Who Is Birch Newman Anyway?

Well, close enough…my name is Bert Newton. According to my Facebook page, I’m a former bass player for Internal Struggles Inc. and currently hold the position of Wandering Fool.

But enough comedy jokes (that’s a quote from the 1970s; anyone old enough to remember the reference has probably already forgotten it), you probably want to know what makes me think that I’m qualified to do this podcast. Well, I do have a seminary degree . . . and I’ve read a bunch of books and done a lot of thinking. After my masters degree, I got out of the official academic racket, but I continued to live very close to the seminary and kept using the library there.

I graduated from seminary in 1998 but kept studying the gospels. I wrote a small book on John called Subversive Wisdom; Sociopolitical Dimensions of John’s Gospel. Then I began a sustained study of the Gospel of Matthew. I began teaching a class on Matthew at a local church and after a few years had enough material to write another book, but I chose the podcast format instead because I like talking more than writing.

I was ordained in Mennonite Church USA and spent 7 years on staff at a local Mennonite Church. I’ve also spent much of the last 20 plus years doing “peace and justice work.” I put that in quotes because I feel funny about giving it a label. It’s just stuff I feel that any sane person should do in a world like the one we live in. I don’t understand not doing this work. If people are living on the streets in our society, if homes are being bombed by our military, if kids are being separated from their parents at the border, if people are dying of hunger, then how can we not do something?

I think that doing “peace and justice work” has helped me understand the gospels in the New Testament. Once I understood that these texts portray Jesus organizing a movement for a new radically egalitarian society, it all began to make sense to me. Before I began to view it through that lens, the story of Jesus contained in the four NT gospels just seemed like a series of random events with little relevance to the real world.

So those are my credentials. I have a seminary degree. I have served on the pastoral staff of a church (although I was not the lead pastor; in fact, I was not even paid, so maybe I wasn’t a “real” pastor). But mostly I’ve just read a lot of books, done a lot of thinking, and joined the struggle for a more egalitarian society.