A Gift of Voice

I remember my reaction when I first beheld a copy of The Post-American. I was annoyed with William Stringfellow. Here was an underground theological rag of such kinship to the spirit and politics of our own little community in Battle Creek, Michigan that it took the breath away. These folks were lucid and literate. And they were located in Chicago, a day's short hitchhike down the road.

Moreover, here was Stringfellow's name on the masthead and his byline in the pages. Since he had already put us in touch with a raft of seminarians with regard to the idea of an "underground seminary," I suppose I thought it was his job to connect us or orchestrate a meeting; the barest mention would have sufficed.

And now they were taking to the road themselves, off to DC and the belly of the beast. Imperial center or bust. Eventually I did the longer hitch and presented myself at the office for lunch and talk. (The bust was several days later.)

In the gospel manner of the Way, we've been on the road together ever since. The New Testament term is right for Sojourners. The Way suggests direction, or better, a movement, invariably a counter-movement, as in "going another way" than prevailing religion, culture, or empire.

In 20 years Sojourners has become established as an embodied biblical voice from within that movement. I choose the words carefully. It was more than anything the "voice" which I recognized in that copy of The Post-American, a voice that has, over time, matured and deepened but with an abiding integrity. It remains the same voice. One which can call us and convene us and give form to the very thoughts of our own hearts. Such is the gift.

We all know there is a temptation in this as well, a hidden urge to be somehow the voice of the movement. In chorus and harmony, we best pray against that.

The secret of the voice is its biblical resonance. There is no shortage of politically correct voices. For better or worse, they abound. But fewer are those who begin in the scriptures by listening to the Word, who look for its happening, who publish it abroad. Sojourners tells the story of Jesus and Israel. And does it every time they tell the news or review the culture or share the events of the common life. It's simply in the heart and in the voice.

More and more, lo these 20 years, it is become an established voice. It sounds at World Councils, converses with heads of communions, convenes press conferences, and commands space in The Times or The Post. It is wonderful, and not a little eerie, to hear it speak from the op-ed section, or page one, or live prime time. In the din of babel it is clear and refreshing sound. We ought not underestimate the freedom and sanity it encourages. Who can know the hidden places in which it may be heard. (On the matter of hidden places, we can wager that the powers have their ears attuned to it. With subs or taps, they listen hard and listen close.)

Now the seductions and temptations of establishment go nearly without saying. In fact we say them over and over, to ourselves, a caution and self-chastening: inflation, presumption, inertia, survival mentality, the loss of charisms by which we began. This is cause and call for both confession and intercession.

It is also, thanks be to God, an embodied voice. Sojourners (here the confusion about pronouns and whether to italicize becomes pointed) is both a magazine and a community. They "praxis" as they preach, offering an incarnational ethic. Words are given flesh. Moreover, beyond Columbia Heights there is a wide and synonymous community. And we have been granted to glimpse it gathered in liturgies, marches, and actions, in retreats, preaching campaigns, and assorted festivals (like the celebration now at hand in August). People appear because they love and trust the voice, and they seem already to "know" one another because they've been listening together over the years.

I am certain there must be a temptation which attaches to embodiment, but for the life of me I can't think of it. It's probably akin to justification by works, though even more subtle. I suppose we should pray first to recognize it.

AS TO HOW THINGS have changed since those early beginnings, what strikes me, at least for the moment, is mostly how little. Theologically and politically, Sojourners was formed in the crucible of the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement.

Then: Cold War sparks flew upward and Asian peasants died. Air war technology reached ingenious new levels of abstract violence. Counterinsurgency was a fast-growing military discipline.

Now: With the Cold War over, there is hardly a restraint on the designs of American empire. Low-intensity warfare, as it's now called, is a much perfected field of military endeavor. Sparks fly upward from a publicly celebrated technological messianism and Iraqi people die by the tens of thousands. In a manner virtually apocalyptic, this last war reveals yet again that we are in a resistance situation. And as 20 years ago, that begins with so simple a thing as telling the truth. Thank God they did and they do.

Then: The dream of a multiracial poor people's movement was still in the air but far from accomplished. Under assassination and widespread repression, the civil rights movement was fracturing into violence.

Now: At home, as abroad, the gap between the rich and poor is only the wider and worse. The vision and opportunity for a multiracial, multi-cultural movement for economic justice is newly alive and well, but faced with obstacles aplenty.

It is a daunting and haunting fact that Sojourners retains a largely white constituency. Nevertheless, not a voice in this community has been clearer or more consistent in keeping vision before us, in calling for racial reconciliation, or giving voice within its own to the plurality of communities such a movement must include.

I believe, indeed I've been convinced of it by Sojourners, that this must become more and more our work of the moment. In fact, the time may be at hand when its fruits burst suddenly forth, a harvest beyond all prediction.

For above and beyond it all, Sojourners has demonstrated the conviction that God has gotten into history and this world. That, then and now, is what changes everything. That is what makes nonviolent resistance, or multi-cultural movement, or poor people's struggle, or the reading of the signs and the work of intercession both necessary and possible. That is the hope that fills the heart of this good voice and makes it such a servant of the loving God.

Bill Wylie Kellermann, a Sojourners contributing editor, was a United Methodist pastor teaching theology in Detroit and the author of Seasons of Faith and Conscience (Orbis, 1991) when this article appeared.