follow Jesus, we lose our way or get distracted and we must, once again, choose to follow Jesus.
Ched Myers in his book, Who Will Roll Away the Stone?: Discipleship Queries for First World Christians views this story from the lens of the 12 Step Movement. (Pg 174-175)
Let us return one more time to the story of the rich man, reading now from the perspective of repentance as therapeutic intervention. “Gazing at him Jesus loved him” (10:21. This is the pastoral response to someone who is addicted. Jesus invites him to join the community of recovery: “Come, follow me.” But to begin the process he must deconstruct his entitlement. Why? Because just as the alcoholic must at some point stop drinking in order to start recovering, the entitled must give up economic control in order to experience the Great Economy (10:29f). “How difficult it is,” remarks Jesus as the man slumps away, for those possessed by possession to “enter into” the sobriety of economic justice! To drive this point home Mark follows this episode with two stories that illustrate contrasting responses to the notion of discipleship as recovery. The first, a highly caricatured, tragicomic portrait of the inner discipleship circle, symbolizes their retreat from the via cruces (10:32-34) deeper into the illusions of entitlement (10:35-45). When Jesus tries to point out their addiction, they react with fierce denial (10:39). This vignette about codependent religion in a society captive to the pathologies of domination (10:42f) ought to make the church in the locus imperii shudder.
The second episode is a portrait of conversion as “the courage to change”: the story of Bartimaeus (10:46-52). This blind beggar stands in piercing contrast to the rich man and the ambitious disciples at every point. He is poor, landless, and disabled – a victim of the system, not its beneficiary. He dares not approach Jesus directly as a social equal with his request, as did the rich man and the disciples. He inquires persistently, not after the mysteries of eternal life or the top posts in the new administration, but after mercy (10:47f). Because of his low station, the disciples, ever anxious to enforce propriety, try to impede him (they had, of course, no objection to the rich man’s importunity). Yet Bartimaeus is willing to give up what little he has to achieve liberation; the beggar’s cloak he casts off represents the tool of his panhandler’s trade (10:49). Then comes an echo that is surely the sharpest arrow in Mark’s quiver:
Jesus said to the disciples, “What do you want me to do for you? They answered, “Grant us to sit on your right and left hand in glory!”(10:36f)
Jesus said to the blind man, “What do you want me to do for you? He answered, “Master, that I might see again!” (10:51)
This contrast brings us to the crux of the matter.
Jesus cannot answer the rich man’s question because he will not deconstruct his entitlement. Jesus cannot grant the disciples’ request because it is based on delusions of grandiosity. He cannot help these would-be followers because he is committed to breaking addition, not feeding it. So the rich man slinks away and the covetous disciples are scolded by their envious colleagues (10:41). But Jesus can welcome Bartimaeus because Bartimaeus knows he is blind. He is willing to make a decisive break with the system, he is willing to risk revising everything: “Let me see again!” So this time Jesus’ invitation to “Get up!” receives a different response. “He followed on the Way”: Bartimaeus embraces the discipleship journey of recovery, which is his healing (10:52).
Mark’s Gospel is not as concerned with the Confession of Faith but rather who you imitate or follow. While the upcoming elections are important for our civic life, our “politics”, as John Howard Yoder would say, is very much more than our votes. I’m not going to endorse any candidates from this “pulpit” like Mac Hammond did. Instead, I urge you to discern who/what you can or cannot support in our public lives in the context of following a man who was executed by the state with the express approval of the religious establishment.
Jesus’ call to the Rich Man, to Blind Bartimaeus, and to us is: Follow Me.
Ray and I heard a Brian Sirchio song at the Seven Storey Farm Barn Concert the other week that is relevant to our text. Ray will share it with us to conclude this shared word.
Bryan Sirchio. "Follow Me" (87 Times)
I met this preacher from Australia
He read the Bible searching for its dominant themes
And he counted 87 times when Jesus said... "Follow me."
Well you know that got me thinking
Maybe that's the bottom line of what "Christian" means
'Cause "I follow Jesus" is deeper than "I believe"
'Cause it don't take much to mentally agree
With a set of beliefs written down in some creed
Now don't get me wrong,
we need to know what we believe
But lately I've been wondering...
(Chorus)
Am I following Jesus, or just believing in Christ
'Cause I can believe and not change a thing
But following will change my whole life
He never said, come, acknowledge my existence
Or believe in me I'm the 2nd person of the Trinity
But 87 time he said... Follow me
But if I'm a follower of Jesus,
Then why am I such a good life insurance risk?
And why, when I do my giving,
do I still keep so much when so much hunger exists?
And if I follow Jesus, then why do I have so many friends
among the affluent, and so few among the poor?
And if I follow Jesus,
why do missiles and guns make me feel more secure?
And it don't take much to mentally assent
To a statement of faith we can confirm and forget
But following will change our lifestyle if we get it and
more and more I'm wondering...
(Chorus)
(Bridge)
Yes, we need to know what we believe,
to follow the Jesus who's real
God save us from the Christ's we create in our image
(you know what I mean...)
The Jesus who's as left wing or right wing as we
The one who baptizes our cherished ideologies
The one who always seems to favor our side
against some enemy
Now I don't mean to sound self-righteous
God knows I've got more questions than answers to proclaim
But its been over 20 years now since Jesus called my name
So forgive me if I'm mistaken
But there's something wrong with a lot of churches
in America these days
And I think the Spirit's trying to tell us
There's a question that the churches need to raise...
(Chorus)
Are we following Jesus? Or just believing in Christ?
'Cause we can believe, and not change a thing
But following will change our whole life
He never said, come, acknowledge my existence
Or believe in me, I'm your first class ticket to eternity...
But 87 times he said... Follow me...
Words & Music by Bryan C. Sirchio
© 1999 Crosswind Music Ministries
All Rights Reserved - www.sirchio.com
Today I Voted For Peace. 2006
Today I Voted For Peace
By Steve Clemens. September 2006
Today I voted for peace: I mailed my absentee ballot with an X by the candidate who calls us to bring the troops home NOW! (Keith Ellison).
On Primary Election Day (Sept. 12), I will be voting for peace by walking for prisoners. The Prison and Jail Project in Americus, GA is sponsoring the annual 100 mile FreedomWalk to raise awareness for and of the people in jails and prisons in southwest Georgia. My vote (walk) for peace is a call to stop demonizing and instead work for healing, restitution, and reconciliation rather than punitive punishments.
I voted for peace when I traveled to Iraq in December 2002, three months before this new manifestation of war against the Iraqi people which really has been on-going since the economic sanctions were put in place in 1990 and the bombing began in earnest on Dr. King’s birthday (oh, the irony!) in 1991.
I voted for peace when I spent 20 years of my life helping organizations build affordable housing for families in need. There is no peace (certainly not the SHALOM the scriptures call for) when people are hungry, homeless, or in need.
I vote for peace every Wednesday morning when I join 30-50 others in a vigil outside the entrance to a company that profits by making weapons of war and indiscriminate destruction. Alliant TechSystems must not be allowed to make such weapons such as cluster bombs, land mines, and depleted uranium munitions without our voicing our “vote” of NO!
I voted for peace when I joined millions of other citizens around the world on a February Saturday in 2003, marching in the streets saying a war on Iraq will not heal the wounds and scars of 9/11. Voting in the street is an important part of informing our public policy-makers.
I voted for peace when I crawled under the chain-link fence “protecting” Fort Benning from the 19,000 peaceful demonstrators calling for the closure of the School of the Americas and I again voted for peace when I walked willingly into the Federal Prison in Duluth this past spring to “serve” my three month sentence. Hopefully, that kind of vote can let my “representatives” know without any doubt about the seriousness of my convictions (pun intended).
I voted for peace when I purchased a hybrid car in order to consume fewer of our earth’s dwindling natural resources – certainly one of the more significant causes of war in our world today.
I voted for peace when I submitted my application as a conscientious objector in 1968 to the war on Indochina and voted again for peace in 1974 when arrested at the White House calling for our government to honor the Peace Agreement we signed.
I voted for peace when I attended the installation of a lesbian minister in a local Lutheran Church several years ago, signaling that my vote for peace is also a vote to not allow those considered “different“ in our society to be marginalized and discriminated against without my protest.
I vote for peace when I make my financial donations to the Center for Victims of Torture, The Nonviolent Peaceforce and the Christian Peacemaker Teams, Mennonite Central Committee, Jubilee Partners and The Open Door Community, and numerous other groups working to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, visit the prisoners, heal the sick, perform the “works of mercy” and work for reconciliation and justice.
I take my vote seriously but I don’t confuse my marking an X beside a candidate’s name as fulfilling my political duty. My electoral vote might be the least significant of the many other opportunities I have been given to “vote” with my body, my time, and my money. Until politicians know we will back up our votes with our lives, they will not need to take us or our “politics” very seriously.
By Steve Clemens. September 2006
Today I voted for peace: I mailed my absentee ballot with an X by the candidate who calls us to bring the troops home NOW! (Keith Ellison).
On Primary Election Day (Sept. 12), I will be voting for peace by walking for prisoners. The Prison and Jail Project in Americus, GA is sponsoring the annual 100 mile FreedomWalk to raise awareness for and of the people in jails and prisons in southwest Georgia. My vote (walk) for peace is a call to stop demonizing and instead work for healing, restitution, and reconciliation rather than punitive punishments.
I voted for peace when I traveled to Iraq in December 2002, three months before this new manifestation of war against the Iraqi people which really has been on-going since the economic sanctions were put in place in 1990 and the bombing began in earnest on Dr. King’s birthday (oh, the irony!) in 1991.
I voted for peace when I spent 20 years of my life helping organizations build affordable housing for families in need. There is no peace (certainly not the SHALOM the scriptures call for) when people are hungry, homeless, or in need.
I vote for peace every Wednesday morning when I join 30-50 others in a vigil outside the entrance to a company that profits by making weapons of war and indiscriminate destruction. Alliant TechSystems must not be allowed to make such weapons such as cluster bombs, land mines, and depleted uranium munitions without our voicing our “vote” of NO!
I voted for peace when I joined millions of other citizens around the world on a February Saturday in 2003, marching in the streets saying a war on Iraq will not heal the wounds and scars of 9/11. Voting in the street is an important part of informing our public policy-makers.
I voted for peace when I crawled under the chain-link fence “protecting” Fort Benning from the 19,000 peaceful demonstrators calling for the closure of the School of the Americas and I again voted for peace when I walked willingly into the Federal Prison in Duluth this past spring to “serve” my three month sentence. Hopefully, that kind of vote can let my “representatives” know without any doubt about the seriousness of my convictions (pun intended).
I voted for peace when I purchased a hybrid car in order to consume fewer of our earth’s dwindling natural resources – certainly one of the more significant causes of war in our world today.
I voted for peace when I submitted my application as a conscientious objector in 1968 to the war on Indochina and voted again for peace in 1974 when arrested at the White House calling for our government to honor the Peace Agreement we signed.
I voted for peace when I attended the installation of a lesbian minister in a local Lutheran Church several years ago, signaling that my vote for peace is also a vote to not allow those considered “different“ in our society to be marginalized and discriminated against without my protest.
I vote for peace when I make my financial donations to the Center for Victims of Torture, The Nonviolent Peaceforce and the Christian Peacemaker Teams, Mennonite Central Committee, Jubilee Partners and The Open Door Community, and numerous other groups working to feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, visit the prisoners, heal the sick, perform the “works of mercy” and work for reconciliation and justice.
I take my vote seriously but I don’t confuse my marking an X beside a candidate’s name as fulfilling my political duty. My electoral vote might be the least significant of the many other opportunities I have been given to “vote” with my body, my time, and my money. Until politicians know we will back up our votes with our lives, they will not need to take us or our “politics” very seriously.
Book Review: White Like Me by Tim Wise
White Like Me: Reflections on Race from a Privileged Son by Tim Wise 2005 Soft Skull Press
Book Review by Steve Clemens. June 2006
Have you ever read a book on racism and not felt guilty as a white person? I just have and I’m extremely glad that Tim Wise has shared his own stories with us.
Maybe it is the context in which I’ve read his book: the federal prison system of the USA. Interestingly enough, the only exception allowed in the 13th Amendment to the abolition of slavery is the penal system. In this “slave state” where I’m presently incarcerated, there also exists the proverbial “house nigger” and “field nigger” dichotomy. Even though we are all slaves (they pay us 12 cents/hour for our jobs here) there still is clearly a continuing of white privilege over the people of color within this American gulag.
By using his own personal stories, this 36 year old antiracist activist describes racism as a “dangerous pathogen” or a “pestilence ravaging my people.” Most books I’ve read have described how racism affects people of color in our society; Wise lets the reader understand how white privilege and racism negatively impacts the white community.
This is written by a white male for his own “race.” Even though he has much more exposure and participation in his upbringing with communities of color, even though some of his relatives were extremely progressive, Wise discloses new blind spots and subconscious areas where society’s racism has infected him. The confessional style of his writing doesn’t engender guilt which can paralyze us-rather I felt a sadness and anger at what this society has done to me-along with a challenge to seek our own redemption by joining the struggle.
By revealing his own blind spot while working to end apartheid in South Africa, Wise shares his criticism of white, middle class liberals and progressives who “treat social justice as if it were some kind of salad bar or cafeteria line, when in fact it is life-or-death serious.” We can’t ignore racism claiming we are just focusing our activism on a specific peace or justice concern. The story of his grandmother’s Alzheimer’s and how it revealed the scurrilous depth of racism within a woman who modeled anti-racism for Wise is incredibly moving.
Pax Christi USA has decided to take seriously working to end the scourge of racism in America. This book is must reading for whites in the peace community. I’m planning on buying a copy for each of my sons for Father’s Day-as a gift to myself to make this a better world.
Book Review by Steve Clemens. June 2006
Have you ever read a book on racism and not felt guilty as a white person? I just have and I’m extremely glad that Tim Wise has shared his own stories with us.
Maybe it is the context in which I’ve read his book: the federal prison system of the USA. Interestingly enough, the only exception allowed in the 13th Amendment to the abolition of slavery is the penal system. In this “slave state” where I’m presently incarcerated, there also exists the proverbial “house nigger” and “field nigger” dichotomy. Even though we are all slaves (they pay us 12 cents/hour for our jobs here) there still is clearly a continuing of white privilege over the people of color within this American gulag.
By using his own personal stories, this 36 year old antiracist activist describes racism as a “dangerous pathogen” or a “pestilence ravaging my people.” Most books I’ve read have described how racism affects people of color in our society; Wise lets the reader understand how white privilege and racism negatively impacts the white community.
This is written by a white male for his own “race.” Even though he has much more exposure and participation in his upbringing with communities of color, even though some of his relatives were extremely progressive, Wise discloses new blind spots and subconscious areas where society’s racism has infected him. The confessional style of his writing doesn’t engender guilt which can paralyze us-rather I felt a sadness and anger at what this society has done to me-along with a challenge to seek our own redemption by joining the struggle.
By revealing his own blind spot while working to end apartheid in South Africa, Wise shares his criticism of white, middle class liberals and progressives who “treat social justice as if it were some kind of salad bar or cafeteria line, when in fact it is life-or-death serious.” We can’t ignore racism claiming we are just focusing our activism on a specific peace or justice concern. The story of his grandmother’s Alzheimer’s and how it revealed the scurrilous depth of racism within a woman who modeled anti-racism for Wise is incredibly moving.
Pax Christi USA has decided to take seriously working to end the scourge of racism in America. This book is must reading for whites in the peace community. I’m planning on buying a copy for each of my sons for Father’s Day-as a gift to myself to make this a better world.
Remarks at the Open Door Community's 25th Anniversary
Clarence Jordan, Koinonia, and The Open Door Community
Remarks by Steve Clemens, July 16, 2006 at 25th Anniversary
of Open Door
Clarence’s Biography
Clarence Jordan was born in 1912 into a fairly-prominent,
well-to-do, white Southern family in Talbotton, GA. His brother went on to
serve on the Supreme Court of Georgia and his nephew, Hamilton Jordan served as
Chief of Staff for President Carter. So Clarence came from this good Georgia stock and somehow
something changed in him. In The Cotton Patch Evidence, which is a
biography of both the Koinonia Community and of Clarence, Dallas Lee talks
about an experience Clarence had when he was twelve. He recalled singing “Love
Lifted Me” at the local Baptist Church on Sunday and when he went home at
night, his house was only a block or so away from the county jail. And he heard
the screams at night coming from the man pulled on “the stretcher”, a rack with
a pulley and a chain, stretching the man out who was then beaten, knowing that the Warden, the man beating
the prisoner (who was most likely a black man), was a member of the choir at
that Baptist Church. The dissonance between the song and the subsequent actions
made a mark on the conscience of that young boy.
At age 17, Clarence enrolled in the Agriculture school at
the University of Georgia. Like fellow members of the white, male, ruling
class, Jordan signed up to become an officer in the ROTC unit – that’s the
heritage of the old Confederacy. Just before graduating with an officer’s
commission in the cavalry, while practicing shooting and stabbing at cardboard
and straw dummies from his horse, Clarence realized he couldn’t keep doing this
because he recalled from his Sunday School heritage the words of Jesus to love
one’s enemies and that dissonance between the two caused him to resign his
commission. His interest in following the call of Jesus led to a call to
seminary and after graduation he enrolled in the Southern Baptist Seminary in
Louisville, KY. While there, he started doing work in the African-American
community and churches in Louisville and fell in love and married Florence
Krueger, a local librarian. He and Florence had four children, Jan, Jim,
Eleanor, and Lenny.
Clarence also fell in love with the Greek, koine Greek, the
everyday language in which most of the New Testament was written, “street
Greek”. So when he was teaching or preaching, Clarence carried his Greek New
Testament and he’d just translate it on the spot. He stayed on to earn his
doctorate in that language, studying it to more fully understands the message
of Jesus and the early group of disciples and believers. But he didn’t remain a
scholar in that ivory tower because, while at seminary, he had to do some
practicum assignments and he ended up working in African-American churches and
started meeting people and saw their needs and had his heart changed. In 1942,
during WWII, he met Martin and Mabel England, American Baptist missionaries to
Burma who had returned to the U.S. because of the war. Clarence and Martin
shared ideas and wondered aloud what it might be like to live in a way that
replicated the life of the early church to see if it could be done – committed
to nonviolence, economic sharing, and racial reconciliation. They were excited
about the Sermon on the Mount. They said we gotta try this out – to see if we
could live like the early church did.
After looking for a potential site to practice their ideals, they
purchased a rundown farm in Sumter County in southwest Georgia, about 2 ½ hours
south of Atlanta at today’s driving speeds. They purchased it “on faith”. Joyce
Hollyday’s Clarence Jordan: Essential Writings contains Clarence’s
re-telling:
When we
started that thing, we were supposed to pay the fellow twenty-five hundred
dollars down. And Martin England, who was a missionary under the American
Baptist Foreign Mission Society to Burma – he and I agreed on the common purse
– we were going to pool everything – and I had the idea Martin was loaded. I
don’t know why I should think that – [he] being an American Baptist missionary.
But he talked “Let’s do this” and “Let’s do that,” and I said, “Yeah, let’s
do,” and I thought he had the money.
So
when we finally pooled our common assets, we had fifty-seven dollars and
thirteen cents – and both of us had resigned our jobs. But on the first day of
November 1942, right on the button, we walked in that real estate office and
put down that twenty-five hundred dollars. A fellow brought it to us, said the
Lord had sent him with it. I didn’t question him, where he’d been talking to
the Lord or anything like that. We’d take it right quick, before the Lord
changed his mind. (Hollyday, pg. 18-19)
So Clarence and Florence, Martin and Mabel, and their kids
moved to Sumter County Georgia. For the first five, six, seven, eight years,
Clarence was still the “golden boy” -in demand as a preacher in the local
churches. He also played the trumpet. But Clarence could talk and talk but when
he “put flesh” on those words, there was a different reaction. One Sunday, in
1950, a man from India was visiting Koinonia so Florence and Clarence took him
to church with them. Since the dark-skinned foreigner was a convert to
Christianity because of the work of Baptist missionaries, the Jordans didn’t
even think it would raise any issues with the members at Rehoboth Baptist
Church, just up the road from the farm community. But the people at Rehoboth
said, “We don’t allow ‘colored people’ to worship with us. The church felt the
Koinonians were trying to “integrate” their fellowship and voted the next week
to expel Clarence and Florence from that Baptist church. Tensions kept rising
and the reason why they were kicked out of the church was not just because they
brought a man of color into worship, it is because the word started getting
around –“hey this guy not only talks this Christianity stuff but they’re eatin’
together at Koinonia. These black and white folk are eatin’ together and
workin’ together. And that was the radical thing.” Clarence could talk all he
wanted to about racial reconciliation –that didn’t matter- but when they
started eatin’ together – that was the issue. And that was the crux of getting
kicked out of the church
In 1956, Clarence “sponsored” two black students to attend a
business college in Atlanta. When the newspaper carried the story that this white
man from outside Americus was trying to “integrate” the University system, “all
hell broke loose”. A grand jury was impaneled to try to close Kamp Koinonia
that the community ran in the summer with black and white children
participating together. The County Commissioners claimed the camp had health
code violations. (From their perspective, it wasn’t “healthy” for blacks and
whites to be together.) The GA
Bureau of Investigation (GBI) was asked to investigate these “race mixers” and
see what “illegal” activities they might be charged with. The Klu Klux Klan
held a rally and a long line of cars drove out to Koinonia to intimidate and
get the Koinonians to move. Finally, they tried to disrupt the community
economically. The local produce
stand run by the community was dynamited. An economic boycott was declared and
Koinonians could not buy or sell anything in the entire county. Members had to
travel 45 miles to Albany to purchase parts for the tractor, groceries and gas.
They couldn’t purchase seed. The chickens who provided eggs to sell for
community income had to be slaughtered because they couldn’t sell the eggs. And
ultimately the economic boycott got to a point where they also threatened
anyone who would consider selling anything to them so when one of the
businesses in town talked about selling some feed to Clarence and the
community, that business was dynamited as well. People supportive of the work of the community came from all
over to try to help out because the community was under seige. There were
bullets flying at night. Clarence, because he was speaking around the country
wrote to friends saying “help us out”. There were stories about the violence
directed at the community in Life, Time, and the Saturday Evening Post. Some
sent money as support. Others came. Dorothy Day, founder of the Catholic Worker
Movement took her turn on “night watch” duty during Holy Week in 1957 and had a
flashlight shot out of her hands. Fortunately she wasn’t killed or injured but she
was frightened by the experience. When asked if she wanted a coat or a blanket
because she was shaking, she replied, “that ain’t cold – that’s scared!” Shots
were fired into many of the community buildings. And that was the reality
Koinonia faced late in the fifties and into the early sixties. Community
members were called “communists, nigger –lovers, …” I’d encourage you to get copies of what Clarence wrote or
listen to some of the tape recordings made by him during this time to hear some
of these powerful stories.
Finally, the community started a mail-order business in
order to survive economically because it would be protected by federal agents
(post office) rather than the local “law-enforcement” people who were in
collusion with the Klan. The motto for this mail-order business of selling
fruitcake, pecans, and peanut products was “Help us ship the nuts out of
Georgia!” Insurance companies dropped their coverage – even Lloyds of London
would cover Koinonia - so Koinonia turned to the wider community asking people
to pledge money, $25, $50, as a
form of “common insurance” in the event of a need arising due to the boycott
and violence. Out of that also came the idea which became the idea for a “Fund
for Humanity” which I’ll get to in a minute.
After the physical violence died down by ’63, people started
to leave. By 1968, only the Wittkamper family and the Jordans remained. Clarence
died in 1969 just as the first house under the new housing ministry was being
completed. He was working on his Cotton Patch translation of the book of John when
he slumped over from a heart attack. He was 57.
Clarence’s Theology
and Ideas
There are several words or phrases that Clarence Jordan used
that help summarize his theology. The word Koinonia
is a term used in the Greek New Testament which described the early church and
has been defined as “fellowship”, “community”, and refers to the practice of
“holding all things in common”. So when the Jordans and the Englands wanted to
begin their “experiment” they thought this term could help capture what defined
the early church – that passion of holding all things in common, of loving one
another, of being in fellowship with one another, and being on fire with the
Holy Spirit.
As a student of agriculture, Clarence often used the term “demonstration plot” where farmers use
test acreage to show the efficacy of various brands of seed, fertilizer, or
farming techniques. So, you’d set up a demonstration plot and plant five rows
of corn with one seed or fertilizer and then plant another five next to it with
the competing brand, and so on. Clarence said what we need is a demonstration
plot of God’s Kingdom. We need to see if it is going to work out. We need to
try it. We need to live it. So that’s what Koinonia was to be: a demonstration
plot – a visible manifestation of what the Kingdom of God, the Reign of God, might
look like.
When translating the New Testament directly from the Greek
while preaching, Clarence said that the word metanoia, used to describe the early part of John the Baptist’s and
Jesus’ ministries as “repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand” is a
terrible translation because metanoia is not about “feeling sorry for getting
caught doing wrong” but is much closer to the English word metamorphosis. A
caterpillar doesn’t get sorry because he’s about to become butterfly, he’s
getting prepared for a new way of life, his day of liberation. Metanoia/metamorphosis
is changing so you can get equipped for the new order. “Change your whole way
of thinking because the new order of God’s Spirit is impinging upon you!” So,
the decision to follow Jesus is not one of getting sorry, being repentant, as
much as it is rather getting equipped to be about the loving relationships, the
sharing, and the reconciliation that Jesus is a part of.
Clarence talked a lot about faith and there are these wonderful, pithy quotes of his like “fear
is the polio of the soul” Jordan often contrasted faith with fear: “Fear is the
polio of the soul which keeps us from walking by faith.” “Faith is not a
stubborn belief in spite of all evidence but rather a life lived in scorn of
the consequences.” He said what faith is is “betting one’s life on the unseen
realities”. They are still realities – they’re just not seen – and it is our
job to make those realities visible by the way we live our lives. Clarence used the phrase incarnational theology to remind us
that we have to live out our beliefs in our everyday practice. Theology isn’t
just an academic exercise but has to inform how we live. He talked about incarnational evangelism in that our lives
speak more than our words. We give witness to what we believe by how we live
our lives. We speak more with our lives than with our words, “turning our
convictions into deeds.”
Clarence reminded us that the New Testament was originally
written in a language that the common person could understand. For us to better
understand the message of the Gospel, it needs to be translated into our time
and culture – thus Clarence’s “Cotton Patch” version. He translated the texts
into 20th century Southern vernacular so local folk could relate to
the stories and concepts. The New Testament was written in the everyday,
common, street Greek and its not all this flowery language – it’s the language
the common people would understand – and it was written in a local time and a
local place so to translate it into our time and place today, we have to help
people understand what the geography was like, what the relationships were
like, and so in the Cotton Patch translations you find the story of the Good
Samaritan was recast as a white businessman traveling from Ellaville to Albany.
Now Clarence’s listeners would know there was one town between those two places
– Americus. So when the businessman is robbed and beaten and left for dead on
the outskirts of Americus and first a traveling evangelist and then the gospel
choir director pass by the victim, the man who stops to help is a local black
farmer in an old beat-up pickup truck. He helps bandage the victim and takes
him to the hospital. When Jesus asks his listeners “who was the neighbor to
that man?” (the “Good Samaritan”), we get, “Ooh, I don’t want to answer that
question. It was the nigg … - I mean it was the colored man …” The Good
Samaritan in the context of the 1950s and 1960s in the South, and today, is
that poor African-American brother, is that man on Death Row, is that homeless
person down the street, is that person with mental illness – that’s the Good
Samaritan for us today. So that’s what Clarence helps us understand with his
Cotton Patch translation.
The virgin birth
for Clarence Jordan was less about whether or not Mary was sexually “pure” but
the proper emphasis on the story was the idea that her offspring was “sired by
God”. Clarence complained that the church too often over-emphasized the deity
of Jesus, obscuring the radical concept of the humanity of God. Clarence talks about the ancient church heresy of
Gnosticism – of only seeing Jesus as divine and he said the real error of the
church is seeing that God has taken on humanity and as Clarence translates it,
“The Word became flesh and God parked his mobile home next to ours” adding,
yeah, and the black bastard drove down the property values. That’s where the
Gospel comes home for Clarence.
When Clarence spoke about the resurrection, he said:
The good news
of the resurrection of Jesus is not that we shall die and go home with him, but
that he has risen and comes home with us, bringing all his hungry, naked,
thirsty, sick, prisoner brothers [and sisters] with him. … The proof that God
raised Jesus from the dead is not the empty tomb, but the full hearts of his
transformed disciples. The crowning evidence that he lives is not a vacant
grave, but a spirit-filled fellowship. Not a rolled-away stone, but a
carried-away church. (The Substance of
Faith pg.28-29)
That’s the incarnation.
The Communities of
Koinonia
The Koinonia Community was really two separate experiments.
From 1942 until 1968, it was known as Koinonia Farm. Koinonia Partners was the
name of the community that existed from the dissolution in 1968 until the
mid-1990s. The Koinonia Farm community, designed to be a demonstration plot, had
a strict policy of personal divestiture before joining. You had to give your
money away – it couldn’t be given to the community. Clarence remarked that if
you gave it to the community, you would either want to have a greater say in
how things were run or the community would be tempted to sit around and “talk
about theology all day” rather than working. “Give it away and then come join
us.” Community aspects included shared meals and shared work. The common purse
was the vehicle for economic sharing – you didn’t have your own possessions,
you shared economically. There was an expectation of a commitment to gospel
nonviolence based on Jesus’ dictum to “love your enemies.” And the term that
Clarence used before many of us were educated in the late 60s by our sisters to
use inclusive language, Clarence talked a lot about “brotherhood” and what he
meant by that was that equality of all of us but being in relationship with each
other, and for Clarence, especially that meant in the South healing that racial
divide.
Although the original expression of the community in 1942
expected a life-long commitment – you were in it for the long haul- by 1968,
only two families remained. So obviously, with a lifetime commitment, something
changed but that was the original intent. Numerous conscientious objectors to
the Korean War came because it was a safe haven for people who refused to fight
or the draft could receive a respite and hospitality. People supportive of the
witness for racial reconciliation during the turbulent 50s and 60s came and
went. By 1968, with only two families left, Clarence asked what should we do. Clarence
deemed the demonstration plot of this community a failure. Clarence had given
up on community being able to happen in that time and that place and he was
ready to pack his bags and head to Atlanta to finish his Cotton Patch version
and continue the speaking engagements which became a regular endeavor. But, you
know, Clarence’s speaking would not have been the same – because the power of
Clarence’s speaking was always backed up by that demonstration plot. Even the
failure of it could be said “here is a place where we’re trying it out, where
we’re trying to live it out, where we’re trying to incarnate it” – you can’t
talk about the incarnation if you’re not trying to do it.
However, the group of friends Clarence called together in
1968 to help discern the future developed the idea of making Koinonia into a
service organization which featured “Partnership Industries” as a way to
continue to build bridges between whites and blacks in rural Sumter County
Georgia. Despite the fact that the reorganization of Koinonia did not
anticipate the reforming of an “intentional Christian community”, many of those
who came to join this service organization in the early 70s were looking for a
change and wanted to experience an alternative lifestyle, to challenge the
structures of society, to deepen relationships and had been inspired by the
stories of the witness of Koinonia during the late 50s and early 60s. There
developed a distinction between “Resident Partners” (those who had moved to
Koinonia from elsewhere to be part of this ministry) and “employees” (mostly
local black folk who participated in Koinonia activities for wages but did not choose
to live in community-owned buildings). Although the original design of Koinonia
Partners called for all the workers to be “partners” and share in the
decision-making as well as the risks (profits or loss), many of the local
residents preferred to have a steady income as wage-earners rather than as
“partners” in a risky business venture.
The “Partnership Industries” over the years included farming
row crops and fruit and nut trees, a mail-order business with a bakery selling
pecan and peanut products, fruitcake, and books and tapes of Clarence’s work, a
short-lived sewing industry selling shorts and slacks, a handcrafts and pottery
industry, an Early Childhood education program with a pre-school and nursery,
and a housing ministry which served as the fore-runner of what became Habitat
For Humanity.
The organization was designed as a hierarchical structure
with a “Director” appointed by the Board of Directors and s/he made decisions
affecting the industries and also decided who could stay and do what jobs. As
more people arrived who were interested in “community”, this old structure
needed changing. Under the leadership of Don Mosley, the Director position
evolved into a “Coordinator of Activities” for business and economic decisions,
a Residency Committee for determining who could stay, a Fellowship Team
responsible for the worship and community life, and a Housing Committee for who
lived where-type of decisions. Decentralizing the leadership and helping share
the responsibilities became the new model for community.
Expectations for membership as a “Resident Partner” both
echoed and differed from the expectations of the previous community venture.
Instead of a life-long commitment, prospective partners would commit to
remaining “into the indefinite future” (with no plans to leave within 2-3
years). It was recognized that God might “call” people elsewhere so even though
departure of fellow Resident Partners was somewhat akin to divorce, it was recognized
that a lifetime commitment was not realistic for this community. Instead of
total financial divestiture, partners were expected to live off the resources
of the community while you were there, not owning their own cars or houses. Although
no Social Security-type wages would accrue to them as Resident Partners, those
who came with pensions or retirement savings were not instructed to give them
up. It was assumed that the community would endeavor to meet your financial and
medical needs out of its “common purse”.
Besides a clear expectation that all prospective Resident
Partners were committed to a general understanding of Christian discipleship, taking
the life and teaching of Jesus seriously, the membership covenant also included
five additional commitments:
- Nonviolence – Jesus’ call to love one’s enemies was seen as a central aspect of the Gospel.
- Economic Sharing – the common purse (as modified above) was also a central value.
- Racial Reconciliation – partners made a commitment to work on building bridges over the racial divide. Eating the common noontime meal together was an important public demonstration of this.
- Simple Living – later modified to be identified as “compassionate living” meant a desire and action to consume fewer of the world’s resources while living in relationship to others with less abundance. Instead of striving for “purity” (eating only organically, vegetarian, biking instead of driving, …), compassionate living also takes into consideration relationship building in the process.
- Service to others – although some communities are designed for self-help, contemplative or monastic orders, or other purposes, Koinonians were pledged to be engaged in service to others as a primary expression of their Christian commitment.
However, by the early 90s the community struggled with its
identity. The original goal of the partnership industries was never realized as
most of the people of color expressed interest in working for wages rather than
getting involved in the risks and meetings that joint management would entail.
Habitat for Humanity became a viable reality thus lessening the uniqueness and
need for Koinonia’s housing ministry. The state of GA began to offer public
kindergarten programs, making a valuable part of the KCDC (Koinonia Child
Development Center) less necessary. The pottery had fallen into disuse after
the primary potter left. It became more difficult to inspire new community
members to get excited about marketing fruitcake and candy as part of the push
for more mail order sales prior to Christmas and the dissonance between running
a fall-oriented business and preparing for the advent of a radically
socially-justice-oriented Messiah continued to cause tensions between
“ministry” and “business” or self-sustaining endeavors. Koinonia always had
great difficulty in attracting people of color to join the Resident Partnership
so when the Board tried to address this failure in 1993 by ending the common
purse and made all those working for Koinonia “partners”, within a few years
the community had completely disappeared.
I don’t wish to end on such a negative note because despite,
once again, the ideal of community ending in “failure”, the experience of
participating in Intentional Christian Community at Koinonia was, for me, a
time of deep spiritual formation, challenge, and inspiration for which I will
be eternally grateful. One only needs to look at the level of violence and
hostility directed toward them to realize how radical Clarence Jordan and the
Koinonia Communities were. So I’d like to conclude with a reiteration of
Clarence’s key ideas followed by my own “lessons learned” from my sixteen years
in community.
Key to understanding Clarence Jordan and the Koinonia
movement was taking Jesus seriously. There are four things that I wish to lift
up as essential to Clarence’s ideas. Community, economic sharing, love of
enemies, and, to steal Bonhoeffer’s term, the cost of discipleship.
Clarence said we have to demonstrate reconciliation by
living in Community, by eating
together, by working together, crossing all those lines that divide us:
racial/gender/educational/generational. Whatever lines are set up, we need to
cross them. We need to be reconciled and we need to demonstrate that
reconciliation by eating together and working together, worshipping together.
Economic sharing: for Clarence, materialism
is one of the greatest sins of the American culture. By imitating the common
purse of the early Christian movement, Clarence called for a radical disjuncture with the
individualistic capitalistic ethic. Setting up the Fund For Humanity,
setting up alternative structures, no-interest loans. Clarence even had a
“cow-lending “library” where if your cow went dry, you borrowed another cow and
you swap them out. Also, peacemaking, love of one’s enemies: Peacemaking
is essential to the character of God so it must be a characteristic of God’s
people. It is a critical component of discipleship – especially in a nation
which threatens the entire creation with its militarism and “the bomb”. Koinonia’s
main contribution in the arena of nonviolence was in response to the attacks
and constant threats it faced in the late 50s and early 60s. In the
post-boycott era, when there was less physical hostility – there was still
psychic hostility – it was some of Clarence’s disciples, especially Ladon
Sheats and others took this discipleship commitment to nonviolence to a new
level – nonviolent resistance to war and the arms race. Ladon helped mentor me
and helped mentor many of us in this area.
I don’t think Clarence was ever thrown in jail for
“protesting” (although he may have been jailed briefly while being harassed by
the local “law enforcement” [sic] officials – he never deliberately went to
jail like Dr. King did in protest - BUT he certainly inspired a lot of others
to take those risks. In one of his sermons on “The Mind of Christ in the Racial
Conflict”, Clarence questioned the process most churches use in selecting a
pastor.
Actually,
we’re looking more for an octopus from the seminary than we are a prophet from
God. I think we ought to begin to investigate not so much how many years [one}
has spent in the seminary diddling around on a doctoral thesis, but how many
years s/he’s spent in jail, because somehow or other a [person] is better able
to get up a sermon in a cell than in a church study. (Substance of Faith pg. 111)
And, taking a page from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Clarence always
stressed the cost of discipleship.
Following Jesus will cost you everything, but in the process, you gain a whole
new “family”. Yes, you will get phone calls at 2AM threatening your life, getting
threats, you will be visited and questioned by the FBI. Actually, in my case,
it was usually Christine who answered the phone at 2 or 3 AM when I received
death threats prior to blocking the nuclear train in 1985 when it came through
Montezuma, GA. When we took the full-scale model of the electric chair to the
Courthouse lawn in Americus every time the State of Georgia scheduled an
execution, we would get phone calls at night or people would drive by and yell
at you or spit at you. When the FBI came to inquire about why I refused to
cooperate for the renewed military draft registration, I politely refused to
answer their questions in front of the Koinonia volunteers working with me in
the fall of 1982. In Clarence’s time he said if you haven’t been called a
communist, you aren’t worth your salt. And so Clarence would say to us today,
if you haven’t been called a terrorist, if you haven’t been called a bum, if
you haven’t been called an agitator, you probably ain’t worth your salt.
In the community in Minneapolis where I live now, where we
have turn-over, you always end up “reinventing the wheel”. We now recognize
that people will always “come and go” so we’ve developed what we call a
“turn-over file” so the next person who does this job or task has notes to
follow how it was done before. So Neela can create such a file for Anniversary
celebrations at Open Door so when you celebrate your 30th or 50th
Anniversaries, you can see what Neela did to organize this weekend. Well, here
is my “turn-over file” for my years at Koinonia – my “lessons learned” that
I’ll pass on for what its worth. Not in any particular order, just some
thoughts that came to me about my sixteen years in the south Georgia “commune”.
Community is the best way to end the schizophrenia in many
of our lives – we have to learn to work and worship with the same group of
people – and that’s the key to community is when you worship with the same
group of people you work with, you build that bond. Lessons learned (in no
particular order- these are the thoughts that came to me this morning):
- Leadership in community must be named, recognized, and held accountable. Every group will have leaders but those who aren’t named and recognized can’t be held accountable.
- One must deal with the issue of “leaving community”. In our mobile culture, people come and go but in intentional community this is a hard reality which causes feelings of betrayal, abandonment, failure. And the longer one stays before leaving makes it feel something akin to divorce. When Christine and I left Koinonia – she after 20 years and me after 16 years – we we’re ready for the grieving process that we underwent and that the remaining community underwent. Clarence said it is a demonstration plot. Gandhi said it’s an “experiment with truth”. We have to give ourselves to these experiments and sometimes we are going to fail. Let’s confess it and move on. A community must learn to creatively deal with these transitions. Ritual might be helpful in this process just like when members join.
- It is essential to resolve conflict within the community in positive ways instead of avoiding it and hoping it disappears.
- The community focus and energy must be kept on the mission or else petty differences will work at your destruction. And that’s one of the bitter lessons for us at Koinonia is when we lost the focus. When Habitat started gaining credibility in the mid-80s and our housing ministry was no longer “cutting edge”. When the state kindergarten program made the KCDC less essential. When we tried to find people to “market” – encouraging people to buy more fruitcake and candy products to sustain us economically, we lost our values. And, in so doing, when you lose your sense of mission, then you focus on discussions over owning pets, how much or little (if any) meat to serve at common meals, whether co-ed use of the sauna is OK, … and those petty differences surface and it will only accentuate your differences rather than draw you together.
- Vision and renewal are essential for the long haul. You have to have people calling out that vision, that renewal. That is where the Bible Study, the inspirational teaching, the mentoring, the pastoral help, all is essential for community. Where there is no vision for the future, the community flounders and dies or becomes irrelevant.
- Stewardship of common property is difficult in an ownership society. Just because someone has a PhD in an esoteric academic field does not mean one is exempt from checking the oil level on the community-owned car. It’s hard because we are so used to private ownership. When it is common ownership, who takes responsibility for the maintenance, the upkeep? Cleaning the toilets – that’s the common property.
- Intergenerational aspects of community life are both a challenge and a blessing. One of the real blessings of living at Koinonia was being able to raise your kids with alternate grandparents, alternate aunts and uncles, peers – having that inter-generational aspect was such a gift. But, “We tried that - and it didn’t work” coming from a veteran of community (especially a founder) can kill a conversation with newer members. Elders in a community can be a wonderful blessing but can also be a drag on new endeavors.
- Be open to change and growth. Gandhi called his life “experiments with Truth”. Beware of complacency and living on the laurels of the community’s past (now mythological) history. Remember, if you are faithful to the Gospel, you will be attacked. The Domination System, the system that runs the powers today, is always threatened by that faithful response to the Gospel. You will be attacked. If all speak well of you, you must not be clear enough about your collective discipleship.
Koinonia gave tangible evidence to the Open Door Community
in its founding that intentional Christian community with economic sharing was
possible. The Open Door, in exchange, continued to remind Koinonia not to get
too comfortable or complacent. I think the relationship between these two
communities was one of symbiosis, of giving and receiving. Together, we enabled
each other to be more fully representative of the Body of Christ. For that I
give thanks to God for you all and celebrate with you your 25 years of struggle
and joy.
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