David W. Swanson

Pastor and Author

the new friars

Scott Bessenecker doesn’t mince words in his 2006 book, The New Friars: The Emerging Movement Serving the World’s Poor.

Never have there been thousands of people dying because they are dangerously overfed sharing the planet with billions who are dying because they cannot get enough calories to sustain life. (41)

In this book Bessenecker is interested in how these two groups of perishing people are being connected by what he calls “the new friars”. These tend to be younger Christians who have been born into relative wealth who move to some of the world’s most poverty-stricken areas to serve those who live there. The author recounts the confusion and hardship as well as the joy and contentment that results when the new friars take up residency among the residents of the slums and garbage dumps that pass for towns and neighborhoods.

Bessenecker, the Director of Global Projects with Intervarsity, sees five characteristics that have marked Christian orders throughout church history that also guide the new friars: incarnational, devotional, communal, missional and marginal. Using these “essential ingredients” as his guide, Bessenecker moves between the Christian orders of the past and those following in their footsteps today to make the case that God is actively calling his followers to take up residency among the poorest of the poor. This is ministry among rather than to the marginalized.

It’s easy to imagine college students reading this book and being inspired by the stories. I’d like to suggest that The New Friars would also be a valuable read to the American Christian who has settled into a routine that doesn’t involve consideration of God’s passion for the neglected and oppressed. While Bessenecker doesn’t believe we are all supposed to move to the slums of the two-thirds world, he does think each of us has something to contribute to God’s work.

The call of of the friars to bind themselves to the poor in a vocational way is a particular call, not a universal one. The universal call to any who profess to follow Jesus is to believe that he is the Son of God and to act like it, no matter what we do for a living. And while the qualities that are emerging among new friar communities seem radical, they are ones all of us would do well to embrace. (172)

The New Friars is a quick read and one that would make for great conversations among friends. Thanks to Max for recommending it to me.

David Swanson

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3 responses to “the new friars”

  1. Keith Avatar
    Keith

    Without looking into his research about thousands and billions dying, I would suggest there have always been folks dying of overeating (gluttony is a sin that is first referenced in Proverbs…not something Americans have only recently made up) and of hunger. Not to make light of it, but it’s nothing new. And billions are dying from hunger…even if one dies it’s horrible. But Billions are dying (2,000,000,000)? Two-fifths of the planet are dying from hunger? Perhaps billions are hungry…but dying??

    Here’s another stat that I can’t prove but learned it in university from a professor so it must be true…there’s enough corn in Illinois to feed the world but most of it goes to cows so we can eat meat and to corn syrup so we can drink pop (and perhaps now ethanol so we can drive to fast food restaurants).
    (Full disclosure, I am a glutton and could stand to lose 55 pounds).

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  2. David Avatar
    David

    Keith- Bessenecker definitely believes the word is worse off today than it has been in the past. He dedicates his last chapter (or second to last, I don’t have the book w/ me) explaining why this is. I think there would be those who would take issue with his perspective, but there is no question that the statistics he cites and stories he tells paint an ugly picture.

    Crazy about Illinois corn being able to feed the world.

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  3. DAN Avatar
    DAN

    FOR WHAT ITS WORTH THE WORLD FOOD PROGRAM CLAIMS THAT 25,000 PEOPLE PER DAY OR 9,125,000 PER YEAR DIE FROM HUNGER AND POVERTY.

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