Carl Raschke

Noteworthy

Project Vienna  

Sabbatical in Central Europe

In addition to planned research, Carl Raschke spent his winter sabbatical this year traveling around Central Europe and lecturing on the topic of religion, Christianity, and globalization theory.  These invitations grew out of the publication and excellent European reception of his book   GloboChrist (Baker Academic, 2008), which came out in the fall of last year.  He accepted lecture and seminar invitations to speak at the European International College in Freiburg, Germany and the International Baptist Seminary in Prague, Czech Republic as well as the Austrian Baptist Union in Vienna and a coalition of emergent leaders in Amsterdam, Netherlands.  Check out his recent blog post about some of the implications of that time overseas.  The "new emergence" may be taking place on the Continent of Europe, not necessarily in the United States.
 

Vienna Dreaming

It has been said that the future of the "missional" movement and the international concern for "social justice" lies in community development.  Without a genuine, local, community context, all these visions are but stand slowly sipping through an hour glass.  Community development creates the context for relational engagement that can bring about the transformation of neighborhoods, values, and life commitments.  We are especially impressed by the efforts along these lines of Tim Soerens  of Seattle, Washington who seems to have gotten it right.   His Dust Ministries is a global missional undertaking that relies on a commited cadre of people with creative leadership skills to bring all the elements of community dreaming and brainstorming together with the political and economic savvy to make it happen.   We would like to see this thing happen in Vienna as well, which we view as the strategic  pressure point for world transformation.   

Vienna Journal

"Recently I returned from about 17 days on the Continent of Europe.  No, I wasn't travelling or bumming around.  I was there on a project. " 

So writes Carl Raschke, referring to Project Vienna,  in  the July 5, 2008 entry of the Rhizone blog.   The blog entry deals with his personal reflections concerning, and observations of, global and "incarnational"  Christian  initiatives centering upon faith-based social justice work, especially when he talks about an organization known as Project Gemeinde, headquartered in Vienna.   He writes about it at length in terms from his own faith perspective, though it should be noted that Project Vienna at present is mainly an undertaking in higher education, designed to foster student awareness in the United States about the relationship between religion and social justice.  Because Vienna is the global headquarters for both the different United Nations aid and development agencies as well as countless "non-governmental organizations" (NGOs) situated there for the same reasons, and because it was the center of the oldest Western multi-cultural and multi-religious empire, it serves as an ideal location.     A news article from the university's news and information services aimed at students and the university community at large explains the scope and purpose of the course.    The actual syllabus for the course can be found here.

Raschke continues: "the first ten days I spent in Vienna, teaching a university class and hanging out with various representatives of Projekt Geminde.  Project Gemeinde,  which literally means "Project Community" in German, is a unique example of "incarnational" ministry  in the heart of that old imperial city that has always been Central Europe's cultural and artistic showcase outdistanced only by Paris.  Projekt Gemeinde is run by Walter and Andrea Klimt (yes, Walter's actually a descendant of Vienna's most famous cultural icon (next to Mozart of course), turn-of-the-century painter Gustav Klimt.   Walter is executive secretary of the Austrian Baptist Union, and Andrea is finishing her doctoral degree and doing teaching at the University of Vienna.  Projekt Gemeinde is a student house donated years ago to the Austrian Baptist Union by a  "Baptist nun".   Yes, you heard me right.  In Eastern Europe there really are "Baptist nuns".  They're mainly aging widows who dedicate what's left of their lives to Christ and service to him.   

"Projekt Gemeinde is more than a "church." It's also a community center for students in the house and at the world-famous University of Music and the Performing Arts, which is right next door.  The facility is also shared by a community of Middle Eastern Christians who had to flee their home countries because of persecution by Islamist governments.  Projekt Gemeinde is also involved in what in German they call Herzwerk (literally, "heart work").  It's as much the hands as the heart, because one of their central initiatives involves working with street prostitutes who have streamed into Vienna from Eastern European countries, particularly those as far as the Ukraine which are not yet part of the EU.  The prostitutes have been victims of human trafficking and are virtual slaves to their handlers.  Many from the female leadership of Projekt Gemeinde spend once a week on the street with the ladies of the night. They do not "witness" in the sense most American evangelicals are used to.  They get to know the prostitutes, cultivate relationships with them, then seek to entice them out of the street life into meaningful lines of work. 

"Andrea, however, had a powerful point about such Herzwerk for those in the US who mainly give lip-service to incarnational or relational ministry.  Unless you are both humbled and changed by the relationship itself to someone, who is "in need" or on the "other side" of what would be considered a morally respectable Christian life, through sharing their world and their pain. . .."  

Project Gemeinde is also discussed at length on pages 89-91 of Raschke's new book GloboChrist.  It is one of his main illustrations of global incarnational ministry.