Geez magazine takes a plunge into the rhetoric of social justice
by Andrew Siebert — ChristianWeek March, 2007
WINNIPEG, MB — Is there such a thing as holy mischief? We may not know what that means exactly, but more and more folks concerned about social justice and a redefinition about what it means to be spiritual — or even Christian — are picking up copies of the new a Geez magazine, produced in Winnipeg by Mennonite editors Will Braun and Aiden Enns.
A year in the running, the slick design and editorial content of Winnipeg’s newest faith and social justice magazine has won accolades across the continent. Nominated by Utne Independent Press Awards for the best new puclication and best spiritual coverage in 2006, the magazine’s editors have had airtime on CBC national and is already on shelf in various Toronto print stands. Not bad for the new generation of anti-establishment Mennonites.
“One of the key challenges of our time is to talk about faith in a way that is palatable,” says editor Will Braun, who grew up in Winkler, Manitoba.
Fringes of Faith
The Geez website makes avante-garde statements that are meant to resound with those on the fringes of faith: “an experiment with truth” welcomes those who are burned out from religion, have a penchant for activism or want to change the world by riding a bicycle. The magazine, printed on recycled paper, is called “A location just beyond boring bitterness. A place for wannabe contemplatives, front-line world-changers and restless cranks, A place where the moon shines quiet, instinct runs mythic and belief rides a bike.”
The name “Geez” represents the lingering spiritual connotations of an everyday expression. Here you can read about de-motorizing your soul, letting go of consumer drives and learning from others how to be a 21st-century pacifist.
“Our readership has grown to 2,000 subscriptions in the last year, and they range from atheists to evangelicals to Buddhists,” says Will Braun, who first started freelancing for SOJOmail, Rabble, The Catholic New Times, and Z magazine.
“I wanted to write about the best of Christian social action. I was also taking shots at the religious right,” says Braun, who attends Hope Mennonite Church in Winnipeg.
Braun describes the magazine as a home away from home for those not willing to give up on belief.
“We’re not plugging Christianity. Ideally it Geez is a winding path that avoids the offensive parts of church wooing. Yet I’m tempted to say that forming a link with the church is our goal.”
The editors do battle against “Christianese” — insider church lingo such as “saved” and “minister.”
Geez publisher Aiden Enns is the past [managing] editor of Adbusters, a “culture-jamming” magazine designed o reduce the influence of advertising and consumerism. Adbusters’ mission statement says, “Our aim is to topple existing power structures and forge a major shift in the way we will live in the 21st century . . . We will change the way information flows, the way institutions wield powers, the way the food, fashion, car and culture industries set their agendas. Above all, we will change the way we interact with the mass media and we will reclaim the way in which meaning is produced in society.”
Compare that to Geez magazine’s mission statement: “it’s time we untangle the narrative of faith from the fundamentalists, pious self-helpers and religio-profiteers. And let’s do it with holy mischief rather than ideological firepower. We’ll expore the point at which word, action and image intersect, and then ignite. So let’s blaspheme the gods of super-powerdom, instigate spiritual action campaigns and revamp that old Picture Bible.”
Rhetoric is part of the game for the new Mennonites on the block. But in case none of these words are igniting at any intersections for you, their last issue features an all-out discussion on what it means to be evangelical — part of Geez’s self-concious disentanglement from “toxic” versions of Christianity and the need to distance themselves from the Christian right.
Between surprisingly diverse selections surveying why or why not readers identify themselves as evangelicals, carefully staged artwork spews irony and slings pop-culture references back at its readers like a boomerang. On the cover of the current issue, Ken and Barbie dolls read in bed together — one reads the Dalai Lam, another Benny Hinn on how to raise a God-fearing teenager. The issue reads like a sociology of religion light show.
“Evangelicals gravitate toward clear divisions, even stark polarities,” begins the editorial.
Caught in some of its own distinctions, Geez magazine is toughing it out and trying to come to grips with its own image.
“There’s a great need for intellectual discussions, but it’s only important to me if people are engaged in the issues, not at a cute cafe sipping lattes with their laptops,” says Braun.
When asked what Christian activism means, Braun says “we need to rethink our relation to power. John Howard Yoder spoke of radical subordination to Christ. Orientation needs to be toward the bottom, not the top. Jesus and the Bible point back to the bottom of the power structure. He’s not success oriented.”
Comment
Questions? Comments? editor@geezmagazine.org
I’ve asked before ,do you sellthis magazine at any retail oulets??
— Rosemary · Sep 11, 03:02 AM · #
Rosemary, we are available at select bookstores in western United States and most major bookstores in Canada. For a bookstore near you, write or call Michelle our ciculation manager. See the About Us page above for email addresses.
— Aiden Enns, Geez magazine · Sep 18, 01:56 PM · #
Hi. I heard about this magazine from a friend and I send my kudos to the Geez team. I really like what I’ve read about it so far. This is somehting that I had imagined, something that I had hoped for as I grow trying to walk the Christian path at the same time as the activism path and it was frustrating when these two paths that seemes to me like they should join were not in the media. So thank you and I was wondering if there were any places in Ottawa that this was availbale.
Peace
— Chrissy Steinbock · Dec 27, 10:57 PM · #