The Witherspoon board arrived in San Jose Wednesday afternoon. Mostly, except for one of our number whose plane was delayed leaving Newark, which allowed him to enjoy the Salt Lake City airport floor overnight, and to arrive here Thursday morning.

We spent most of Thursday in meetings – planning for our events during the Assembly, and thinking more long-term about Witherspoon’s budget and programs for the coming couple years.

Today – Friday – commissioners and others are gathering, registering, wandering about like lost souls. (Saved souls, no doubt, but still a bit lost right now.)

No news to report yet, but you might go to the JustPresbys website for a few recent items of background and commentary that we posted last night – about overtures to correct the Heidelberg Catechism (an analysis by Dr. Jack Rogers, and a call for making the change, signed by 32 Presbyterian seminary professors), and an interview with outgoing Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick.

God loves the world, and so can we
[6-21-08]

The traditional pre-Assembly gathering of progressive Presbyterians took place yesterday, Friday afternoon, June 20, in the large meeting room of the Ramada Limited where the Witherspoon crowd is staying for this Assembly.

The group was privileged to join in on a conversation between two women who are both engaged in living out the faith in two different ways: Rita Nakashima Brock does it as a scholar and theologian and activist, whose most recent book, Saving Paradise: How Christianity Traded Love of This World for Crucifixion and Empire, is coming out very soon. She is currently is a research associate at the Harvard Divinity School. Noelle Damico lives out the faith through social and political action, as the director of the Campaign for Fair Food of the PC(USA), with much of her work these days going to our support for the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida.

Brock and Damico have worked together before, and their time in this meeting was really the continuation of a conversation between them, with each presenting some thoughts of her own, followed by a lively exchange of views.

Dr. Brock began by setting out some of the main themes in her new book. Early Christianity, she said, saw the church as the living out of paradise on the earth, rather than as a stairway to heaven somewhere beyond this life. Salvation was seen as a reality in this world, not the next. Baptism and the saving work of the Spirit gave people power in this world, so the long, intensive training for baptism was to give Christians wisdom in using their new power in and for the world.

She explored the shifting understanding of the Eucharist as one clear example of this view of earthly life as paradise – and how that view was discarded. For early Christians, the Eucharist was a feast of life, hosted by the Risen Christ. Only much later did the Eucharist come to be seen as a memorial of the death of Jesus, and the elements as reminders of a dead body. This happened particularly under the reign of the emperor Charlemagne as he strove to assert Western European control over the invading heathen to the north, especially the Saxons. It was Charlemagne who reinstituted the death penalty to threaten the Saxons into obedience. Then with the beginning of the Crusades, killing became not a sin, but an act of righteousness that would lead one into heaven.

So the community founded by Jesus was focused on the goodness of the world, and the living of life in relationship with others as very good. Salvation was a reality for here and now. But we have inherited a very different faith, ten centuries removed from the time of Jesus, in which salvation is private, and comes only after death, in some other world.

Brock read a bit from the conclusion of her book, saying that “paradise is not withheld from us. ... We already live on holy ground, in the presence of God,” and our challenge is to live out that holiness in a world where “the Serpent” is still a powerful reality, too. Paradise belongs not to individuals, she went on – “not even to God” – but to all.

Noelle Damico then picked up the conversation, looking through the lens of her own work with the struggle for justice for agricultural workers. She expressed her appreciation to the Witherspoon Society, and the whole PC(USA), for supporting these efforts, and for help in reaching the recent agreement with Burger King. The campaign continues beyond this victory, though, as the Coalition of Immokalee Workers is now going the challenge Subway, Chipotle Mexican Grill, and Whole Foods Market, to join in similar efforts to respect the rights of farmworkers.

Damico then invited us to become aware of the fact that slavery “is alive here” in the U.S., especially in industries whose workers do not have protections and rights – mainly domestic and agricultural workers. She told of one town in Florida where recovering addicts were put behind barbed wire and plied with more drugs until they were completely dependent. They were then sold to employers. “The going rate for a human being,” she said, “is about $1,200. Human beings are disposable.”

Countering such a reality requires challenging the corporations that create the conditions of slavery. Slavery is appealing to these corporations, she explained, because as other costs rise (for fuel, transport, fertilizer, and all the rest) labor is the one cost that can be contained to protect the company’s profit margin.

“This is a work in progress,” she added, “and we’re still learning.” One current effort is to create a “third party” to monitor the relations between growers and workers.

“So,” Damico went on to ask, “what’s our task now?” Often church groups have understood their social witness as “speaking truth to power.” That’s important, she said, but first we must “build communities of shared power.” For instance, she pointed out that the farmworkers came to the church first; it was not a matter of the church reaching out to “help” them. The farmworkers took the initiative, “and the PC(USA) had the grace to respond.” Through this experience, she said, “we have learned that the farmworkers don’t need us to be Moses for them.” What they want and need is not liberators or saviors, but partners.

We are not being asked to speak for the farmworkers, but to listen to them. Not to lead them, but to join in with their leadership.

As an example she cited the way the PC(USA) has been “addressing modern-day slavery along with the Immokalee workers. The church has seen God moving among these Immokalee workers, and has dared to join in.” Joining in has meant not speaking for the workers, but helping to provide “a truthful space, not just a neutral space,” where people such as the farmworkers can speak their own truth to the powerful, rather than having to depend on the relatively powerful (such as the Presbyterian Church) to do it for them.