PRISmTaking Aim at the Gun IndustryFaith communities fight back with prayer and protest

Exonerated death row prisoners speak out US Christians

learn to love their muslim neighborsCan we afford not

to educate “at-risk” youth?

September/October 2011 PRISMmagazine.org

A Publication of Evangelicals for Social Action

The Sider Center on Ministry and Public Policy

www.EvangelicalsforSocialAction.orgPalmer Theological Seminary

of Eastern University

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PRISM Vol. 18, No. 5 Vol. 18, No. 5

All contents © 2011 ESA/PRISM magazine.

September-October 2011

2 Reflections from the EditorSticking It to The Man3 Talk Back Letters to the Editor4 Word, Deed & SpiritIslamophobia5 Hands & FeetSafety Cop7 A Different Shade of GreenThe World Is Watching8 Global PositionsNigerian Christians Seek a Theology of Conflict9 Washington WatchPassionate Politics39 Art & SoulBeauty Out of Tragedy40 Music NotesBroken and Sacred41 On Being the ChurchThe Good News of Vulnerability42 Off the ShelfWhy we expect more from technology and less from each other, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, rescuing the lost children of Nepal, ministering to prisoners, debunking Alfred Kinsey.46 Kingdom Ethics Christianities48 Ron SiderReflections on 50 Years of Marriage

Contentsseptember october 2011/

In that day I will make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, the birds in the sky, and the creatures that move along the ground. Bow and sword and battle I will abolish from the land, so that all may lie down in safety.Hosea 2:18

10 CrossfireThe gun lobby is rich and ruthless, but God's people have the power of prayer and protest on their side.18 A Costly Thing to WasteDonors wanting bang for their buck should understand that the payoff for educating urban youth far outweighs the cost of failing them.22 Found and Standing FirmThe Lost Boys of Sudan open the hearts of American Christians to the broader immigrant (and indigent) needs around them.26 Privileged, Prepared…and PowerlessAn American struggling to bring his niece out of the Congo learns a harsh lesson about the vagaries of US immigration policy.28 Freed to SpeakExonerated death row prisoners put real faces on the high cost of the death penalty.34 What's So Radical about Loving Muslims?A look at evangelicals who are learning to love their Muslim neighbors.

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The weapons of the strong are smashed to pieces, while the weak are infused with fresh strength.1 Samuel 2:2 (The Message)

2 PRISM Magazine

Kristyn Komarnicki

R eflections from the Editor

Kristyn Komarnicki is partial to children, the elderly, sexual abuse victims, prisoners, immigrants, open-hearted people of

all faiths, and all who are in touch with their own inner frailties. Among her “everything that hinders, ”she wrestles the most with controlling her temper, refraining from offering unsought advice, and remembering the Sabbath.

Sticking It to The Man

“Sticking It to The Man” is generally un-derstood as performing an act of sub-version or disobedience in order to op-pose some faceless but powerful entity, such as the government, big business, or the moneyed class. In everyday life, it is often characterized by petty, cowardly acts of entitlement, such as stealing pa-per clips from one’s employer or using work time to browse the internet. There is something deep within us that revels in rebelling, but I marvel at the small-ness we often exhibit in the form—and object—of our rebellions.

This is a downright shame, because many things are genuinely worth rebel-ling against—prejudice, usury, violence, to name a few. Pick any form of op-pression, please, and rebel away—with God’s blessing. But how much time do we spend “sticking it” to those versions of The Man, shaking our fists in the face of evil and standing firm in the knowl-edge that the God of the universe has our back?

In this issue we take an up-close look at several of The Man’s most un-pleasant manifestations: the gun lobby, the criminal “justice” system, an edu-cational system that fails the kids who need it most. We also witness how God exalts the lowly in order to expose, chal-lenge, and humble those the world ex-alts. That’s God’s trademark move, of course, but it never ceases to astound me.

Our cover feature tells a David and Goliath tale of faith communities tak-ing a stand against national gun control laws that favor politicians (those in the NRA’s pocket) over people. The evi-dence is overwhelming—guns regularly and easily get in the wrong hands, lead-ing to more than 100,000 US citizens being maimed or killed every year. Yet many legislators continue to respond to pressure from the cash-rich gun lobby, effectively saying with their votes that money is more important than life, lib-erty, and human flourishing. This stinks, but it’s not the end of the story, and

in this feature you’ll learn about gun violence victims, such as Jamillah Posey and Jim Brady, who have turned their pain into a platform to speak out against laws that fail to protect.

In “Freed to Speak,” the frankly criminal inequities of the US court/prison system come into sharp focus as exon-erated—that is, convicted, proven inno-cent, and released—death row prisoners tell hair-raising stories of jury tampering, lawyer incompetence, and fabricated testimony from bought witnesses. Al-though beaten down physically, mentally, and spiritually, these men have found the faith and courage to return from death’s door and testify to the political manipu-lations that go on behind the scenes and lead to such terrible injustices against the poor. While justice would require that they be compensated for their pain and rewarded with a long luxury cruise, reality fails to conform to that picture, and they instead donate their time ad-vocating for others who have yet to find their voice, a responsibility they take dead seriously.

In “A Costly Thing to Waste” we meet a young man who, in spite of all the rhetoric about “at-risk” youth and how much they drain the system, defied every stereotype and obstacle to become a successful banker—only to return to the streets in order to help lift other kids out of poverty and hopelessness. The Man asks, “What’s the point of pouring resources into these kids who are going to end up in jail anyway?” UrbanPromise’s Bruce Main sticks it to The Man by asking, and then acting on, “How can we afford not to educate these kids, who, if not snatched from this system of despair, will end up costing taxpayers millions of dollars in court fees, welfare, and damages alone?”

And as 9/11 turns 10, we look at Christian/Muslim relations in the US and are encouraged to learn of grow-ing efforts to build bridges between the two faith communities. What better way to stick it to the terrorists—both those who use physical violence and those who

wield rhetorical weapons, in both the Christian and the Muslim fundamental-ist camps—than to learn to live in love and harmony with our neighbors? This is radical rebellion at its finest!

There is one more version of The Man that we all, no matter who we are or what we believe, need to rebel against, perhaps with more passion and rigor than any other—and that is the “natural man” that lives within each of us. As Paul wrote in his first letter to the Corinthians, “the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him” (2:14). Our own sinful nature—so determined to strut, to justify, to grasp at power and get its own way—is our biggest obstacle to living in harmony with God, ourselves, and our human family. This is the first and the final frontier in the rebellion that God invites us to, calling us to “throw off everything that hinders” (Hebrews 12:1) and “cut off and throw away” every part of us that causes us to sin (Matthew 18:8).

Corporately and individually, let us commit to “sticking it to” The Man that lurks within all of us. Let us rebel against the rebel within us and follow Jesus—the greatest and most radical rebel-rous-er that ever lived—in a rowdy, jubilant protest of all that is unjust in our world. Are you in?

This is the first and the final frontier in the

rebellion that God invites us to.

33

Letters to the Editor T alk Back

We’d love to hear from and keep in touch with you. There are lots of ways to interact. Email the editor at KKomarni@Eastern.edu. Check us out on Facebook @PRISMmagazine and Twitter @EvanSocAction. Sign up for the free weekly ePistle at EvangelicalsforSocialAction.org/ePistle, also published by Evangelicals for Social Action, for timely news and action alerts. Join the conversation! We look forward to connecting with you.

I have been reading PRISM since about 1998. I have given subscriptions to our college interns for the last seven years, to friends, seminarians, and now the youth staff at both of our church's sites. Thanks for one of the best periodicals in what’s left of the West.

Rev. Drew HendersonColonial Presbyterian ChurchKansas City, Mo.

I couldn’t help being slightly amused by David Gushee’s column in the May/June issue, “Moral Excellence in Small Things,” lamenting

the decline of Bible study among younger Christians while simultaneously decrying the alleged sinfulness of gambling. After 20 years of Bible study, I’m fairly certain that Scripture is silent on the subject of gambling. It is undoubtedly abused by many, like sex or alcohol, but that hardly makes it inherently sinful. I really don’t think legalistic hangups are how Jesus calls us to be set apart from the world; that was the Pharisees’ approach to spirituality. Mike NacrelliPortland, Ore.

PRISM is simply outstanding and unique in the field of Christian journalism. It addresses the tough issues of our time—such as poverty, political and social injustice, violence in the home and

on the street, economic exploitation, environmental degradation, human trafficking, illegal immigration—from the perspective of a deeply grounded biblical faith. It is evangelical without being doctrinaire; hard-hitting and prophetic but not judgmental; forthright and incisive yet irenic in tone and generous toward dissenting voices. I respect and laud its authentic witness to the whole gospel.

Dr. Manfred T. BrauchPalms, S.C.

Thanks for a “A Call to Compassion for Our Brothers the Animals” in the July/August issue.  Unlike the religions of the East (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism) which have clear injunctions against eating meat, the Bible is ambiguous. Certainly, people cited in the Bible ate meat, yet the book of Genesis suggests a vegetarian path. “Then God said, ‘I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground…I give every green plant for food.’ And it was so. God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Gen. 1:29-31). This passage indicates that humans were to eat seed-bearing plants and fruits while animals were given green plants.

Victor M. Parachin, author of  365 Good Reasons to Be a Vegetarian (Avery, 1997)Tulsa, Okla.

4 PRISM Magazine4

Al Tizon with Candace Tizon Martinez W ord, Deed & Spirit

IslamophobiaMost Americans are afraid of Muslims.

We have only to recall the recent controversy concerning the proposed construction of a mosque near the Ground Zero site. The hate speech, slandering, and truth-blurring via the na-tional news and political talk shows rode the wave of American fear as high as they could, exposing the “Islamophobia” that plagues our land.

What I find even more disturbing than this sweeping aversion is the fear that manifests itself on smaller rela-tional scales. For example, residents of a street just a few blocks over from where I live successfully prevented the use of a house on that street for Muslim worship. Opponents cited zoning and parking concerns, but insiders knew bet-ter—fear of Muslims “taking over” won the day. Resistors of the plan far out-numbered those who tried to uphold the religious freedom of the Constitu-tion. Not surprisingly, relationships in the neighborhood have been strained ever since.

But Islamophobia is manifested on an even smaller scale than neighborhood politics. My daughter Candace shared an experience with me recently as part of a college course she took on Islam. I invited her to share it with PRISM read-ers firsthand:

“I recently completed a course called, ‘Women of Islam.’ I had an elective to fulfill, and this class looked interesting. I knew almost nothing about Islam when the class began, and I still have much to learn, but by the end I had gained a deep appreciation and respect for it. I have no plans to convert to Islam, but my eyes have definitely been opened to the inac-curacies and stereotypes about it.

“One of our assignments was to go as participant-observers, on our own time, to jum’ah, the equivalent to our Sunday church service, but jum’ah hap-pens on Fridays in mosques. I was ex-cited to experience Muslim worship and not just read about it. A Muslim class-mate helped me and two others from

the class to properly put on the hijab, the traditional Muslim head (and some-times face) covering. Once we were all dressed respectfully for prayer and wor-ship, we drove to a local mosque near the college.

“Almost immediately, as the three of us drove to the mosque, I began to see different looks on the faces of those we passed, from confusion to pity to fear—just because our garb identified us as being Muslim. At least that was the way it felt, and my feelings were con-firmed in a few of my post-jum’ah expe-riences, which I’ll tell you about shortly. As for the service itself, my responses were mixed. The sense of unity, rever-ence, and sacred space, as well as the humility, particularly among the men, were extremely moving. On the other hand, the message (sermon) wasn’t all that great; but then again that’s how I often feel when I worship in churches (no offense, Dad).

“Afterwards when we drove back to campus, we were again met with stares, glares, and ‘no-looks.’ Through the eyes of a ‘Muslim woman,’ I experienced two exchanges in particular that unveiled for me the discrimination shown toward Muslims. The first was avoidance. My classmates and I obviously stuck out, but many people just walked by us, knowing we were there but clearly avoid-ing eye contact. I noticed some even turning their heads away from us. The only other time I ever experienced such treatment was when I was a teenager at an airport playing in a wheelchair. We

shouldn’t have been playing with it, but my mom pushed me around in it while we waited for our flight. Apparently, we ‘played’ well enough that people thought I was disabled, and they looked away. That poor, poor child. That’s the way it felt as I walked down the street wearing a hijab; I experienced the same averted gazes as I did when people thought I couldn’t walk.

“The only way I can describe the sec-ond exchange is the word prejudice, plain and simple and ugly. On my way home from the mosque, still wearing the hijab, I entered an office which I’ve frequented

many times before, to take care of some paperwork. In the past, I had always been greeted with friendly and helpful staff there. But on this day, I was not greeted at all. I received no

smiles and hardly any eye contact. Fur-thermore, somebody asked me for my ID, which had never happened before. The stark difference in treatment as a ‘Muslim woman’ rather than a ‘normal American woman’ shocked me. I was saddened and angered by the way I was treated by the people from that other-wise friendly office, just because they believed I was of ‘that’ faith.

“I learned much from this assign-ment, probably more than the profes-sor intended. Yes, I experienced Muslim worship, but more importantly, I learned how not to treat Muslims—or anyone for that matter—just because they’re different from me. Isn’t this Christianity 101?”

Al Tizon (atizon@eastern.edu) is director of ESA’s Word & Deed Network and associate professor of holistic ministry at Palmer Theological Seminary in Wynnewood, Pa. Candace Tizon Martinez (cjtmartinez@gmail.com) studies early childhood education at Mills College in Oakland, Ca.

The stark difference in treatment as a “Muslim woman” rather than a “normal

American woman” shocked me.

6 PRISM Magazine

7

A Different Shade of GreenRusty Pritchard

The World Is Watching Creation care opponents have thrown caution to the wind. Emboldened by demagogues like Glenn Beck, they’re not averse to painting as “totalitarians” anyone even slightly concerned about pollution, resource conservation, biodiversity loss, or energy efficiency.

The Washington Times published a piece on May 19, 2011, by creation care critic Cal Beisner purporting to reveal the “hidden dangers” in the National Day of Prayer for Creation Care, which was spon-sored by the Evangelical Environmental Network (EEN). Among their “dangerous” prayer requests: reducing mercury pollu-tion that passes from pregnant mothers to their unborn babies.

Aside from being a worthy cause in its own right, the campaign seemed to me to be good apologetics as well. Here were evangelical Christians claiming pub-licly that God’s call to compassion and wise dominion extends to stopping air pollution that affects our most vulner-able citizens, growing the credibility of the pro-life witness by linking it to more than fighting abortion (the frequency of which, we must all admit, remains our greatest current national travesty), and doing so with smart, well-documented research and policy recommendations. I personally know of formerly pro-choice environmen-talists who have changed their positions on abortion because of encountering pro-life evangelical environmental advocates.

But the most visible anti-environ-mentalists never let concerns about the church’s witness in the world overcome their fundamental desire to fight even the suggestion that democratically elected governments might use their regulatory authority to protect the environment. The libertarian ends consistently trump the means, and evangelism tends to be the first casualty, with regard for truth a close second.

In Beisner’s critique, he constructed two straw-man claims that EEN’s ma-terials didn’t make; and even the way he rebuts the fictitious claims reveals a lot about his commitments.

Beisner said EEN claimed “the main source of mercury pollution is dirty air re-

leased by coal-burning power plants” and that international sources are more impor-tant. Beisner apparently didn’t read the materials he was criticizing, because they didn’t say what he said they did. Appar-ently the Washington Times can’t afford fact-checkers. EEN gave a quite detailed explanation on the sources of mercury pollution and the relative contribution of domestic and international sources, which varies from place to place (they even pro-vided a map).

But the reason Beisner invented that red herring is that he sniffed out an at-tempt to strengthen regulation on emis-sions from coal-fired power plants. He challenged a fictitious version of EEN’s claims about sourcing, because he didn’t want to draw attention to their well-re-searched claims about the economic ben-efits from regulating mercury emissions (which predict $60-140 billion in total health benefits, or a return of $5-13 for every $1 invested in meeting the regula-tions).

It wouldn’t be surprising, when we look back from the future, if the costs of limiting mercury went down relative to predictions and the benefits went up. That’s been the case with other environ-mental regulations as well—something even those opposed to regulations at the time now admit. Since we enacted the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments, the economy has grown 64 percent while air pollution has gone down 41 percent, a puzzle to those who predict economic collapse in the face of strong environmen-tal regulations.

Beisner goes on to accuse EEN of being a mouthpiece for the environmental lobby, repeating someone else’s suspect talking points about how bad mercury is for fetuses. But he ignored the peer-reviewed scientific literature the EEN documents clearly cite—again, he simply makes stuff up about EEN and its cam-paign to suit his own rhetorical purposes.

Beisner gives a drastically lower fig-ure for unborn babies afflicted with unsafe levels of mercury in their blood—but he doesn’t say where he got his figures. So it turns out that Beisner committed the vice he (wrongly) accuses EEN of. EEN cited multiple studies that demonstrate not just

how many infants are affected by mercu-ry in utero but also to what degree, and (crucially) puts a dollar value on the health benefits of mercury pollution reductions.

I’m sympathetic to the problems of exaggeration and the nuances of weigh-ing costs and benefits. I railed in the past about the irrational fears some parents have about the tiny amounts of mercury in vaccines, when the private and public health benefits from being vaccinated so far outweighs any negligible risk. Atmo-spheric mercury emissions are a different case—but it’s an empirical question, not an ideological question. Because Beisner is motivated chiefly by a libertarian world-view, he simply assumes that the costs of reducing mercury emissions will outweigh the direct and indirect benefits, when the best evidence shows that the reverse is actually true.

Beisner is certainly a devoted advo-cate. He is faithful to his ideology and political positions and tireless in their de-fense. There is indeed a strong case to be made for the free market and for capital-ism; environmental policies for a flourish-ing economy would be much better if they reflected the concerns of economic con-servatives. That case is not made stron-ger, however, by a sloppy critique that runs roughshod over facts or by deafness to reasonable counterarguments.

Beisner cites, without apparent sense of the irony, 1 Thessalonians 5:21 (in ref-erence to prophecies, the readers are told to “test them all; hold on to what is good, reject every kind of evil”). Free market ad-vocacy and creation care advocacy can be done with care, rigor, and honesty. When the lost world is watching the way we ar-gue, it is a necessity.

A natural resource econo-mist, Rusty Pritchard is the cofounder and president of Flourish (FlourishOnline.org), a national Christian ministry that serves Christians as

they grow in environmental stewardship, healthy living, and radical discipleship.

Editors’ note: We invite readers to sign EEN’s End Mercury Poisoning Pledge at

CreationCare.org/view.php?id=314.

18 PRISM Magazine

A few months ago I heard—via the grapevine—that one of my donors thinks our programs for inner-city kids at UrbanPromise in Camden, N.J., are “too expensive.”

I guess he feels that the $7,000 cost we incur to educate a child in one of our private Christian schools (versus $16,850 per child in the local public schools),1 or the $1,500 we pay to employ a teen for seven weeks during the summer, or the $350 we spend to keep a child in a full-day, six-week summer camp is just too much money—not enough “bang for the

buck.” For a few weeks I brooded over the comment. I wasn’t

sure how to respond. I tend to think twice before biting the hand that feeds me, so I wanted to be sure I thought through my response before I hit the reply button. Ironically this funder—a Christian I should add—has no problem sending his children to private schools, taking his family on a summer vacation, or tapping into his vast social network to get his kid a summer internship. All of these activities cost money—

A Costly Thing to WasteBY BRUCE MAIN

A Costly Thing to Waste

towards the young man.“What’s up?” I asked, trying not to look like an overly

concerned adult.“Waiting for a friend,” he muttered.“What’s your name?” I continued.“Angelo.“Angelo.” I pressed, “Where do you go to school?”“Up the street.” He motioned towards the public high

school a few blocks down Federal Street. The school houses about 1,300 students and is ranked 315 out of 316 schools in New Jersey. Yes, that’s the second worst high school in the state. According to a recent article, it graduates about 55 percent of the students who enter in the 9th grade.2

“Do you like it?” I continued. “Like your school?”“Not really.“Why not?”“Four fights today,” he confessed. “There’s a group of

kids. They just pick fights.”“Would you be interested in coming to our school?”“Yep! But can’t afford it.”I motioned for Angelo to follow me, took him up the

steps of the school, and introduced him to Principal Marlowe. They began to discuss possibilities of getting him enrolled in our school—with a scholarship. My “expensive” programs just got more costly.

Criminologists might refer to Angelo as a “high-risk youth.” Youth workers prefer not to use terms like “high risk” because of its pejorative implications. Labels like “high risk” are negative. Youth workers prefer phrases like “youth growing up in high-risk communities.” But criminologists do not necessar-ily see things as youth workers do. Criminologists would insist that Angelo, because he is sitting on a curb at 1:05 p.m. on a weekday and is not in school, is high risk. If Angelo is not in school, the likelihood of him graduating from school diminishes significantly. If Angelo is afraid to go to school, he is prone to wandering the streets—or sitting on curbs. If Angelo is roving the streets, the probability of him getting involved in criminal activity is appreciably increased. According to criminologists, by sitting on my curb at 1:05 p.m. on a weekday afternoon, Angelo is no longer just a kid growing up in a high-risk com-munity. He is “at risk” of getting into all kinds of trouble.

In 1996 Vanderbilt University economist Mark Cohen wrote a definitive paper called “The Monetary Value of Saving a High-Risk Youth.” I know the title sounds a little cold and calculating, but that’s why economists are economists and not

large amounts of money. Not that it is incompatible to be a Christian and take your family on a sum-mer vacation or lobby your friends to help your kid secure a résumé-padding internship. I have no problem with sharing the gifts God gives us with our fam-ily. I do have a problem, however, with the notion that organiza-tions working with impoverished, inner-city youth have to always cut corners, do bargain-basement programming, and stretch the dol-lars like saltwater taffy. Why is money spent on one group of kids justifiable but the same amount spent on other kids deemed “too

much”? It’s an interesting statement about values. One afternoon I walked briskly across the parking lot at

our ministry, located on the corner of 36th and Federal Street in East Camden. It was just after 1 p.m., and I was late for my meeting. I picked up my pace. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of a young man sitting on the curb—about 8 feet from the front door of our high school. Odd. I kept walking. From the depths of my subconscious emerged the old youth worker. “Why is this kid sitting on a curb, in our parking lot, at 1:05 p.m.? I stopped, swiveled, and headed

19

How much is too much to educate “at-risk” urban youth?

28 PRISM Magazine

by Janell Anema Photography by Sofia Moro

FREED TO

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very six months an exclusive fraternal order gathers in a different US city where members can fellow-ship, celebrate, and support each other. To enter

this brotherhood one must endure a cruel hazing and an induction process perpetrated by the American criminal justice system. Inclusion in this fraternity requires that one must be arrested, falsely convicted, sentenced to die…and then set free. This is the brotherhood of the exonerated.

Capital punishment has long existed in America but was temporarily suspended on a national scale between 1972 and 1976 after the US Supreme Court declared executions to be unlawful violations of the Eighth Amend-ment (protection from cruel and unusual punishment) and the Fourteenth Amendment (granting the right to due process). Individual states quickly enacted revised legislations, adapted to address constitutional questions concerning capital punishment, and the first execution in the modern era occurred in 1976. Since then a total of 1,253 people have been executed in the US. Today over 3,000 people await execution on death row, but as of this past June, 138 men and women have been exonerated. Exoneration occurs when a person is proven, through a trial of appeal, to be innocent of the crime for which they were convicted. For a multitude of reasons, ranging from the discovery of jury tampering, lawyer ineptitude, false testimony of incentivized witnesses, and DNA evidence, these men and women have been acquitted, exonerated, and released from prison.1

Many American citizens remain oblivious to the politi-

cal issues that don’t directly affect them. Those who have never been the victim of a crime, never served on a jury, and never set foot inside a prison are not likely to spend much time thinking about the nation’s criminal justice system. But the brotherhood of the exonerated, served by Witness to Innocence, one of their most active advocating agencies, wants to change all that.

Witness to InnocenceBased in Philadelphia, Witness to Innocence (WTI) is the only organization of its kind in the United States—cre-ated by, comprised of, and working for exonerated death row survivors. Since being established in 2005, WTI has had as its primary goal to “empower death row survivors and their loved ones to be effective leaders in the move-ment to abolish the death penalty.”2 For the first time in the history of the abolition movement there is a body designed to empower the exonerees.

WTI does this, in part, by placing them in classrooms and on stages, in professional organizations and on city hall steps to champion the cause of abolition. Kathy Spillman is WTI’s speakers bureau director, dedicated to acquiring platforms for the exonerated.

“I’ve seen them change minds,” enthuses Spillman. “People who come into a talk pro-death penalty come out, after hearing our guys, against the death penalty or, at the very least, supporting a moratorium. It’s extraor-dinary. I’ve never seen anything like it. Even the most ex-pressive activist would not have the effect that they have

WITNESS TO INNOCENCE PUTS A FACE ON THE DEATH PENALTY DEBATE

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40 PRISM Magazine

Broken and SacredWhen I was at a Christian college in the late ’90s, we used to go to the Canal Street Tavern in Dayton, Ohio, to hear husband-wife duo Over the Rhine play. Ours was a school that felt at times like a summer Bible camp: Sex and drugs were, of course, verboten, but so were cer-tain types of rock and roll. Some faculty thought it was better to indoctrinate us with dispensational theology and literalist views of Scripture than have honest dis-cussions that would help us think things through for ourselves. In other words, my college years marked the end of childhood more than the start of adulthood.

Over the Rhine offered us some-thing different. We’d go to Dayton (or the band’s hometown of Cincinnati) and hear Karin Bergquist sing about sex and suicidal thoughts and existential angst and the Holy Spirit and hope. And it all seemed very grown up, very dangerous. In our carefully constrained environment, the Holy Spirit was okay as long as he (it was definitely a “he”) agreed with what

some older, wiser biblical exegetes had already decided the Bible said. But char-ismatic gifts or direct divine communica-tion were suspect. None of it left much room for risks, mistakes, or failure—until, of course, we got out into the real world and found we had to do a lot of impro-vising, because the Bible doesn’t tell us specifically how to deal with an addicted spouse or a lying boss or how much to put in a 401k. Bible camp doesn’t require hope; there are games and friends and cute girls and piles of food—what more is there to hope for?

Without hope, of course, there is no Christian faith, but without an awareness of what is broken, there can be no hope. Over the Rhine gave us both. My friend Ken, who was older and wiser (a seventh-year senior, and counting), joked once about how guys from my college went to Over the Rhine shows just to stare at Karin. And, yeah, she was hot. We

were 20, she was 30—a real woman, all swaying curves and moans and wordless sing-ing of the sort I’ve heard singer-song-writer Suf-jan Stevens call the “sex scenes” of pop music. I heard once that the song “Jack’s Valentine” got Over the Rhine’s albums kicked out of Christian bookstores, though that may be suburban legend. “Down here on the hardwood floor/ the lines on the ceiling start to swim once more.” Bergquist and her husband, Linford Detweiler, wrote about their own sex and getting taken in the arms of Jesus, self-empowerment, and a yearning for God, a sort of blueprint for young Christians try-

ing both to be heavenly minded and to do some earthly good

“We refuse to separate the world into the broken and the unbroken, and we refuse to separate the world into the secular and the sacred,” Detweiler, the son of a Mennonite pastor, told me re-cently. “The fact of the matter is, we’re all broken, and it’s all sacred.”

Well, now comes Over the Rhine in their mid-40s, with more than two decades and a dozen studio albums be-hind them. They released their soulful collection The Long Surrender in Febru-ary. They’re not singing so much about sex anymore, though their fierce fight for their marriage was well-chronicled in their 2005 record, Drunkard’s Prayer. And their existential angst is all but gone, replaced with a more mature set of strug-gles: the global financial crisis, an ailing mother, scars of relationships and just plain survival, any world-changing ambi-tions tempered by time. “I still dreamed of a love to outlive us / I still prayed that

this night would outlast us / and redeem some small thing far beyond me.”

Bergquist’s “Only God Can Save Us Now” has her imitating patients at her mother’s nursing home, singing “How Now Brown Cow” and “Fuzzy Wuzzy Was a Bear” in their mental regression. I asked her if that might alienate fans who think of Over the Rhine as a “hip” Chris-tian band.

“It was the most traumatic thing I’ve had to deal with,” she said. “Maybe some people in the younger generation don’t understand the song. But it’s not for them yet. Someday, they’ll understand.”

Spoken like a true matriarch of con-temporary Americana. Of course, her sultry voice and lyrics about gripping the “midnight microphone” can still drive young men mad. But when she sings about “the young and dumb and bored” driving recklessly for the thrill, you know she’s no pretty girl to be trifled with. This is a real woman, watching her mother die, giving thanks that her marriage survived, lifting up fallen friends, savoring Elvis and Hank Williams and Buddy Holly. Heaven and earth still collide, but the sadness and the hope are deeper with age.

Jesse James DeConto is a writer and musician living in Durham, N.C.

Jesse James DeContoM usic Notes

“The fact of the matter is, we’re all broken, and it’s all sacred.”

Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler of Over the Rhine

ff the ShelfO Book Reviews

Alone Togetherby Sherry TurkleBasic Books

Reviewed by Dale S. Kuehne

Sherry Turkle wants to talk about technological attachments. Not files we attach to emails, not attachments that allow us to charge our iPod with

our car’s cigarette lighter, not special lenses to attach to our iPhones. No, in her recent book, Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, she wants to talk about the deep and potentially troubling attachments we form with our email accounts, music devices, and smart phones.

As an MIT professor, Turkle has spent much of her career studying the psychological and social impact of tech-nology on human life. Her particular interest is in study-ing how robotics and personal technological devices impact how we relate to others and ourselves. She approaches the subject with an appreciation and fascination with technol-ogy, and yet from that vantage point has discovered some chilling data concerning how technology is making it more and more difficult for us to be human.

She speaks of how robotics have advanced to the point that children often prefer virtual pets to real pets and how the elderly can find such comfort in virtual pets or robots that they don’t feel as much need for human companion-ship, including their children. She lets us know that the technology is advancing so rapidly that we will soon be able to create human robots that are so “human” and personally engaging that Scientific American is exploring legal mar-riage between humans and robots.

Turkle gives us a glimpse into how personal technology and social networking are changing our lives, and especially the lives of our children. For an increasing number of peo-ple the most important relationship in their life is with the device that gives them access to email, IMs, and Facebook. So significant is the attachment we have to our technology that we are often unaware that we have developed an at-tachment stronger than we have with any person.

Alone Together is a well-written, widely accessible book that is a must read for anyone who wants to try to under-stand culturally where we are and where we are going, as well as understand how to work with the most at-risk group in our society—our children.

Turkle explains why I can’t go to a gathering of adults without finding a significant number of people, including me, texting and writing email while someone else is talk-ing. Many of us are so attached to our technology that our brains have developed a biochemical addiction to the elec-tronic stimulation of our devices. When that occurs—and youth are especially vulnerable to this due to their stage of development—what drives us is not the desire to be closer

to the people to whom we are texting but our brain de-manding the stimulation the screen is providing. Millions of us are unaware we should be in a new kind of 12-step program.

Turkle is not a Luddite. She appreciates the uses that can be made of the ever-advancing technology. She is try-ing to alert us to the danger that the technology presents, especially its addictive and antisocial dimensions. This is the greatest contribution of the book.

If an essential part of what it means to be human is to love and be loved, to love God, neighbor, and self, Alone Together introduces us to the profound threat that smart phones, personal computers, and social networking pose for us. As the title implies, this technology can hypnotize us into believing we are relating to others when we are in fact connecting to a technological device. Moreover, social networking provides us with the ability to remake ourselves into who we wish we were and to relate to the fictions of others, thereby further complicating the already difficult task of knowing self and others.

Turkle raises more questions than she answers, but they are the questions that help us put into perspective the challenge our culture faces.

Dale S. Kuehne is the Richard L. Bready Chair in Ethics, Economics, and the Common Good at Saint Anselm Col-lege in Manchester, N.H., where he is also a professor of politics. He is the author of Sex and the iWorld: Rethinking Relationship beyond an Age of Individualism (Baker Aca-demic, 2009).

Bonhoefferby Eric MetaxisThomas Nelson

Reviewed by John A. Sundquist

In Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, biographer Eric Metax-is tells with remarkable sensitivity the story of one man’s faithfulness to the gospel of Jesus Christ and the forces

that shaped him. Its 31 packed chapters are informed by extensive quotations from correspondence between Bon-hoeffer and his large circle of family, friends, and colleagues as well as excerpts from sermons he preached and lectures he delivered.

The work surveys four major periods of Bonhoeffer’s life and work: his childhood and youth; his theological stud-ies and early pastoral work in the ’20s; the rise of Nazism through the ’30s and Bonhoeffer’s opposition and leader-ship in the Confessing Church movement; and his involve-ment, in the early ’40s, in the conspiracy to assassinate Adolf Hitler, leading to his arrest in 1943 and his execution

42 PRISM Magazine

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