Tag: vancouver

Vancouver’s Best Kept Secret

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized3 Comments

Waking up early on a Monday to do lecture prep for my Ethics course.

I found this image on Facebook.  For me, it’s not only cute, it’s also a little nostalgic.  My pastor in Vancouver, Rev. Dr. Sylvia Cleland at West Point Grey Presbyterian Church, used to have this photo up on her office door.

That was the last church I attended where I was not either the pastor or the pastor’s spouse.

I often call it “Vancouver’s Best Kept Secret” for several reasons:

  • It’s the only Presbyterian church I knew of where Koreans and Anglos worshiped together (they have separate presbyteries and usually keep apart).

  • It’s the only church I knew of where students from Regent College and Vancouver School of Theology would worship and serve their internships together.  In spite of the fact that they are only two blocks away from each other, these two seminaries usually keep separate.  The Regent folks generally assume that the VST folks are godless heretics while the VST folks assume that the Regent folks are fundamentalist fanatics.  They’re both wrong.

  • The church’s small size made it possible for ministerial interns to actually do real ministry, like preaching, pastoral care, and education.  At the bigger, more popular churches in town, student interns would end up answering phones and making coffee.  We actually got to find out what being a pastor was really like.

So, if you’re thinking of going to seminary in Vancouver, BC (at Regent College or Vancouver School of Theology), check out West Point Grey Presbyterian Church at the corner of 11th & Trimble.  Thank me later.

 

 

 

Dave Diewert

On By J. Barrett LeeIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

Back in seminary, I was Dave Diewert’s TA in Intro to Biblical Hebrew.

Teaching Hebrew, for Dave, is really more of a side-gig.  Most of the time, he stays involved with community organizing in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver (also known as “Canada’s poorest postal code”).  Of particular interest to me is his work in solidarity with chemically dependent people for radical harm reduction strategies such as safe-injection sites.

Here is an interview with Dave on the Mark Hasiuk Show.  Worth a watch.

 

 

 

The Greatest Crime of All: Being Poor

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Uncategorized1 Comment

Rene Girard is a mythology scholar and theologian who has made a name for himself by naming what is potentially one of the most terminal spiritual diseases in western, capitalistic society: Envy.

According to Girard, humans perpetually compete with one another in an attempt to imitate certain models of appearance, behavior, and status.  This constant competition would quickly degenerate into an anarchic “war of all against all” were it not for periodic episodes of “scapegoating” where the hostile energy of the community is directed toward a chosen outsider (individual or group) who is subsequently “sacrificed” for the good of the group.  The sacrifice of the scapegoat temporarily releases the pent-up tension and allows this cycle, which Girard calls “the cycle of mimetic violence,” to begin again.

One could easily point to the scapegoating of Jews during the Third Reich as an example of cycles of mimetic violence in action.

I got to see this phenomenon take place firsthand on a citywide scale in Vancouver during the buildup to the 2010 Olympics.  City legislators passed the notorious “Safe Streets Act” which made it illegal to panhandle anywhere within 30 feet of businesses, residences, or bus stops.  In a west coast urban center of two million, is there anywhere in the city that meets these criteria?

Poverty was thus outlawed in pre-Olympic Vancouver.

In a culture that has made an unholy idol of success, failure is criminal.

Here is a link to an NPR article that documents a similar process going on in Hungary.  The primary difference is that Hungary itself seems to be in a state of economic failure and the powers that be would like to attach blame to those who are least likely to have caused the collapse and least likely to defend themselves in the event of a large-scale attack: the homeless.

I find this to be an appropriate article to post this Easter weekend, as we remember the ignominious death of another sacrificial scapegoat who was unjustly made to endure the wrath of a political-religious system that could not imagine another way of being human…

Homelessness Becomes A Crime In Hungary