NOW IS THE TIME: Reflections by Rev. Peter Goodwin Heltzel, Ph.D.

The Rev. Peter G. Heltzel, Ph.D, is the director of the Micah Institute.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated leading a Living Wage Campaign in Memphis, Tennessee. In an address to strikers in Memphis on March 18, 1968, King stated, “Now our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality. For we know now that it isn’t enough to integrate lunch counters. What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn’t have enough money to buy a hamburger?” The struggle for racial integration must be matched by a struggle for economic justice. Justice is not only about access to public places, but also about jobs.

Forty-two years after Dr. King’s death, the struggle for racial and economic justice wages on amidst an economic crisis. After years of over-spending, speculative trading, and expensive wars, America’s economy is ailing. Yet the rich and elite continue to prosper, while the poor struggle to make ends meet. This economic struggle is particularly acute in New York City; where over 2 million city residents receive food stamps and struggle to put bread on the table.

Through the crucible of the crisis a new poor-led, citywide movement for economic justice is standing in the gap. This coalition of community, religious and labor leaders is fighting for a Living Wage in our City. Specifically, we are calling on the City Council to pass the Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act, which will:

The Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act helps city families.

• guarantee that workers in large development projects receiving public subsidies are paid at least the New York City living wage of $10 an hour.

• raise the living wage with inflation so that it increases every year and keeps pace with the cost of living.

• require that employees who do not receive health insurance from their employer receive an additional $1.50 per hour wage supplement to help them purchase their own health insurance.

The passage of the Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act is a central component to fighting poverty in New York City. As faith leaders in this city, our mandate is a moral one given to us by our faith traditions. All people are made in God’s image and are loved by God. All people deserve a good job and a warm hearth to come home to. All people deserve a Living Wage.

As we begin to celebrate Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial weekend, we seek to embody King’s words to the city leaders in Memphis, “Now is the time to make an adequate income a reality for all God’s children. Now is the time for City Hall to take a position for that which is just and honest.” Forty-two years later, we call on City Hall in NYC to take a stand for justice. We want a hearing and passage now. People of faith in New York City will wait no longer. Now is the time.

Council Members are responding to the call of clergy around the city. Council member Daniel Garodnick, D-Manhattan, just signed on as the 29th sponsor of the bill. We are now five council members away from a 34-member supermajority, preventing the bill from being vetoed by Mayor Bloomberg.

God calls the human community to take on each other’s burdens. If a person is suffering, we are suffering. If a person loses their house, we lose our house. If a person is underpaid, we are underpaid. Enough is enough. We call on Mayor Bloomberg, Speaker Quinn and the City Council to pass the Fair Wages for New Yorkers Act. 

Tonight, Thursday January 13, there will be a Mass Meeting for Living Wages at Convent Avenue Baptist Church in Harlem. Inspired by the Mass Meetings of the Civil Rights Movement, concerned New Yorkers are coming out in full strength to bear courageous, collective witness to the working poor in our city. We are expecting over 1,000 supporters, including City Comptroller John Liu, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., and a host of city council members to attend. Michael A. Walrond, Senior Pastor of First Corinthian Baptist Church will speak on the relevance of the legacy of Dr. King for our contemporary struggle for low-wage workers today. Tonight will be a high watermark in the New York economic justice movement.

It is time for New Yorkers and all Americans to stand up and join the fight against poverty in our country. As Dr. King says, “we better be careful that we are not ‘a conscientious objector’ in the war against poverty.” Let us not sit this one out. Now is the time for action. Now is the time for justice. Now is the time to get up and move out for economic justice.

The New York Theological Seminary is an institution dedicated to multiculturalism, diversity, social justice and religious tolerance. The mission of the seminary is to prepare men and women, from every background, for careers in ministry.

MICAH INSTITUTE FIRST ADVOCACY TRIP TO HAITI-DAY 2

Tuesday July 20, 2010

Forty Seconds
In forty seconds the life of a nation changed forever. When the earthquake hit Haiti on January 12th, in less than one minute, the nation experienced mass destruction and loss of life. It is estimated that 230,000 people were killed. Over six months later, I find myself in Haiti teaching a theology class at New York Theological Seminary searching for meaning amidst the morass and hope after the horror.

Today I met a true hero Father Samuel St. Louis, an Episcopalian priest and educator. On our way to Leogane, the epicenter of the earthquake, we stopped in Darbonne. In the middle this small country town was Paroisse Annonciation, the Episcopal Church of the Ascension which includes a large campus with five schools and known as one of the best schools in the area. But on January 12th, the church and the schools were brought to the ground. The complex was reduced rubble and children no longer had a place to go to school.

A Process of Years
Father Samuel faced the greatest challenge of his ministry to rebuild what was destroyed in less than a minute. Underneath the rubble, he rose up, sought partners to help him clear the campus and began to rebuild, a process that will take years.

We sat in a circle in an empty room that used to be his office introducing ourselves and sharing why we came to Haiti. Then Father Samuel told us about the vast array of ministries on his campus—a church, pre-school, grammar school, middle school, high school, and professional school, as well as a health center and most recently a new dormitory for students from afar.

Prophetic Partnership
Father Samuel was encouraged by our visit and open to partnering, saying, “We are in a difficult situation in Darbonne. I am happy about what kind of partnership can emerge and even more excited about becoming good friends. We can do much apart, but together we can do so much more.”

Father Samuel has put this principle of prophetic partnership into concrete educational practice. After the earthquake, he teamed up with Episcopal Relief and Development and the Lutheran World Federation to keep his school going through these tough times.

Three Months
It took three months before the students could come back to school on April 12th, this time, meeting in large white tents with wooden desks and chalk boards. Today we saw the students in light blue shirts and navy blue pants and skirts, still meeting in those tent classrooms. Since they missed three months of school, they have to work through the entire summer to complete their studies. After surviving an earthquake, this summer most Haitian kids will not get a summer vacation.

During our time at the Episcopal campus you could hear the sounds of hammers and saws, as the construction work on campus forged on. This is a model of religious education on the move. The aftermath of disaster gives education purpose to become fully human amidst the tragedy of life.

Challenge for the Future
Curiosity is integral to what it means to be human. In good times and bad times, the desire to learn is insatiable. Life becomes more meaningful as we fully engage our mind in seeking to understand and imagine innovative ways to address the great global challenges of our day. Educating through a crisis demonstrates that active learning is of the utmost urgency for the future of the community of creation.

At this moment Haiti has to fight for education. It is estimated that over 50 percent of Haitian school- aged young do not attend school. Why? What can be done?

Today I thought a lot about Henri, the 14 year old boy I met yesterday, who can't read and does not go to school. It baffled me that so many young people in Haiti do not have the opportunity to go to school. I saw Henri again tonight at the fruit and vegetable market. After bartering for some avocados with Henri watching and laughing, I told him he needed to go to school and learn how to read. His future depends on it. The decision is his, and the deck is stacked against him. Education is an ongoing struggle.

How We Live Matters
Being a successful educational leader today takes creativity and tenacity. After the earthquake, the student's families could no longer pay tuition at the Episcopalian school, which meant teachers couldn't get paid. Father Samuel has been successful in getting grants to cover his teachers' salaries, so the families don't have to pay. But, he realizes this can't work forever. That it fosters a culture of dependence.

Now he is trying to develop a strategy for student's families to begin to shoulder the burden of their children's education once again. Given the herculean task ahead, rebuilding a church, several schools and paying teachers' salaries with shrinking assets, Father Samuel fights on, offering an active life that exemplifies “every minute of our lives matters.” Our lives are short. Do we live in a way that truly makes a difference?

Tomorrow’s Fight
I remain struck by the fact that the earthquake took place in less than a minute. Yes there were tremors afterwards, even last week. Yet, that one minute ended the lives of many Haitians and forever changed the lives of those they left behind. Realizing how quickly this natural disaster struck and witnessing its aftermath the past two days, has put my life and problems into perspective. I am full of deep gratitude to God, my family, friends, students and colleagues at New York Theological Seminary for the gift and opportunity to living a good life. I want to use the rest of the minutes that God gives me on this earth to love and serve others, working with members of the global church to build beloved community. Fighting alone we are weak; but when we pull together for the good of humanity, the possibilities are endless.

Tomorrow Father Samuel will host a gathering of over three hundred Haitians inaugurating a new work for cash program through which many local Haitians in Darbonne will be employed through rebuilding their children's schools. Father Samuel says, Ansanm nap rebatid Darbonne (together we can rebuild Darbonne). What Father Samuel sees is that rebuilding Haiti is the work of everyone in the town of Darbonne and beyond. It is only through partnership, both local and global, that Haiti can rebuild and not just survive, but thrive, moving collectively into a new future.


Peace,
Peter Heltzel
Associate Proferssor of Systematic Theology

MICAH INSTITUTE FIRST ADVOCACY TRIP TO HAITI-DAY 1

MICAH INSTITUTE FIRST ADVOCACY TRIP TO HAITI

Day 1: Monday July 19, 2010

The Journey
Today I flew into Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and the experience opened my eyes and heart to the warmth and resilience of the Haitian people. When the plane came down I could see tent cities all over the area surrounding the airport. They say over 2 million Haitians are living in tents. It is so sweltering hot here I can't imagine living in a tent for the past six months, but the Haitian people are courageously forging ahead in the aftermath of disaster.

When Haiti experienced the earthquake my heart was broken. I grieved and wanted to respond. Shortly after the earthquake, Daryl Bloodsaw, New York Theological Seminary’s Student Association President, organized a group of leaders from NYTS, Union Theological Seminary and Drew Theological School to discuss what we could do. Some of us wanted to go immediately, but the consensus was that it was too early and we would only get in the way. I said I would like to lead a small class over to Haiti during the summer. Now that dream is becoming a reality. On this advocacy trip with me is Chloe Breyer, Director of the Interfaith Center of New York and advisory board member of the Micah Institute, Carl F. Nazaire and Kenel Saint. Vil who are seminarians of NYTS.

The Connection
Talking to Carl and Kenel, my two Haitian students in the Deep South made me realize that offering a theology course in Haiti was doable. Carl and Kenel were on the “Going Home” class I teach each Spring with NYTS Dean Rev. Dr. Eleanor Moody-Shepard on prophetic religion and civil rights movement. During our sojourn in the South, I discovered Carl Nazaire was in Haiti during the earthquake. While he felt the shocks and saw people die, his life was spared. God saved his life so he could do something for his country.

NYTS President Dale Irvin expresses prophetic outreach to the earthquake victims as "working to build the realm of God.” Working to rebuild a living and just Haiti is vital to the mission of the global church. We come to Haiti with open eyes and hearts to discern the movement of Gods spirit in the healing and restoration of our neighboring nation.

The Rebuilding
Before I came to Haiti, all I knew was that it was a poor and struggling nation. It is also one of 180 countries that has a role to play in the fulfillment of the Millennium Development Goals—8 goals aimed at ending extreme global poverty by 2015. It is one of the goals of the Micah Institute in partnership with the Micah Challenge to seek to inspire and equip Christians to end extreme poverty. Now, I see a people who are resilient and have a tenacity to rebuild. Rebuilding Haiti will take time and tenacity.

After a long day of driving around Port-au-Prince through rubble and tent towns, at dusk we stopped at a fruit and vegetable stand in Petion-Dille. We were mobbed by six women who tried to sell us tomatoes, avocados, mangos and pineapples. I met a little boy named Henri. He was 14, not in school, and sleeping in a broken down red truck a block from the fruit stand. My heart was broken as I realized street kids like Henri would not be able to go to school, unless schools were created for them.

Our Haiti Partner
This is precisely what our host organization Haiti Partners seeks to do, to build and support schools in Haiti. Since the Micah Institute mission is to educate for justice, we are eager to discern if there are schools and seminaries in Haiti we can partner with. I am looking forward to meeting principals, teachers and students in schools to better understand the current challenges and the pressing needs that they have.

As I end my first day I am glad that we are here and that NYTS remains committed to encountering the full breath of world Christianity, especially in the places of great suffering. We are seeking to train students to be responsive to the needs of the world so in their calling their hearts will sing when they are able to use their gifts at the places of the worlds’ greatest needs.

Peace,

Peter Heltzel

Director, Micah Institute

Associate Professor of Systematic Theology

Examining faith in the face of repression

At Princeton University Press, Susannah Heschel has authored The Aryan Jesus: Christian Theologians and the Bible in Nazi Germany. This is obviously an uncomfortable topic for many. Yet, German theologians, among them Dietrich Bonhoeffer, went to great lengths to defend their faith. In Bonhoeffer's case, of course, that also meant him giving his life.

While the Nazi Era of repression brought about horrors that directly attacked the message of Jesus Christ, it is a relatively recent event historically. Similarly, slavery and all of the abuses to life and human dignity remain difficult subjects, even today, when examining U.S. history, specifically in the American South. In the case of the development of the Evangelical Movement in the Southern United States, there are great works by theologians, among them New York Theological Seminary's Dr. Peter G. Heltzel, which examine the transformational possibilities of faith.

Reflections from Seoul on Mission in a Global City

Seoul is an extraordinary city.  I am here for six days to visit NYTS alumni/ae and current students, deliver a lecture, and preach in various chapel services and in Sunday morning worship.  I arrived on a Tuesday at 3:00 in the morning with the coordinator of our Korean Ministries program, Dr. Chang K. Behk.  Our first stop was in one of Seoul’s numerous saunas where business people regularly go in the morning to start their day.  Ours was on the 12th floor in the Cerestar office building in the central district.  After some time in a han jeung mak or kiln sauna, a shower, and a change of clothes, we headed off to a full day of work.  Since then it seems we have been continuously on the move from early in the morning until late each evening, traveling through the streets by cab or driven by our various hosts in what seems like an endless unfolding of lights, skyscrapers, and people.  In between travel times we meet with small groups of alumni and alumnae or visit campuses of theological institutions with whom NYTS has developed relationships.  I will end the week on Sunday morning in the Hallelujah Community Church where I will preach during the three morning services before returning to New York.

Two kinds of visual symbols have grasped my attention in the city during this trip.  The first is the proliferation of ads and other signs of consumer goods from around the world that are central to the economy of the global city.  Cosmetic products and clothing are especially prominent, with huge images hung on banners covering large parts of the sides of buildings or posted on billboards.  Often above them are the names and logos of corporate entities that are everywhere throughout Seoul.  Many of these are familiar symbols of the global economy.  Especially prominent are those of the electronic industry such as LG and Samsung, or the industrial giants such as Lotte or Hyundai.  While the names of the major industries and conglomerates tend to dominate the upper floors and top levels of buildings across the city, I note that the street level tends to be dominated by the signs and images of smaller companies, local restaurants, food stores, clothing vendors, and the like.  Throughout the city there are goods for sale everywhere along the streets:  lamps, chairs, rugs, electronic items, and more.  In one neighborhood there is a stretch of stores a block long offering stainless steel industrial restaurant ware out on the sidewalk.  In another we pass industrial machines with workers cutting metal beams that stretch across the sidewalk into the street.  Life on the streets has the “everyday” feel of a local economy, while the skyline is dominated by symbols of the global economy.

The other symbols that catch my eye are the red illuminated crosses that are up on top of churches throughout Seoul.  Many of these are visible especially in the evening as they shine in the simplicity of a red light outline forming the shape of a traditional Latin Christian cross.  But I have noted that they are not nearly as prominent as they once were in Seoul.  I remember being struck during my first visit to the city twenty years ago by the manner in which these crosses dominated the skyline especially at night as they shone out over certain neighborhoods.  During this visit I notice how much these crosses have been diminished in the overall skyline of Seoul.  This is so not necessarily because the crosses are fewer in number, although they may be.  Rather, it appears to be on account of the explosive growth of the commercial aspects of this city where office buildings, apartment buildings, and shopping centers overwhelm the visual so that even the largest megachurches now tend to recede into the neighboring cityscape.

My colleague at NYTS, Dr. Peter G. Heltzel, recently posted a blog on the Huffington Post on “Resurrection City.”  Resurrection City was the name of the tent city that Civil Rights leaders constructed on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. in the days following the assassination of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in April of 1968.  Dr. Heltzel notes that King died while leading a campaign for a living wage for sanitation workers in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968.  He urges us to continue the struggle today in New York and in other cities in the USA, in an effort to secure economic justice that is informed by the hope for a Resurrection City.
Seoul in its own way is a Resurrection City as well.  Seoul was in ruins in 1953 as the Korean War came to an uneasy truce.  Over the next two decades a major industrial city arose from the rubble, with its vast slum neighborhoods populated by the urban industrial poor.  During the 1960s, 70’s, and ‘80s, its streets were often the scene of battles between students and other human rights activists demonstrating for democratic reforms on the one side, and police and government forces on the other.  I visited the Myeong-dong Cathedral again this week and was shown the steps where the police used to stop as they pursued demonstrators taking sanctuary in the Cathedral during those years.

What arose from the industrial city is now a global city, with cell phones replacing bull horns in the streets.  The global urban rhythms of hip-hop music occasionally blare from cars or in a sidewalk café throughout the city.  Multiculturalism and cosmopolitanism are replacing older homogeneous cultural formations. A new generation of younger Koreans is coming of age that is more highly educated than those who came before them.  They work in the corporate offices or in the service sector, engage in social networking online, and are far more sophisticated about consumer products.  Many of them no longer hold on as strongly as their parents did to the ways of their elders in matters of religion and culture.  They are still Christian, but they are bringing guitars and drums into worship and tend to wear jeans in church.  Out on the streets I cannot tell the difference in young people who are Christian, Buddhist, or possibly secularists without any formal religious affiliation at all.

I am hearing two currents of theological response to the realities of this new global city among the church leaders and in the theological schools that I visit in Seoul.  The first I will call for the lack of a better term “traditional global missions.”  Korean churches, I heard one person say, have been called to take on the responsibilities of being the new global missionary force, carrying on the tradition that they received from Western missionaries who first brought the Gospel to them.  Another theological educator pointed out to me that with the slowdown and even decline in church growth in Korea, the theological schools in the land are producing more graduates than there are openings in churches for pastors.  Koreans are going to have to turn increasingly to global missions, he said, to find jobs for these candidates.

That is one response I am hearing.  But a second, although not necessarily antithetical response, is one I would call a new or renewed theology of the neighbor.  Christians in Korea must learn in new ways what it means to become a church for others, one pastor told me.  Christians must learn that evangelism begins with service, another theological educator said.  Ministry is the manifestation locally of the transformation God intends globally a third pointed out to me.  A new conversation about public theology and public faith is emerging in Korea, said a fourth.  This second type of response is no less missional in character, but it begins with the question not of what does the church need.  Rather, it takes as the starting point for mission the question of what does the world need?  What is most compelling in the city or in the world, this approach is asking, and how should the churches respond in mission and ministry?  Such questions, I realize by the end of the week, are not unique to Seoul, or to the global city in general.  This second response seems to me to entail a deeper engagement with the Gospel message that asserts, “for God so loved the world.”

Dale T. Irvin is the eleventh President of New York Theological Seminary and Professor of World Christianity. He is the co-author with Scott W. Sunquist of History of the World Christian Movement. Dr. Irvin is also the author of Christian Histories, Christian Traditioning: Rendering Accounts (Orbis Books, 1998), and The Agitated Mind of God: The Theology of Kosuke Koyama (Orbis Books, 1996), which he edited with Akintunde E. Akinade.