Guns & Violence: A Seminary Adventure

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I have been invited to spend 90 minutes leading a seminary class discussion on violence and guns. Before I join the crew, the doctoral students will have read Beating Guns (Claiborne & Martin, 2019) and will have watched Us Kids (documentary, 2020). The professor has also highlighted The Fallout (R, 2021).

This is the description I was given for our session together: “In addition to thinking about God’s calling across the life span of individuals, we are also examining God’s calling to church organizations throughout their history, especially as they navigate cultural disruptions and transitions.” And the invitation is to spend an hour and a half exploring “the intersection of Peace Studies and Adventism and how we might discern God’s calling amid the unspeakable violence violence that is all too common—from American schools to Ukrainian cities and towns.”

Below are some of the themes and resources we will likely cover, but we’ll see where the conversation leads….

FIVE-PART JOURNEY pastors should be aware of, with each level or sector influencing the others: Individual/personal, Congregational, Denominational, National/societal, Global. (Culture trumps religion. Always?)

CLICHE: Pastor holds a Bible in one hand and a newspaper (shorthand for info about the world, whether in current events, cultural values and movements, and history) in the other. The pastor who is concerned about peace can organize content from these sources (broadly defined) into three buckets: (1) pro peace, (2) anti violence, and (3) “but what about…?”

  • BIBLE:
  • >Peace & violence in the Hebrew scriptures, the Christian New Testament.
  • >Narrative theology and the trajectory of scripture (trajectory hermeneutics)
  • HISTORY BOOK: The Early Church, later Christian history, early Adventist history, and recent Adventist history/culture.
  • NEWSPAPER: Gun violence in schools and wider society, and intrastate and interstate war. (Guns now leading cause of death for kids in the U.S. Fox News, WebMD)

SELECT PEACE/VIOLENCE THEMES: Nonviolence, pacifism, just war theory, self-defense, R2P responsibility to protect (UN), forgiveness, reconciliation, justice, interpersonal conflict, intrastate violence/war, interstate violence/war, terrorism, torture, conflict transformation, death penalty, just peacemaking, racism, intimate partner violence, mental health, interfaith issues, economic issues, gun violence….

SHALOM: https://pacificador99.wordpress.com/2011/02/28/toward-a-definition-of-shalom/

SELECT ADVENTIST STATEMENTS on VIOLENCE:

ARTICLES:

PODCAST: Adventist Peace Radio, Ep. 20 (Apr. 6, 2018), “March For Our Lives“

ADVENTIST PEACEMAKERS: Adventist Peace Fellowship List

See also: Lyndi Fourie Foundation, Story at The Forgiveness Project, Adventist Review (2006), Beyond Forgiving (documentary short)

DOCUMENTARY FILMS:

SELECT BOOKS:

By Adventists

  • Church and Society (Maier, ed., 2015)
  • Adventists and Military Service (Hasel, Magyarosi, Hoschele, eds., 2019)
  • Adventism and the American Republic (Morgan, 2001)
  • The Promise of Peace (Scriven, 2009)
  • Anarchy and Apocalypse (Osborn, 2010)
  • Seventh-day Adventists in Time of War (Wilcox, 1936)
  • The Peacemaking Remnant (Morgan, ed., 2005)
  • Should I Fight? (Bussey, ed., 2011)
  • I Pledge Allegiance (Phillips, Tsatalbasidis, 2007)
  • I’m Not Leaving (Wilkins, 2011)
  • Flee the Captor (Ford, 1966)

For Congregations

  • A Culture of Peace: God’s Vision for the Church (Kreider, Kreider & Widjaja, 2005)
  • Peace Ministry: A Handbook for Local Churches (Buttry, 1995)
  • Christian Peacemaking (Buttry, 1994)
  • Shalom Church (Nessan, 2010)

General

  • Jesus for President (Claiborne & Shaw, 2008)
  • Peacemakers in Action: Profiles of Religion in Conflict Resolution (Little, ed., 2007)
  • Peacemaking Power of Prayer (Robb & Hill, 2000)
  • Just Peacemaking (Stassen, 2008)
  • Peace Reader (Sider & Keefer Jr., eds., 2002)

History

  • The Early Church on Killing (Sider, ed., 2012)
  • Christian Attitudes toward War and Peace (Bainton, 1986)
  • Christian Attitudes to War, Peace and Revolution (Yoder, 2009)

Theology

  • Neglected Voices: Peace in the Old Testament (Leiter, 2007)
  • Covenant of Peace (Swartley, 2006)
  • Shalom: The Bible’s Word for Salvation, Justice & Peace (Yoder, 1987)

BONUS 1: https://www.presbypeacefellowship.org/gun-violence/

BONUS 2: Mishmash of Adventists responding to violence

2005

https://adventist.news/news/world-church-adventists-condemn-london-acts-of-terror-pray-for-victims

2008

https://adventist.news/news/london-adventist-youth-march-against-violence

2013

https://atoday.org/thousands-of-adventist-youth-will-protest-gun-violence-in-march-across-brooklyn-bridge/

2018

https://atoday.org/adventist-churches-in-london-join-demonstrations-against-violence/

https://sec.adventist.uk/news/article/go/2018-05-10/hackney-community-faith-leaders-march-against-gun-and-knife-crime/

https://atoday.org/caribbean-adventist-youth-march-against-guns-and-drugs/

2019

https://atoday.org/london-adventists-march-against-gun-crime/

https://ted.adventist.org/news/adventist-youth-march-against-knife-and-gun-crime-in-their-community/

https://atoday.org/sabbath-school-mass-shootings-and-deafening-silence/

https://adventistreview.org/news/in-the-united-kingdom-adventist-youth-march-against-knife-and-gun-crime/

2022

https://www.heraldpalladium.com/communities/benton_harbor/benton-harbor-pastor-speaks-for-peace-at-teen-summit-on-gun-violence/article_c057fa8d-8115-57ac-bda0-29d2ae6358ba.html

Film Night Returns — Those Hungry Ghosts

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After an 11-year hiatus, including a global pandemic, we finally had a little documentary film night again. Four of us got together to watch Island of the Hungry Ghosts (trailer, website, IMDB, Wikipedia).

It’s a beautiful, haunting, moving, frustrating and important documentary. The film helped close the immigration detention center on Christmas Island in 2018, but it was reopened in 2020.

Here are some additional conversations with the director and other team members:

HISTORY: For past film night events, scroll down this page to find the archive.

WWYD: What Would You Do?

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I recently asked friends on Facebook how they would like to make the world a better place. More specifically, I asked about a single change that would make a big difference. I’ve been trying to think about one action/change that would make a significant positive improvement in the lives of individuals and wider society.

What do you think? What one change would have the greatest benefit? An attitude change? Something about mental or physical health? Some form of social action? A religious or faith-oriented change? Something political?

My current thought is that if us parents turned off our TVs in order to read with our kids, that could have a substantial positive impact for people of every faith, political party, and socioeconomic level. I could also see “…in order to play games with our kids,” but for now I’m going with “reading.” I don’t have any data to back this up, so it’s just a theory that it would make a difference in multiple ways.

So what do you think? If you could make one change in society to have maximum ripple effects of goodness, what would it be? What reasoning or data backs your theory?

Here are the responses people shared:

Mike: “I would add smart phone browsing with that. What started out as communicating on platforms such as Facebook, has often turned into a non productive waste of time!”

Loralee: “In talking with my students, what would make the biggest difference for them is understanding why a rule is in place. Also, just plain and simple time for discussion where they can hear other viewpoints.”

Jeff: “Intentionally serving together as a family.”

Mary: “Yes, reading to our kids. If not reading, playing and spending our time with them making memories and bonding our relationship with them. Trips, cooking and baking together…etc.”

Kristina: “More volunteerism. Now that I’m not inside Adventism anymore, I have come to realize how few people are brought up to volunteer as a regular part of their life. I wish it was something more parents taught their kids.”

Andrew: “This is a huge question and really has me thinking. I agree with Kristina in that volunteerism is a big thing that is lacking, and something anyone can do to better the lives of others. It has to be done in a smart way though. I know, at least when I was a child and in the church, the big thing was going on mission trips to build a church. But I’ve read that doing that has no significant value to the community you do it at, and actually can make things worse economically. So intelligent volunteerism is a huge individual change we can be doing. On a bigger scale, a huge political improvement, in my opinion, is more socialist programs, especially in terms of health care and education. If we can, as a nation, improve those two things, we would be so much further ahead than we are currently.”

John: “I like all of them, but will go another direction. Parents need to teach their kids to accept and even love those that don’t look just like them, that go to a different church or religious affiliation (or none), that come from a different country. But who will teach the parents?”

Michelle: “I totally agree with you, Jeff, on reading. I was doing a best practices presentation recently on reading strategies, and in preparing my introduction, I came across this fact sheet – 11 Facts about Literacy in America. I knew some of the facts on here, but did not know all of them. What has struck me the most in my time teaching in corrections is the difference early literacy makes. Reading to children is the major determining factor in raising ACT/SAT scores. Reading to children and helping them develop early literacy skills prepares them to learn to read in school. Learning to read in school leads to the ability to read to learn. That’s why on the fact sheet 3rd/4th grade are so important–that’s where the switch happens. Being behind grade level reading in 3rd/4th grade is a huge factor leading to incarceration. This is why I volunteer one day a week to read with kids in the homeless shelter. I want so desperately for these kids NOT to end up in my classroom, reading below a 4th grade reading level.”

Karl: “My suggestion is quite simple. I wish Christians in general and SDAs in particular would teach the literal meaning of the Sermon on the Mount (or sea) over a period of months from all the pulpits AND stop rationalizing away what the itinerant carpenter from Nazareth actually said.”

Rebecca: “Other-centeredness instead of self-centeredness.”

What about you? What fundamental change would you most like to see?

2018 Reading Project — Adventist Edition

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In 2017, I made a reading plan that included one book per month. I didn’t come close to finishing that goal, but by cutting out a lot of social media, I did get a lot done with my podcast and new YouTube effort.

For 2018, I plan to read one Adventist book per month. Included in the 12 are some books I’ve already read but that I want to revisit. Here are the twelve I’ve selected (for now; it may change):

12 Adventist Books for 2018

  1. The Peacemaking Remnant (Morgan, ed., 2005)
  2. Adventism & the American Republic (Morgan, 2001)
  3. Redemption & Transformation through Relief & Development (Kuhn, 2013)
  4. Do Justice: Our Call to Faithful Living (Brown & Darby, eds., 2014)
  5. Building Peace: Overcoming Violence in Communities (Holsopple, Krall, & Pittman, 2005)
  6. Seventh-day Adventists and the Civil Rights Movement (London Jr., 2009)
  7. Entrusted: Christians and Environmental Care (Dunbar, Gibson & Rasi, eds., 2013)
  8. Reformation and the Remnant (Miller, 2016)
  9. It’s Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim Atheist Jewish Christian (Selmanovic, 2009)
  10. Should I Fight? (Bussey, ed., 2011)
  11. The Promise of Peace (Scriven, 2009)
  12. The Silent Church: Seventh-day Adventism, Human Rights and Modern Adventist Social Ethics (Plantak, 1998)

Alternates

The following books nearly made it onto my 2018 list. Maybe next year.

  • Church and Society: Missiological Challenges for the Seventh-day Adventist Church (Maier, ed. 2015)
  • Humanism and the Death of God (Osborn, 2017)
  • Flee the Captor (Ford, 1979)
  • Anarchy and Apocalypse (Osborn, 2010)
  • I’m Not Leaving (Wilkens, 2011)
  • Planet in Distress (Christiansen, 2012)
  • Black Maverick: T. R. M. Howard’s Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power (Beito & Beito, 2009)
  • The Lost Meaning of the Seventh Day (Tonstad, 2009)
  • The Religious Roots of the First Amendment: Dissenting Protestants and the Separation of Church and State (Miller, 2012)
  • I Pledge Allegiance: The Role of Seventh-day Adventists in the Military (Phillips & Tsatalbasidis, 2008)
  • Living Soul: We Shall Overcome (Cleveland, 1974)
  • Millennial Dreams and Moral Dilemmas: Seventh-day Adventism and
  • Contemporary Ethics (Pearson, 2008)
  • Pursuing the Passion of Jesus (Nelson, 2005)
  • The Eleventh Commandment (Nelson, 2013)
  • Conscience on Trial: The Fate of Fourteen Pacifists in Stalinʼs Ukraine, 1952-1953 (Kuromiya, 2012)
  • E.G. White and Church Race Relations (Graybill, 1970)
  • Seeking a Sanctuary: Seventh-day Adventism and the American Dream (Bull & Lockhart, 2006)
  • Seventh-day Adventism in Crisis: Gender and Sectarian Change in an Emerging Religion (Vance, 1999)
  • Seventh-day Adventists in Time of War (Wilcox, 1936)
  • Bert B. Beach: Ambassador for Liberty (Beach, 2012)
  • The Transformation of Culture: Christian Social Ethics After H. Richard Niebuhr (Scriven, 1988)
  • The Unlikeliest Hero: The Story of Desmond T. Doss, Conscientious Objector Who Won His Nation’s Highest Military Honor (Herndon, 1967)
  • Ellen White on Leadership: Guidance for Those Who Influence Others (Tutsch, 2008)
  • Keys to Adventist Community Service (AdventSource)
  • Ministries of Compassion (A Handbook for Adventist Community Services, Inner City Programs and Social Action Projects) (Sahlin, 2000)

10 Steps to Podcasting

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This is my latest summary of the podcasting process. After two more people asked for my advice, I decided I should put together a big-picture summary. At the end of the post, I give an update on my own system–where I started and what I’m doing now.

STEP 1: Record the Audio

Somehow you need to record the spoken word, generally saved as an MP3 or WAV file (WAV is better quality).

This step involves a lot of decisions, which are based on a number of factors:

  • Budget: Low/no-budget, middle of the road, pro.
  • Location: Pro studio, home studio, on the road, online.
  • Type of podcast: Solo, Collaborators, Online interview, In-person Interviews, etc.
  • Type of Microphone: Lav/lapel, shotgun, dynamic, condenser, XLR, USB, etc.
  • Equipment: Mobile phone, audio recorder, mixer, sound gate, audio interface, laptop, etc.
  • Software for Communication: Skype, Google Hangouts, Source-Connect Now, Appear.In, WhatsApp, Zoom, etc.
  • Software for Recording: Ecamm Call Recorder, Pamela, Audacity, Audio Hijack, Boss Jock, Sound Byte, etc.

NOTE: Check out my blog post that’s an introduction to podcasting. And when I was first learning to podcast, I wrote a two-part “how-to” – Part 1 and Part 2. I later added more about software and lav mics. These four blog posts cover elements in the items below, not only recording.

STEP 2: Edit/Mix the Episode

You might need to clean up the audio, removing noise, repeated “ums,” coughing fits, statements that are “off the record,” etc. You’ll probably want to add theme music and an introduction/conclusion (Step 1) to the main audio file.

Free Editing Software: Audacity (any platform) and GarageBand (Apple) are free software that are easy to learn. There are lots of tutorials on YouTube. Auphonic is a good way to get your sound up to -16 LUFS and to clean up minor problems. It’s free for 2 hours a month or something like that. Auphonic is better than the old Levelator.

Professional Software: Adobe Audition, ProTools, PreSonus Studio One, and Hindenburg.

STEP 3: Add ID3 Tags

ID3 tags tell iTunes and other services what your recording is. This is also where you embed artwork in the audio file. I use MP3tag (free).

STEP 4: Upload the File to a Host

iTunes doesn’t hold your podcast; they just make it easy for people to access it. Therefore you need a place to store your audio files that can play the files even during peak demand for the files. That means your own website is not a good place to do this; the two most common hosts are Libsyn and Soundcloud (I use both), but there are others. Comparing costs and services will help you choose what fits you.

STEP 5  (first time only): Verify the RSS Feed from the Host

You might have problems with your RSS feed even when using Libsyn or Soundcloud, so you need to test it. I have used http://validator.w3.org/feed/.

STEP 6  (first time only): Submit the Verified RSS Feed to iTunes for Review and Approval

You can find helpful guidance from Apple. And here is more guidance from Soundcloud.

STEP 7  (first time only): Submit Your RSS Feed to Other Sites like Stitcher or Google Play.

There are a number of services like iTunes, and Stitcher and Google Play are probably the two biggest. It never hurts to add distribution channels.

STEP 8: Write a Blog Post with Show Notes

It is common practice to have a blog accompany the podcast. This allows you to post show notes, and it makes sharing the episode easy because this gives you a URL to include in your social media posts.

Examples (individual posts on each blog):

STEP 9: Share the Blog Post Link/URL Via Social Media

You’ll need to let people know that you have great content for them.

STEP 10: Repeat steps 1-4 and 8-10!

Ideally, you’ll learn more every time you go through the process of recording, editing, and posting an episode. Keep at it!

Continue reading →

|Software & Mics for Podcasts (Updated)

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Updated 10/4/2017

I’ve written here a bit about my attempts at podcasting (Introduction), and I thought I’d follow-up with comments about two pieces of this puzzle — mics and software.

Lav Mics

Specifically, I’ve become more interested in XLR lav mics. These three to be specific:

I don’t have that kind of budget, so I bought a used AT899 from eBay. I really like how it sounds. You can hear Michael Nixon using it in this episode of Adventist Peace Radio.

So far I’ve been using low-budget / no-budget lav mics. First, the Polsen OLM-20 (dual for interviews, battery powered, $45). More recently I picked up a Pro JK Mic-J 044 (less noise than the OLM-20, needs plug-in power not phantom power, $29).

I use an Audio-Technica ATR2100 USB/XLR mic ($65) when I do Skype interviews, but for most in-person conversations, I’ve used the lav mics.

Software

So far I’ve mixed my first 11 episodes using Audacity (PC/Windows). This has worked decently, but I’m finally starting to learn Adobe Audition, which I can access through my work (I could never afford the subscription otherwise). It is a lot more complicated, but if I can learn the basics, it should simplify my work flow. Work flow, you ask? This:

  1. Edit audio files for intro, interview, and conclusion.
  2. Export them so I can upload them to Auphonic to run their magic (clean it up and set to -16 LUFS). Maybe Audacity can do this; I’m still learning about it. I do this before I add music because Auphonic ruins the fade in/out of music. It levels it up to the same volume, which is what I want for the conversation, but not the music.
  3. Import the newly minted audio files back into Audacity to mix with the music.
  4. Export .WAV file so I can upload the episode to iTunes to convert it to an MP3 format. I haven’t figured out how to use LAME.
  5. Copy the MP3 file back out of iTunes so I can edit it in MP3Tag (add picture & change tags).
  6. Upload it to Libsyn to let iTunes and Stitcher know the episode is available.

After watching some tutorials, it appears that Audition can do all of that — clean up the sound, set it to -16 LUFS, edit the tags, and export as an MP3 file instead of .WAV. So that sounds good to me even though I’m a bit intimidated by learning a new system in my limited “free” time.

Including these two options — Audacity and Adobe Audition — here are some of the software packages podcasters can choose from:

General

Audacity (Free)

Garage Band (Free for Apple Users)

PreSonus Studio One (Free Basic Version)

Adobe Audition

ProTools

Hindenburg

Hindenburg looks really interesting to me since it’s designed for audio projects. Very intriguing.

For now I’ll keep learning Audition, but if I ever change jobs, I’ll be ready to experiment with the other options.

|Research: Peace & Justice Journals

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I attended an academic writing workshop today. One of the presenters recommended these two books:

Part of the time focused on analyzing journals to determine their level of respect within academia. I subsequently went searching for peace journals, and I found the following lists:

This is redundant, but I also came across these specific journals while locating the larger lists above. I haven’t studied them enough to know which ones are respected, so it’s probably safer to start with the lists above, which are collected by reputable universities and libraries.

I haven’t published anything for a couple of years, so it’s rolling around in the back of my mind. Since I’m in the research office at my university, I’m not in an academic setting of publish or perish, but I know I still need to engage more.

|Random Articles

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I posted links to two stories about the racial violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, on another blog, and there will be more to come on that. But here are some other articles regarding Christian social ethics. Posting them here doesn’t mean I endorse everything in them; just that they are thought provoking. The first two are a topic that has been on my mind recently — patriotism and nationalism — and the last three were shared with me.

|More Podcast Episodes

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Looking for some quality conversations to listen to, here are some podcast episodes I’ve really appreciated recently. Spring blossoms lining my walk to and from work add to the listening experience; sorry I can’t offer you that here. 🙂

1) “The Fear is Real” (The Dirtbag Diaries). “Loosely speaking, there are two kinds of fear. There’s the fear of external, objective hazards–like getting caught in an avalanche, or taking a bad fall climbing or getting mauled by a grizzly bear. Then, there’s the internal, more slippery kind of fear, like the fear of not being pretty enough, or not being popular enough or not being perfect enough.”

2) “The Shorts: Catching Hope” (The Dirtbag Diaries). “We’ve heard the stories of addicts who found salvation in the outdoors and the outdoor community, but that’s not the way the narrative arcs for everyone. For Paddy, recovery looked less like slashing pow turns with his ski-bum buddies, and more like a game of catch with his dad on the back lawn of a treatment facility in Minnesota.”

3) “Bears Ears” (The Dirtbag Diaries).  “In the beginning, Josh came to Bears Ears, Utah in search of adventure. But the more time he spent there, the less his relationship with the landscape had to do with first ascents, and the more it had to do with connecting to the current people and ancient cultures who call Bears Ears home. Now, Josh is a leader in the fight to protect the 1.9 million acres of wild, history-rich, red sandstone landscape.”

4) Onleilove Alston (Chasing Justice). “Speaker Onleilove Alston joins us today to discuss black representation in the Scriptures and justice from a Christian perspective. Follow her vital work at https://wholeness4all.wordpress.com/propheticwhirlwind/ and on twitter @PropheticWhirl.”

5) “The Word of God in Print and in Person” (Bruxy Cavey). “How are other pastors and church leaders responding to Greg’s proposal for interpreting the violence of God in the Old Testament? In this sermon, we get to hear from the perspective of Bruxy Cavey, pastor of The Meeting House in Toronto, Canada. He summarizes his interpretation of Greg’s writings, and offers his take.” NOTE: I actually haven’t finished listening to this one, but I’ve appreciated the first 30 minutes.

Sometimes I enjoy a quiet moment in the day walking to work or heading home, but most of the time it’s a brief window for me to think about the deeper things of life. Podcasts (and for some people audio books) can be a great way to nurture a reflective spirit when life is so busy with family, work, and service commitments.

|Podcast Episodes on Race, Bigotry, and a Bit of Politics (Updated)

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I often listen to podcasts while walking to and from work. In the past few weeks, a number of episodes have dealt with racial issues and bigotry in one way or another. Here are five (listed in the order I heard them, I think):

1. The RobCast (Rob Bell) — The Priesthood of Alexander Shaia (Ep 137). “No hate.” Thanks for sharing this with me Andrew.

2. The Ingredients Podcast (Michael Nixon) — Andrew Gerard (Ep 004). The former US president, the current president, and what it might mean.

3. The Ingredients Podcast (Michael Nixon) — Garrison Hayes, Pt 1 (Ep 008). Racial reflections on Andrews University. Part 2 is also now posted, but I haven’t listened to it yet. [More: Spectrum article, It Is Time AU Video, & AU Response. I don’t have a link to the original sermon by Dr. Kowlessar; the one listed in the Spectrum article is no longer working.]

4. Chasing Justice (The Justice Conference) — Cornel West (Ep 9). “Justice is what love looks like in public.” Too bad it’s hard to link to specific episodes.

5. Voices of Social Justice (Center for Social Justice, Human and Civil Rights; University of Georgia) — Reverend Attorney Francys Johnson  (Ep 1027). Johnson “gives an impassioned keynote address at Athens 1st Social Justice Symposium.”

Okay, one more that kind of somewhat a little relates at some some level — The Dirtbag Diaries: 2017 The Year of Big Ideas.

6. Update: Chasing Justice (The Justice Conference) — Shane Claiborne (Ep 14). Against the death penalty.