The New Friar: The Emerging Movement Serving the World's Poor

Sayo Ajiboye
DMin Creating Onramps for Calling
Sept 2007
The New Friar

Scott Bessenecker

199 pages

Helping the poor by placing self underneath and rejecting materialistic life are the core concepts of this book. It is gilded by other thoughts like taking of vows to live a life of personal poverty and the rejection of a shopping mall mentality. (p. 13, 14, 16). The New Friar is focused on vow driven individuals who have chosen voluntary ostracism. It promotes a vow driven economy that is gender inclusive and is committed to the fringe; is willing to start at the edge of the society and is powered by youth.

The book sets out to explain the thesis and the operational modalities of new movements whose absolute commitment is to the poor, those involved in the movement strongly desire to be “incarnational,” there is a sense of a calling to “be” the gospel rather than just to preach the gospel. These movements form devotional communities that are strongly missional and marginal. The missionality of these groups is critical to their existence, this missionality is defined by a willingness to go to “the least of these.” These movements are also strongly communal, and their communality is defined by a commitment to share.

These groups search for a path of downward mobility, they are often composed of young people who willingly leave a life of riches to seek survival in and identification with a life of poverty. There is a strong identification with the ancient Franciscan ideal. It can even be said that the patron saint of these movements is St Francis of Assisi. The assumption seems to be how can one sooth the pain you have not experienced?

These groups often seek out places of intractable poverty. This is poverty that has become entrenched over generations and is very difficult to dislodge, there is virtually no toe – hold with which people trapped in these situations can climb out of their circumstances. The New Friars seek to focus on the “push forces” that can help those that are caught in webs of intractable poverty to break free. Key among these forces is “an empowering influence with entrepreneurial capabilities.” This is often what is most lacking in situations of intractable poverty and the people in these movements seek to be that presence.

New Friars are almost Utopian in their propositions surrounding “the principle of economic solidarity.” They seek to bring to life the concepts entrenched in Deut 15:11. “there shall be no poor among you”. New Friars see themselves as God’s tool to bring this concept to reality in our days. They insert themselves into the communities in need, identify challenges within the communities; empower members of the communities to access systems that were hitherto closed and inaccessible; they confront the forces that perpetuate intractable poverty. Prominent among the forces that these expeditionary Friars must confront are cultural forces, personal forces, spiritual forces and communities moving from the point of despair to the point of resistive action.

Every one working among young people should be aware of the concept and the proposals presented in the New Friars. I am personally challenged by the stories described in New Friar. I must confess however that the concepts of downward mobility will be a hard sell for the people with whom I work… downward mobility? My people’s questions will be immediate and unrelenting. Does Christ not come to lift us up? Did he not become poor that we may be rich? I see in this the conflict between the halves and the have not-s. For those who have, it is a privilege to live poor, for the poor, living rough is an heritage that is undesirable; it is like a yoke that must be thrown off the shoulder, broken. Why must I commit to an heritage that has restricted my forbears? Why must I stay in a situation that has not profited my mates? This is the realistic cry of the poor in Africa. This is the reason why our people will risk the sand-filled wastes of the Sahara and the dinghies of the Mediterranean Coast to try to reach Europe – a sort of a promised land. The beauty of New Friars however is this: It removes all the focus of action from me and my efforts; it places action in and around us and our community that is empowered. To use the term of Martin Luther King Jr. the New Friars are setting precedents across the earth, where the hopeless huddle together and receive the wisdom to become “the beloved community” This is a hard sell in my context but it is a probable sell, we shall try