May 25, 2017 By Keisha McKenzie

Not hope. Imagination.

An empty stadium with green plastic seating and several railings. The seats are slightly curved with the wider section of the curved rows toward the left. — Photo credit: Peter Feghali

“We have this hope” has been a Seventh-day Adventist anthem for at least five decades.

“We have this hope that burns within our hearts,” we sing. “Hope in the coming of the Lord!”

There’s not much like hearing 70,000 people in a single stadium banging those lines out and insisting through the emphatic, vaguely Soviet, and none-too-subtle notes that something new is on the way.

Anticipation is where the song stops, however. The quickly coming something is apparently unavoidable: what’s coming will come. But the hope in the song only projects an outcome. It doesn’t have the force to propel us there.

What we need to get from “what is” to “what will be” is not hope, but imagination, the capacity to perceive what might just as easily move from idea to reality, from possibility to form.

As I shared recently, Walter Brueggemann distinguishes between the imperial, totalitarian, controlling mindset of management and the prophetic, creative mindset of imagination.

The management mindset, also called the “royal consciousness,” is implicitly satisfied with the way things are, even if it also uses the rhetorics of hope or change.

So a large system may well have use for hymns about hope—but actual hope suggests a world of alternatives, a universe of new information, something that doesn’t already exist, something that the social power center hasn’t already determined and does not control.

The present ordering, and by derivation the present regime, claims to be the full and final ordering. That claim means there can be no future that either calls the present into question or promises a way out of it… The present is unending in its projection, uncompromising in its claim of loyalty, and unaccommodating in having its own way…

It is unthinkable for the king to imagine or experience a really new beginning that is underived or unextrapolated from what went before. Kings were accustomed to new arrangements and new configurations of the same pieces, but the yearning to manage and control means that new intrusions are not regarded as desirable. Nor are they regarded as possible or discerned when they happen.” —Walter Brueggemann

Since the Pacific Union College Student Association’s statement on diversity was published this week, I’ve had half an eye on the blogosphere’s comment sections—for science, not penance. I’m no longer surprised by the Adventist community’s hand wringing about social change. In this moment, my surprise has shifted into fascination with a side of resolution to a future that’s wider in perspectives and presence than the past has ever been.

“It is the task of the alternative prophetic community to present an alternative consciousness that can energize the community to fresh forms of faithfulness and vitality.” —Walter Brueggemann

It’s our job to imagine our individual and collective futures despite the social hand-wringing and despite the system itself. Imagination is our job!

March 16, 2017 By Keisha McKenzie

A vision for the left-handed world

There’s a running gag on social media.

Something terrible in the world happens or society slaps minoritized people with yet another unnecessary restriction, and folks respond with something like “Where’s the spaceship; get me out of here!”

It happened again today, when Popular Science published a story about congregating humpback whales near South Africa. “So long and thanks for all the fish,” Twitter users cracked.

Janelle Monae sings the anthem for this sentiment in “Sally Ride” (the song is named for the American astronaut).

Sometimes, as in that song, it’s a sentiment of both escapism and aspiration.

It’s a nod to the comforting idea that the status quo isn’t our native environment, that there’s somewhere in the universe where we belong and thrive, even if that somewhere isn’t here.

And it’s a way of reaching beyond common circumstance to a realm of imagination where liberty is large enough even for those deemed “sinister.” Gloria Anzaldúa once named “those people who would feel at home in El Mundo Zurdo, the left-handed world: the colored, the queer, the poor, the female, the physically challenged [sic].”

The vision of our spirituality provides us with no trap door solution, no escape hatch tempting us to ‘transcend’ our struggle. We must act in the everyday world. Words are not enough. We must perform visible and public acts that may make us more vulnerable to the very oppressions we are fighting against.” —Gloria Anzaldúa, “El Mundo Zurdo: The Vision,” This Bridge Called My Back

A vision of the left-handed world can bring a little respite from the harshness and violence of the right-handed one.

“Whenever we need to be uplifted from or need the courage to face the tribulations of a racist patriarchal world,” that vision can challenge us to do more than merely dream our way out.

December 11, 2016 By Keisha McKenzie

Interview: Exvangelical and Keisha

Earlier this fall, I had an extended conversation with Blake Chastain, host of the podcast Exvangelical. Exvangelical is a weekly podcast that shares stories of people who grew up or converted into Evangelical Christianity and have since built lives of faith and beyond faith outside of the subculture.

Episode 14, “A Safe Place for Questions,” runs a little over an hour long. In part 1, Blake and I talk frankly about the history of Adventism in the UK and Jamaica, my family’s relationship to our denomination, my process engaging my questions about our tradition, and some of the social issues I’ve been working on lately.

There was a lot of concern about the appearance of righteousness, and less concern about whether people internalized the ethics. And I think that’s probably one of the easiest pitfalls for a traditional community to fall into, where compliance is enough: as long as people appear to be fitting the box, then you don’t need to really engage them beyond that, because they appear to be in compliance with your rules.

But I think the higher value for religion is that it—well, and any kind of philosophical system, really— is that it transforms the way that you’re thinking about and situating yourself in relation to the world, so that you’re not just in external compliance with something, but you’ve figured out what the rationale is, and if the rationale is logical and benefits you or the people around you, then you can internalize it and express it in appropriate ways regardless of whether your environment allows you to do something or not.” —Me, on Exvangelical, episode 14

In part 2, you’ll hear me talking about just as much—just more tired and less filtered. Blake also invites me to recap one of my recent talks and share my theological vision:

I want to motivate people to imagine a world where we’re not struggling for resources. Because I think that it’s possible. A world where we don’t have this kind of intra-human competition over power and authority; I don’t think that’s necessary. Thinking about a world where our words and our actions are healing and not destructive. Those are the kinds of questions that I find engaging [from] the scriptures, from the teachings of Jesus in the gospels, some of the writings of Paul… and some of the visions in Revelation. And I think this ability to recognize the ambivalence in those voices is something that people of color have always had to do and women have always had to do in relation to the text. So I’m not breaking any new ground there in recognizing that there are some images that do seem to produce good fruit and other images that don’t.” —Me, on Exvangelical, episode 14

The episode is not transcribed, but there are some brief show notes that link to three of the books we mentioned during the show: James Cone’s The Cross and the Lynching Tree, and Benjamin Barber’s Strong Democracy. Also mentioned are Kelly Brown Douglas’ book Sexuality and the Black Church and Lynn White, Jr.’s essay, “The historical roots of our ecological crisis.”

Blake gets a little affiliate commission from the book links on his page, so if you appreciate his work, buy a book through his links or tip him on Patreon. If you appreciated my contributions, send your affirmation through Paypal.me. Enjoy the show!

November 5, 2016 By Keisha McKenzie

Kwok on imagination

This afternoon, I had the joy of hearing Rev. Jes Kast speak on how our theologies and doctrines about women and other minoritized members of the Church can be more healing and less damaging.

Divesting from all forms of social oppression is the Church’s long-term work. There’s nothing new about it that we need to hear from heaven; we already have all the Please Get It Together that we need to motivate action. We don’t have an information deficiency!

We may have an imagination deficiency if we’re so attached to the present order and our past claims about it that we’re willing to delay or deny the next stage in our moral development (e.g. life with pathways to substantive contribution for everyone).

Kast read a quote from Kwok Pui-lan’s book Postcolonial Imagination and Feminist Theology that I loved:

Without the power of imagination, we cannot envision a different past, present, and future… What we cannot imagine, we cannot live into and struggle for.”

I think that’s absolutely right.

June 25, 2016 By Keisha McKenzie

Investing in imagination

Whatever our philosophy on money, however much we give or save, and regardless of how we rationalize, we’re still left with some basic practical realities.

No matter how lofty your spiritual ideals may be, no matter how many powerful affirmations you can speak by rote, you still have to pay your bills.” —Eric Butterworth, Spiritual Economics

We still have obligations. We still benefit from others’ talents and resources. They need to be paid. We need to be paid. In a world where currency is the language of trade, we eat, drink, clothe ourselves, and shelter ourselves by getting paid.

These facts don’t change for people in the social sector, people who spend their prime waking hours and some nights too helping, teaching, guiding, or counseling others.

Our beliefs about sharing resources don’t change those facts. Beliefs about tithing or donating to good causes and other people in need don’t change the facts.

Wherever we draw benefits from other people, and we all do, there’s that rule: we still have to pay our bills.

Don’t worry (be happy)

A short teaching on worrying about life’s necessities is tucked into the middle of the Sermon on the Mount:

So I tell you, don’t worry about the food or drink you need to live, or about the clothes you need for your body. Life is more than food, and the body is more than clothes.” —Matthew 6:25

Food, drink, and clothes are really great things. I love them all! I don’t seek out involuntary hunger, thirst, or nakedness for myself and don’t wish it on others close or distant. That anyone in our world doesn’t have these basics of life is a testimony against us all.

In Matthew, I don’t see Jesus arguing that people should seek out experiences of lack. But I believe he was right to caution us on worry.

Worry shows up in my life as a creativity vampire. When I think of all of the times during grad school when I stalled on my art or struggled to deliver work I knew I was capable of, I can map those periods to straightforward survival insecurity: health concerns, for instance, or having to trade-off groceries and mandatory federal fees.

Beyond those kinds of binds, worry drew my attention away not only from my routine work but also from the vision and energy that I might otherwise have devoted to co-building a world where no one need be hungry, thirsty, naked, isolated, or purposeless.

Many people don’t even believe such a world is possible: we do have 7.125 billion people to care for. But I think this sense of futility undermines our imaginations and, combined with the low hum of worry, discourages us from taking action.

When we believe there is not enough, that resources are scarce, then we accept that some will have what they need and some will not. We rationalize that someone is destined to end up with the short end of the stick.

When we believe that more is better, and equate having more with being more…then people on the short end of that resource stick are assumed to be less smart, less able, even less valuable, as human beings. We feel we have permission to discount them.

When we believe that’s just the way things are, then we assume a posture of helplessness. We believe that a problem is unsolvable. We accept that in our human family neither the resource-rich members nor the resource-poor members have enough money, enough food, or enough intelligence or resourcefulness to generate lasting solutions.” —Lynne Twist, The Soul of Money

Investing in imagination

People of faith and ethical philosophy have a responsibility to set the mental and material stage for people living and choosing every day: we need worlds of experience where people don’t feel so powerless and aren’t so under-resourced that worrying makes sense for them, for us.

We need to live. We need the basics to live well. And we need them as a baseline for building thriving lives of trust, hope, and constructive action.

There are enough resources on Earth to feed, water, and clothe everyone here. We don’t lack because there isn’t enough. People lack because we don’t care for each other enough to distribute what we have effectively.

We can change those realities because we created them. We can change them and replace them with a world of enough. And we can change and challenge the circumstances and doctrines that got us living in futility and learned helplessness; we can change them one conscious gift at a time.

Support people and organizations whose contributions nourish you and build the world you plan to live in.

Divest from people and organizations whose contributions shore up fear or futility, or teach you that what is is all that can be.

Give your time and skills, networks and attention to the work and world you’re drawn to, because only through our imaginations and investment will that world ever bloom.

March 26, 2014 By Keisha McKenzie

Reader Review #7

Discover Magazine: Grandma’s Experiences Leave Epigenetic Mark on Your Genes (Dan Hurley)

Before the 1970s, genes were the fixed limits of life. With DNA as boss and RNA the secretary, combinations of genes produced a certain physiological outcome and it wasn’t clear what made one gene express and another not. But over the last 40 years, through independent research as well as massive collaborations like the Human Genome Project, we’ve learned the number, location, and functions of more than 20,000 genes and the hormones and processes that trigger them.

Now that the HGP is over, more scientists are looking at how experiences shape gene expression during the life cycle and across generations. That’s what the hybrid field of epigenetics is all about. This article from the pop science magazine Discover takes a closer look at two leading epigeneticists and the methylation of DNA—how methyl and aceytl molecules adjacent to DNA strands influences selective protein development, how something as simple as a regular gym practice can change the DNA a person was born with, and which traumas and bonding experiences can trigger epigenetic change.

Like silt deposited on the cogs of a finely tuned machine after the seawater of a tsunami recedes, our experiences, and those of our forebears, are never gone, even if they have been forgotten. They become a part of us, a molecular residue holding fast to our genetic scaffolding… The mechanisms of behavioral epigenetics underlie not only deficits and weaknesses but strengths and resiliencies, too. —Dan Hurley

Beguine Again: Of Dead-Weasel Toupees And Homophobia (James R. Cowles)

If you object to the series of public service discrimination laws recently proposed in four US states and vetoed in a fifth, why? What’s your legal basis? Does it matter to you whether a citizen’s attributes are chosen?

Jim Cowles argues that a completely different question—objective harm—provides a more stable legal basis for evaluating competing rights and the merits, if any, of discrimination against an entire class. The SCOTUS-level reviews of Proposition 8 and DOMA during 2012-2013 also focused on objective harms rather than choice.

As I said to Jim: “I was raised in a particular religious tradition and didn’t have any influence on that environment. But I remain with that tradition by choice, not mandate. I could abandon it; I could choose another tradition; and whether I did or not would still not validate discrimination against me on the grounds of my religion.”

Religion is a protected category in this country, but what if it wasn’t? It would still be to our collective advantage not to use individual choice as the basis for validating whole-class discrimination.

Related: Comicbook Bin: Nightcrawler and the Demonization of Homosexuality (J. Skyler) #LongRead

J. Skyler, a #qfaith participant, shared this essay with the group this week. It’s a long read that’s worth the effort, and fills out some of the rhetorical moves behind recent anti-LGBTI legislation. If you’re unfamiliar with the content, you’ll see plenty to research on your own.

Blind devotion to cultural misconceptions is a plague unto itself.”

Faith, freedom, religious schools, and value conflicts

Religions News Service: Leadership changes at Cedarville University point to conservative direction (Sarah Pulliam Bailey)
Anthony B Susan: I will not suffer a woman (Sarah Jones)
Christian Post: Christian College Solidifies Complementarian Stance (Ruth Moon)

The RNS report updates readers on how one North Carolina university has handled value diversity within its faculty, among its students, and from its off-campus stakeholders: the Southern Baptist constituency has replaced Cedarville University’s senior administration and the new president has begun making course-level changes. I referenced Cedarville in a series on faith and freedom on this site last quarter.

Religious colleges and universities sometimes struggle to host respectful campus conversations about controversial beliefs without resorting to “Agree or Resign.” I think this struggle intensifies when schools can operate as if isolated from the world around them. Legally, of course, religious institutions have a lot of latitude to self-govern based on governance statements and denominational requirements. At the same time, off-campus publicity can and sometimes does motivate institutions to act according to their highest ethics rather than just the most expedient ones.

Wall Street Journal: Success Outside the Dress Code (Shirley S. Wang) [Subscribers-only as of 2018]
Wang sums up some research on group dynamics: how nonconformists mark their difference through clothing selections or language variations, and how other group members interpret these differences. An interesting finding: if group members think someone varies from a norm by accident, the nonconformist gets no status points. Only variations perceived as deliberate are read as additive status markers.

People veer from what’s expected after they’ve built up enough trust within a group. [But] acting differently risks losing the benefits that come with conforming, such as shared group identity and automatic group trust…

Willingness to deviate can be useful for groups as well, particularly when it comes to decision-making… The person who brings up alternative points of view to make sure the group has sufficiently examined all options can help the group reach a better decision. If the group trusts the individual’s intentions, this perspective will be considered seriously and the individual will still be considered part of the group.

I was most intrigued by this finding on trust. It’s trust that allows a group to reap the benefits of nonconformity, but if a group distrusts people who vary from its norms, it won’t accept what they contribute and won’t reap benefits from them.

Framing nonconformists as disloyal to the group undermines trust. So does exclusion.

Exercising One’s Moral Imagination

Temple of the Future (Patheos): How to check your privilege in 5 excruciating steps (James Croft)

I cannot stress how important the development of the moral imagination is for all aspects of ethical discourse and discernment, particularly in cases where you are making ethical judgments regarding experiences you have never had, and never will have.” —James Croft

This is a read-and-reflect kind of article. I look forward to hearing what my network has to say about it.

One of the things that’s missing from much of the moral-ethical discussion in my denomination at the moment is a strong sense of particularity: that we are, as individuals and as members of a larger culture, grounded in a specific body, time, and place, and that this temporal-spatial location constrains what we see in the world and how we interpret what we see.

The insight of particularity is 40-50 years old in social science research, but only just being attended to in evangelical-fundamentalist theological circles. I think it’s one reason why we’ve preferred to pronounce our opinions than listen to the experiences of others.

Taking a Literary Break

Schomburg Center: Between the Lines: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie with Zadie Smith

Adichie and Smith offer a wonderful conversation about identity and writing and womanhood in this video (uncaptioned). I resonate with both women: Smith because of our common UK-Jamaican heritage and experience, and Adichie because of her insights into the Black immigrant’s insider-outsider view of the United States and America’s continuing challenge with the Other.

The Schomburg Center’s recording device lost signal at around the 37 min mark, but hang in there for about 40 seconds and it does resume.