Serving Bread

Rating:

The subtitle of this book is: “What I learned form the Great American Reform Movements.” Author Tim Stafford sits at the feet of historical reformers and reform movements and reflects his lessons in the area of activism. I was an American History major in college and learned a lot of fascinating things about our history, but I never learned how the various events and personalities of our history were rooted in faith. I appreciate that in this quick-read of a book, I could get a broad stroke of various events in our country’s history, through the lens of faith and religion. In this book, Stafford highlights lessons from the likes such as the Women’s Suffrage movement, the abolition movement, the prohibition movement, and the civil rights movement. Each of those movements provide lessons for anyone who wants to be an activist. Some of these lessons and personalities within these movements are positive, and sadly, many are negative.

What this book does is provide a critical view of these various movements, and not all of it is positive. For example, Stafford writes with sadness of the life of Carry Nation who resorted to violence as the technique to advance her agenda in advancing temperance (though had no lasting impact on the movement) and of the life of Bob Moses who had headed the civil rights movement for a season but lost all faith in it. At an SNCC meeting, he rambled, “From now on, I am Bob Parris and I will no longer speak to white people.” He left for Tanzania and eventually returned to the United States to teach Algebra and never looked back to the civil rights movement.

Here are my lessons (and somewhat of a review) of this book:

1. Activism is draining. People lose their lives, their faith, and their morals by pursuing justice in a particular area. It drains us emotionally and we need to make sure we are careful in nurturing our lives as we are pursuing activism.
2. The goal is lasting impact not momentary satisfaction. It is easy to fight for moments but more difficult to have vision and the capacity to act for a lasting impact in a particular area.
3. Non-violence means are nearly always a better solution than violent means. Most reform movements will tempt the leaders to pursue violent means toward transformation. Violence is tempting. Every reform movement struggled whether violence is an appropriate response to bring an end to the injustice. And the movement needs to make sure to continue to call people toward non-violence, which has a better chance at creating a lasting impact (see point #2).
4. Politics vs. Prophetics. This is probably my top take-away lesson. Activists look toward politics to carry out the justice. And they will often do that by endorsing third-party candidates, who are often single-issue candidates. The problem with politics is that the art of politics is compromise, and activists tend to hate compromise. “You are either with us or against us” is the mantra. And so they will go after a third-party person who is not “stained” by politics. I find myself struggling to support politicians because they do not represent everything I want them to represent. But if the goal is lasting impact, perhaps we have to be OK with compromise in the short-run in order to get transformation in the long-run. I know that the abortion-foe movement has learned to cultivate this particular lesson. Yet I also think of William Wilberforce in England in the 18th and 19th century who never compromised. Would compromise have saved more lives in the long run?
5. Pressure Tactics. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a great example of pressure tactics that kept focus on a particular issue. Pressure tactics can work and can be a motivating way to force the powers-that-be to listen to the activists (without resorting to violence). I don’t think boycotts work all the time and at some points, they are useless. The boycott on Cuba is ineffective while the boycott of segregated South Africa was necessary and probably helped bring an end to apartheid (one of the few things that the Reagan Administration did well in it’s foreign policy).
6. Suffering. Activists will run into resistance. Activists will suffer. Activists will die.

I have seen both activism in the young people around me and apathy. I think more people talk the talk of activists but walk the walk of apathists (I made up a new word). Shaking the System would be a fantastic read to anyone who wants to grow a heart of activism and learn the lessons from those who have gone before us.

A final note about the author: I have met Tim Stafford on several occasions and have enjoyed his company. (Years ago, I used to read his sex column in a teen Christian magazine). Incidentally, two of his children had even walked through my ministry. I appreciate his honesty and genuineness in this book. I think his book or even Stafford himself can/should serve as mentors to a young generation of activists.

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