oh that dirty, scary L-word

Op-Ed Columnist
Hold Your Heads Up

new_york_times:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/09/opinion/09herbert.html
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By BOB HERBERT
Published: September 8, 2008
Ignorance must really be bliss. How else, over so many years, could the G.O.P. get away with ridiculing all things liberal?
Troglodytes on the right are no respecters of reality. They say the most absurd things and hardly anyone calls them on it. Evolution? Don’t you believe it. Global warming? A figment of the liberal imagination.
Liberals have been so cowed by the pummeling they’ve taken from the right that they’ve tried to shed their own identity, calling themselves everything but liberal and hoping to pass conservative muster by presenting themselves as hyper-religious and lifelong lovers of rifles, handguns, whatever.
So there was Hillary Clinton, of all people, sponsoring legislation to ban flag-burning; and Barack Obama, who once opposed the death penalty, morphing into someone who not only supports it, but supports it in cases that don’t even involve a homicide.
Anyway, the Republicans were back at it last week at their convention. Mitt Romney wasn’t content to insist that he personally knows that “liberals don’t have a clue.” He complained loudly that the federal government right now is too liberal.
“We need change, all right,” he said. “Change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington.”
Why liberals don’t stand up to this garbage, I don’t know. Without the extraordinary contribution of liberals — from the mightiest presidents to the most unheralded protesters and organizers — the United States would be a much, much worse place than it is today.
There would be absolutely no chance that a Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton or Sarah Palin could make a credible run for the highest offices in the land. Conservatives would never have allowed it.
Civil rights? Women’s rights? Liberals went to the mat for them time and again against ugly, vicious and sometimes murderous opposition. They should be forever proud.
The liberals who didn’t have a clue gave us Social Security and unemployment insurance, both of which were contained in the original Social Security Act. Most conservatives despised the very idea of this assistance to struggling Americans. Republicans hated Social Security, but most were afraid to give full throat to their opposition in public at the height of the Depression.
“In the procedural motions that preceded final passage,” wrote historian Jean Edward Smith in his biography, “FDR,” “House Republicans voted almost unanimously against Social Security. But when the final up-or-down vote came on April 19 [1935], fewer than half were prepared to go on record against.”
Liberals who didn’t have a clue gave us Medicare and Medicaid. Quick, how many of you (or your loved ones) are benefiting mightily from these programs, even as we speak. The idea that Republicans are proud of Ronald Reagan, who saw Medicare as “the advance wave of socialism,” while Democrats are ashamed of Lyndon Johnson, whose legislative genius made this wonderful, life-saving concept real, is insane.
When Johnson signed the Medicare bill into law in the presence of Harry Truman in 1965, he said: “No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine.”
Reagan, on the other hand, according to Johnson biographer Robert Dallek, “predicted that Medicare would compel Americans to spend their ‘sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it was like in America when men were free.’ ”
Scary.
Without the many great and noble deeds of liberals over the past six or seven decades, America would hardly be recognizable to today’s young people. Liberals (including liberal Republicans, who have since been mostly drummed out of the party) ended legalized racial segregation and gender discrimination.
Humiliation imposed by custom and enforced by government had been the order of the day for blacks and women before men and women of good will and liberal persuasion stepped up their long (and not yet ended) campaign to change things. Liberals gave this country Head Start and legal services and the food stamp program. They fought for cleaner air (there was a time when you could barely see Los Angeles) and cleaner water (there were rivers in America that actually caught fire).
Liberals. Your food is safer because of them, and so are your children’s clothing and toys. Your workplace is safer. Your ability (or that of your children or grandchildren) to go to college is manifestly easier.
It would take volumes to adequately cover the enhancements to the quality of American lives and the greatness of American society that have been wrought by people whose politics were unabashedly liberal. It is a track record that deserves to be celebrated, not ridiculed or scorned.
Self-hatred is a terrible thing. Just ask that arch-conservative Clarence Thomas.
Liberals need to get over it.

ponderings

It's so weird that two people of the same faith, reading the same Bible, even the same translation, can come to two completely opposite conclusions on the same issues. It makes me wonder, and it makes me worried at the same time. And each is so convinced of their position because they have arrived at it by way of careful study, thought, prayer and meditation and discussion. Each is so honest in their approach to God and their openness to his word and his truth, and yet - the conclusions, and the actions following those conclusions, are worlds apart. I just do not get it.

I am less than a month away from an event that will change my world as I've ever known it. I am about to become a MOTHER. Scary, scary thought, man.

Dead On.

"We are not living in an ordinary time, but in an hour of intense and unrelenting pain for many human beings. It is not good enough to favor justice in high literary flourish and to feel compassion for the victims of the very system that sustains our privileged position. We must be able to disown and disavow that privileged position. If we cannot we are not ethical men and women, and do not lead lives worthy of living."
- Jonathan Kozol

"What good is it, my brothers and sisters, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you? If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill,' and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead."
James 2:14-17

Justice for all?

The crowding of children into insufficient, often squalid spaces seems an inexplicable anomaly in the United States. Images of spaciousness and majesty, of endless plains and soaring mountains, fill our folklore and our music and the anthems that our children sing. "This land is your land," they are told; and, in one of the patriotic songs that children truly love because it summons up so well the goodness and optimism of the nation at its best, they sing of "good" and "brotherhood" "from sea to shining sea." It is a betrayal of the best things that we value when poor children are obliged to sing these songs in storerooms and coat closets.

- pgs. 159-160 in Savage Inequalities, by Jonathan Kozol

How to stay a Christian in college

I've been thinking. I've recently run across some online and print publications about "How to stay a Christian in college." I think the reason these publications view this as a big issue is because many young, naive Christians go away to public universities which hold "secular" or "liberal" views on religion, science, etc. and are "susceptible" to these new-fangled ideas, and many of these young students have not been given the tools to deal with them. (Did that run-on sentence make any sense?)

I for one almost succumbed to these ideas. But I started out attending a Christian university! What happened to me was the "new-fangled ideas" came at me from external places and I became quite disillusioned with the pat answers given to me at the Christian school, which was, to put it simply, a bubble. It seemed to me that the majority of students there existed for themselves, and the prevailing thought was "as long as you've got your theology straight, you're good with God".

What really bothered me about this school was it's location. Marion, Indiana is a very impoverished city. Ever since the big companies there outsourced and left many, many people jobless, the city has gone downhill. And yet, you may drive through the streets of Marion and come across the university and it's like going into another world: pristine, flawless, blatantly expensive, and suddenly, everyone is white, clean-cut and perfectly dressed. It is true culture shock. Alright, maybe I'm exaggerating, but to any random outsider, there is a very good chance they will get this impression upon arrival.

Okay, it may seem like I've gone off-topic, but never fear, I have not. I only say this to make a point: the reason why so many young Christians stray from or leave the faith in their college years is not because their theology or "world view" isn't screwed on right: it is because they have not been taught how to live like Christ.

My home church tried it's best to prepare us for college. They talked and preached, we met for lunch or coffee with our leaders, went on retreats, the whole shebang. But not once did we participate in any acts of service. Everything was focused on how we thought, how we should view God and sin, and our "feelings." And what happened when I entered college? The same thing. Our units in our dorms had warm and fuzzy meetings to discuss our thoughts and feelings and how God is "captivated by our beauty", we had shopping trips and coffee meetings, but never did we discuss or do anything about "the least of these" - in the world, or even in Marion. My impression of Christianity was reigning in my doubts and gluing my eyes and thoughts in the Bible, but once I walked out of my room, I didn't know how to live. I didn't know how to act, or treat people, except to be nice to them. I didn't even know what social justice meant.

Long story short, I transferred from that school in the middle of my sophomore year for a giant of a public school a couple hours away. And as I left that school, I left the faith. I'll spare you the story of the meantime, but what brought me back to Jesus was not theology or a powerful sermon or a song or a Christian book with a clever title, it was becoming involved with a group of genuine Christians (young and in college) who lived and served and acted as Jesus told us to in the inner-city of Indianapolis. I saw authenticity, I saw Jesus' hands and feet, Jesus' love and compassion in action, and I was drawn to it. And as I learned to BE Jesus, I learned also to think as Jesus - commit to study and understand the Bible, and to live a prayerful life. I think this is what young American Christians are lacking - and the American church in general... we have neglected to teach our young to be Jesus, and to saturate our lives with compassion and action for the least of these, and replaced the life he has called us to live with an obsession of getting our theology straight.

just a tally

22.75 years into my life
11 months into my marriage
6 months into my pregnancy
4 years into college (by way of 3 universities...)
2 jobs
1 car
3 cats
1 puppy
200+ children at my jobs to love
2 weeks till we move into our house
1 1/2 years until I graduate
122 days till Election Day
199 days till Bush's last day
232 years of Empire as of today
38572385732895723859752378 bills to pay
392582395238593295823958329582395823958239583295 thoughts to sift through




Next book to read: Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger by Rob Sider

Last book read: Red Letter Christians by Tony Campolo

Yes, two weeks until we move from our tiny, tiny apartment on the Southside to our new 3-bedroom house on the Near Eastside. We'll have two bathrooms (no having to hold it anymore!), a huge kitchen, a fenced backyard, an office, a dining room, a basement, a garage, a front porch, a walk to work instead of a half-hour drive, a community, (family members as neighbors - not sure if that's good or bad yet...), room for us to spread out and our pets to roam, a place for our books, hardwood floors, stairs in the house instead of to our door, and finally, a ghetto to live in instead of the suburbs. I am excited.

Dobson and Obama: Who is 'Deliberately Distorting'?

From Sojourner's magazine:

Dobson and Obama: Who is 'Deliberately Distorting'?
by Jim Wallis

James Dobson, of Focus on the Family Action, and his senior vice president of government and public policy, Tom Minnery, used their "Focus on the Family" radio show Tuesday to criticize Barack Obama's understanding of Christian faith. In the show, they describe Obama as "deliberately distorting the Bible," "dragging biblical understanding through the gutter," "willfully trying to confuse people," and having a "fruitcake interpretation of the Constitution."

The clear purpose of the show was to attack Barack Obama. On the show, Dobson says of himself, "I'm not a reverend. I'm not a minister. I'm not a theologian. I'm not an evangelist. I'm a psychologist. I have a Ph.D. in child development." Child psychologists don't insert themselves into partisan politics in the regular way that James Dobson does and has over many years as one of the premier leaders of the Religious Right. He has spoken about how often he talked to Republican leaders -- Karl Rove, administration strategists, and even President Bush himself. This year he tried to influence the outcome of the Republican primary by saying he would never vote for John McCain or the Republicans if they nominated him, then reversed himself and said he would vote after all but didn't say for whom. But why should America care about how a child psychologist votes?

James Dobson is insinuating himself into this presidential campaign, and his attacks against his fellow Christian, Barack Obama, should be seriously scrutinized. And because the basis for his attack on Obama is the speech the Illinois senator gave at our Sojourners/Call to Renewal event in 2006 (for the record, we also had Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republicans Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback speak that year), I have decided to respond to Dobson's attacks. In most every case they are themselves clear distortions of what Obama said in that speech. I was there for the speech; Dobson was not.

I haven't endorsed a candidate, but I do defend them when they are attacked in disingenuous ways, and this is one of those cases. You can read Obama's two-year-old speech, [audio link] which was widely publicized at the time, and you can see that Dobson either didn't understand it or is deliberately distorting it. There are two major problems with Dobson's attack on Obama.

First, Dobson and Minnery's language is simply inappropriate for religious leaders to use in an already divisive political campaign. We can agree or disagree on both biblical and political viewpoints, but our language should be respectful and civil, not attacking motives and beliefs.

Second, and perhaps most important, is the role of religion in politics. Dobson alleges that Obama is saying:

I [Dobson] can't seek to pass legislation, for example, that bans partial-birth abortion because there are people in the culture who don't see that as a moral issue. And if I can't get everyone to agree with me, it is undemocratic to try to pass legislation that I find offensive to the Scripture. ... What he's trying to say here is unless everybody agrees, we have no right to fight for what we believe.

Contrary to Dobson's charge, Obama strongly defended the right and necessity of people of faith in bringing their moral agenda to the public square, and he was specifically critical of many on the left and in his own Democratic Party for being uncomfortable with religion in politics.

Obama said that religion is and always has been a fundamental and absolutely essential source of morality for the nation, but he also said that "religion has no monopoly on morality," which is a point I often make. The United States is not the Christian theocracy that people like James Dobson seem to think it should be. Political appeals, even if rooted in religious convictions, must be argued on moral grounds rather than as sectarian religious demands -- so that the people (citizens), whether religious or not, may have the capacity to hear and respond. Religious convictions must be translated into moral arguments, which must win the political debate if they are to be implemented. Religious people don't get to win just because they are religious. They, like any other citizens, have to convince their fellow citizens that what they propose is best for the common good -- for all of us, not just for the religious.

Instead of saying that Christians must accept "the lowest common denominator of morality," as Dobson accused Obama of suggesting, or that people of faith shouldn't advocate for the things their convictions suggest, Obama was saying the exact opposite -- that Christians should offer their best moral compass to the nation but then engage in the kind of democratic dialogue that religious pluralism demands. Martin Luther King Jr. perhaps did this best, with his Bible in one hand and the Constitution in the other.

One more note. I personally disagree with how both the Democrats and Republicans have treated the moral issue of abortion and am hopeful that the movement toward a serious commitment for dramatic abortion reduction will re-shape both parties' language and positions. But that is the only "bloody notion" that Dobson mentions. What about the horrible bloody war in Iraq that Dobson apparently supports, or the 30,000 children who die each day globally of poverty and disease that Dobson never mentions, or the genocides in Darfur and other places? In making abortion the single life issue in politics and elections, leaders from the Religious Right like Dobson have violated the "consistent ethic of life" that we find, for example, in Catholic social teaching.

Dobson has also fought unsuccessfully to keep the issue of the environment and climate change, which many also now regard as a "life issue," off the evangelical agenda. Older Religious Right leaders are now being passed by a new generation of young evangelicals who believe that poverty, "creation care" of the environment, human trafficking, human rights, pandemic diseases such as HIV/AIDS, and the fundamental issues of war and peace are also "religious" and "moral" issues and now a part of a much wider and deeper agenda. That new evangelical agenda is a deep threat to Dobson and the power wielded by the Religious Right for so long. It puts many evangelical votes in play this election year, especially among a new generation who are no longer captive to the Religious Right. Perhaps that is the real reason for Dobson's attack on Barack Obama.

Road to Peace

Young Abdel Mahdi (Shahmay) was only 18 years old,
He was the youngest of nine children, never spent a night away from home.
And his mother held his photograph, opening the New York Times
To see the killing has intensified along the road to peace

There was a tall, thin boy with a whispy moustache disguised as an orthodox Jew
On a crowded bus in Jerusalem, some had survived World War Two
And the thunderous explosion blew out windows 200 yards away
With more retribution and seventeen dead along the road to peace

Now at King George Ave and Jaffa Road passengers boarded bus 14a
In the aisle next to the driver Abdel Mahdi (Shahmay)
And the last thing that he said on earth is "God is great and God is good"
And he blew them all to kingdom come upon the road to peace

Now in response to this another kiss of death was visited upon
Yasser Taha, Israel says is an Hamas senior militant
And Israel sent four choppers in, flames engulfed, tears wide open
And it killed his wife and his three year old child leaving only blackened skeletons

It's found his toddlers bottle and a pair of small shoes and they waved them in front of the cameras
But Israel says they did not know that his wife and child were in the car
There are roadblocks everywhere and only suffering on TV
Neither side will ever give up their smallest right along the road to peace

Israel launched it's latest campaign against Hamas on Tuesday
Two days later Hamas shot back and killed five Israeli soldiers
So thousands dead and wounded on both sides most of them middle eastern civilians
They fill the children full of hate to fight an old man's war and die upon the road to peace

"And this is our land we will fight with all our force" say the Palastinians and the Jews
Each side will cut off the hand of anyone who tries to stop the resistance
If the right eye offends thee then you must pluck it out
And Mahmoud Abbas said Sharon had been lost out along the road to peace

Once Kissinger said "we have no friends, America only has interests"
Now our president wants to be seen as a hero and he's hungry for re-election
But Bush is reluctant to risk his future in the fear of his political failures
So he plays chess at his desk and poses for the press 10,000 miles from the road to peace

In the video that they found at the home of Abdel Mahdi (Shahmay)
He held a Kalashnikov rifle and he spoke with a voice like a boy
He was an excellent student, he studied so hard, it was as if he had a future
He told his mother that he had a test that day out along the road to peace

The fundamentalist killing on both sides is standing in the path of peace
But tell me why are we arming the Israeli army with guns and tanks and bullets?
And if God is great and God is good why can't he change the hearts of men?
Well maybe God himself is lost and needs help
Maybe God himself he needs all of our help
Maybe God himself is lost and needs help
He's out upon the road to peace

Well maybe God himself is lost and needs help
Maybe God himself he needs all of our help
And he's lost upon the road to peace
And he's lost upon the road to peace
Out upon the road to peace.

- Tom Waits

Anthem

A nation stands with heart in hand
To sing their anthem proudly
Voices raised to sing their praise
Of their hollow country
All this talk of freedom
And some talk of liberty
From your plastic podium
You try and convince me
I can't fall anymore
For some silver-tongued song
Your freedom isn't free
So let me say what freedom means to
I can't see red, white, and blue waving in the air
I don't hear the bombs bursting and I don't even care
I'm sorry for my lack of faith
I'm not the greatest patriot
If this is all there is to freedom I don't want it
I can't fall anymore
For some silver-tongued song
Your freedom isn't free
So let me say what freedom means to
Pushing us a drug that you call freedom and democracy
Promise us that selfishness is the means for happiness
I burned that bridge so long ago that I can hardly see
Anything but solace in what freedom means to me
I can't fall anymore
For some silver-tongued song
Freedom isn't free
So let me say what freedom means to
It cannot mean to serve ourselves
That doesn't mean a thing
It doesn't mean to give the license
To seek ourselves in anything
That would be slavery to ourselves it isn't free
Jesus Christ, the only thing that freedom means to me

- Five Iron Frenzy

lost the plot

When you come back again
would you bring me something from the fridge?
Heard a rumour that the end is near
but I just got comfortable here.
sigh.
Let's be blunt.
I'm a little distracted.
What do you want?

Headaches and bad faith
are all that I've got.
First I misplaced the ending
then I lost the plot.

Out among the free-range sheep
while the big birds sharpen their claws.
For a time we stuck with the shepherd
but you wouldn't play Santa Claus.

sigh.
Let's be blunt.
We're a little distracted.
What do you want?

Once we could follow,
now we cannot.
You would not fit our image,
so we lost the plot.

Once we could hear you,
now our senses are shot.
We've forgotten our first love.
We have lost the plot.

When I saw you for the first time
you were hanging with a thief
And I knew my hands were dirty,
and I dropped my gaze.
Then you said I was forgiven
and you welcomed me with laughter.
I was happy ever after.
I was counting the days
when you'd come back again.
we'll be waiting for you
When you comin' back again?
we'll be ready for you
Maybe we'll wake up when...
maybe we'll wake up when
you come back again.

lies.
Let's be blunt.
We're a little unfaithful.
What do you want?

Are you still listening?
`Cause we're obviously not
We've forgotten our first love
We have lost the plot.

And why are you still calling?
You forgave, we forgot.
We're such experts at stalling
that we've lost the plot.
lost the plot

When you come back again
would you bring me something from the fridge?
Heard a rumour that the end is near
but I just got comfortable here.

- Newsboys

Recklessness

This post will be a bit more personal. I should have seen this coming, and I suppose I should be thankful that the extent of it is emotional pain, and not physical suffering as so many of my brothers and sisters in Christ experience across the world for their lack of compromise.

When Paul told us to not conform any longer to the patterns of this world, but to be transformed by the renewing of your mind, I think he meant it. He also meant it when he said to return evil with good. What a struggle this is, to live by God's word, and to not compromise or stand by idly when we hear someone twist it. I've been thinking a lot recently, I am going to have everyone hate me, against me, and will have so many people not want to speak to me any more if I continue to talk like this. And yet more and more I run into Christians having a distorted view of the world, and it gnaws at me, and I cannot remain silent. So, I don't. And I anger people. I have been reading and studying the Bible, and several other books on these views that I have writing about in this blog. Almost nonstop. I consult the Bible on every whim I have. And there it is - plain and simple, telling me that what Jesus stood for is in huge contrast to what the vast majority of mainstream Christians today stand for. So I cannot remain silent.

For this, I am screamed at. Blown off. Or even worse, ignored. It's amazing that those who treat me this way are not atheists or people of another faith - they are Christians. I am a searcher of truth. I have been for a long time. And it is even more amazing that I am being treated in the same way by the same people as two years ago, when I considered leaving the Christian faith for another. Now I am trying to follow the Bible by its word, and I receive the same treatment. Amazing.

I will leave with you some words written by the Danish priest, Kaj Munk, in 1944, just before he was killed by the Gestapo:


"What is, therefore, our task today? Shall I answer: "Faith, hope, and love"? That sounds beautiful. But I would say - courage. No, even that is not challenging enough to be the whole truth. Our task today is recklessness. For what we Christians lack is not psychology or literature... we lack a holy rage - the recklessness which comes from the knowlege of God and humanity. The ability to rage when justice lies prostrate on the streets, and when the lie rages across the face of the earth... a holy anger about the things that are wrong in the world. To rage against the ravaging of God's earth, and the destruction of God's world. To rage when little children must die of hunger, when the tables of the rich are sagging with food. To rage at the senseless killings of so many, and against the madness of militaries. To rage at the lie that calls the threat of death and the strategy of destruction peace. To rage against complacency. To restlessly seek that recklessness that will challenge and seek to change human history until it conforms to the norms of the Kingdom of God. And remember the signs of the Christian Church have been the Lion, the Lamb, the Dove, and the Fish... but never the chameleon."

What will people think when they hear that I'm a Jesus freak?

I find it interesting, and highly self-serving and hypocritical, that many Christians look to the Bible as their source of comfort, peace, and salvation, and use this very same book to justify the destruction of others. It seems as if they say: "It is my comfort and peace, but not yours. For you, you evildoers, will suffer at our hands for what you have done. For me, I have been forgiven freely by Christ. But I cannot extend that forgiveness to you."
Jesus tells us what happens to a person with that mindset. In his parable of the unmerciful servant, a master forgives his servant of his debts, but that servant goes out and does not forgive his brother. When the master hears, he "turned him over to the jailers to be tortured, until he should pay back all he owed." Then, Jesus says, "This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother from your heart." (Matthew 18:34-53) Jesus also said, "Freely you have received, freely give." (Matthew 10:8) Who are we to begrudge our neighbor or our enemy what was so freely given to us - what we could have never deserved?
Jesus was very clear about the fact that he had come to change everything - by his fulfillment of the Law, with love. Love is the fulfillment of the law. (Romans 13:10)

So, love.

The greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:13)

So, love.

Let no debt remain outstanding, except the one to continue to love each other. (Romans 13:8)

So, love.

It's also interesting that people look to the Old Testament to justify a war, but overlook the New Testament, the change that commands our lives today. A commentary in my Bible reads:

"One fact about 'holy war' is very clear. We cannot argue from a war specifically commanded
by God in Joshua to any national situation today. In the Old Testament, God was dealing primarily with one particular nation, the Israelites, for a stated purpose. When the Messiah finally emerged out of that nation, everything changed.
Jesus' followers all lived in the same territory captured by Joshua, the 'promised land.' But
four times, in his very last words, Jesus commanded his disciples to go out, away from Jerusalem, into all the world. Go, he told them, not as conquering armies but rather as bearer of the Good News that applies to all people, all races, all nations.
Anyone who looks to the book of Joshua for rationalization of a "holy war" must also look ahead to Jesus. Although on a holy crusade, he chose against violent means. In fact, he chose suffering and death. Nothing in the New Testament gives consolation to a religious warrior."

Instead, several times the New Testament tells us that we are not to take an eye for an eye or to repay evil with evil or insult with insult. What do we replace this urge with then? What the New Testament tells us countless times to do in any instance - love and forgive, and have mercy.

We are to be the salt of the earth, the light of the world, a set apart people, a sociopolitical alternative, imitators of God. Then why do so many of us look like the world? If our lives don't make people wonder where in the world we came from, who are we, what are we doing, why are we doing that - then we are not being the Jesus freaks we are called to be.

Amish for Homeland Security

From "Jesus for President" by Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw:

'Do you remember how the Amish responded to the act of terror in their school, when a gunman killed five Amish children in 2006? Our friend Diana Butler Bass wrote an article pontificating what the world would look like if the Amish had led us after September 11. Consider their response to the murders, a response that fascinated the world. Within the first week after the shootings, the Amish families who had suffered such terror responded in four ways that captured the world's attention. First some elders visited Marie Roberts, the wife of the murderer, to offer forgiveness. Then, the families of the slain girls invited the widow to their own children's funerals. Next, they requested that all relief money intended for the Amish families be shared with Ms. Roberts and her children. And finally, in an astonishing act of reconciliation, dozens of Amish families attended the funeral of the killer.
'Diana goes on to share that she talked with her husband about the spiritual power of these actions, commenting, "It is an amazing witness to the peace tradition." And her husband looked at her and said passionately, "Witness? I don't think so. This went well past witnessing. They weren't witnessing to anyone. They were actively making peace." Her article ends with these words, as she reflected on that truth:
"Their actions not only witness that the Christian God is a God of forgiveness, but they actively created the conditions in which forgiveness could happen. In the most straightforward way, they embarked on imitating Christ: 'Father, forgive them; they know not what they do.' In acting as Christ, they did not speculate on forgiveness. They forgave. And forgiveness is, as Christianity teaches, the prerequisite to peace. We forgive because God forgave us; in forgiving, we participate in God's dream of reconciliation and shalom. Then an odd thought occurred to me: What if the Amish were in charge of the war on terror? What if, on the evening of Sept. 12, 2001, we had gone to Osama bin Laden's house (metaphorically, of course, since we didn't know where he lived!) and offered him forgiveness? What if we had invited the families of the hijackers to the funerals of the victims of 9/11? What if a portion of the September 11th Fund had been dedicated to relieving poverty in a Muslim country? What if we dignified the burial of their dead by our respectful grief? What if, instead of seeking vengeance, we had stood together in human pain, looking honestly at the shared sin and sadness we suffered? What if we had tried to make peace? So, here's my modest proposal. We're five years too late for an Amish response to 9/11. But maybe we should ask them to take over the Department of Homeland Security. After all, actively practicing forgiveness and making peace are the only real alternatives to perpetual fear and a multi-generational global religious war. I can't imagine any other path to true security. And nobody else can figure out what to do to end this insane war. Why not try the Christian practice of forgiveness? If it worked in Lancaster, maybe it will work in Baghdad, too."

Jesus is nothing but a nuisance

"Jesus lives next door. He's an eight-year-old girl and her three-year-old brother. The Son of Man looks like those starving Ethiopian children. He only gets breakfast and lunch at school, when he makes it. His mama is a crack whore. Nobody knows where his daddy is. I heard his mama lets her "Johns" do things to him.

Poor King of Kings.
Jesus is two houses down and has six children. Now he's pregnant with the seventh. I don't know if he hasn't figured out what birth control is, or what, but how does he expect his husband to feed all those babies on that salary? And you know with all those kids the Lord of Lords can't work. That means hardworking taxpayers' money has to go for Christ's foodstamps!

He needs to get fixed.
The Lord is a crazy man - paranoid schizophrenic. If he doesn't take his medication, he walks up and down the street, cussing and spitting on everyone he passes. He's homeless. Nobody knows where his family is - if he's got one. Digs out of the trash cans for food. Somebody ought to get him off the street.

Jesus is nothing but a nuisance.
I'm starting to see the Son of God everywhere I go. He's always crying or begging or looking pitiful. Why doesn't he pull himself up by the bootsraps? This is America! Makes me mad. He's ruining our neighborhood.
Somebody ought to do something about him.
Somebody."

- Claudia Mair Burney

Jesus said, "I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me." (Matthew 25:40)

The foolishness of God

Why don't Christians listen to what Christ actually said?

Today, conservative Christians have been given another name - "values voters". These are defined as voters who pledge only to support candidates that are pro-life, pro-family, and pro-faith.
(Here, sign it if you want - it is of course, your civic responsibility: http://www.focuspetitions.com/135/petition.asp)

Boil that down, and the "most important" issues prescribed to these Christians are to be against abortion, against gay marriage, and for supporting religious liberties.

So, pro-life, eh? Why doesn't the fact that over 80,000 innocent Iraqi civilians have died because of the war outrage us to the point that the killing of the unborn does? When it comes to unjust deaths, you can't choose whom you will be upset over.

And pro-family? Gay marriage creates families, divorce destroys them. Don't get bent out of shape - I am not for gay marriage. But how many times did Jesus talk about homosexuality? Let's count: zero. Among his top priorities, apparently.

And lastly, pro-faith. Meaning?

I see Christians all up in arms when the taking down of the Ten Commandments in public places is discussed, yet - doesn't it say in there "Thou shalt not kill?" Oh, yeah.

Maybe we should listen and obey what Jesus really focused on.

In the gospels we have approximately 2,000 accounts of Jesus talking about caring for the poor, the sick, the least of these.

He tells a rich man that in order to be saved, he must sell everything he owns, and give to the poor. Then you will have treasure in heaven. (Matthew 10:21, Luke 18:22) So, why don't we see many Christians in this country eager to do that? Instead, we see church parking lots filled with BMWs and Lexuses, pastors owning airplanes, and congregations building bigger buildings to bring in instead of reaching out.

Then, in Matthew 19:24, Mark 10:25, and Luke 18:25 he says it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God! (But he didn't really mean it.)

And then, to top it all off, Jesus separates the peoples as to how they have cared for the poor and the needy. (Matthew 25:31-46) Those who cared for the least of these (Jesus in disguise), he invites into his Kingdom, those who ignored them he tells to depart from him.



In the words of Jack Sparrow as he munches on his apple: "Funny little world, isn't it?"
Let's be followers of Jesus with our highlighters at the ready -
and if we don't like what he said, feel free to skip right over it, and highlight the parts that serve our agenda, our cause, our freedom, our comfort.

All else is regarded as "well, sacrifices must be made."

Why do we apologize for interruptions?

Thoughts and quotes from the book I've been reading: "Justice in the Burbs" by Will & Lisa Samson.

"Injustice is unconcious. It grows when we sleep comfortably." - Kester Brewin pg. 47

"So we stumble through life with unanswered and sometimes unvoiced questions, some X factor missing from our lives, but we fail to remember or just don't know what that factor is. Or we realize exactly what's missing but have no idea how to incorporate issues of justice into our lives, particularly in a way that would safeguard us against completely disrupting our everyday existence." - pg. 25

"As we have engaged in various ministries to assist people, we have established clear rules designed to protect ourselves from unnecessary risk." - pg. 55

"The suburbs seems particularly designed to avoid facing the bigger issues of life. It almost feels as if these communities were designed to avoid interruption by anything unpleasant or uncomfortable." - pg. 58

"[In our suburban home] there was no one to harm us, no one to cause us discomfort. But there was also no one to interrupt us. No one to show us an image of God in 'the least of these.'" - pgs. 59-60

The impression I get of suburban American Christians is one of routine, busyness, and no time to lend a hand to those who cry out from the depths. No time to feed, clothe, or assist Jesus disguised as a lowly person in need. America is the land of opportunity, and they've found it, it conveniences them, let others find their own way.
We need to be interrupted. We need to be disturbed.

"Perhaps this is a definition of faithfulness: allowing one's dreams to be interrupted."
- Kester Brewin


"He loved the poor and accosted the rich, so which one do you want to be?

"Who is this that you follow, this picture of the American dream? If Jesus was here would you walk right by on the other side, or fall right down and worship at his holy feet?

"My Jesus would never be accepted in my church. The blood and dirt on his feet might stain the carpet. But he preaches for the hurting and despises the proud, and I think he'd prefer Beale street to the stained glass crowd.

I want to be like my Jesus, not a posterchild for American prosperity, but like my Jesus."
- Todd Agnew

Health and Wealth

Poor men bound in persecution,
God's their portion everyday.
But we don't know anybody
who lives that way.
There the church grows stronger,
under politics and chains and whips.
They can't explain how they
slipped right through their grip.
in the politics of Mao Tse-Tung.
I think they got it right,
so maybe we got it wrong.

Health and wealth, we help ourselves,
and let them play the hand
that they've been dealt.
Health and wealth, indulge ourselves,
a big fat belly underneath our belts.
Health and wealth, we help ourselves,
and let them play the hand
that they've been dealt.
We'll never understand
the Christ they've felt,
if we keep on chasing
health and wealth.

Here we sit so comfy, rich.
us, me and you, the USA...
so far away from C-h-i-n-a.
We think they need freedom.
We're the ones in prison.
We don't have the time
to change the world.
It doesn't take long to figure out,
where all our money goes.
We're the poorest billionaires
Jesus knows.

And we ask God to refine us,
and pray that we would be freed,
from all our comfortable gods,
our straining and striving and
chasing the wind.

- "Health and Wealth" - the O.C. Supertones

We hoard it up and store it up from sea to shining sea

Okay, now I am really outraged. I happened upon a book review on boundless.org - a website "for Christian young adults" sponspored by Focus on the Family. This entire article is chockfull of racist, bigoted, and America-worshipping views. Read the last of it for yourself:

But does it have to be this way? Will immigrants inevitably overrun us, just as the barbarians gradually overwhelmed ancient Rome? Outside our borders, hundreds of millions of potential immigrants look in enviously at our riches and freedoms, often with little understanding of — much less respect for — the values of western civilization which gave rise to our prosperity. Unless we learn again to reproduce our own civilization — to have children and to teach them how to be moral citizens of a great republic — these immigrants will happily take our places at the banquet table, having a hearty laugh at our expense. After all, they didn’t even need to tell us to commit cultural suicide: we are doing it to ourselves.
Buchanan’s warning really hits home, if you, like me and most of my Stanford classmates, are in your late 20s and haven’t even come close to tying the knot or having children. When I briefly considered the marriage question for the first time with my girlfriend last year, many of friends thought I was crazy for even thinking about marriage — at age 27! (What would it do to your career plans? I was asked by nearly everyone — as if that were the most important consideration in life).
If everyone in my generation waits as long as I have to get married, and even longer to have children, then the outlook isn’t good. Buchanan has some intriguing ideas to "get us going," so to speak — everything from enacting pro-child tax policies to advocating a return to the "family wage," under which fathers are paid more than single female workers, so as to allow more mothers to stay in the home and care for children.
But Buchanan knows perfectly well that America’s cultural suicide will not be reversed by dollars-and-cents incentives. If we’re going to fight for the future of this country, we have to capture the hearts and minds of the young, taking back the schools and universities from the multiculturalists and the blame-America crowd. Spread the word around campus about the dangers posed to America’s fragile civilization by declining fertility and uncontrolled immigration. And above all, have children!
In the end, though, I’m just not sure that any of this will be enough to stem the tide of the West’s unwinding self-destruction. Even if the de-Christianization of the schools is reversed, even if a long-overdue moratorium on immigration is called (and don’t hold your breath for that), the demographic catastrophe overtaking us may still run its course.
But that’s no reason not to go down swinging. Despite all her many flaws and the depth of her current cultural malaise, America is, in Buchanan’s words, "still a country worth fighting for and the last best hope on earth." Let’s all of us do our part to make sure this great country doesn’t vanish into the dustbin of history.

What I hear here is that the richness and selfishness is something we Americans have to keep in only for ourselves. Reproduce so that others can't take it away. If I recall correctly Jesus had great contempt for the rich. (Luke 6:24) The author here is saying, Don't let the immigrants -those nasty barbarians- in! They must not be able to share in our banquet table! I would also argue that Jesus is our last best hope on earth - not an earthly nation full of selfish hoarders. The demographic "catastrophe" is happening as he mentions earlier in the article - soon white people will be the minority. Oh no! Then the multiculturalists will truly have hold of this "great nation." He also is appauled that these "new" immigrants are resisting assimilation earlier in the article, as if it is something to be desired, as if it is a biblical command. ( Fewer immigrants are fully assimilating today than in earlier immigrant waves in large part because the multiculturalist orthodoxy all but forbids them from doing so.) Again, Paul reminded us in Romans to not conform to this world - in other words, do not assimilate to the mainstream culture. (Romans 12:2)

And my last question is, if Focus on the Family is so pro-family, whose family are they for? Surely not the immigrant family. Them we must keep on the other side of the fence, thirsting for our prosperity which we so happily hold at arm's length.

Read the whole article here:
http://www.boundless.org/2001/departments/pages/a0000550.html

I pledge allegiance....

I recently received an email warning me about the fact that Barack Obama does not pledge allegiance to the flag. It does not concern me that he does not pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. I don't either. Pledging allegiance to a nation implies that you abide by their laws first, and then God's - as it is "under God" and not to God. Jesus said you cannot serve two masters (Matthew 6:24), so therefore I choose to pledge my allegiance to God, and not to an earthly nation.

Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote in his "Paul's Letter to American Christians":

"Your highest loyalty is to God, and not to the mores or the folkways, the state or the nation, or any man-made institution. If any earthly institution or custom conflicts with God's will, it is your Christian duty to oppose it. You must never allow the transitory, evanescent demands of man-made institutions to take precedence over the eternal demands of the Almighty God."

As with any post on this blog, I welcome your comments, criticisims, support or outrage.