Home

Can we just get along?

March 25, 2009 | posted by Lars under lent, mexico, reflections, updates

If you’ve been following our route map recently, you’ve noticed that we’ve made some tracks, and regardless, we’ve had a recent drought of postings.  We’re doing fine, and Jon’s bike is back on the road, we just haven’t had the internet access or energy (we’ve been in southern Mexico and Guatemala, after all!) to post.  We’re now in Guatemala City at SEMILLA, the Anabaptist seminary here, but the past two weeks are worth some collective thought, so we’ll take it in steps.

While in San Cristóbal de las Casas (Chiapas, México), we stayed at INESIN (Institute for Intercultural Studies and Investigation), an ecumenical Christian center which promotes peace in Chiapas through intercultural and interreligious dialogue.  It’s important work in a region as torn as Chiapas has become - the religious landscape shows some of these, with Christianity, both Roman Catholic and ‘evangelical’ - neither of which recognizes the other as ‘Christian’ - and pantheism, woven deeply into the fabric of many indigenous communities.  Add in politics, community organizations, international missionaries & corporations, and indigenous rights movements and it’s a picture which demands more historical background to be even marginally understood.

Geographically, the state of Chiapas lies on Mexico’s southern border with Guatemala, is about half coastal plain and half rugged, heavily forested mountains, and contains nearly 40% of Mexico’s water resources.  Thanks in part to these mountains, for several centuries after the Spanish conquest and into Mexican statehood the large indigenous population of Chiapas (which shares more common history & culture with indigenous Guatemalans than with those in the rest of Mexico) remained largely unified - poor and Catholic - and voted as a single block, as well.  Over the past century or so however, foreign missionaries, strong community leaders, movements for land reform, the introduction of a multi-party political system, and the Zapatista National Liberation Army splintered the state - and its communities - along so many deeply inflamed conviction-etched lines that in many places communities exiled their members who believed differently than the majority, leading to at least 400,000 internally displaced persons in Chiapas in the mid-1990s - fully 10% of the entire state.  Military massacres throughout the ’90s in response to the Zapatistas’ uprising in 1994 (when they demanded what had been promised but not given to the indigenous peoples for centuries) contributed to increased instability and distrust, and brought the perfect storm into the international spotlight.  All the while, the government signs away rights to the region’s biodiversity and plentiful water to multinational pharmaceutical and bottling corporations.

While the situation now has cooled enough that people aren’t dying, the divisions still run deep and painful.  It’s in this context that INESIN operates, offering workshops in their facility and in communities, allowing people to study the Bible and get to know each other in a setting not aligned with one political party or denomination, and teaching elements of sustainable agriculture, conflict transformation, and prevention of family & gender violence to interested community members.  It’s a small effort, rooted in the community and led by a handful of chiapeños and international volunteers (including a couple with MCC), but it’s been a while since I’ve seen something truly worthwhile happen fast.  Maybe someday, community by community, Chiapas will celebrate and find strength in its diversity.

Maybe someday, the church, too, will find similar strength and reason to celebrate.  “We all have strengths,” director Martín Guerrero reminded a group while we were there, “we at INESIN don’t believe that the many churches should lose their identity to be one church - it’s that diversity reminds us of the many forms of God’s grace.”  Their message seemed clear: ecumenical doesn’t mean floating in and out of whatever church serves your needs - it means being rooted and it means finding common roots; it means being able to celebrate and learn from the unique ways each community of faith follows Jesus Christ.  It means the hard work of learning to live together.

But this is our work.