Monday, October 31, 2016

A top ten reading list for those new to "progressive" church

A direct quote from our inquirers class at church:
  • I'd love any suggestions for maybe one or two books to read. I have tried to look up some online but it was a bit overwhelming. A kind of reading list would be something I would be interested in.

So if you're new to "progressive" Christianity and you'd like some recommendations, here's my top ten.

10. Nadia Bolz-Weber, Accidental Saints. Let's face it. If people do read books, and they're looking for "progressive" Christian resources, and they end up at our church in Arkansas, there's a good chance they've read or at least heard of the Lutheran rock star in Colorado, Nadia Bolz-Weber. And for good reason. She tells great stories, she knows her Lutheran theology, and her books preach. 


9. Rachel Held Evans, Searching for Sunday. Which means they've probably also read, or about to read, a book by that great progressive evangelical blogger, Rachel Held Evans, also a great story-teller, and authentic Christian voice.


8. Rowan Williams, Being Christian. Although Christian memoirs are far-and-away the most common entry point for those new to progressive Christian faith, there are straightforward theological options. My favorites include Rowan Williams, formerly archbishop of Canterbury, both his Being Christian and now Being Disciples.


7. Liz Edman, Queer Virtue. Inevitably, if you're talking about progressive Christianity, people are going to want to learn more about the full inclusion of the LGBTQ in the life and leadership of the church. For this, you should go for Liz Edman's new book, and Justin Lee's classic.



6. James Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree. Most progressive Christians are working to unlearn some inherited biases. We're trying to be aware of what we don't even know we don't know. Liberation theology helps, and in particular, I recommend James Cone.


5. Jennifer Harvey, Dear White Christians. There are some peculiar dangers to being a liberal Christian, and one of those is lacking awareness of some of the weaknesses of the liberal Christian movement. As a way to repair this, I recommend Jennifer Harvey.


4. Clint Schnekloth, Mediating Faith. I guess I shouldn't avoid mentioning, if you want to think about progressive Christianity as it relates to media and faith formation, you might take a look at Mediating Faith.


3. Christian Wimer, My Bright Abyss. Life is hard, it's a struggle, and when people come to faith in the midst of struggle, especially if they are thoughtful and poets, pay attention. 


2. John Polkinghorne, Science and Religion. I guess another hot topic for Christians shifting to a more progressive perspective is science itself. So then it's best to read a scientist who also happens to be a theologian.


1. Marilynne Robinson, Gilead and Wendell Berry, Jayber Crow. I don't think we can finish this list up without a couple of novels on the list, so I suggest two as a tie for first place, one by Marilynne Robinson, the other by Wendell Berry. Take your pick.



I'm sure all y'all can add your own in the comments, and I welcome an expansion of this list. I would add one more thing. I intentionally didn't list "classics" from the Christian tradition. That would be another list. And I didn't list a specific Bible, although I have reviewed those on the blog in the past: http://lutheranconfessions.blogspot.com/2013/01/7-great-ways-to-read-bible.html

Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Reviewing Krister Stendahl's Roots of Violence (including an interview with John Stendahl)

Some books are books, intended from inception for print. Other books arise out of vital conversations. These books are attempts to record in print the power of a speech event.

The new posthumous book by Krister Stendahl is of the latter variety. It is a manuscript created from the transcript of lectures given at Dana College, a small Lutheran school in Nebraska. The manuscript was kept and edited by colleagues, and is now published together with interfaith commentary.

Stendahl's reputation as a theologian, bible scholar, and churchman is already well-established. I would not be surprised if at some not too distant point in the future he would be recognized as a saint in the Lutheran communions.

Stendahl's influence extends in many directions, including the early shaping of the new perspective on Paul, participation in 2nd wave feminism and the pastoral leadership of women in the church (at Harvard some of the female students took to calling him Sister Krister), and participation in the global ecumenical movement.

Above all, Stendahl was a student of Scripture, in love with the Bible. [http://hds.harvard.edu/news/2014/01/21/john-stendahl-reads-why-i-love-bible-video]. Because many if not most readers come to Stendahl through his writings on the New Testament (principal among them his writings on Paul Among Jews and Gentiles and Other Essays).


So Stendahl's turn in Roots of Violence towards "salvation as nirvana" and his more general ecumenical and interfaith approach will come as a bit of surprise if discussions of the New Testament are your primary introduction to Stendahl. However, if you have met the ecumenical bishop and interfaith dialogue participant, the ecclesial Stendahl, then this work will make all kinds of sense.

I'm honored in this post to interview John Stendahl, Krister's son, about the work, and why so many friends and family have devoted their energy to bringing the talk to publication.

1. Can you tell me a bit about the origins of this book, why this particular talk?

  My father was born in Sweden in 1921 and was shaped by a youth in which he saw the nations of Europe descend into a nightmare of hatred and violence.  During the decades of his residency and eventual citizenship in the U.S. he had been deeply conscious of both the deadly and ever-increasing weaponry in the hands of nations and individuals and also the seductive hold of violent thinking on our culture and politics. 

As I think about it, it seems a quality of my father's biblical scholarship that he was constantly concerned about the ethical implications of our use or abuse of scripture. Thus he became a champion of a reforming consciousness about those who had often been victimized or marginalized in the Church's reading: Jews, women, and, he was coming to understand in the 70's, gay and lesbian people.  The problem of violence was therefore much on his mind and he had begun to formulate his thinking about its relation to religion when, after Ronald Reagan's election, he received various invitations to come and offer a lecture series.  This particular book is drawn from what remains of the record of the version of this lecture series given in 1981 at Dana College in Nebraska.

2. The book really captures the vitality of the spoken event. But of course most of us who are reading the book were not present at the lectures. Can you tell us more about the mood and environment of the talks that can shed greater light on how to read the talks?

I'm glad that you feel that vitality. My father's published work almost always had its genesis in spoken communication.  He was a fine writer but he found committing to print difficult.  He told me, in words that describe my experience as well, that, "When you have something to say and you say it, it's said; but when you write it you look at it on the page and it looks stupid."  So it was, and in this case is as well, that his thoughts were retrieved from transcripts of recordings of an actual event.  The Dana lecture transcripts were quite flawed and it required a goodly amount of work, taken up many years later and after his death, to reconstitute what he had said.  Having helped with this manuscript, however, I think we got it pretty close to a fully accurate reconstruction.

As to the setting of these particular lectures, I don't know much about that but would guess that there were dynamics under the surface.  My father was coming as an international churchman and a Harvard professor, an apparent "high church" LCA theologian well known for his advocacy of progressive causes, and he was speaking here at an ALC Midwestern college rooted in the more conservative tradition of Danish pietism.  The head of the college, a professor of New Testament as well, had been openly critical of positions my father had taken.  Thus it is interesting to read this volume with a sensitivity to the task of bringing argument and insight into a setting where argumentative confrontation might easily have sabotaged communication.

3. I was especially surprised by the insights in the chapter on salvation as nirvana. It had never really occurred to me that Christ would, as it were, "disappear" when God is all in all. How do you receive this insight from the lectures?

This is indeed one of the most interesting things in these lectures.  My father's appreciation of a more apophatic vision of salvation can be found already in his work on the Epistle to the Romans, for example in his famous book Paul Among Jews and Gentiles.  He had noted the way in which, in Romans 11, Paul concluded his discussion of the conundrum of salvation for Jews and Gentiles with an exclamatory affirmation of God's mystery and then a doxology that is without reference to Jesus.  Now in these lectures he builds upon and extends that appreciation, recognizing that a theological via negativa is not only accessible to us in our tradition but that it may offer a salutary counterweight and corrective to the cataphatic imagery of Christ's, and our, victory.

I suspect that an influence in this was conversation with my mother, who around this time was setting out on a study of images of heaven in Christian tradition.  As a literary scholar and historian she would certainly have been much aware of the varieties of imagining what salvation would mean for our individual yearnings and allegiances, and I would guess that some of her learnings had now become his.

In devoting three of the four lectures to these three soteriologies—Victory, Nirvana, and Shalom—my father is not seeking to banish any of them altogether from the repertoire of our prayer and discourse.  All three remained part of his own faith and devotion.  But he recognized an inherent and deadly problem with the Christus Victor mode of thinking and understood the importance, indeed the urgency, of deploying an alternative to the hope of triumph.  It seems to me that he was right (as well as rather brilliant) in then lifting up the via negativa that he calls "Nirvana" here, but I also think he recognized that such an alternative would not compete well with traditional imagery of personal and communal vindication.  (Winning, after all, tends to have more appeal than disappearing, even if it is into God that we disappear.)  The provision of a third mode of imagining, that of Shalom, is therefore vital as well, its call for healing and reconciliation and wholeness as God's deep yearning within us.

4. Where are we today in our conversations on the roots of violence? How do you see this work contributing to contemporary conversations?

Unfortunately, I don't hear all that many conversations on the roots of violence that seem really helpful.  Certainly there are those folks who diagnose other traditions, or certain parts of their own, as intrinsically violent.  There are certainly charges brought against Islam, and others against Judaism, and yet others against old Christian notions of violent atonement, all accusations of the cultivation of violence by others.  There is some truth and also a lot of caricature and generalization in all that. With occasional exceptions, it doesn't seem all that salutary and frequently the condemnations contribute more to the problem than to any solution. 


One thing I would like to see is a greater acknowledgment of the common (and  understandable) humanity of the problem.  The roots of violence are sunk in the soil of experiences that are neither unique to one tradition nor entirely absent from any exceptional other.  We need to be recognizing and owning the commonality of human yearnings and wraths that can turn us to cruelty.  Owning it entails that we do not demonize it but also requires that we come with repentant sorrow and a compassionate humility to the table of our conversations.  At the same time, we need to see that we do have choices in the language we deploy and the dreams that we remember and of which we speak with each other.  There are options and alternatives available to us, and our tradition is rich in its imagery and its songs.  This book, providing not only my father's lectures but also commentary from both Jewish and Muslim perspectives, seems to me an invitation to, and a model of, such a constructive engagement with others in the realm of religious imagination.

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Radical Lutheran Spin Doctor #DecolonizeLutheranism

When I went to seminary in 1995, the Internet was not much of a thing. E-mail was just becoming a thing. People still left voice messages. I had to go to the library to look something up.

At seminary, I was trained how to be the right kind of Lutheran. There were basically two dominant options. You could be a "radical Lutheran," a follower of Nestingen and Forde, with a radical focus on justification by faith alone apart from the works of the law. Or you could go the somewhat more evangelical catholic route, with an emphasis on the ecumenical liturgical move towards "catholic" convergence.

Hovering around were a few whiffs of process theology, some other movements that were kind and pietistic and grounded in ethnic Lutheran histories. And then the seminary sent students on cultural immersion experiences. The basic model (although I don't think this was intentional) was that you studied your Lutheran stuff most of the time, and then you got "exposure" to stuff outside that tradition in the cross-cultural context.

I spent my cross-cultural month in Milwaukee. It snowed a ton. You could drive for miles in neighborhoods boxed in and away from opportunity, with all kinds of racial and economic oppressions criss-crossing the city and controlling lives, and it was there for the first time that I read (at the recommendation of my host, the first African-American Lutheran pastor I had ever met) James Cone, and womanist theologians. And I walked with clergy who were community organizers.

But then I went back to seminary, to "white normal," have found myself quite comfortably trying to do theology and pastoral ministry in the white, middle class framework for most of my career.

At that time, I don't think I was much aware of any larger movements, ways to organize and change the dominant paradigm. I think at that time I was learning the "spin" rather than the "take" (that's some Charles Taylor right there, "spin" is a construal that does not recognize itself as a construal--a take is a construal that is appreciative of the viability of other "takes"). I learned to be a radical Lutheran spin doctor. I also dabbled in evangelical catholicism. Frankly, it was confusing, and energizing, sometimes self-righteous, sometimes profoundly true. There's good stuff even in the "spin."

I knew there were other seminaries. I knew there were various movements within our church. But I never really had a sense that there was a lever that might change things. I certainly didn't think it could emerge from the seminaries. Most seminarians were vulnerable, just hoping for a call, and focused primarily on loving people in parishes once they got ordained (that itself is a beautiful thing--I had a lot of classmates that thought and acted like social workers).

Over time, in my career, those of us closer to the margins (I'm a missionary) started finding ways to hear from each other. Social media increased the proximity of religious leaders in our church. You could find your people. When we launched a couple of Facebook groups a few years ago for ELCA Clergy, and for ELCA people, the energy around that formation was immense. We were so glad to finally spend time with each other. I think some of us didn't know how lonely we had been.

But we also weren't sure what would emerge from all this networking. There was a lot of chatter. A lot of our conversations reinforced the "spin" of Lutheranism narrowly construed. Some people really care about Paschal Candles and paraments. Some clergy really have trouble thinking outside their specific belief system. Their commitments have been largely excarnated (another Taylor term, when religion is disembodied and becomes mostly noetic). Early in that process, the forming of these larger networks, we were discovering who we were, and who was around. We weren't aware who we were excluding, we weren't that aware of what kinds of religion, what definitions of Lutheranism, were being reified among us.

But then people on the margins started finding each other. One by one, slowly but surely, like any community organizing movement, those who knew that there was something off about the "spin" kept talk, then later acting, then forming movements, pushing up against systems in the wider church and in local parishes that pushed towards capitalist, cishet patriarchal white normativity under the guise of "just being Lutheran."

That's the thing. So many definitions of Lutheran are really just definitions of cultural religion, the holy water with which the priests sprinkled the bad conscience of the bourgeoisie.

And so was born #decolonizeLutheranism (http://decolonizelutheranism.org). I remember when people started posting memes reminding us that not all Lutherans are white, and many eat injera instead of lefse, and that connecting Lutheran to specific ethnicity, or power structures, or modes of worship, ends up causing huge problems for our movement of faith, because it means the freedom of the gospel proclaimed by our movement gets stuck and colonized by race, culture, caste, and more.

This weekend, some of the people who lead this movement will gather in Chicago, at one of our seminaries, for the first #decolonizeLutheranism conference. I can't be there, and I am really sad, because these are my people. Many I call great friends. I am so impressed by the myriad ways this group has found their voice, are collectively organizing, and are fighting for our denomination to become decolonized.

So this is my one contribution. It's kind of just a history as I see it. But I will add one more thing. Kind of a fair warning, and it's something I think the group already knows. The church is going to listen to you this weekend, and mostly because we're liberals now we'll nod our heads in agreement. "This church" is largely sympathetic to the cause, in the abstract. But "this church" doesn't know how to decolonize itself. It's only just discovering that it itself is the master of spin. The leaders at the very top of "this church" are so caught up in their spin they can't even see how spun out they are, and even getting to the point of having them recognize it as a "take" is going to be a stretch. They're not going to like the cross-pressure, we're going to act all fragile, and there's a good chance walls will go up or we'll break.

So God bless you. And I'm with you. And I wish I could be there. And I love you. Let's keep finding each other. We're on the inside of the outside together, as it were. I'm somewhat curious whether it will lead to transformation, or an exodus. I'm good with either one. Jesus liked to walk. So do I. Let's go.

Thursday, October 20, 2016

Finding your voice in politics, religion, and social media: from private devotion to public theology

“The signal virtue of Christianity is that there is a version of it for the learned (theology) and one for the common people (devotional practice); and though the two may find themselves in occasional contention, they are bound together within the ecclesiastical institution itself. It is hard to come up with a popular version of Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind or Schelling’s System of Transcendental Idealism.” (Terry Eagleton)
Let's start with the premise that part of the work of theology is the public articulation of the faith. Theologians, although often writing for the academy, have as their intended audience a reading public.

The best public theology, or the best public theologians, are the voices we rely on to articulate a theological vision in ways accessible to readers of all traditions, secular and religious. Although they will speak out of, or be grounded in, specific religious traditions (and in fact will do their best work if they are grounded in a specific confessional tradition), they will find ways to speak in ways that are genuinely public.

In the meantime, the vast majority of the population do not think of themselves as theologians. They are the "common people" Eagleton mentions above, and their religion is lived out not in the discourse of theology, but in their devotional practices, such as private prayer and church-life.

This form of religious life inhabits a primarily private sphere, is influenced by a largely individualist culture, and even those parts of it that have a corporate dimension (such as worship or membership in institutions) still has an indelible private outlook. Religion in terms of devotional practice is decidedly personal.

There isn't anything problematic about private or personal forms of devotional practice. They are theology in practice, theology on the ground, theology in real life.

But with the rise of social media, articulations of private devotion now takes on a public dimension, and the public articulation of private religious faith puts us in a strange new world. It means the vast majority of those on social media, whose religiosity when articulated publicly is some form or other of moralistic, therapeutic deism, are now out on a quest to bring their confessional traditions into view, and they are finding their voice, haltingly and steadily.

Let me give just one example, the one currently on all of our minds this month: the politics of elections. 

Before the advent of social media, the average voter would consume various kinds of media as a resource to inform their vote. They might talk with their family or friends. If they were highly active in politics they might attend town hall meetings or march in parades or canvass neighborhoods or lick stamps for campaign mailings. But before rise of Facebook and Twitter, their politics was still largely private.

Suddenly, with the arrival of social media, voters now had a venue not only to share their political perspectives more freely with a wider audience, but to do so in quasi-public ways. It doesn't take very long with the rise of new media for a shift to take place from I can share my thoughts on social media to I MUST share my thoughts on social media.

We see this at the height of this election cycle. Many Facebook posts the last few weeks have started: Although I have been largely silent about the presidential elections, but now, in these latter days, I feel like I must speak out.

Then, they start writing. Sometimes the posts are long. They're confessional in nature, searching, honest, journalistic, exploratory. But they are decidedly public. Many women's voices have emerged recently, and are of particular interest, because they are truly finding their voice in a public context. 

In the meantime, people's religious views inevitably inform their politics. But because the majority of the religious have at best a few private devotional practices in place as resources to fund their imaginations, what you watch is the emergence of a religio-political discourse largely un-formed by the traditional resources of public theology. 

In particular, the critical tools theologians learn and apply to spell out arguments are mostly lacking, and instead popular forms of piety shape the discourse.

It could also be said, and probably should be said, that since politics was for a long time also private, the average person finding their voice on social media is likely to apply their private political devotional practices as the resource most familiar to them as they find their voice.

In this sense, it was absolutely no surprise that singing the National Anthem became one of the hot topics this election cycle: that song, sung as it is at the American liturgy we call football, is the height of private devotion publicly displayed. Changing the devotional practice and doing so in a public venue became a transformational strategy for opening up space for the articulation of a public theology.

It also highlighted the truly post-religious nature of the new social media youth advocacy.


I think we are all just dipping our toes into something radically new. We are watching a blending of private devotion and public theology happen daily, in our own lives, in our own media streams, and our mutual sharing in one another's lives. 

I am not offering a full-blown taxonomy of what is different, or a prescription for how to do it better. Like everybody else, I'm discovering how to do this thing as we go along. But I do think we are learning. We are all discovering our public voice, which is then revealing the depth or superficiality of our private religious devotion because with the tiny exception of those who consider themselves theologians, we are all bringing our private religious devotion to bear as our primary resource for all becoming public theologians together.

Some examples: 

1) I blog. Blogging is the primary place where I engage public theology. But it's very different than a previous era of theologians whose audience was primarily each other and the academy. My audience is you, those of you reading this. So the nature of the public has changed.

2) I post prayers on Facebook. I've found that we need private devotions in our emerging public spaces, and they serve us well there. 

3) I live as a Christian example and pastor in social media, but I also live as a public citizen there. The two blend together, and sometimes this is helpful, and sometimes its a hindrance. Before social media, most of my parishioners wouldn't have known much of what I was up to week to week between Sunday services. Now, many know everything, from our daily routines to my personal opinions. 

4) I find myself wishing I read less stuff on the Internet, and read books more. The biggest potential loss in this era of everybody finding their voice, is the silencing of the books. Books, and the sustained arguments made in books (or the sustained imaginative worlds presented), are perhaps our greatest resource for theology well-articulated and democracy well-lived. We may need a new monasticism, spaces set apart for reading that aren't on-line.

5) I worry about the loss of privacy, and sale of the public. The prognosticators who say we are giving our privacy away are correct. And I am watching in real time as we sell all our public spaces to the highest bidder. The public is a shared common good and not a commodity, and a private life and the space inside it is richness incarnate. The first requires our collective attention to sustain, and the second requires personal vigilance to exercise rightly.

6) That being said, we are no longer going to be able to simply just keep our private theological and political views to ourselves. It was an illusion to ever expect those with a public voice to be capable of neutrality. The desire for a non-biased press or other form of media, though admirable, was in many ways uninspired. A true secular public will allow for the diversity of voices in an intentional plurality that does not erase, but rather highlights and celebrates difference while finding shared resources for public dialogue.

7) The next public theology is going to arrive from the ground up, from the network itself, and in my life, the best living example of this currently is #decolonizeLutheranism, whose first gathering takes place Saturday in Chicago.

Wednesday, October 12, 2016

Eric Metaxas is a tool

Bonhoeffer would be rolling over in his grave, if that were a thing. Here's a recent quote by Eric Metaxas, a "biographer" of Bonhoeffer.
The anti-Nazi martyr Dietrich Bonhoeffer also did things most Christians of his day were disgusted by. He most infamously joined a plot to kill the head of his government. He was horrified by it, but he did it nonetheless because he knew that to stay “morally pure” would allow the murder of millions to continue. Doing nothing or merely “praying” was not an option. He understood that God was merciful, and that even if his actions were wrong, God saw his heart and could forgive him. But he knew he must act. 
Wilberforce and Bonhoeffer knew it was an audience of One to whom they would ultimately answer. And He asks, “What did you do to the least of these?”
For a long time I've tried to convince anyone who will listen that they should skip the Metaxas biography and read others, perhaps especially by Schlingensiepen, Bethge, Christiane Tietz, Reggie Williams, and Charles Marsh (read them in that order, and skip Metaxas altogether). 

Why do I argue this? Because all Metaxas does is apply his agenda and then attach Bonhoeffer's name to it. He makes Bonhoeffer into his tool.

Then, in this case, he becomes a tool of a particular kind of disturbing right-wing politics.

There are so many ways Metaxas is misappropriating Bonhoeffer and besmirching his name in his current defense of a vote for Trump, but the most egregious is his complete corruption of Bonhoeffer's insight that "everyone who acts responsibly becomes guilty."

He corrupts it because he detaches the concept from its Christological origins and instead uses it as a saccharine platitude defending a vote for a candidate that "may not be a vote for that candidate" (introducing another form of bizarre rationalization heretofore unheard of). 


The best indicator of the extent of Metaxas's tool-ness, Metaxas-as-tool, is his rolling out of all the lies and half-truths the Republican party, Trump in particular, has been spouting against their opponent. Metaxas has to lie, must lie, about Clinton in order to convince himself she is a worse candidate than Trump. 

Which is yet another way he is so very different from Bonhoeffer. Bonhoeffer didn't have to invent lies against people in order to oppose them. He would articulate opposition straight up, and reserve the state of confession (which is what Metaxas is claiming) for incredibly extreme situations like the rise of Hitler and the Nazi party.

Bonhoeffer himself believed we were called, like Christ, to accept guilt for the sake of others, but this guilt is always construed by Bonhoeffer in Christological terms. It is a Stellvertretung. Standing in the place of. Vicarious action and responsible love on behalf of the other.

But Bonhoeffer came to such insights when he saw the situation of the African-American community in Harlem, the Jews under Nazi Germany, and so on. In a national situation where one candidate (Trump) so clearly stands as a real threat to the lives and well-being of minorities of all kinds in our country, and really, all women, Metaxas's argument that Christians must vote, and that they must vote for Trump, isn't actually absurd, it's beyond absurd, and lives at the intersection of heresy and threat, a space Bonhoeffer himself would never have inhabited.

Although Bonhoeffer himself took responsibly for himself, he never inflicted responsibility on others in the way Metaxas does in his fatuous op-ed. 

And although Bonhoeffer did himself have to make difficult moral choices, some of which went against his own non-violent commitments, he did so only under great duress, and in a time of true "confessing."

Metaxas would like to think his is a confessional church moment. He seems to think that western civilization hinges on the nomination of one Supreme Court candidate.

But it does not, and by acting as if it does, Metaxas proves himself to be not only a tool, but a bombastic demagogue, all while taking the name of one of the greatest theologians and saints of the 20th century in vain.

Eric Metaxas, shame on you. Shame.

Saturday, October 08, 2016

So you're resettling refugees!? How can I help?

This fall Canopy NWA begins its work as a full-fledged refugee resettlement affiliate of Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS). We anticipate two or three refugee families arriving in Fayetteville by the end of this year, and around 25 families resettling in NWA over the next fiscal year.

What started as a hope and a prayer last winter is now a reality.

It takes a lot of work to start anything new, but starting a refugee resettlement center and building it from the ground up has required a unique blend of efforts and assets. Chief among our assets has been our network, and chief among our efforts has been networking. Canopy could not have launched without the partnership of Catholic Charities, LIRS, dozens of local volunteers, generous financial backers, the state department, and the support of community leaders.

We've done a unique thing here in Arkansas. Many if not most resettlement centers start as sub-offices or affiliates of existing Lutheran service organizations like Lutheran Social Service. What we've built in NWA is an ecumenical organization with local, ground-up leadership. God has been calling us to welcome the refugee, and our community has made all of it possible with their passion and gifts.

Along the way, people regularly sit down with me for coffee, or send a note by e-mail or text, and ask, 

How can I help?

For those of you who have asked, I'm offering this post as one answer. 

This past week, Canopy was featured on all the major television news stations. Some of you may have noticed that when these stories went live on social media, there was a storm of commentary in the (Facebook) message threads. This flurry of messaging, some of it negative, was disheartening to supporters of Canopy, but as a long-time advocate for refugee resettlement, I can tell you it's not surprising. Refugee resettlement, the process, outcomes, distinctions, they're all foreign (literally) to most people, so a huge part of our work is education.

Towards that end, the first way you can help is to get informed. Don't just get kind of informed. Get truly knowledgeable. 

At the bottom of this blog post, I've reproduced an LIRS Refugee Fact Sheet. Start by reading that sheet. Try to memorize it.

A lot of the concern about refugee resettlement articulated on social media this past week fell loosely into two categories. 

These are: 1) Security, and 2) Limited resources.

A lot of people basically say: Why are you helping refugees when we have homeless people and struggling veterans in our community? Can't you use your time and energy and funds to help the homeless?

On the issue of limited resources, a great response to this question might be: "You're right, we have some rather intractable homelessness and food insecurity issues in our community, and our veterans are under-resourced. Let's work together to advocate for better resources for those communities!" 

Then, you might add: "Refugees who resettle in the United States usually work hard in their neighborhoods, volunteer, and serve. So it is very likely that the refugees we resettle in Northwest Arkansas today will be our partners in addressing homelessness in the future."


It might also be worth pointing out that federal and state funds are allocated for specific purposes. There are governmental resources for the homeless, and the veterans, and there are also resources allocated by the federal government to assist with refugee resettlement. You simply can't divert funds designated for one program to another program, and you wouldn't want to do that anyway. 

A much better approach is to build your own organizations addressing the problems you are noticing in your community, or petitioning your politicians to allocate better funds for the homeless or veterans. On veteran care, you might want to start by reading this. On homelessness in Northwest Arkansas, read this research paper on homelessness in Washington and Benton counties.  

Another way to come at this question is to ask: What is the net benefit or loss from resettling refugees in a community?

The answer is clear: Refugee resettlement is a long-term financial blessing to communities, not a burden. If you don't believe me, take a look at these two studies:

1. A 2012 report shows a significant positive economic and community impact on Cleveland as a result of refugee resettlement: http://www.hias.org/sites/default/files/clevelandrefugeeeconomic-impact.pdf

2. A report on refugee resettlement in Miami shows that they resettle quickly and grow the economy: http://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article46383370.html

On the issue of security, a great response to this question might be: "We all want security, absolutely. Refugee resettlement is the most vetted process for new Americans coming to the United States, and refugees arriving here want the same things we do--safety, a place for their families to thrive, opportunity to succeed and contribute to their community. Although security always comes up in conversations about refugees, our concern for long-term safety in our communities would be better focused on reversing and reducing our practices globally that contribute to radicalization."

It's not easy to talk with facts and rationality to people who are genuinely afraid, so this is a difficult conversation to have with people, but the truth is, it's in the self-interest of the refugee resettlement program to get this right... we want true refuge for refugees, and that can only happen if the communities in which they are settled are themselves secure and safe.


Now that you're informed, you might also want to volunteer. If you want to volunteer, we recommend you do a couple of things. First, visit the Canopy NWA web site (or your local refugee resettlement affiliate) and learn what their current volunteer needs are. Sign up for their e-newsletter, join LIRS in advocacy for refugee issues, and if your local affiliates has such a program (Canopy does) create a co-sponsor team to co-sponsor a refugee family. 

Finally, let's say you are now very informed, and you wander back to one of those social media threads where people are posting all kinds of comments about resettlement, homelessness, and veterans? Don't despair! A lot of times people are posting in a vacuum of information, and they may be genuinely afraid. Engage them with kindness, offer helpful information (in your own words) from this blog post or other resources, and create a relationship. Our community will be better when you engage those who hold a different opinion from you. We will all grow together, and become an even better canopy for refugee resettlement, the homeless, and veterans.

We're in this together!

--
Refugee Fact Sheet

Q. How does someone gain refugee status?
Refugee resettlement in the US is a federal program. Each year in October, the president, in consultation with Congress, sets the number of refugees to be admitted for U.S. resettlement. Currently, under the Obama administration, that number is 70,000 refugees. In 2016, the number will be 85,000, with at least 10,000 of those refugees likely to be from Syria. In past years, during the Reagan years, for example, our refugee numbers were somewhat higher at 120,000. Still, in any given year, the number the U.S. resettles is relatively small— roughly one-half of one percent of the world’s refugees, which is estimated today at over 60 million*. (UNHCR)

Q. How does the resettlement process work in the U.S.?
Nationally, there are 9 voluntary organizations that coordinate refugee resettlement, including Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service (LIRS), and nearly 200 social service organizations across the country that actually do the work of helping resettle refugees in local communities. Congregations also have played a role in the resettlement process, often helping to anchor the families who come here.
Refugees often resettle in places where they can be near their families and where there are jobs, good schools and safe neighborhoods—not unlike the reasons why most of us live where we do. The best scenario is to place refugees where they can be successful. The refugee state coordinators (at the state level) agree to the number of arrivals. Resettlement organizations must have the capacity to manage the process as well.

Q. What is the difference between a refugee and immigrant?
Refugees move to a new country because they have nowhere else to go. They are eeing persecution and fear for their lives. They must prove that they have been persecuted or have a well-founded fear of persecution based on their race, religion, political af liation, and other factors. Immigrants relocate to a new country because they want to, and have approval, from the government that is receiving them. They are people who can return to their countries without fear.

Q. How do refugees support themselves?
They nd jobs. Refugees have been helpful to our economy in recent years because they have taken jobs in industries that have had employee shortages. And, these industries were good placements for refugees because they required few English or technical skills.

Q. Do refugees come here for a certain time limit?
Refugees and immigrants are here permanently. They can apply for permanent residency after a year and apply
for citizenship after ve years.

Q. Can refugees apply for public assistance?
Refugees can apply for public bene ts if they are eligible, just like other residents. Employment counselors help refugees nd work so that they can support themselves. Many refugees often nd work in manufacturing or other industries very quickly, making them ineligible for public assistance.
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Q. What about refugees taking jobs and draining local economies?

Refugees are more likely to be entrepreneurial and enjoy higher rates of successful business ventures compared to natives. At the local level, refugees provide increased demand for goods and services through their new purchasing power and can be particularly revitalizing in communities that otherwise have a declining population. It is also worth noting that research has shown annual earnings growth among refugees living in the U.S. has outpaced pay increases among economic immigrants, or individuals who haven’t been displaced by disaster, persecution or violence. 

Q. Do refugees receive cultural orientation and information about customs and U.S. laws?
Yes. Refugees receive orientation before they come. Refugee resettlement agencies review this information
again when they arrive.

Q: Aren’t refugees more likely to be criminals?
Based on a recent study conducted by the American Immigration Council, immigrants are less likely to commit serious crimes or be behind bars than the native-born population, and high rates of immigration are associated with lower rates of violent crime and property crime. This holds true for both legal immigrants and the unauthorized, regardless of their country of origin or level of education. In other words, the overwhelming majority of immigrants are not “criminals” by any commonly accepted de nition of the term. For this reason, harsh immigration policies are not effective in ghting crime.
Refugees are more likely to be entrepreneurial and enjoy higher rates of successful business ventures compared to natives. At the local level, refugees provide increased demand for goods and services through their new purchasing power and can be particularly revitalizing in communities that otherwise have a declining population. It is also worth noting that research has shown annual earnings growth among refugees living in the U.S. has outpaced pay increases among economic immigrants, or individuals who haven’t been displaced by disaster, persecution or violence.

Q. Why should we allow refugees to come here?
We are a nation of immigrants and refugees. As people of faith, we are called to “welcome the stranger”. Helping refugees who have ed their homes and are displaced in refugee camps with little or no food, health care, shelter or protection is the right thing to do. We hope that someone would do the same for us if we were in their shoes.
While there is a short-term cost, there is a long-term economic gain that refugees bring. The majority of refugees open businesses, ll important jobs, become teachers, CEOs, and public of cials. The overwhelming majority of refugees and asylum seekers in the U.S. today are law-abiding, hard-working individuals and families who make valuable contributions to their communities by starting businesses, paying taxes, and by sharing their unique cultural gifts with America. Much of our continued success as a nation will rest on our ability to embrace those who come here seeking protection and better opportunities for themselves and their families. The U.S.
is a global leader in programs that support immigration, refugee resettlement and asylee protection. Let us all continue to join forces in working to help improve these programs and maintain their integrity.

*Figure includes refugees, asylum seekers, and displaced persons worldwide Updated: June 2016 



Advocate for coal communities

Dear Clint,
There’s a crisis happening right now in coal communities across the nation. Working people are being laid off from their jobs at a catastrophic scale, losing critical health and retirement benefits while coal executives cash out multi-million dollar bonuses even as their companies declare bankruptcy.

These are the working people who for generations have sacrificed their health, their safety, and even their lives to keep America’s power on. Now they need our help.
As the nation shifts to clean energy, these working people deserve better than to be simply tossed aside.

The good news is that right now, there are multiple bills before Congress that would provide meaningful relief for coal workers, their families, and their communities. The bad news? It’s difficult to count on Congress to get much done these days, particularly before an election. 


I can tell you first-hand how bad it is out there.

This summer I traveled to the town of Gillette, Wyoming, the epicenter of western coal country, to interview workers who had been laid off. What I saw was heartbreaking. 

Hundreds of homes had been abandoned. Restaurants and shopping areas were like ghost towns. And just about everywhere, somebody had a story about how the layoffs had affected the community. 

One worker named Shawn, an Iraq war veteran and dedicated family man, kept a tough exterior when sharing his story, but broke down in tears talking about a friend who “took it too hard” when he lost his job. Shawn didn’t elaborate any further on what happened to his friend. 

Clint and Branden didn’t hold back their anger in talking about coal company executives who awarded themselves huge bonuses while laying off thousands of workers.  

“They could have kept a hell of a lot of people for as much money as they put out to their executives,” Clint said. 

Polly, a laid off haul truck driver who now works as an assistant cook at a school in town, was just a few years away from retirement when she was laid off. “I’m in a really bad situation. This wasn’t the plan,” Polly said, “The plan was to support myself finally and feel good about myself and now I’m going ‘You’re such a loser,’ and I’m not! It’s not my fault. I mean, I show up to work every day.”
These coal communities are in dire straits and they feel like their struggle is largely invisible to the rest of the country. Let’s show these workers that we have their back. 


There are multiple bills that have already been introduced that would help these workers. All Congress needs to do is vote. 

Together, we can make sure these workers aren’t left behind as we move towards a clean energy economy. 

Thanks so much. 
In solidarity,
Ian Pajer-Rogers
Director of Communications
Interfaith Worker Justice