jason evans

On Saturday night, I spoke with a wonderful group of people that are a part of the Brethren in Christ–a denomination with roots in Anabaptism, Pietism and Methodism. Everyone was very kind and hospitable. And my talk was well received. I spoke, in part, about the relevance of the three traditions that inform the BiC, as I mentioned in my last post.

Regarding one in particular, Methodism, I mentioned that I thought the method employed by John Wesley–who founded Methodism–had tapped into a way of organizing people for radical change which goes beyond religion. In particular, I pointed out the similarities between the organizing principles devised by community organizer and author Saul Alinsky during the 1950's and John Wesley's bands, classes and societies during the 1700's. While Wesley's work sparked a historic spiritual revival, Alinsky's sparked great social change. What both men were keenly aware of was that a method was needed in order to empower lay people in a manner that required minimal resources, 'experts' and could work within existing systems so that these people could participate in the change they wanted to see.  The bottom line is that the method works.

You can talk to just about any community organizer in an urban context and find they are informed by Alinsky's principles and you can almost bet that if they are seeing change, they are employing the principles. Yet, if you talk to most Christians, let alone many Wesleyans or Methodists, and find that they are unaware of Wesley's methods and certainly aren't using them (I can say that, because I grew up in a Methodist church). Still, you can look around the globe and find movements with a similar "DNA" to what these two men taught. For example, in his book The New Creation, Wesleyan theologian, Thomas Runyon points out the similarities between early Methodism and the base ecclesial community movement rooted in the Latin American Roman Catholic Church and Liberation Theology.

Certainly, our context is much different than either of these men. But is there something to be learned from this. Should we consider how these methods would be employed in our own time and place? Do we care?

I mentioned my idea of incarne recently and mentioned that I wrote an article for Mennonite Weekly Review's Urban Connections column this month. You can read the article online here. Here's a blurb from it:

"For Anabaptists, immigration is part of our history. Many Mennonites can look to their family heritage to see the story of a people who were continually moving from one part of the world to another, seeking a place for their peculiar way of Christianity to be accepted. Our immigrant story gives us a unique affinity to the New Testament term, “strangers and aliens.”

At the beginning of John’s Gospel, we read that the Word was with God yet came to live among us in order to redeem us. One might say the Word immigrated to Earth from heaven. Jesus was an immigrant.

We follow a God who stoops down, becomes like us, serves us and saves us. And this same God in Jesus beckons us to follow him. What does it look like to follow the immigrant Jesus? To mimic his life within our own?"

Read the rest

Would appreciate your feedback either here or at MWR.

Some rambling reflections for 9/11...

The Hawthorn House, the little community that is my "church," my best friends and housemates is an ecumenical bunch. We represent a variety of Christian backgrounds; Catholic, Southern Baptist, Episcopal, Vineyard, Presbyterian, non-denominational mega-church, and on. With that in mind, I'm often asked why I consider myself an Anabaptist. My father was raised in a Swedish/Norwegian Lutheran household in Minnesota. My mother grew up in Southern transplant family in Orange County, with a long tradition in the Foursquare church. They raised my brother and I in a Free Methodist church and I ended up on staff at a Southern Baptist church years ago. So, how'd I end up a convinced Anabaptist?

It started on an early weekday morning in late 2001.

I got out of bed and started to pack my bags. I would soon be on a plane to conduct a training session for church leaders on the east coast. My wife’s aunt called. “Turn on the T.V.,” she said. The shock in her voice made me sit down on the sofa as I grabbed for the remote. My wife, who was 9-month’s pregnant with our first child, sat down next to me. As the screen flicked on we watched as a plane crashed into the second of the Twin Towers. My arm was wrapped around my wife. I could feel her belly, stretched tight with our child inside against the palm of my hand. “What kind of world are we bringing this child into?” was all that she could say to me. I had no response.

I didn’t end up getting on a plane that day. Instead, I went into the office in a daze just as everyone else did. We talked about the latest news information we had around the coffee pot. For weeks, as the world cast accusations towards religious radicals for these terrible acts of violence, I asked myself, “What does my faith have to say about violence?”

I am a Christian. I took Church History. I knew what the Church had to say about violence. It wasn't just radical Muslims who embraced violence. We embraced it. We became it. I didn’t like that. No more than you like reading it. But it was true. The crusades, inquisitions, slavery and on. As a political, social and cultural force the Church could historically be found at the center of some of the most horrific moments in history.

But then there was Jesus. While Jerry Falwell was casting judgment on prime time, I found myself reading the Gospels. I could not find anything resembling the seething Falwell in Jesus. Jesus blessed peacemakers. He healed the ear of those arresting him, chastising his friend who had attacked the arresting officer. He was tortured and sentenced to capital punishment, yet refused to retaliate. Jesus embodied the very opposite of violence.

After pouring over Scripture for about a year, reading John Howard Yoder, Walter Wink and others, I felt I needed some conversation partners on the subject. I was introduced to Rev. Jeff Wright, a Mennonite pastor in LA. Jeff started giving me more reading material by John Driver, Gerhard Lohfink, Donald Kraybill, Hendrik Berkhof, Andre Trocme, and early Anabaptist writers such as Menno Simons and Pilgram Marpeck.

I never understood nonviolence in the common passive understanding of pacifism. In fact, it was Jeff that showed me the bravery, strength and justice within nonviolent engagement with the world. Similar to what I learned through my many talks with Jeff, in his recent book, Just Courage, Gary Haugen–the founder and CEO of International Justice Mission (IJM)–has equated violence to the absence of justice. And Jeff connected this to a more holistic view of the Gospel for me.

These are all ideas that I could go further into but not today. Today, I am focusing on what I learned about faith and violence on September 11, 2001.

Radical convictions have consistently–throughout history and currently–proven to lead to violence, eventually. My simple conclusion has been that if we are to be people that believe full-heartedly in something, than nonviolence must be a fundamental piece to that. Otherwise, the outcome of all radical or fundamentalist convictions seems inevitable: violence. Even then, violence will happen. I realize that. But that was the impetus for my landing within the Anabaptist tradition. I recognize that there is more to Anabaptism than a theological framework for nonviolence. But today, I remembering that this is where it began for me.

The term "nonviolence" is a negative. The question continues to be what is the positive of such a term. It seems to be found in several words that are practically and theologically profound: love, forgiveness, reconciliation, justice. We simply require an understanding of these terms that deliberately excludes violence as an option. (For more practical insights to this check out Glen Stassen's Just Peacemaking)

That may be part of the reason why our community is so eclectic and egalitarian. It has been a consistent tangible application of that nonviolent ethic. We welcome and intend to reconcile our varied traditions through our common life and we refuse to allow one to dominate the others. Addressing division and dominance in our midst are certainly subtle forms of violence in comparison to what we hear on the news. Yet, this is where it begins for us.

C. Wess Daniels' most recent video post on the subject of worship got me thinking about a few things. I love it in Daniels' video when he says that he is growing to appreciate both liturgy and unprogrammed forms of worship. This may seem contradictory. But it is more common than you may have thought. Lots of people seem to simultaneously appreciate highly participatory, egalitarian forms of worship while also appreciating liturgical practices as well. A year ago I was at the going way party for my Episcopal friend Mike Angell at Blue Foot. I talked, for quite some time, with a priest about the work of James McClendon. Even as a committed Episcopal, he appreciated Anabaptist theology. This also reminds of the radio interview that Jarrod McKenna did in which another proponent for Anabaptist theology and practice was an Anglican. Or the N.T. Wright lectures to an emerging church group where he says that he finds it odd that many young people attracted to his writing have ecclesiological ties to Anabaptism yet he is an Anglican bishop "living in a castle." Many of the people that I've been tracking with for 7 years or so lead communities that look and feel like churches tied to Free Church traditions. Yet, many of us appreciate and follow liturgical traditions such as praying the hours, the Lectionary, celebrating Eucharist/Lord's Table at each meeting, etc. And there are now prayer books coming from "low church" traditions such as the Missio Dei Breviary and the Anabaptist Prayer Book. At one time, this would have seemed odd for the melding of such different traditions. But it doesn't seem to be the case any longer. It used to be "either/or" but it seems more frequent to be "both/and" today. This certainly has something to do with our culture and this particular point in history. But it also says something about the meaning of denominations and traditions. And it says something about the state of the Church as well. And this dialog mostly leaves out the forms of worship that have been developed in recent history among evangelical traditions (which is interesting, but probably a good thing in my opinion)... But I'm interested in what others have to say this morning... What do you think?

We hadn't planned on going to the Walkabout last night. But since we got home from a family birthday party a little earlier than expected we peaked into Citizen Video to watch The Paddle Boat play a few songs (they are fantastic, by the way). I walked into The Grove, our great little neighborhood gift shop, to say "hi" to someone real quick and saw the book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. I'm already reading enough books right now, I know. But I picked it up. I got interested in this book by Clay Shirky after reading Jonny Baker's posts on the "Network of Christ" in which he refers to Shirky's book. They are very good. You can check out Baker's series here, here, here, and here. I only read the first two chapters last night, but I am intrigued. In short (from what I've read so far and gleaned from Baker's assessment), Shirky discusses how people organize themselves in ways that are not dependent upon our typical organizational structures. As an anabaptist, I like this non-hierarchical approach. But one thing that Shirky also seems to be saying is that people associate as they please and at different levels, so get used to it... that's just the way it is now. This is something that Joe Myers talked about in his book, The Search to Belong: Rethinking Intimacy, Community, and Small Groups. This, I'm not sure how I feel about. Again, as an anabaptist, I feel the need for some kind of call to discipleship, a radical ethic. Either way, I'm enjoying the read.

Onto another great blog series I found recently: Magpie Girl has some great posts on starting communities. The posts are practical, feminine (which we need more of) and just plain great. Check 'em out here, here, here and here.

I haven't been able to be as involved in this project as much as I would have liked in the last 6 months, but the Common Root is really growing and taking shape. If you are drawn towards a more "anabaptistic" Christian expression, I'd recommend you go check out CR. I've started a CR group for San Diego-Tijuana. If you are any where around San Diego (or So Cal) or Tijuana (or Baja in general), please go sign up to be a part of our group. Together with the Center for Anabaptist Leadership we can try to gather like minded folks across the region.

JesusRadicals.com has undergone a huge overhaul! Among other new things, it now includes free material (including video footage) by a variety of radical Christian thinkers include Dorothy Day and John Howard Yoder. The Yoder clip alone is worth checking it out! Enjoy.

Dr. Juan Martinez is now blogging! Dr. Martinez is a professor at Fuller and formerly the rector of the Latin American Anabaptist Seminary in Guatemala City, Guatemala. Hearing lots of good stuff about this guy and hoping I can take a class with him sooner than later. Hope you can read Spanish.

The Evans' clan has been on a summer road trip since Friday. We spent the night in Bakersfield and drove into San Jose for the Mennonite Church USA Convention on Saturday. We're staying here through Wednesday a.m. and then we head up to San Francisco.

We weren't too excited about staying in Bakersfield but it was a good halfway point and by the time we got into town we were glad to stop at 3am. We lucked out on Saturday morning finding a cool, local diner for breakfast (see Paige's self-potrait drawn at breakfast). And an independent and organic coffee shop on the way out of town.

I spoke on Sunday evening at the Urban Leaders Network event and then today I led a panel discussion today and spoke on another panel about new models of church. Thanks to all who helped put that together. A highlight was meeting Nekiesha Alexis-Baker one of the minds behind JesusRadicals.com. Also, met a bunch of other great folks doing great stuff in urban settings. Got to talk with Tim, one of the developers behind the Anabaptist Network and Young Anabaptist Radicals which was cool too. He spent sometime in the UK with Stuart Murray.

Overall, the conference has been fun. Hanging out with the family has been a blast. Speaking kinda wears me out so we got lunch at a great vegan deli, Good Karma, ran through the park and have been chillin' in the hotel room ever since. My talk last night got mixed reactions. The benefit of me being an outsider with this group (we're Anabaptist out of conviction, not heritage or need for ecclesiastic resources or politics) is that I could say things that others would get in trouble for. They can't really do anything to me, except tell Fuller not to let me in. But the PSWMC has got my back I'm pretty sure.

When I give talks, I usually don't script out the whole thing. But I'll post my notes later on for those who might be interested. Right now, my daughter wants to play.