Late Capitalism Viewed From Above Having arrived in Seattle under wildfire smoke that makes breathing here worse than in Beijing, I proceed to go on a run that offers the worst and the best of America. Seattle University is in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood. It’s a beautiful, compact little Jesuit campus. Time zone changes woke me early, so I got out on a run in the early hours (the smoke advisory said not to… I did anyways). When you turn... Read more
Post-program is already here. Now what? Don’t do surveys in post-program church “Surveying a congregation about the kinds of programs they want will not help congregations be effective.” (John Wimberly) If you are like me, as a church-leader you see-saw back and forth, one day convinced you have finally landed on the solution to all the woes of community organizing, then later that afternoon slightly despondent because you have discovered you actually have no idea what you’re doing. 21st century... Read more
I’ve been thinking a lot these days about youth culture and progressive faith-based organizing. Maybe it’s the stage of life we’re in, with our children slowly growing into adolescence, while we parents find ourselves startled in middle-age. Maybe it’s the only move I know to sustain hope in these times. Focus on the children as our future. I’m not quite sure. Whatever the reason, I’ve got youth on my mind, and their role in sustaining a better civic imagination in... Read more
Let me tell you a story. This summer I, some youth, and a bunch of cell phones (and their chargers) attended the ELCA Youth Gathering in Houston, Texas. We rode a bus (overnight) from Arkansas to Houston. Overnight, because every good youth trip adult leaders have to start out exhausted. We used our phones all night. Like all good youth leaders (from the 90s), I brought a stack of DVDs for the bus ride. But we didn’t really use any... Read more
How does this happen? An artist, Nate Powell, who holds the distinction as the first cartoonist ever to win the National Book Award (for the John Lewis authored civil rights era March trilogy) follows that project up with a mysterious (even spooky) graphic novel about an “intentional community” in the Ozarks. Come Again by Nate Powell comes as a surprise. As I was reading my advance copy this summer, I kept asking myself, “How did Nate ever move towards this project... Read more
Although I love nuance, and appreciate irony, I am by disposition overly direct and sometimes too on the nose. I find it difficult to engage in strategic obliquity. If you tell me something, but really mean something else by it, I may not pick up on the subtext. That’s a confession. But I need to confess it, because it helps explain why I’ve become sensitive to the overly direct nature of communication in our charged political moment. I believe truth-tellers... Read more
Let’s talk about immigrants and the president a bit more. You’ve probably seen the video, but in case you haven’t, watch Donald Trump read The Snake. He performs it often, even though the daughter of the author of the poem has asked him to stop. Trump has been rehearsing the lie that immigrants and refugees are like snakes for so long, you’d think he’d have the poem memorized by now. Blame-shifting of Herculean proportions keeps our attention off a simple... Read more
Agency and colonialism in Hawaii If you drive up to the northwest corner of the Big Island of Hawaii, you arrive at Pu’ukohola Heiau National Historic Site. It’s quite a drive. Most of the land is covered with volcanic rock from lava flows, and the places that are green (mostly resorts) have been terraformed, green slivers hugging the shore near the amazing beaches that limn the island. Green islands on an island (for example). Keep going and head east along the... Read more
I walked into our campus bible study at the University of Arkansas with a reader’s edition of Bonhoeffer’s Discipleship in hand. Eleanor Neel, an active member of the Bonhoeffer Society (she volunteers in various capacities with them, is a deep scholar of Bonhoeffer, and last year brought Victoria Barnett, editor of Bonhoeffer’s Works in English, to Fayetteville for a lecture), sometimes attends the study. She noted I was holding Discipleship, and said, “You know, Bonhoeffer later said he could see... Read more
Here’s a thought experiment: I’m sure you know churches that host soup kitchens, or groups of Christians who serve food through hunger ministries. Am I right? Now, let me ask: do you know churches who simply get together and then go eat at soup kitchens? The difference between serving a free meal, or gathering with all those who need a free meal in order to eat with them, is navigated according to the parameters of “respectability.” I’m going to leave “respectability”... Read more
Clint Schnekloth
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