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Challenging the "Claibornagains" on Justice

Posted Jun 29, 04:15 PM | 4 comments | by Editor | Link

UPDATE: CNN.com posted a feature article and video tonight on Shane Claiborne and the “Jesus for President” tour (click to view):

Claiborne tells CNN, “This is not about going left or right, this is about going deeper and trying to understand together.”

Zack Exley had a great post yesterday over at Revolution in Jesusland, where he* challenges the conventional wisdom that says, “Give a man a fish, and he eats for a day; Teach a man to fish and he eats forever.”

Exley writes, “Teaching people to fish is great. But what if no one has access to the river? What about when the right to fish is controlled by some greedy landowner who, thanks to his ancestors’ violent behavior, was born into ownership of all the river banks?

“Then what do you do? You can teach a man to fish, but he has no where to fish. It’s a very good analogy for the economic situation of most of the people alive today, who have no access to any means of making a living.”

(*Note: Commenting on the post, Jamie Moffett gives credit to Dr. John Perkins for asking this question some years ago, and Shane Claiborne quoted Perkins in his book The Irresistable Revolution.)

Exley goes on to ask, “Would it be so bad for the people on the island to peacefully take the creek back from the guy who thinks he has the right to own it?

“Because of their democracy it would not be a violent act. But it would be an act of force—just economic and legal force though, not physical force.

“I submit that this is the main question that Americans will have to wrestle with for the next 50 years.”

According to Exley, “skeptics” and “theists” approach this question through radically different traditions. He criticizes the “various tax and regulation schemes” of the “skeptics,” and says, “The Theists, especially the Christians, are our only hope. Unfortunately … they are currently conflating political ‘force’ (taking the creek back through peaceful legislative means) with violence. And so they’re totally opposed to taking back the creek. Instead they want to pray for the owner and reason with him.”

This, says Exley, is where the “Claibornagains” (the “ordinary radicals” in the vein of Shane Claiborne) come into the picture. Exley says that they “have some access to the creek themselves. And so they have this experience of providing access to others … e.g., forming communities in solidarity with the poor who, through connection to middle class people, then get job recommendations, bits of capital through mechanisms like the microloans or relational tithe, etc. (You can find the same story on the secular left.) It is definitely a very good story, when it actually happens.”

But Exley writes, “Meanwhile, five billion people languish with no hope in sight—and no connection to any rich American Christians, or anyone else, to allow access to the creek. Is the proper Rich Christian response really to say to that majority of humanity, ‘Just wait until one of us comes to befriend you’? A (peaceful) political movement to grant access to the creek would lift billions out of poverty. Why not do it?”

Read the whole thing

(HT: Mike Todd)

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Welcome to the Reader's Forum

1Zack Exley 06/30/2008 03:19 AM

As I’ve since posted (http://revolutioninjesusland.com/index.php/2008/06/29/what-an-idiot/ ) I sure feel dumb for not remembering that Shane addressed this exact concern in Irresistible Revolution.

Also – I don’t see this as a ‘challenge’ to anyone. I’ve just been asking, “Can’t we add, to what the movement is already doing, an element of national/international/large-scale/long-term political organizing? There is a widespread dogma that says we can’t. And I’m just trying to engage that dogma.

Unfortunately my old lefty background always makes me sound like a crank. I’m workin’ on it! ;-)

2Jonathan Brink 06/30/2008 03:39 AM

I would offer that any political scenario we suggest typically leaves out the movement of God. Second, most scenarios still offer a non-violent solution that calls us to love our oppressor and allow God to remove that oppression through other means.

Unfortunately, It’s just easier to pick up an axe and fight back as we’re seeing in S. Africa.

3Steve K. 06/30/2008 03:41 AM

Hey Zack,

Thanks for commenting. I included that info with appropriate links so people would be in the loop. Don’t feel dumb! I think how you handled that was good.

Obviously, I think what you’re suggesting by asking the question is “a challenge” to those of us who are seeking to live into God’s justice, or at the very least the implementation of what you’re suggesting will be “challenging” to our preconceptions and our lifestyles.

I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to think you were being “cranky,” though! Thanks for engaging the dogma—and challenging us (in a good way) in the process.

4Kate Murray 06/30/2008 11:05 AM

In reading Zack’s comments, I recalled an experience I had during a border immersion experience on the US-Mexico border five years ago.

Those along the border advocating for immigrants (both legal and illegal) used the same analogy of teaching a man to fish but added a third step, moving over and giving him a space at the lake in order to fish.

I agree with Zack and Shane that we who are in such positions of power need to change the system, allowing more people the space to fish.