June 15, 2010

Filmmaker Nicole Holofcener is intrigued by problems. Not gigantic problems, such as asteroids hurtling toward Earth or the destruction of rain forests, but smallish personal problems: coping with a best buddy’s wedding, dealing with a pushy mother, realizing that you’re not as successful as your longtime friends. Holof cener addresses these and other problems in Walking and Talking (1996), Lovely and Amazing (2001) and Friends with Money (2006).

When Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona in late April signed a bill authorizing local police to apprehend people suspected of having entered the country illegally, she brought to national attention the tensions and frustrations that many Arizonans feel when it comes to immigration. These tensions are evident in congregations, which contain a wide range of opinions on immigration policy. The tensions are also acutely felt in congregations that work closely with immigrants and in those that are made up of immigrants.

Likely no culture has been so ignorant and contemptuous of place as is contemporary industrialized society. We may not even qualify as a culture, since that word generally connotes a form of social organization that connects people and places through time. By that criterion, industrialized society fails miserably. Its practices of blowing away mountains to extract coal or razing forests on a continental scale to grow animal feed reveal its essential characteristics: disregard for time and contemptuousness of place.

There is an intersection in central Nairobi known as “five churches corner” (one of the buildings is actually a synagogue). But then nearly every urban intersection in Kenya features a church or two. From my flat on Daystar University’s city campus each Sunday morning, and on weekday evenings as well, my wife and I can hear the singing of two or three nearby congregations, which mix Western hymns, Kiswahili praise songs and contemporary Christian choruses.

When our United Methodist Annual Conference urged pastors to create covenant peer groups as a way to maintain connection, seven of my colleagues and I agreed to meet every other week for a few hours of prayer and conversation, mutual accountability and “resourcing.” It seemed appropriate when one of our meetings was scheduled for the Feast of St. Benedict; after all, what we are doing feels a little bit monastic. It seemed inappropriate, however, when in the middle of our religious conversation a pastor pulled out a BlackBerry and checked for messages.