Mennonite Central Committee

Rapping the Martyrs Mirror: Anabaptist messages of peace set to an urban beat

by Marla Pierson Lester

Cruz Cordero still recalls how stunned he was the first time he heard a hip-hop musician rapping about Christian faith.

In the hip-hop world the 16-year-old Cordero knew, Christianity was not popular, and he knew the artist would be ostracized for promoting it. He wondered why rapping about God was worth that. And that started him wondering about God.

For Cordero, now 30 years old, the encounter sparked a journey that has led him to believe in Christ's power, to ponder deeply what it means to live as a Christian and to spread the message of peace that Christ offers.

Cordero's is one of many voices featured on a new Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) DVD about peacemaking, "Thermostat: How can we turn toward peace in a time of fear?"

The DVD uses Bible stories, role plays, rap, dramatic readings, poetry and personal accounts to encourage intergenerational conversation and learning about peacemaking, war and Christian conscience. A study guide organizes three hours of video into 33 different study units on themes such as peacemaking, imagination, allegiance, security, military recruitment and nonviolence. Additional information about the DVD is available at www.mcc.org/thermostat.

The title comes from a rap by Cordero, in which he suggests peacemakers must not only reflect the temperature or situation around them but work to change or regulate their environment.

"If it is warm outside the mercury of the thermometer goes up," Cordero says on the video. "Well, thermostats are different ... thermostats regulate the surroundings. If the surrounding is cold then the thermostat is going to change the surrounding depending upon how the thermostat is set.

"As Christians we should be thermostats in our society," he said. "We should be transforming and changing the climate of our culture rather than being conformed by it."

Cordero, of Philadelphia, became a Christian as a teenager after hearing Christian rap and started attending Diamond Street Mennonite Church. As he asked more and more questions about what Mennonites were, he delved deeper into the church's peace stances.

Today, he uses rap to introduce listeners to Anabaptist martyr tales from the "Martyrs Mirror" and to stories of modern peacemakers. He is eager to push listeners to ponder how far they can take the peace of Christ.

"Hip-hop is known for asking good questions. Hip-hop makes good observations. If you listen to hip-hop singers, they are basically reporters of what's going on in the streets, raising questions about injustice, raising questions about economics, raising questions about violence — all questions that people in inner cities feel," he said.

Cordero's desire for peace grew out of his violent North Philadelphia neighborhood and from the death and destruction he saw weapons wreak among his friends.

In Christ, he found a radical adherent to nonviolence. And he learned of those who dared to try to stick to Christ's ways. "His followers had to follow Jesus Christ under extreme circumstances," he said. "Jesus Christ taught his followers to live peaceful lives in the midst of such circumstances."

He recalls the first year after he became a Christian, some other young men surrounded him as he walked home from school and pounced on him. "Normally I would have responded back, protecting myself. That day, I had my arms totally down. Only occasionally I blocked a couple of punches."

Cordero believes the beating ended sooner because of that. He suspects those who hit him saw that he wasn't swinging back, began to wonder what they were doing there — and eventually left.

"Not reacting is an active move," he said. "I think it's more powerful when somebody sees something they could do, and you don't do it for the sake of peace. Peace doesn't stand alone. When you demonstrate peace, you're also showing grace and mercy. I think we need to emphasize all of these attributes of walking in the spirit."

He challenges Christians to claim a nonviolent stance, trusting that Christ provides the power to follow through with it.

"Loving your enemies is not something that's in us to do," he said. "We weren't saved for nothing."

Interwoven into Cordero's approach to faith and to ministry is a deep questioning. "We critique the world, but we also need to critique ourselves and what it means to be peace," Cordero said. "We need to make sure we are demonstrating these things and knowing what it means more and more."

He hopes that he and other Christians will not only grow in what it means to live in peace and be a peaceful person — but also will be willing to ponder violence. "What is violence?" he says. "Is it just physical? Can you hurt someone verbally? And how can people answer that?"

To him, these are questions best answered in community. In the first-century church, he notes, a community of believers moves together; today, violence, whether carried out by gangs or the structures and institutions that make up society, seems to come through groups.

"When you look at how violence has been defeated, there is no Lone Ranger," Cordero said. "It was not just Martin Luther King Jr. It was not just Rosa Parks. It was all these other people who risked their lives."

"As a church, I think we have to be more active as a group to demonstrate peace."