Correct

From www.thomasthedoubter.com.  Came to my attention thanks to Josie's Facebook.

Power of suggestion

At the risk of abandoning what I hope is my usually diplomatic tone, what the hell is this.

Jordan Blevins arrested while praying for economic justice

Blevins and several other religious leaders were arrested at the U.S. Capitol today while publicly praying that Congress "not balance the budget on the backs of the poor."

The National Council of Churches has the full story.

Calling all young leaders!

by Bekah Houff


Updated on 14 July 2011 - see below

In response to both public and private conversations I had at Annual Conference as well as Katie’s call on facebook, I thought a FWFS post about HOW we nominate young adult leaders for Annual Conference leadership would be appropriate.

The Annual Conference Office has posted easy to find links for both the nomination form and the AC evaluation (see below).

Annual Conference Nomination Form

This is the place to nominate persons for the positions listed below. You must get permission to nominate the people you write in the form. You’ll need their contact information as well. The nominee form is different from the nomination form. It is my understanding (anyone out there, correct me if I’m wrong) that the nominee form does not get submitted until someone from the Annual Conference Office contacts you to fill it out.

The following positions are receiving nominations:

Moderator-Elect

Annual Conference Secretary

Program & Arrangements Committee

On Earth Peace Board

Church of the Brethren Benefit Trust Board

Bethany Seminary Trustee -Clergy

Bethany Seminary Trustee -Colleges

Mission & Ministry Board -Area 1

Mission & Ministry Board -Area 2

Committee on Interchurch Relations

Pastoral Compensation & Benefits Advisory Board

Annual Conference Evaluation Form

So, you may think – I didn’t go to Annual Conference, I can’t fill out an evaluation! True, you may not be able to evaluate AC, but this is the form where you can submit names for leaders for future Annual Conferences. There are no required fields, so just skip whatever you don’t want to fill out.

You may suggest leaders for the following Annual Conference leadership opportunities:

Preacher

Worship Leader

Music Coordinator

Adult Choir Director

Organist

Pianist

Instrumentalists

Vocalists

Bible study leaders

Children’s choir director

Theatrical performers

There is also a spot for “other suggestions for future Annual Conferences” as well as “suggested themes for future Annual Conferences”

I hope this little run down is helpful in your participation in calling out leaders – particularly young leaders for Annual Conferences of the future. Let us consider one another’s gifts and call those we feel would serve in these positions well. Let’s continue to affirm one another’s calls and continue the work of Jesus as engaged leaders in our Church!

UPDATE:

I'll post more as they come.

There is an "Elections Procedures" document for each Annual Conference. I have the hard copy of the one for next summer, but it won't be posted to the COB AC website for another week or two (AC backlog - COB staff are working hard to get everything up ASAP!). When it is up, I'll post it here.

I also asked about deadlines:
the nomination form is due by December 1
the online AC evaluation will be closed around August 8 (that's a rough date)

Other additional information:
You don't actually have to have the permission of the person whom you are nominating - just their contact info! I got this procedure confused with what is used for nominations from the floor of Annual Conference. You can submit a nomination for anyone. Annual Conference will then contact those people and ask them to submit a nominee form - they can refuse at that point if s/he is not feeling called OR fill out the form and be considered!

Hope that helps! Keep bringing on the questions!

Scarves

by Nick Miller Kauffman

I'm (still) watching Annual Conference business via webcast, where they just concluded business dealing with a query on decorum, questioning the appropriateness of rainbow and black & white scarves (the former expressing support for LGBT people, the latter supporting a literalist biblical interpretation).  The query was returned, but as I watched the discussion, there were a lot of comments that mentioned both scarves in the same breath.  I think it's important to distinguish between them.

I do not wear a rainbow scarf at Annual Conference (excepting one evening last year).  I actually agree with the sister who compared them (and the black & white scarves) to "gang colors."  I appreciate their intent and am a big fan of shows of solidarity, but I suspect their effect is more isolating than inclusive.  I surely don't think they should be banned, I just don't take part in that particular demonstration.

But we shouldn't compare rainbow scarves to black & white scarves.  The former are intended as a show of support for an oppressed and silenced group; they are a stand against a majority.  The latter are a direct response to the former, which means they are worn in opposition to the display of solidarity with an oppressed minority.  Those with a literalist biblical interpretation may themselves be a minority, but they are certainly not silenced.

In the same way, a White Student Union would be different from a Black Student Union.  Flying a "straight pride" flag would be different from flying a "gay pride" flag.  I am not the biggest fan in the world of rainbow scarves in our particular context, but the black & white scarves seem downright malicious.  Rainbow scarves are a disenfranchised group standing up and demanding they be counted.  Black & white scarves are a powerful group reminding others of their power.

The stakes of our disagreement

by Nick Miller Kauffman

Every time I hear a formal discussion on the "homosexuality and same-sex covenantal relationships" stuff I find myself getting angry.  I hear lots of code words, a lot of "unity of spirit" talk that falls flat on my ears, and what I perceive as a reticence to name what's really being discussed.  And this anger is bothersome to me, because I like to be detached and rational.  I like to pretend I can use reason to arrive at the "right" answer, and when emotions get in the way I wonder if I'm properly understanding what's going on in my mind.

The problem I have with the special response process as handled by the Church is that the Church suffers the same bias I have, which is a desire to treat things with a high degree of rationality--or rather, a twenty-first century, touchy-feely rationality that breeds such comments as "we encourage people to engage LGBT people in conversation," and talk of our "disagreement."

If we are encouraged to talk to LGBT people, it implies that they are a "they," that they aren't part of the conversation.  That we are a bunch of straight people debating what to do with these other people, and though we don't agree, we can at least be high-minded and talk to them.  Much as the vice president of a college might think herself a better person for stooping to talk to the blue-collar workers whose supervisors she supervises.*  This is not a conversational relationship between brothers and sisters, probably because we don't want to admit that while we debate whether to condone LGBT people doing the same things as straight people, some of those people are present at the table.  Awkward!

I think this is starting to get at the second example, which is the language of "disagreement."  That word seems to connotate something academic, like whether one identifies more with utilitarianism or deontology, or perhaps a matter of taste, like whether one enjoys strawberries in the summer.  It's easy to forget just what kind of disagreement we're talking about: namely, whether one party of this disagreement is to be treated as fully human.  While recognizing that analogies can only take us so far, imagine for a second a conversation (many of which assuredly happened) between an opponent of civil rights and a person of color, in which the opponent of civil rights--a person opposed to sharing a drinking fountain, sending his children to the same school, or having to intermingle at the front of the bus--ruminates about the importance of maintaining unity despite a disagreement.

If you find yourself on the conservative side of this question, I'm sure you feel that the comparison is unfair.  But that unfairness is probably born of the same repulsion that I feel at the scenario I've described, so know this: LGBTA people feel that same repulsion, that same injustice, that same exclusion, every time you talk about our disagreement.  When you have a civil disagreement or a polite conversation with someone whose very nature you believe to be sin, whose call to ministry you flatly reject, and whose covenantal relationship you think should never be affirmed, you are sweeping a lot under the rug.  Believe you me, the "trust" we keep being urged to have cannot exist in such a dynamic.

Sometimes, in a fight that concerns justice, you don't get to keep the peace.

I'm not trying to argue for acceptance (at this precise moment).  This post isn't to try to convince people who disagree with me to change their minds.  I just want you, and the Church, to understand the stakes of our disagreement.




*If this strikes you as a weird and confusing example, just skip over it.  There are other things that make me angry.

Brethren ethnicity, Brethren confession, and naming abused privilege

by Parker Thompson

So I got a message that there was an interesting conversation going on in the interwebs among some intellectually engaged individuals about the Church of the Brethren, culture, and confession. After reading several lengthy, engaging posts and many interesting comments, I have felt called to articulate these thoughts.

In my engagement with the conversation, I would like to introduce myself as an infiltrating outsider to the Church of the Brethren. This status, after four years of heavy, delightful engagement with the denomination at the local congregation level, at Bethany Theological Seminary, and at the national level, generally seems to be slipping away as I have become more and more acculturated and welcomed into the “community.” But if my experience and conversations are any indicator of future experience, I will probably always have a sense of being an outsider.

The first piece of the conversation, and most central, that I would like to engage is the topic of cultural Brethrenism that both Josh and Carl have been so eloquently parsing. While the dialectic between culture and theology is a favorite interest of mine, I think more specifically that the issue creeping below this entire conversation is that of Brethren ethnicity. It is the key challenge and gift of the denomination. Are you born Brethren? If you are, you are of a higher class in this crew. Deny that statement all you like in the sense of what should be, or what confessed ideal is desired, but I have experienced and witnessed this deeply embedded privilege manifest in more than one situation. It is the experienced reality in comparison to the stated/desired ideal.

It would be a sloppy reductionist approach to bifurcate the ethnic Brethrenism from the confessional Brethrenism. So instead, I embrace the muddling. The blessing of ethnic Brethrenism is that is does provide, what speculatively appears to be a strong acculturation draw for many born into ethnic Brethrenism to comprehend and take on the discipleship and confessions (what ever variation that might be).

The curse of this reality is, I think, what Josh is prodding in his questioning of the difference between “only culturally Brethren” and a “practicing Brethren” (my synthetic phrases, for the moment). A danger of the privilege of cradle Brethren is to lift the Brethren ethnic heritage and confuse it or conflate it with the religious faith confession/seekings initiated by the eight and carried on, explored, practiced, and expanded by three centuries of believers. I think the Pietist influences that launched this adventure are an important heritage to bring into conversation with conflating ethnicity with confession. The whole Pietist movement was about doing examined theology and choosing to believe in that examined theology, and then continuing to work through that ever-evolving faith with mind, body and soul (and in community depending on the root community). This challenging task is done in varying degrees by different seekers and believers, but it is the challenge set forth by our Pietistic forbearers and is a common thread in the antipedobaptism that we share with our Anabaptist brethren.

It all arises out of a double bind that all faith traditions arrive at (at least ones that believe in sex, procreational sex at least). One of the easiest ways, at times, to maintain or even grow your group’s numbers is to make a bunch of babies. The baby boom becomes an evangelical captive market. At the very least the status quo of staying in the tradition of origin has, depending on cultural context, a relatively high success rate at adding to numbers. On the flip side, this approach can be too easy for Christian formation, leaving large groups of a population with a limited set of embedded theology because it looks right and does not require a lot of work. But this lazy evangelism can, not always, but can make for lazy Christians, and in these circles lazy Brethren. Unfortunately, these lazy Brethren wander around with a sense of entitlement that they have been in since birth and therefore have a “special” sense of ownership.

I think that is all I have at the moment. It seems the style around here to leave something unsaid for later, since this is more of a conversation than a more formal publication. I hope that this is received as a well-spirited offering to conversation. I have written these care and tenderness in my heart for this big messy community of the Church of the Brethren, but know that quick writings can have sharp edges. Some of this playfulness is definitely springing from my minds summer stir-craziness that is beginning (despite being very busy in the midst of a summer ministry placement). May these words find a touch of God’s grace as others wrestle with them.