It's hard not to admire Shane Claiborne. I don't agree with him on everything, but I respect him not only for his advocacy for poor people but also for the fact that he's not some activist blowing hot air from a house in suburbia. He walks the talk and lives his ministry.
His recent blog posts at God's Politics have been somewhat challenging for me. I'm heavily involved in cross-cultural and inner city ministry, but I don't claim for a second to know a fraction of what Shane Claiborne knows about it. Still, I do have some insight to offer. (I'm only going to cover a few points. There's enough in Shane's two posts for me to blog about for a month.)
Shane writes:
There are many journalists who want to do stories on "New Monasticism" or "The Simple Way," and we have become very sensitive to the dangers of this. Usually they want to portray the relocating white folks like myself as saints, saviors, and sacrificial heroes moving into a poor neighborhood. This is garbage and incredibly hurtful to the dignity of our neighbors.
Good for Shane. He goes on to say that he has refused to allow cameras into his community because they insist on filming primarily at the original community (mostly white) instead of at a more diverse, indigenous community. When I moved into an economically challenged neighborhood and started working with teenagers, I got over the idea really quickly that I had something great to offer. If anything, I've received a lot more ministry than I've given.
We have currently initiated several projects to work against the homogeneity of "the movement." Every month we host a gathering on radical discipleship (for four days) that is limited to around 20 folks to insure diversity (old/young, male/female, ethnicity, denominational). This means that we have to limit the number of white folks (and end up saying no to about 20 for each white participant who comes).
I'm not sure I'm on the same page with Shane on this one. While every situation is different, from my experience, if I start trying to somehow manipulate race and gender percentages because things aren't as "diverse" as I want them to be, I find myself working against what God is doing. Our youth ministry has been very successful reaching Latino and African-American males. When I've tried to bring in more girls or more white kids for diversity's sake, we've lost something. So I try to make everyone feel welcome and I push for diversity, but I stop short of trying to force anything.
As a speaker, I regularly turn down speaking engagements that do not have women or people of color in the lineup, and I let the organizers know why. I believe that every critique I give comes with the responsibility to try and suggest alternatives, so I also recommend women and people of color who are dynamic communicators to speak in my stead.
While I respect what Shane is trying to do here, it seems counterproductive to me. Why not accept the speaking engagements and use them as opportunities to persuade his audiences to make changes? Besides, a little chastising always makes speaking engagements interesting.
Shane Claiborne is going on sabbatical for a month. I'm looking forward to what else he has to say on the topic of reconciliation when he gets back.
Comments