Our community is committed to a radically participatory ethic. We believe that transformative change, whether in the individual or in society, can occur only through the medium of deeply personal participation. We achieve being through doing. Everyone is invited to work. Everyone is invited to play. We make the world real through actions that open the heart.
I was born on Martin Luther's birthday. November 10th. This figurehead of the Protestant Reformation championed some values, which are at the heart of the ancient Christian message. Participation is one of them. In actuality, Martin Luther might have called it radical participation, because it was more than the idea that we all should work, play, and transform together. It included the idea that we all should work in a kind of co-leadership. In the Protestant Reformation, this was called "the priesthood of all believers." I can not tell you how valuable this truth is to me. I might not be alive today if it were not for this core value of the Christian Church being practiced in the small church I pastor.
Burning Man embodies this value. People bring things to share. People come up with crazy ideas, and perform them. People respect crazy ideas, and celebrate those who have them. This is something the Christian Church should master in. We have been called by God to be participative radical agents of change.
"But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty..." (1 Corinthians 1:27)
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