Marginal Theology: Catalysts Not Saviors

By Chadwick Walenga

The Map We Still Live In
My friend Mark Kane handed me a gift several weeks ago.

It’s a stack of paper from 1973, his master’s report, 160+ pages. But it’s not just a report. It’s a map. And it’s a story.

And the strangest part is that it’s a map of our home. A story about this community that we still call home, written 50-plus years ago. A story about a handful of faithful people who looked around at Newaygo, Oceana, and Lake counties and decided to get to work.

Reading it, I’m struck by how little the core of our community life has changed. The good, and the bad.

The Bad That Lingers
The report names this national delusion, this myth we were (and in many ways still are) drunk on: "Metropoliana".

It’s the great, shining story that says the City is all that matters. A story that makes it easy to forget, to make invisible, the millions of people living in quiet misery.  So many wondering what Thanksgiving is going to look like.  What healthcare will be available.

"Invisible" isn't just a feeling. It has numbers.

Back then, the report tells us, this "financial starvation" of rural communities was so complete that out of 83 counties in Michigan, Lake County was ranked dead last, 83rd, in the Poverty Index Score.

These are the ones the psalmist cries out for: "the afflicted who have no helper". That’s the bad that lingers. The feeling that the systems, the big national stories, the flow of money... they just don't see us. They've been failing to see us for a long, long time.

The Good That Endures
But that’s not the whole story. And this is where the map gets personal.

Because Mark’s story of "the good" forces a gentle confession. It shows us what the work of Jesus looks like, and in doing so, it highlights how easily that name has been hijacked.

So often today, the loudest voices have confused the mission. They’ve traded the sacrificial, serving nature of Jesus for a "culture warrior" persona. They’ve embraced "militant masculinity" and "political coercion" that is all about defining "us" against "them". It’s a faith of "patriarchal authority" that seeks to rule, not to serve.
But Mark's report shows us another way. The original way.

It shows us what happens when a small group of people, rooted in a deep faith, decides to stop waiting. They remembered their original vocation, the one from the very beginning: "to tend and keep" the garden.

Coming out of the Quaker tradition, this group from the American Friends Service Committee had a different idea. They weren’t going to be saviors. They were going to be "catalysts".

Not "heroes", not the "bullhorn guy" with an "agenda-driven" love, but the "spark". This is a profound, humble initiation, not a quest for glory.

And their work wasn't abstract. This was justice you can touch. With a hammer.

This isn't the "religious show" that God "can't stand" because it "ignores the poor". This is the holy, gritty work of "doing good deeds". They were building relationships, not just porches. They were "embedding", listening, and sharing meals. They were living out the truth that "how we treat others is how we treat God".

That’s the good that endures.

The Wall We Still Hit
But the bad wasn’t done.

Just as this local, faithful, catalytic energy was ready to scale up... the system spoke.

Washington. Early 1973. President Nixon.
A moratorium.

"All low-income housing subsidies... frozen".

Just like that. The faucet is turned off. The O.E.O. funding they were counting on... gone.

That’s the "wall". That’s the moment your local, grassroots hope runs smack into a massive, impersonal, political reality.

It's the very test Jesus talked about. This is the "rain" and the "streams" and the "winds" that "beat against that house". The question in that moment is: What is your foundation built on? Is it built on the sand of whether or not you are in the good graces of those who hold the keys to federal funding and systemic approval? Or is it built on the rock of those who actually "puts them into practice"?

When the wall hits, when the resources dry up and it feels hopeless, the only move left is the one we’re promised always works: "Is anyone crying for help? God is listening, ready to rescue you".

The Pivot We Can Be
This is the good part. This is the page of the map that I want to laminate.

What do you do when the system fails? When "Washington" makes it clear it isn't coming to save you?

They didn't pack up. They didn't go home.

They pivoted.

They held a conference in May '73. And the whole conversation, the entire mission, shifted.

The question was no longer, "How do we get the money from Washington?".

The question became, "What can we do? Right here. With what we have?".

And that... that’s the question for the church. It’s the pivot from a faith of "what can I get?" to the path of "what can I give?". It’s the pivot from a faith of coercion to a faith of co-suffering.

They stopped waiting for the national dam to power their city and started building their own local generators. They got "scrappy" and "resourceful".

This is the pivot to a different economy. It's the economy where you are commanded "to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share". It's the radical, earthy command from Deuteronomy to not go over your vines twice, but to "Leave what remains for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow".

It's the economy of Acts 2, where they "had all things in common... sharing them with all, as anyone might have need". This is what it looks like to "Carry each other’s burdens".

My friend Mark, in sharing this report, gave us more than a history lesson. He gave us a blueprint for reclaiming our identity.

He reminded me that the "bad" in our community—the feeling of being overlooked, the systemic walls—it's not new. But he also reminded me that the church's temptation to fight the wrong battles—to become "culture warriors" instead of community healers—is a distraction from our real work.

The enduring, powerful good is the faithful pivot. It’s the scrappy, creative, relentless energy of a few people who believe their job is to show up for the common good.

This is the work that recognizes the "divine breath is flowing through every single human being", making the ground we stand on holy. This is the work that dismantles the "us vs. them" walls, because in Christ, there is "no division... we are all in a common relationship".

That was the church being the church in 1973.

It’s the only way the church can be the church today. It’s the "defining mark" Jesus gave us: "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another".

Thank you, Mark, for reminding us. For showing us the map.

Now, it's our turn to pick up the hammer.

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