Privilege and Peace

While at Youth Escape, in Manson Iowa, I was talking to a youth adviser about her youth group, and the dynamics that make up where the different kids are coming from. I quickly learned that not all of the youth had grown up hearing the Anabaptist teachings, and that some were coming from military families and lower socio-economic status families. It made me think a lot then, and I'm still thinking.

As we have traveled this summer, we have mostly been talking to white middle class Mennonites (but not a completely homogeneous population). Yet I sometimes wonder how our message this summer would be received by people that aren't coming from the same background as me. I especially think about this because while at Goshen College, I had a good number of friends who were not white Mennonites. I believe there is little question that it's easier for me as a white, middle class indoctrinated Mennonite to say that a Christian should not enlist in the military, compared to my minority friend who comes from a lower socio-economic status, and furthermore hasn't been hearing from a very young age that a Christian should love their enemy.

This summer, I am talking about peace, and that as Christians we should understand that this is central to Gospel, and to our lives. At the same time, its pretty easy for me to say that. I didn't grow up in a military family. I don't need to worry about a systemic cycle of poverty that is surrounding me, and that I desperately want to get out of. I don't have to deal with daily issues of racism and discrimination that will undoubtedly hinder my chances to get a good education, and in turn, a good job that will be able to support me and my family. I don't have to make it in life, so that my family can somehow make it too. And then I think of the military, and its lure for these people. It's an opportunity for the many that experience racism, and are entrenched in poverty. The military offers an education, money, a job, and a future. It offers an opportunity to make it in life.

So I am left asking how I will daily take into light my own privileged life that I hold, as I talk about this message of peace. I believe we serve a God that desires peace for everyone, and that God is working right now to restore that shalom relationship with all peoples and creation. I want to be a part of that, and I think that this summer trip may be in some small way helping to plant seeds toward that vision of shalom. However, I never want to take for granted or forget the privileged position that I am coming from. And I ask God for grace as I talk about peace while crossing ethnic, religious, and socio-economic lines this summer and beyond.

Randy