Letters.

Best Issue Ever!

THE JANUARY-FEBRUARY 2000 issue of Sojourners is without a doubt the best one ever. Will O'Brien's commentary on Mark ("Dare to Preach this Gospel") was "right on the mark."

We have been subscribers to this magazine for more than 20 years. Sojourners is our inspiration to keep on attempting to live the kind of life that we think Christ was trying to explain to his disciples. Just know that we really appreciate your work.

Lois and David Barrus Moorpark, California

Dissing Dads?

WHILE I FOUND MUCH commendable in Will O'Brien's essay "Dare to Preach this Gospel," his Herculean efforts to be as radical as possible finally degenerated into just one more of the now ubiquitous attacks on fatherhood as ipso facto oppressive "patriarchy." Is it O'Brien's contention that this is the only possibility of fatherhood presented in the scriptures? He states "fathers are left behind but not received back." This is precisely the stereotypical scapegoating of the nuclear family and fatherhood that convinces our ideological opponents that issues of biblical social justice can be dismissed as left-wing extremism.

At a time when much public attention has been given to "deadbeat dads" and the critical need for the participation of fathers in the rearing and guidance of children, must we embrace fatherhood-bashing in the. effort to be as radical as possible? The father who receives back his prodigal son with unconditional love is the gospel portrayal of authentic fatherhood and a challenging example for all of us "oppressive patriarchs" ... er ... earthly fathers.

Michael Lane San Bruno, California

Don't Lose the Personal Jesus

I AM CONCERNED with Will O'Brien's article "Dare to Preach this Gospel." While it is certainly true that Jesus challenged the established moral, social, political, and religious conventions of his (and our) day, we must not ignore the intensely personal nature of all true "gospel" narratives. To state that the lesson of the widow's mite is a "scathing critique of economic exploitation" and miss the fact that she was "giving her all" is to ignore an issue essential to Christianity.

Resisting authority and a patriarchal "domination system" is not necessarily a Christian mindset. Jesus' humanity is all about servanthood--first to God, then to "his own," and finally to all in need around him.

We should, as O'Brien writes, "go and do likewise." Not by "opposing the domination system" but by loving others as Christ has loved us, and giving ourselves for them.

Anthony J. Husemann Cape May County, New Jersey

Grounded in Prayer

THANKS SO MUCH for the article "City Lights" by Edward J. Farrell (January-February 2000). Being a contemplative who works in a large city corporate setting, I certainly relate with this article.

The opportunities to minister to Christ abound in the city and in our workplaces. It is so true that we need to be grounded in prayer--yet not only equipped from our morning prayer time but also from a ceaseless prayer and love throughout the day that helps us be alert to the opportunities before us no matter how seemingly simple or difficult.

Ken Hasle Jacksonville, Florida

Mind in the Monastery?

I VERY MUCH ENJOYED your last issue, especially the article about urban contemplatives, "City Lights." My contemplative heart has struggled for years with the desire for a truly contemplative life coupled with the need to serve the poor, as directed by Jesus.

I wonder, after reading your article, if it is possible to craft a rule of life for the urban contemplative? Can we put on paper a way of life for people still living in the world whose hearts and minds are in the monastery? Clearly prayer is the essential for a contemplative. Can we provide an opportunity for the silent to also serve?

Kurt Aschermann Atlanta, Georgia

Corruption and Debt Relief

THIS MORNING I READ Wilfred Manyango's letter to the editor (January-February 2000) about how the Congo's late president Mobutu was worth $4 billion, and whether the level of corruption entitled some countries to debt relief.

I just finished reading Barbara Kingsolver's The Poisonwood Bible, historical fiction that deals with this very issue. I highly recommend it. From that source and others, I know that the CIA overthrew the democratically elected president of the Congo, Patrice Lumumba, put Mobutu in his place, and kept him there against the will of the people, knowing full well of his corruption. The main issue was for the United States and Belgium to keep control over Congo's diamond mines and other minerals, whereas Lumumba wanted to use them to improve the lot of his poor people.

Furthermore, the Congo has paid back more than twice the original debt, but with high compounded interest, the debt has tripled. Though the poor did not profit from the loans, they are being asked to bear the burden of repayment.

If we paid for all the resources and cheap labor we have taken from the poorest countries, the debt would suddenly be owed by the United States to the Third World.

Connie Hohlfeld Molbeck Racine, Wisconsin

South African Sojourners?

I RECENTLY RECEIVED a sample copy of Sojourners. I am eagerly reading it and will continue to keep abreast of your work through your Web site (where I had my first intimate encounter with many of your articles).

I work for a conservative evangelical publication in South Africa--there aren't many Christian magazines to choose from over here--and I am convinced that evangelicals here are in need of a progressive publication that gives a bigger picture of the gospel. I am working on a proposal for a magazine that will hopefully be representative of all South African evangelicals, not only the white minority.

Thanks for teaching me so much already from your work, which has inspired me to take the risk of launching in this new direction. I hope that in the not-too-distant future I can send you a copy of a magazine that has a similar passion for peace and justice as your own.

Marc de Chazal Cape Town, South Africa

Moral Language Misses Mark

IN "SEDUCED BY POWER" (November-December 1999), Jim Wallis speculates that the Religious Right went wrong by trying to build its movement on political power instead of "letting its political influence flow from its moral influence." Certainly any attempt to build coercive and oppressive power is contradictory to the good news that Jesus preached.

However, I think the bigger problem is that in too many cases the Religious Right wrapped up proposals in moral language that could not pass the biblical test of justice and righteousness. Instead these proposals sought to fortify the power and privilege of those with dominant status in the United States against perceived threats from the marginalized, the folk with whom Jesus showed solidarity. A few examples are school choice, school prayer, and welfare reform.

I think I would write off the entire church as hopeless on justice issues if it were not for the handful of denominations that support Reform Organization of Welfare's efforts to win laws and policies that lift workers out of poverty and create opportunities for those without employment. In addition, my own congregation's "welcome of the stranger" has shown me the miracles that come about when the church lives in solidarity with those at the margins instead of glorying in its own "respectable image."

Jeanette Mott Oxford Reform Organization of Welfare St. Louis, Missouri

The Endless War

I WAS VERY TOUCHED and moved by Will Campbell's "Feeding the Gods of Unfreedom" (November-December 1999). I am not a Christian. I am from a Jewish family, and usually consider myself to be agnostic. But Campbell's descriptions of the racism, greed, and hypocrisy that drive the endless war on drugs, in contrast with the message and spirit of Jesus, was very enlightening to me. I understood much better what it means to be "Christian"--i.e., like Christ.

I think that if Jesus returned today and saw the violence in our homes and streets, the pitiless cruelty of our police and courts, and the sadness and despair of the sick and the innocent we have locked in our prisons, he would be ashamed of us and of what our country has done.

"There is nothing from without a man that entering into him can defile him, but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man" (Mark 7:15). Thank you for running this article. If more people of faith had the courage to speak out against this evil injustice, it would soon come to an end.

Benjamin Cohn Foster City, California

Giving Our All

I READ THE ARTICLE by Michael L. Westmoreland-White, "Life on the Auction Block" (November-December 1999), with some concern.

I thank Westmoreland-White for bringing the plight of ill people who await a transplanted organ to the public's attention. He definitely provided a much-needed call for donations. Nevertheless, I was concerned some may come to envision those waiting for transplants as people unscrupulous and desperate enough to actually condone forcing someone to donate an organ.

I have been waiting for the last five years for a second kidney transplant as I slowly watch my body deteriorate. In the years since my own kidneys failed in 1980, I have never heard of any proposal calling for compulsory organ donation and fail to see how it could even be seriously considered in a free society such as ours. There have been calls to go to a presumed consent system, where everyone is presumed to allow their organs to be taken after death unless they specify they do not wish this to happen. A presumed consent system is currently used in several countries around the world, but this system would allow surviving relatives to say no to the donation.

Even more remote is the possibility raised in the article that organs may soon be bought and sold on the open market. Federal law has prohibited that for a number of years, and rightly so. It would result in a situation--certainly immoral--under which the preponderance of donations would be made by the poor and end up in only the very rich.

We need more state laws requiring doctors to bring up the subject of organ donation with the family of someone close to death. All too often the patient's physician, who has a more intimate relationship with his patient's family than with a transplant center hundreds of miles away, will not want to disturb anyone by raising the subject of donation. Each heart, liver, kidney or other organ that is transplanted allows another child to reach adulthood or another parent to live to see their child grow up.

Bernard Cullen Lake Carmel, New York

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