Renewal

Review: From Pandemic To Renewal

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From Pandemic to Renewal, Chris Rice. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2023.

Summary: Addresses eight global crises exposed by the COVID pandemic and how Christians may be agents of healing and transformation.

We’ve been through a crisis unlike what most of us have ever faced. Not just some of us in some places. But all of us. In every place. It’s one that has left its marks in our bodies, in our families and social networks, in our politics. Even where the marks are not visible, there are scars on our psyches. That’s what a deadly global pandemic does. And it exposed other crises in our world–political polarization, inequities, corruption, international tensions and a crisis of truth. For many, it exposed a poverty of spiritual resources, evident as much as anything in what seems our frantic effort just to move on and put the pandemic behind us. But the marks remain, and the crises the pandemic exposed remain. Christians are a people who don’t believe in moving on, but in renewal and transformation, often out of suffering, deep pain, and crisis. That’s because we believe in a God who has entered the world’s suffering, pain, and death in his Son, and who brought life, renewal, and transformation out of the darkest hour. But the question is, how does this bear on our experience of the last years and the crises we continue to face?

Chris Rice has lived a life at the intersection of the world’s pain and the gospel’s renewing power, from interracial community development efforts in Mississippi, to the halls of academia, to international relief efforts, and to pleading the cause of the world’s poor at the United Nations. Then the pandemic isolated him for a time in New England with his father and gave him to think about the challenges and opportunities of renewal in a post-pandemic world. In this book he identifies eight crises exposed more clearly during the pandemic and transformative Christian practices to address these crises. His eight chapters dealing with these are:

1. Bearing Joy for a World of Frantic Anxiety. In a world of rising anxiety expressed in a focus on activity, excessive positivism and activism turned to violence, Rice proposes the virtue of joy born out of a life of contemplating being the beloved of God.

2. Centering the Vulnerable for a World of Rising Disparity. The pandemic, thought to be the great equalizer, exposed inequities in death rates, high stock values and long food lines, and great inequalities in the distribution of vaccines. The way of the gospel is the way of the Samaritan on the Jericho road, taking costly steps to focus on the world’s vulnerable.

3. Being Peacemakers for a World of Surging Polarization. Rice recounts some of the unhealed wrongs he has encountered among those with whom he works and the power of the word “we” as we think of who “our” people are. He speaks of the Antioch moment where the gospel crosses boundaries of hostility, of the church’s peacemaking mission as we pursue restorative justice and hold truth and love together in these efforts.

4. Redeeming Power for a World of Political Mediocrity. Rice assesses both the potential for great good and great evil in the exercise of political power. He considers our contemporary polarization, paralysis, and pessimism, and the value of political love in action for the sake of the vulnerable, practiced in prayer, pursuing “purple” spaces, and local opportunities to pursue the common good.

5. Making Transnational Disciples for a World of American Blinders. Rice talks about the American blinders of both how we may believe ourselves saviors of the world and our lack of perception of how American power is perceived elsewhere in the world. He invites us to grow as transnational disciples through expanding what we read, through empowering majority world leaders, and pursuing international friendships.

6. Pursuing Private Integrity for a World of Public Validation. For many of us, what we do, what we have, and what others think of us is the focus of our lives. Rice calls Christians to private integrity, who we are out of public view, through personal examination, vulnerability with others, and communal safeguarding.

7. Cultivating Moral Imagination for a World of Unprecedented Dangers. Amid the dangers of technological disruption, environmental degradation, and the bi-polar China-US conflict, he bids us to imagine a moral world yet to be through forsaking our reliance on technological solutions and our lust for dominion, through instilling hope, through “thinking little,” through practicing non-violent communication, and making climate change personal. He also advises that more Americans might spend time learning Chinese! I thought this perhaps the most prescient chapter in the book.

8. Renewing the Church for a World Longing for Hope. The pandemic, in Rice’s view, has been a time of pruning for the church, a prelude to its renewal. He believes renewal consists in knowing our destination, reforming Christian formation, going deep into congregational life, creating new wineskins for mission, learning to function as ambassadors in the public square, and rooting our lives in intimacy with Christ.

What is striking as I look over this list is that it is about the formation and renewal of Christian character. Joy. Vulnerability. Peacemaking. Political love. Discipleship. Integrity. Moral Imagination. All of this is woven in the context of ecclesial communities. Rice makes a compelling case that this renewal of Christian character has far-reaching consequences, extending to the anxious, the poor, those at enmity, to our politics, to the nations, to our social lives, and to the existential dangers of our time–whether technological, environmental, or nuclear apocalypses.

Chris Rice opens a conversation we desperately need to have. There is no getting back to life before the pandemic. We live in a different, and in many ways, scarier world. How then will the people of God live? Will we bring spiritual understanding to what we have been through, and to how we might live amid the dangers and challenges and opportunities of our new situation? Will we stop fighting old battles and resist the temptation to simply return to our old patterns? This book, including the discussion guide provided for groups, can be an instrument for Christian communities to take stock and discern what it can mean to hope for renewal out of the ruins of these last years.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher.

The Allure of a Book-Lined Room

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A comfortable nook at Blue Jacket Books in Xenia, Ohio

A comfortable nook at Blue Jacket Books in Xenia, Ohio

I follow various book sites on Facebook, Google+, and Twitter and one thing I notice is the frequency that people post pictures of fantastic libraries, both institutional and personal, or sometimes of bookstores that look like libraries with shelves and shelves of books and comfy nooks and crannies with overstuffed chairs in abundance.

I have two hunches of why we love such images. I’d love to know what others think.

One is that such places represent a place of safety or refuge in a world that can at times feel scary. Maybe this is just me. I was in a seminar where we were asked to imagine a safe space. The image that came to mind was a book-lined room, with lots of old, leather-bound volumes, a fireplace with a good fire burning, comfortable leather chairs and good lighting, a stand at my side where I could place a mug of something warm, and reading tables or a reading desk for more serious work, looking out on a woodland or mountain vista.

So much for my fantasy life! But wouldn’t you love to spend time in a room like that? Maybe if you are a bibliophile, you’ve tried to create, with your means hopefully, a room like that. Yet the funny thing is, that all I need really is the book! I can be in an airline waiting area in a major airport with a cup of Starbucks and a book or my Kindle, and I’m in that place.

East Reading Room at Thompson Library, The Ohio State University

East Reading Room at Thompson Library, The Ohio State University

My other hunch is that these spaces represent something of our aspirations as readers. Sitting in a university reading room studying (or pretending to) a challenging work makes me feel like a scholar, or perhaps a bit wiser, whether it is really so or not! Sitting in a place where we have access to the best of what human beings have thought or written encourages us in the hope that we might gain some of that knowledge.

I’ve observed that some of my favorite bookstores try, within their means and their space, to create this feel. They allow us to slow down, to savor being around all these books. They aren’t just warehousing books. They are welcoming those who read them. I’ve found others, particularly those selling used books that simply pack as many books in as possible. There’s no place to sit to skim a book or read a chapter to see if it is what you are looking for. I’ve found some great books in these places but they aren’t places where I want to linger. That can be mitigated somewhat by a friendly bookseller who is appropriately helpful and enjoys talking about books.

Maybe another word for all of this is that these places, whether mental images or real places, represent places of retreat. They are places where we come away and have the safety to reflect and be renewed. At one time, we might have turned more to religious places, and some of us still do. (I’ve found some of the best retreat centers even have spaces like this!). It makes me wonder whether such imagery, and the real places that approximate this, as good as they are, point us to something more, just as the books we read often do.

Growing Up in Working Class Youngstown — Renewing the City

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OH Youngstown aThis is a post I’ve thought about for some time. We’ve talked quite a bit about memories, and the richness of life in the Youngstown we grew up in. Yet there is also a sense of what has been lost — the mills, many vibrant neighborhoods and businesses throughout the city, and a significant part of the city’s people. But as many have written about Youngstown, we’ve been knocked down, but not knocked out.

I’d like to think, and hopefully hear your thoughts, about what it takes to renew the city so many of us grew up in and love. Before I write about that, I have to acknowledge that I don’t live in Youngstown and won’t be among those who have to do the heavy lifting to make it happen. Nor do I consider myself an expert in these things. Rather, I simply love the place I grew up in and would love to see the city not only get back on its feet, which I think it has, but thrive once more. What I think this involves is building on what Youngstown still has, learning from the past, and learning from healthy cities.

Building on what Youngstown still has. Youngstown became an industrial powerhouse, not just because of the mills, but because of the work ethic and spirit of its people. People who open restaurants, small machine shops, or new technology start-ups reflect that spirit. There are people who remember what good places neighborhoods can be and whether they live on the north side, Brier Hill, the Idora neighborhood or elsewhere, they are doing the hard work to reclaim that heritage. Youngstown has a rich heritage of cultural institutions in the Butler, the McDonough, the DeYor Center, the Covelli Centre and so much more that make it a place to live as well as work. There is the beauty of Mill Creek Park which needs to be preserved, including the health of its lakes. The city has been the home of a great urban university since 1908 and the partnership between the university and industry in providing a well-trained work force can be a key to renewal.

Learning from the past. I would contribute only two things here. Just as investors diversify, so should the city and not rely on a single industry. The great thing about things like the Youngstown Business Incubator and other entrepreneurial efforts is that it has the potential of building a diverse economic base. The other thing is to relentlessly pursue the rule of law rather than criminal or economic interests that drain the city’s wealth into the coffers of the few rather than the pockets of many.

Learning from healthy cities. We’ve lived in a city the past twenty five years that works pretty well. None are perfect but Columbus does some things that might be helpful for Youngstown. One is that it has had a history of good and shrewd city government and foresight that extends back to the 1950’s when Mayor “Jack” Sensenbrenner made plans to allow Columbus to grow in the 1980’s and ’90’s. That has continued through successive administrations. The other is that this city knows how to solve problems, getting political, civic, and business leadership together to quietly work toward solutions. At least when I was growing up in Youngstown, it seemed that it was much more common to play the blame game in the press or wait for someone else to solve the city’s problems for us.

My hunch is that good cities are not “90 day wonders” but are built over several generations. Columbus is a growing city today because of fifty years of reasonably good leadership. That was true at one time of the Youngstown of the past as well.

My sense is that there are people all over Youngstown who are rolling up their sleeves, at very least to make their own living, but also to make the place around them a bit better. They are in government, running businesses, leading faith communities, rehabbing homes, teaching in schools and the university, working in the arts, or simply clocking in each day to do their job in exchange for a paycheck.

Sometimes we keep looking around for others to provide the leadership a place needs. I wonder if it is the case for those of you who are rolling up your sleeves like the people I listed above, that you are the people you have been waiting for. And why not? It’s your city after all.