SCUPE Blog

In the past few weeks I have been thinking about how to read and social movements as sacred texts. My thinking is prompted by reading George Zachariah’s recently published excellent book “Alternatives Unincorporated: Earth Ethics from the Grassroots” (Equinox: 2011). George teaches at Gurukul Lutheran Theological Seminary in Chennai, India and did his Ph.D. at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.

“God is still speaking — don’t put a full stop where God has put a comma” says the United Church of Christ slogan from a few years ago. George makes a strong and convincing case that God is still speaking through the subaltern social movements. Of course, we knew this for a long time as we experienced, for example, the Gandhian movement in India and the Civil Rights movement in the US. George’s book tells us why is the case.

If so, where can we discern God speaking, and how? Is God in the Occupy Wall Street protest? If so, was God also in the Tea Party protest? If not, why not?

In today’s USA Today blog entitled Occupy Wall Street Protest has a Spiritual Side, Cathy Lynn Grossman summarizes some religion writers’ take on this question.She writes, for example:

“At the Jesuit magazine America, Tom Beaudoin, associate professor of theology at Fordham University, compared the protests to religious rituals:

… when they embody visions of a possible future that influence the larger social imagination, and when they sculpt the desires of the protestors themselves for the better. In these ways, resistance can become symbolic action, protests become like religious ritual — and in those ways, even more important.

 I welcome your thoughts on how to discern God’s presence in social movements such as occupy wall street. Please use the comment link below.

On October 1st 18 of us gathered at the Inspiration Kitchen in the west side of Chicago. Some of us were students and seminary faculty, some alumni of SCUPE, some who were involved in the issue of urban farming and eco-justice. We boarded a van for a 20 minute drive to Growing Power’s Iron Street Farm located in the south side of Chicago.

The Iron Street Farm is rather new, having started its operations in May this year, but its still impressive for what it has been able to do. Two things were particularly startling to me: that much of the work and energy is being put into preparing compost, and a technology called aquaponics.

At the iron Street Farm -- trying to understand what worms do!

Erika Allen who runs the Farm explained how worms are a basic ingredient to creating the foundation for good farming. They break down the soil and its nutrients such that artificial fertilizers are not needed in the farm. I am sure that fertilizer manufacturers will have a different take on the question. Having followed the incredible organizing work of Vandana Shiva of India, I am familiar with agro-business giants like Monsanto who in the early days were into fertilizers are now pushing genetically modified seed on Indian farmers. This is a question I would like further explore.

Aquaponics is a technology that uses a system of water circulation that gets waste matter from fish to plants. This is a great example of recycling water to get maximum advantage. I can imagine how miniature systems can be used in people’s apartments or in small urban farm lots to great advantage.

Chicago Lights Urban Farm: Carrots and Sky Scrapers

Next we visited Chicago Lights Urban Farm, a project of the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago. This was a great example of what a church can do. Many churches have  yards and properties that they own, in which, this kind of projects can be undertaken. What was interesting here was that the concrete on the ground was intentionally intact. This does not inhibit plant growth, because the beds are raised from the ground and the compost provides substantial nutrients that the roots do not need to go so deep in search of them.

Following a drive through a food desert area along Madison Avenue, we returned to Inspiration Kitchen for reflection and lunch. The story of this rather new restaurant is also inspiring. It too uses an urban gardens for their vegetables, provides training for young people in the restaurant business and have a coupon system for low-income families to have a meal.

Urban Immersion, typical of SCUPE’s educational method required us to reflect on our experience. We noted that we had just scratched the surface of the problem and one solution. It was clear to us however, that we had just participated in a technology that can be replicated in church yards and kitchens across the city. If we can get churches, particularly those located in the vicinity of food deserts to create urban farms, this would be one good answer to the question before us.

Speaking of churches, just yesterday I was thrilled to discover Hell’s Kitchen Farm Project which is organized by Metro Baptist Church in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen neighborhood on the west side, where our family often worshipped when we lived in New York. I am sure there are many other examples.

I invite participants to post your own reflections using the comment link below.

Will Allen -- One of Time Magazine's most influential 100 people in 2010

Will Allen who founded Milwaukee’s Growing Power Inc. He was written up in Time as one of the most influential 100 people of 2010. He is in the forefront of a movement that is sprouting up in low-income neighborhoods, where sick of the fast foods and the scarcity of grocery stores, people are starting urban farms. “Everybody, regardless of their economic means, should have access to the same healthy, safe, affordable food that is grown naturally” says Allen.

SCUPE’s October 1st Urban Immersion Day will feature a visit Growing Power’s Chicago Project the Iron Street Urban Farm located at 3333 S. Iron Street, Chicago.The Iron Street project, which opened its doors this May received an official boost when Mayor Rahm Emmanuel visited the farm and used the occasion to propose an ordinance that could make growing and selling fresh produce in Chicago much easier.The program will conclude at Inspiration Kitchen in Garfield Park in Chicago’s west side, which also opened its doors in May.

For an update on Chicago’s food issues read this article from yesterday’s Chicago Tribune.

Finally, SCUPE’s fall course on “Eco-Justice: A Vision for a Sustainable City“ begins October 14th. For more information please call: 312-726-1200 or email: dody@scupe.com

Wendell Pierce as Antoine Batiste in HBO's “Treme." (Paul Schiraldi/HBO)

Six years ago, the city of New Orleans was devastated. Today, the city is still struggling, its development measured not so much by years, but by decades. One indication of its struggle is the food deserts in many parts of the city. Wendell Pierce, the actor from “The Wire” and “Treme” and native of New Orleans has decided to invest in the food deserts by bringing in a new form of grocery store chain to low income communities. Grocers have historically been reluctant to open grocery stores in low income neighborhoods citing crime and transportation problems. But Pierce is planning to plant his “Sterling Farms” stores in just such neighborhoods.

Wendell Pierce’s commitment is to follow the lead of First Lady Michelle Obama’s program Let’s Move. Why shouldn’t people living in low-income neighborhoods have access to healthy food such as locally grown vegetables and fruits, he asks.

Click here to read an article on Wendell Pierce and Sterling Farms in the Washington Post Blog.

On October 1, join SCUPE’s friends in an Urban Immersion Day event to examine how this question affects Chicago. Call 312-726-1200 or write roger@scupe.com to reserve your place.

A Sermon by Shanta Premawardhana

Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago — September 19, 2011

What’s the closet grocery to store to here? Yes, 53^rd and Woodlawn, Hyde Park Produce – in easy walking distance. And it’s not too hard to carry a bag of good produce from there. If you need something other than what is available there, it’s not really too far to walk over to Treasure Island. A bit more expensive and a little harder to carry a bag of groceries home, but if you had an extra two dollars you might take the number 55 bus.

But what if you lived in the west of MLK blvd. in the Washington Park neighborhood? If you need to exchange your food stamps for groceries, your best bet is a liquor store. The city of Chicago has 1372 grocery or convenience stores that are licensed as Food stamp retailers, 9% have been found to be primarily liquor stores, and 44 of them are in those communities designated as food deserts. There are 8 such convenience stores in the Washington Park community and 4 are liquor stores. All three communities west of us, Washington Park, Grand Boulevard to the north and Greater Grand Crossing to the south are designated among the worst hit communities. And then, if you’ve ever driven on Garfield Blvd, have you counted the fast food restaurants. You should do that the next time you do. And of course, you can sometimes buy a burger for a dollar. So, what’s a single mother to do — go to the liquor store, or go to McDonald’s? Are you surprised that there are a disproportionate number of poor people who are obese and have diabetes? It is estimated that those who are poor die 6 years too early because of diabetes related illnesses. And this is the community that’s about 4 blocks from where we are right now. The only bright spark in this story is that in March of this year a Sav-a-Lot store was opened on 63^rd St. offering more healthy food options – vegetables and fruits.

This should not be surprising. Last week we learned from the US Census Bureau that the poverty rate in the US now stands at 15.1% or 46.2 million people.  And poverty is defined as families of four whose annual income is less than $22,314. African American and Latino communities and children suffered disproportionately from poverty. The rate for black children climbed to nearly 40% and Latinos accounted for 37% of the children in poverty.

At SCUPE we will explore this question of Food Deserts in Chicago. You might want to start with my blog site (scupe.com/blogs) on which we are putting up research and other material. Using our typical contextual method, SCUPE will have a one day urban immersion on Oct. 1 to immerse ourselves in the questions and struggles of the city, understand the assets that are already there – we will explore urban farms that are springing up as one answer to the problem — and then go to scripture and tradition to ask what it has to say about this. This October we will also have our Eco-Justice course where these issues will also be explored. Walter Brueggemann who spoke at our most recent Congress on Urban Ministry, on Peacemaking in a Culture of Violence, drove us in this direction when he spoke on Food Fights in the Bible. Indeed food is a theme that runs through the Bible and Exodus 16 is one of the primary texts.

There are two paradigms that characterize our relationship with food. One is the paradigm of scarcity where we come to believe that there is a limited supply of food, and thereby grow anxious and want to accumulate. Pharaoh, in the Exodus story is the archetypal accumulator. The other is the paradigm of abundance which believes that God who created this vast universe in all its wonder is faithful and reliable to provide enough for all of us, and in due course. Therefore we do not have to worry or grow anxious, rather we can be generous. Look at the lilies of the field said Jesus the archetype of the abundance paradigm – the ultimate Generous One. The food fight said Brueggemann, is between the two narratives, the two imaginations or ideologies. One narrative leads to the practice of accumulation which ends up with the violence of depriving people in our neighborhood with the most basic of human necessities, access to healthy food. The other narrative leads to the practice of peacemaking where the people of God, the God of abundance will be in the fore-front of the struggle to bring justice.

The people in Exodus 16, liberated from slavery in Egypt, now trekking through the wilderness must face the harsh realities of life outside the imperial system. Their first test of character, not surprisingly, is how they will sustain themselves. The ancient Israelites—like modern North Americans—couldn’t imagine an economic system apart from the Egyptian military-industrial-technological complex that enslaved them. So they complain to Moses: “Would that we had died at the Lord’s hand in the land of Egypt, as we sat by our fleshpots and ate our fill of bread! But you have led us into this desert to die of famine!” (Ex. 16:3)

This is not just a feeding miracle. It’s a story that illustrates Yahweh’s alternative to the Egyptian economy. God “raining bread from heaven” symbolizes cultivation as a divine gift, a process that begins with rain and ends with bread. This is a test to see if Israel will follow instructions on how to “gather”—a symbol in traditional societies for harvesting. The people’s first lesson outside of Egypt concerns economic production!

This story gives us the three defining characteristics of this alternative economic practice. First, every family is told to gather just enough bread for their needs (Exodus 16:16-18). In contrast to oppression and need they experienced in Egypt, here everyone has enough. “Those who gathered more had no surplus, and those who gathered less had no shortage.” In God’s economy there is such a thing as “too much” and “too little.” When did you ever hear that in the capitalistic economy?

Second, this bread should not be “stored up” (16:19-20). Wealth and power in Egypt was defined by surplus accumulation. You remember, when the Israelites were slaves their forced labor was to build “store cities.” When the empire went out and plundered another country or forced its people to pay tribute, they stored them in these store cities. The Bible understands that dominant regimes are good at accumulating labor, resources, and wealth into greater and greater concentrations of idolatrous power. So God’s people are told not to hoard wealth through strategies of accumulation, rather to circulate wealth through strategies of redistribution — like the Jubilee.

The third instruction introduces Sabbath discipline (Exodus 16:22-30). “On the sixth day, when they distribute what they bring in, it will be twice as much. Six days you shall gather; but on the seventh, which is a Sabbath, there will be none” I know many of us Christians tend to think of Sabbath as an arcane law from the ten commandments or some quaint little Jewish custom. The Sabbath is God’s strategy for teaching Israel about its dependence upon God: that land and wealth is a gift to share equitably and not a possession to hold and to exploit. It is a strategy to disrupt human attempts to control nature and maximize the forces of production.

Sabbath requires a leap of faith, a firm confidence that the world will continue to operate benevolently for a day without human labor, that God is willing and able to provide enough for the good life. Sabbath promises seven days of prosperity for six days of work. It operates on the assumption that human life and prosperity exceed human productivity.

This is one paradigmatic story in the Bible – but there are lots more. One can build the accumulation story through Pharaoh, to Solomon whose accumulations included 300 wives and 700 concubines and whose taxation of the poor caused enormous burdens in order to build among other things a temple, to the man in Jesus’ parable who built barns to store his produce and said to his soul (since he was all alone – accumulation deprives one of community) eat drink and be merry, but was called to meet his maker that night. One can also build the abundance paradigm through the Bible, all the way through the prophets (remember Amos) to the feeding of the 5000 and that most sacred of rituals where Christians come to the Thanksgiving table (Eucharistic table) to share food.

Our problem is this. The accumulation narrative is incredibly loud, persistent and ubiquitous. With few exceptions this is all you hear in the media. The abundance paradigm does not have such a megaphone. And people will hear and participate in it, may be once a week when they go to church. But they don’t hear it in church either, because we preachers are also caught up in the accumulation paradigm. Many, perhaps most of us, have lost the ability to think, speak and act prophetically.

Indeed, you and I are ourselves, caught between the two narratives – in a food fight. We are like the band of slaves running away from Pharaoh’s Egypt and like the band of disciples, clueless about how to understand the Generous One. We are caught between the two worlds. Our pilgrimage that began at baptism and is affirmed every time we receive the signs of grace offered to us at the communion table is one that must move us steadfastly from our allegiance to Pharaoh’s accumulation paradigm to Jesus’ abundance paradigm.

This, I suggest to you, is the purpose of theological education. To help all the people of God reach a place of spiritual maturity where they are able to cut through this din clearly and sharply, to look with prophetically critical eyes at the images that disguise the accumulation paradigm as the gospel and engage themselves and their world towards the Generous One, because nothing else is the gospel – the good news to the poor.

Immerse yourself in the realities of the city. Join us on October 1 as we tackle the issue that Michelle Obama has focused the US on eliminating by the year 2017: Food Deserts.

Currently there are 23.5 million American who live in Food Deserts. These are places without reasonable access to fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthy foods.

Urban Immersion Days are activities to which SCUPE invites its friends, alumni, local pastors and resource persons so we can learn together about a current issue that impacts people who live in the city. Immersions are the first step in trying to get a handle on the question. This will be followed by theological reflections and strategies that will ultimately help our students to know how to deal with these pressing issues.

Our theme for October 1 is Food Deserts. As Dr. George Kaplan, professor of Public Health at University of Michigan states: Food deserts are defined as “areas with no or distant grocery stores.” But the word “desert” is also a verb – “to leave someone without help or in a difficult situation and not come back.” The verb desert focuses on action and agency, emphasizing that the lack of access to good food in some areas is not a natural, accidental phenomenon, but is instead the result of decisions made at multiple levels by multiple actors.”

Many neighborhoods of Chicago have been designated Food Deserts. In a 2006 study commissioned by LaSalle Bank, researcher Mari Gallagher wrote that “African-American communities will be the most likely to experience the greatest total years of life lost from diabetes as a result.”

On October 1^st, we will visit two initiatives that seek to address this concern: one of the Growing Power urban farm projects (on Iron St. on the south side) and Inspiration Kitchen (in East Garfield Park on the west side) where we will have lunch together and reflect on our learnings. We will also talk with urban pastors and others who understand the issue from the community level.

Please continue to visit this blog as we post resources that will help our thinking on this question.

I invite you to join us for this important activity.

RSVP by emailing roger@scupe.com or by calling 312-726-1200

You are invited to hear the Rev. Dr. Brad Braxton, one of the most compelling African American scholars and preachers, present his lecture entitled : “Aiding and Abetting New Life: ‘Sex Talk’ in the Pulpit, Pew, and Public Square” at the 2011 Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr. Lecture.

The lecture is held annually to honor the work, thought, and legacy of the Rev. Dr.  Jeremiah Wright, one of the principal founders of the Center for African American Theological Studies.  Each year, the lecture presents African American scholar-practitioners who bring a theological and social critique that demands a leadership response from the African American church community and the academy.

Rev. Dr. Brad Braxton is Distinguished Visiting Scholar at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago, Illinois for the 2011-12 academic year.  He is an ordained Baptist minister and a respected voice among today’s progressive religious leaders.  He speaks and preaches at universities and in pulpits around the world.

The Center for African American Theological Studies (CAATS) is a program of SCUPE and partners with Virginia Union University’s Proctor School of Theology, Richmond, VA, to provide an opportunity for students to obtain a Master of Divinity degree rooted in an African centered approach to theological education.

CAATS seeks to equip and empower church and community leaders with critical tools to positively and powerfully impact the spiritual, moral, social and economic conditions of people living in the urban and global village.

Saturday, September 24, 2011
2:00 – 4:00 PM

Metropolitan Apostolic Community Church
4100 S. Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive
Chicago, IL 60653
Rev. Dr. Leon Finney, Jr., Senior Pastor

The lecture is free and open to the public.  Please RSVP by emailing dody@scupe.com or by calling 312-726-1200.

Beyond “Going Green”
Environmental Justice and the Church

By Clinton Stockwell

What if we read the Great Commission differently?  What if “go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” (Mark 16:15) meant that the Gospel is not just for everyone but for every part of creation - not just for individual persons, but for the whole created order. 

I believe that the Great Commission has the whole created order as its mandate.  That is, it is our role to pursue the redemption and renewal of the whole cosmos, not just individuals in it.  The pursuit of shalom must include the healing of the planet.

In an interconnected world, this is not just an option among many, but our collective obligation, central to the gospel and our place in the world as followers of Christ (Incarnation).  The Book of Romans notes that the whole creation currently “moans and groans,” awaiting its redemption and ultimate liberation.  We as individual persons are interconnected and interdependent with the creation in all of its facets.  If the planet is stressed out due to environmental challenges, so also are we as human beings – and all created beings as well.   The world today bears testimony of its extreme stress and vulnerability.

If this is our commission, if our mandate as Christians it to care for all creation, then we have been missing a crucial question in respect to how we do church. Namely, what is the church’s role in advocating for environmental justice and creating environments where justice thrives?

This fall, students as SCUPE will address these issues in the class “Eco-Justice: A Vision for a Sustainable City.”  The course will develop a holistic vision for a sustainable city as an outworking of the concept of Shalom: a just peace.  The course is taught by myself and Pam & Lan Richert, co-directors of the Eco-Justice Collaborative.  We will explore workable solutions to today’s environmental challenges.  We will consider alternative visions for cities as sustainable habitats.   We will empower participants with the skills, understanding and strategies that they can implement in their own communities.  It is a course that combines readings and discussions in the classroom with an experiential engagement with the city in context.  The course is critically relevant, in that its themes are about the future and the well-being of the planet, and the future of human social constructions (cities) that depend on it.

In a world where questions of sustainability, climate change and global warming are dominant, I believe that it is incumbent upon the church to reclaim its witness and presence in the real world.

Thus, this course has an abiding relevance.  How do people of faith or persons of good will live out their compassion and love for the world today?  How do churches relate to their parishes and communities in a holistic manner?  For we are not just spirits floating above the fray, but we are embodied beings whose very essence is dependent upon a healthy cosmos.  It is our mission, and also in our collective interest, to pursue the Shalom of the earth, and of the city as the embodied human presence.

I hope that many of you will come join us as we seek to understand and create hopeful options for a fragile planet and a vulnerable earth community.  The course is offered the last three weekends of October, 2011.  Contact SCUPE for more information.

Clinton Stockwell, MUPP (Masters of Urban Planning and Policy), PhD
SCUPE Adjunct Faculty

Click on image for report by Mari Gallagher

Yesterday’s news from the US Census Bureau states that those who are below the poverty line in the United States is now 15.1%. One in six persons who live in the United States lives in poverty. Chicago Tribune reported that in Illinois the rate is one point lower (14.1%), although particular communities where African Americans and Latinos live have been hit harder.

Children, for whom the poverty rate last year — 22 percent — was at the highest level since 1993. The rate for black children climbed to nearly 40 percent, and more than a third of Hispanic children lived in poverty, the Census Bureau reported. The rate for white children was reported as above 12 percent. With their surging population, Hispanics accounted for 37 percent of the children in poverty, a share that had increased substantially since the recession took hold in 2007, said William Frey, a Brookings Institution demographer.

“We had almost 1 million more children fall into poverty between 2009 and 2010,” said Catherine V. Beane, policy director at the Children’s Defense Fund. “We also have seen a continued increase in the number of children who live in extreme poverty,” for instance, a family of four living on $30 a day.

Food deserts add to the problem. The lack of decent grocery stores in certain communities, and the availability of unhealthy fast foods create a lethal mix. It is estimated that people who live in these areas may die 6 years earlier due to diabetes and related illnesses.

The question of Food Deserts, therefore is a serious one.

As Dr. George Kaplan, professor of Public Health at University of Michigan states: Food deserts are defined as “areas with no or distant grocery stores.” But the word “desert” is also a verb – “to leave someone without help or in a difficult situation and not come back.” The verb desert focuses on action and agency, emphasizing that the lack of access to good food in some areas is not a natural, accidental phenomenon, but is instead the result of decisions made at multiple levels by multiple actors.”

Many neighborhoods of Chicago have been designated Food Deserts. The most comprehensive study on Chicago Food Deserts and its impact on public health is one commissioned by LaSalle Bank and conducted by researcher Mari Gallagher. It is fully worth downloading and reading: Good Food: Examining the Impact of Food Deserts on Public Health of Chicago.

On October 1, join SCUPE’s friends in an Urban Immersion Day event to examine this question. Call 312-726-1200 or write roger@scupe.com to reserve your place.