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IN THIS ISSUE....
*Gathering 2009:
July 9-11
*Meet the EP: Ragan Sutterfield
*Bookstores of Note
*Zizek and Theology
*EPers in S. CA.
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NEWS FROM YOU
In November, we invited EP endorsers and readers to send us your news to include in upcoming issues of the newsletter. And you did! Read on to hear news from fellow endorsers. Not all the news sent to us could be included; some will follow in upcoming issues. In the meantime, please keep sending us your updates.
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 GATHERING 2009: JULY 9-11
Please plan to join us July 9-11, 2009 on the campus of DePaul in Chicago for our annual gathering, focusing this year on "Wealth and the Household of God." Together we will explore how the household (oikos in Greek) that is Christ's Body might faithfully engage economics. Currently we have three keynote speakers confirmed, each of whom will address part of the story of God's economy and our share in it. They are long time EP endorser Bill Cavanaugh speaking on creation; Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove of the New Monasticism movment speaking on Jesus and Jubilee; and noted New Testament scholar Katherine Grieb on Paul's collection for the Jerusalem community. Workshops are being organized around four types of congregational practice: congregations that run businesses together, congregations that do community organizing to deal with economic problems in their neighborhoods, congregations that share a common purse, and congregations that take up collections. For more on the planning process, click here.
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MEET THE EP: RAGAN SUTTERFIELD
Ragan Sutterfield is a writer and farmer in Arkansas, a Christian who is committed to sustainable farming as a form of discipleship. Ragan is the author of our twelfth pamphlet, God's Grandeur: The Church in the Economy of Creation. He is currently working with two partners to develop a farm at a public middle school and high school for troubled youth. Check out his personal blog, titled "Agrarian Notebook." He also has a homepage with links to his published writing, including a piece on Wendell Berry.
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EP-er's LOCAL BOOKSTORES
Newsletter readers and EP endorsers will be aware of our indebtedness to our friends at both Wipf and Stock and Brazos Press for their support of the EP and for the work they do to bring important books to print. They are joined in this work by other small Christian bookstores and publishers. Denise Frame Harlan reminded us of the network of "Ekklesia-friendly" bookstores by bringing to our attention Byron Borger of Hearts & Minds Bookstore near York, Pennsylvania (the above image is from their website). As she says: "If you peruse his website for Hearts & Minds, you will see he is the deepest sort of educator-- but what you can't see is his dynamic manner of speaking. He's enthusiastic about what God can do through books. He's also hung around with Walter Brueggeman, Eugene Peterson, Marva Dawn, Lauren Winner, Oz Guinness. He is a serious and committed pacifist, an activist for wrongly-incarcerated immigrants and he packs a mean book table for any occasion."
Doulos Christou Books, affiliated with Engelwood Christian Church in Indianapolis, might also be of interest to EP endorsers. Doulos Christou is another small independent press dedicated to publishing books and other materials related to radical Christian discipleship.
Brian Volck recommends Eighth Day Books in Witchita, Kansas, referred to by admirers as "the bookstore of heaven." It is shepherded by Warren Farha, who maintains (in store and on line) an astonishing variety of theological, historical and literary texts. Farha's particular interests include patristics, iconography and Eastern Christianity, but it's a challenge finding an in-print book of interest to EP endorsers that Eighth Day doesn't carry. The comprehensive annual catalogue, available on request, contains short, perceptive reviews of hundreds of books.
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 ADAM KOTSKO, ZIZEK AND THEOLOGY
Adam Kotsko, in Zizek and Theology (New York: T&T Clark, 2008), provides a most welcome introduction to and assessment of the work of the Slovenian philosopher, Slavoj Zizek. Though Zizek is not an orthodox Christian, and most EP endorsers will not agree with many of his conclusions, he is a thinker many will want to learn more about. He represents the current "turn to religion" in European philosophy, drawing upon various Christian themes and Christian theologians, from St. Paul to G.K Chesterton. He also draws crowds wherever he lectures, and he has been called an "academic rock star" due to his usage of pop-culture and jokes.
In less than 200 pages, Kotsko provides a clear introduction to relevant aspects of Zizek's thought and addresses a question EP endorsers must grapple with: "why is Zizek doing theology? Why is the role formerly played by internal critics who had somehow 'fallen out' of the institutional structure being played by an outsider?" If Christians want to know why radical atheists have taken up the task of theology, then Kotsko is a great place to start this investigation. [For a more extensive review of this book click here.]
Thomas J. Bridges
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EP FRIENDS AT POINT LOMA
Jamie Gates and others at Point Loma Nazarene University are quietly working in southern California and would love to connect with other EPers, either locally or virtually. As he says, "We have a BUNCH of stuff happening here that is consistent with EP's work and vision, prophetic work particularly grounded in local congregation." And they do! Their ongoing projects attend particularly to the questions of immigration, borders and economics from the perspective of Christian unity, hospitality, reconciliation, nonviolence, and sabbath.
Communion across the Border
A Divided Friendship: Border Field State Park
Roots of Giving (a website to promote Sabbath/Jubilee economics)
And he recommends EPers visit the Ekklesia Collective website.
Those interested in questions of immigration and the US/Mexican border, please write to Jamie for more information on two pastoral gatherings they recently did to nurture cross-border relations, including sister church relations, and for more information on a public liturgy event they sponsor every year called La Posada Sin Fronteras. As he describes it: "Christians gather on both sides of the border to celebrate Christian unity, hospitality and to mourn for those who have died crossing the border. Friday night before the event we have a gathering at my home to decorate the luminarias with artwork and the names of those who have died crossing the border."
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FROM THE EDITOR
It happened again recently: I was asked if I was "still a member" of the Ekklesia Project. When the EP was formed we made a conscious decision to reject the term "member" because we did not want to be confused with a church, denomination, or even what gets loosely called a parachurch organization. We are a fellowship of Christian friends who corporately represent many threads of the Christian tradition. We each remain a member of - and accountable to - our specific Christian tradition. Through the EP we affirm the Christian unity that weaves all of our various threads together. We seek to help one another grow as disciples of Jesus Christ, to challenge our churches to become genuine communities of Christian transformation and to develop resources to support them in this effort.
Anyone who is in sympathy with our mission is, by definition, a friend of the EP. "Friend" has been an important term for us dating back to the very first pamphlet we published, in which Mike Budde and Stanley Hauerwas defined the Ekklesia Project as "a school for subversive friendships." That description has held up well over the last decade, as has our Declaration and Invitation which can be found on the EP website by clicking on "about us."
Those who read the Declaration and find themselves in agreement with the principles stated there are urged to respond to the invitation with which it concludes:
We
invite Christians from all walks of life to join us. We ask for your
prayers and participation; we ask each endorser to pledge a specific
amount of time and money to the support of the Project each year; and
we ask you to add your name to the endorser list of The Ekklesia
Project.
Simply click on the "contact us" link and indicate your desire to be listed as an endorser. That will not make you a "member" of the EP, but it will make you a subversive in the very best sense of the word.
John McFadden
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