pat loughery

[UPDATE – Added a second blog entry from Shane Claiborne below]

Many of you, I know, are deeply interested in intentional community, spiritual formation in community, and issues of diversity in the Christian church. Here are some excellent and important posts on these topics that I want to recommend to you:

In the first post, Reconciliation’s Challenge for New Monastic Communities (by Jason and Vonetta Storbakken of the Radical Living community in NYC), Jason and Vonetta write:

One of the 12 marks of New Monasticism is the “lament for racial divisions within the church and our communities, combined with the active pursuit of a just reconciliation.” Although most do “lament” the racial divisions in our society, one is hard-pressed to find a leader in New Monasticism who is not a middle-class white male. However, the problem is not with their class, color, or gender, but that there has yet to be an “active pursuit” of reconciliation realized within the myriad of intentional communities that have sprouted across the U.S.

They continue:

New Monastic communities need to be redemptive communities where all, regardless of ethnicity, national identity, or economic status, are invited to participate in the communal rhythm of Christian living

Obviously this is at least as true of new monastic communities as it is any Christian community. I suspect that the issue is being raised in this flavor of the church because it is the arm of the church which is intentional community, is deeply incarnational, and is prophetic in lifestyle. If diversity is not intentionally pursued in this vanguard of the church, it’s even more difficult to imagine it happening elsewhere.

The conversation continues with a response, Baby Steps as We Crawl Toward Reconciliation (by Shane Claiborne). In this response, Shane writes:

Probably the most personally painful lament and failure of our communities is around race and reconciliation; we are at times paralyzed by the deep history and slimy elusiveness of racial injustice and so-called “privilege.”

Shane is perhaps the best-known practitioner of new monasticism today (itself an odd juxtaposition,but Shane appears to be handling the issue humbly). He continues with his community’s approach to diversity, which I’ll summarize here:

• Submit to leadership of color.
• Submit to neighborhood leadership.
• Submit to local pastors and congregations.
• Media Savvy.
• Rethinking Language.

In a second post, Shane writes More Baby Steps as We Crawl Toward Reconciliation (by Shane Claiborne), in which is describes his own approach within the larger church community beyond The Simple Way.

Go and read all three posts – (and I’m sure that there will be more in this conversation), but think deeply about this. If the Kingdom of God is about all tribes, cultures, languages and perspectives, and if we humans tend to gather with those like us and not those unlike us, how can you intentionally practice diversity as a Kingdom practice?

I ask because I struggle deeply with this myself. I need to learn from others who are unlike me. I know that my perspective isn’t particularly right; it’s just what I’m used to – and that’s the dangerous part. I am intentionally pursuing friendships with people who challenge me and who live differently from me and who think and act differently from me, who will call BS on my blind spots.

But it’s harder to do that in a faith community context because our local community is very monochrome. As my wife and I are starting to gather a small group, the local folks that we know are all white – richer and poorer, younger and older, but all white. Our local friends are all white. Our neighbors are all white. We need diversity.

As a white, upper-middle-class man, is it possible to lead a diverse community which is localized to North Bend and Snoqualmie, Washington?

As Eliacin Rosario-Cruz, a friend and fellow communitarian, recently said, “The current wave of New Monasticism needs the life and spirit that minorities bring because it is a more complete expression of what the kingdom is, not the other way around.”