Circle of Hope

On Deciphering Two Ways of Justice in the Neighborhood

I read Circle of Hope (found HERE) with a haunting bit of sadness. Eliza Griswold, a journalist, professor, writer, does some “immersive journalism” (as she describes it) on the Circle of Hope church (from now on referred to as CoH) in Philadelphia. And she ends up telling the story of the sad demise of a very good church. She offers an unusually detailed, honest and clear narration of how antagonisms tore at the fabric of this very good church. Names were mentioned. Excruciating details were offered. All in all, in my view, she tells the tale of how a “justice- centered church” can go bad. And I think this is a laudable accomplishment that should be a help to us all.

Allow me to define my terms. By “justice centered church” I mean a church which centers its life on social justice issues because Jesus, whom the church follows, teaches us to pursue justice. All we who love Jesus surely buy into this conviction. But in carrying this out, justice can become the thing that defines the gathered church. It becomes the reason why we gather. And then if we’re not careful, although we’re doing justice in the name of Jesus, we’re doing it without Jesus.

The alternative to “justice centered church” is “Jesus centered church.” Jesus centered church participates in justice work as a part of living under the Lordship of Jesus. His Lordship and reign is over the whole world. And “He shall reign until all enemies have been made subject”(1 Cor 15:25). And so justice is a manifestation of His reign and working among us. It is the natural outworking of who we are as people living life in the Kingdom under Jesus in the neighborhood. A truly “Jesus centered church” cannot help become a church of God’s justice.

Centering a church’s life together under Jesus changes who is the one actually doing the justice. It is not “we doing it, in Jesus’ name.” It is God in Jesus Christ at work in the world doing it, and we are participating.  Centering our life in Jesus changes the way we do justice (we discern and participate in what God is doing), and it changes our posture as we enter the worlds of injustice. And this difference, I declare, makes all the difference.

But What Could Go Wrong?

At first glance, a justice centered church, i.e. a church that centers justice in its identity, seems completely right. This is the way Jesus centered churches should be? Jesus is for justice, Jesus teaches justice, Jesus proclaims justice. Therefore let us people of Jesus go organize and do justice. What could go wrong? For me, this is what reading Circle of Hope reveals.

What happens with CoH church, in my view, is that justice slowly starts to precede Jesus in the order of practicing life together as church. The pattern of justice work becomes: first, define justice, second, diagnose the injustice according to the definition, and then third, go work for that diagnosis to be enacted. In the process, we separate justice from the actual person and work of Jesus present in and working among us and in the neighborhoods where we live. Justice turns from something Jesus is doing, to something we do in Jesus’ name. Justice is something Jesus teaches us about and then we go do it, in the name of following Him.

This may seem all fine and dandy, but it is here where things CAN go wrong. In this process, justice becomes a concept separated from Jesus. We define it, we argue for it, we become the experts on it. Then we, the church pastors, proceed to lead by diagnosing what is happening among us and around us, using this concept of justice to tell people what to do.

This process - making justice into a concept we know, diagnose, argue for and then implement – sets us up to impose justice on people through power over people. It sets the leaders up as arbiters of such justice. It elevates the leaders onto a platform and posture over the others. And if such leaders convince the rest of the church as well that “we too are the ones who know justice,” well then “we the church” enter our neighborhoods with the same posture of ostentatiousness, of power over these people. “We are better than you.” The very people arguing against colonialism become the new colonialists.

The thing is, this process may “work” provisionally for a time when ‘the experts’ have sufficient cultural capital to wield such authority. But because such justice work operates via the “power over” posture and the ability to convince others “I am right and you are wrong,” this all will grow tiresome, exhausting. This approach will work for the U.S. government, or NGO’s, who have sufficient money and resources to implement justice ‘solutions’ and keep it going. But these solutions will only be ‘preservatory’ solutions, and they will ‘work’ only as long as the money is there (I discuss at length these power dynamics HERE). And when justice turns into the experts “policing’ people, and few results on the ground actually happen that lead to flourishing and transformation of a way of life, people will walk away. The leaders will be crushed. And the ones who were doing this to feel good about themselves, will blame the others for being blind as bats to the issues of injustice. Again, this will work for a while if you got money (which many white social activists do), but it’s an ultimate dead end way to shape a church. And it achieves on-the-ground a modicum of what we could name as justice.

This process, to me, describes much of what happened to CoH in this book. In relation to racism for example (there were other justice issues being addressed at CoH such as LGBTQ+ sexuality, economics) CoH started out doing some brave things, engaging one another directly with how a person or a program marginalized persons of color. People asked genuine questions about the experience of “whiteness” in the CoH culture. But over time this turned into an “analysis of racism” (285), accusations and policing. And so one night at a congregational meeting, Marcus, a black CoH member, decides to challenge the leaders’ assessment. “What you’re calling white supremacy culture, I haven’t experienced that in the church.” Then Marcus questions if the church even “revolved around Jesus” anymore. He questioned whether the church had “the credibility to do work that’s God centered.” (286) When Julie, one of the pastors, tried to facilitate an open discussion, Marcus took it as Julie “whitesplaining” to him, as a Black man, what racism was.” (p. 287). In the midst of this incident, we see how “racism” and “whiteness” had now become concepts of analysis extracted out of practices of engagement to be argued over and policed by the leaders. Jesus had been left out of the social dynamic of transformation, where listening, hearing about a specific sin (of racism), deep understanding, repentance, reconciliation, healing, and interrelational social transformation can take place through the power, presence and work of Jesus Christ.  This “power over” dynamic then fed into antagonisms.

Any space for the presence of the living Christ was lost. And it was now just a matter of time before the church factioned, shriveled and died.

Ideologizing, Power, Posture.

‘Ideologizing’ is another way to describe this process that happened at CoH church. The book is a parable of how the process of ideologizing can very subtlety (emphasis here on very subtle) take over a church as it morphs from a Jesus-centered church to a justice-centered church. I want to emphasize this process is always subtle, debatable, and capable of being dismissed.

The process of ideologizing works by extracting a belief or idea out of its everyday life and turning it into a concept to be argued over, to diagnose others, gather a group around, and posture one self or the group over another (I’ve expounded on ideologizing HERE) It is a most subtle manifestation of coercive power. By its nature, it sets a person or group over another person or group. It creates postures of one person or group over another. Antagonism sets in. And all discipleship is lost.

In an episode at CoH, after the tragic and unjust murder of Walter Wallace Jr. by police in the Philadelphia neighborhood, many at the CoH “believed it was time for the church to speak out more forcefully against police brutality.” Three of CoH’s teams of activists circulated a statement calling for the dismantling of the Fraternal Order of Police, the labor union that critics claimed protected even its most murderous members. In a statement, they argued, we must “dismantle these institutions” in order to acquire “the blocks needed to build the Kingdom preached by our savior Jesus Christ.”

All of that may be, and most probably was, true. But what was missing was an attempt to actually go be with the police, go be among the meetings between the neighbors and police. Discern what God is doing. Tend to the Spirit. Be present in the places of injustice.

The social justice leaders argued that CoH must sign onto a statement to unify the church against the Fraternal Order of Police. This set into motion statements such as “if we are uncomfortable saying defund the police” then we are those people MLK jr. named from the Birmingham prison as “the stumbling block,” “the white moderate” who shies away from direct confrontation. (this episode is recounted in Circle of Hope pp. 120-122).

Again, the statement may truly have been warranted. But there was a rush to the statement as if it was a performative act. It set up any people who wanted to take the time to dialogue about it, be with persons in the neighborhood, as “the stumbling blocks.” The tactic itself was used to avoid serious discerning engagement with what God is doing in the neighborhood.  Jesus got lost. Discerning His presence got lost. Antagonism started to form. The seeds of frustration, exhaustion and destruction were planted.

The Justice Practices of a Jesus Centered Church

Justice, centered in Jesus, is defined out of a rich tradition of God with Israel (I like the little book by James Dunn – The Justice of God). It refers to a social state of righteousness, right relationships, justice as a social manifestation of healing, restored relationships, economic wholeness.  It is formed around God, who has made His presence real among us through Jesus Christ. Out of this presence, comes disruption of ideologies of injustice, repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation, restored inter-relationship, being with people, the (re)distribution of resources and care for one another, the proclaiming of the good news that God is at work having defeated death, evil and sin, if we can just make space for him.

Under Jesus, CoH’s statement against the Fraternal Order of Police could have still been an end result. The process to get there however, would be different.

Under Jesus, justice is a practice of everyday life. It is a way of living. It is a practice recognizing always the living presence of Jesus at work among us and through us. It is a practice of persons physically standing beside the exploited in an act of resistance, a demonstration, physically being present to the oppressed, participating in the actual distribution of resources among the needy, practicing inter-relationally the work of reconciliation among brokenness and conflict. It is being with the people hurt by the police, being among the police, inviting and setting a table in the neighborhood for all to eat. Being in all of these places, making space for Jesus to work, so that people can see, organize and allow Jesus through a people to disrupt and transform a situation or system of injustice. This happens issue by issue, person to person, within a system, relationship to relationship, village president to citizen, police officer to community liaison, etc., etc.. In any of these spaces discipleship happens, changes happen, neighborhoods get transformed, and many find Jesus as Lord of their lives. It only actually takes one space for a massive transformation to be set afire.

In this Jesus centered practice of justice, when I racialize another, I say things, act out or justify things I’m doing via racism, and my fellow Christian comes to me humbly and speaks sincerely into my life about a specific incident, and then asks, do you see what I am seeing? I by the Spirit see it. I confess. I repent. Slowly I begin to see and change and grow. Systems get disrupted, because inter-relationally we see things we did not see before. Systems repent. Board of trustees repent. School boards repent. Many times people will not see what needs to be seen. But this too is part of the process. We will grow as the Spirit works and separates those who will follow Jesus from those who walk the other way. Justice is a practice of everyday life.

When we engage injustice like this, as a “Jesus-centered church,” a different social dynamic is set into motion.  Jesus is Lord of the world. He is at work in the world reconciling the world to Himself (2 Cor 5:19). He works not through imposition, or worldly power, power over people. He works through His presence among us unleashed by the victory of God worked in Christ over sin, death and evil, and His now reigning over us, wherever we might submit to His power and join with Him. Disruption might happen. There might be violence unleashed (think of the violence unleashed at the Pettus Selma bridge, Bloody Sunday,  at the 1965 MLK led march) but it is the violence of the world as its systems become undone, not the violence of Jesus Himself.

All that to say, under Jesus, there is no posturing over, there is only a gathering with.

Caveat

I see the Circle of Hope book as extraordinarily helpful in reflecting on the questions I am posing in this post. I also realize that the CoH story is told from only Griswold’s perspective and that some might say I missing certain places in the story where Circle of Hope is living everything Fitch is calling for. It could be. It’s quite an expansive narrative. Nonetheless, even if I’ve missed something, I think the story offers an opportunity to think through these questions, and I’m most interested in reading in the comments what your take is on my take!!! Thanks for reading. Please comment!!\