I'm on a plane to Portland, Oregon, to begin the West Coast swing of The Great Awakening book tour that will also take us to Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego—all back to back. The events are quite diverse and very interesting, from universities, churches, various civic forums, pastors' lunches, student groups, and, of course, lots of bookstores.
Already, I am being reminded of the God's Politics book tour three years ago. So many people have told me how depressed they were after the 2004 election, and how the appearance of God's Politics gave them real hope again about the possibility of an alternative to the Religious Right, or, even more personally, how that promise actually brought them back to faith. I can't tell you how much that encourages me. Last time we were really stunned by the size of the turnout at all the book events and also at how young the audiences were. And Tuesday night, at the opening book event for The Great Awakening at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C., the hall was filled with students.
I've been doing lots of radio interviews in the last few days and have found the comments and questions very interesting. Two stand out.
First, several interviewers have suggested that God's Politics and now The Great Awakening are giving Christian faith a different image than the one that has dominated for several years now. They say these books are helping to "re-brand" Christian commitment away from the divisive, partisan, political, and top-down agenda of the Religious Right to a new image of faith that is much more welcoming, open, inclusive, and focused on both compassion and social justice. I really hope that is true and that's part of the reason I write these books.
The second question I am asked is even more important, it seems to me. The Great Awakening is a very hopeful book, several of the interviewers have told me. But then they ask, "Do you think we really can be hopeful about real change in this country and the world?" They ask me to forgive them for their cynicism and then ask, almost longingly, if hope is really possible. That is exactly the question this book tries to deal with, and I am sure it will be the hot topic of conversation at every stop along this book tour.
Along the way, I'll be blogging about the people I meet and what they have to say. Keep up with us at the God's Politics Blog. And do visit the Great Awakening Web site our terrific staff has created for the book tour. It is full of good resources, including a downloadable study guide for those who want to start Great Awakening study groups in their church or community. (I heard a lot about those during the God's Politics book tour—including when I was in Dallas last year and a man whispered subversively in my ear that they had two God's Politics book study groups in George Bush's home church!)
The Great Awakening also has a cool little video about what inspired me to write this book, put together by some of our most talented young staffers (I am so lucky to have these people). You can also see the schedule for when we will be coming to a city near you! So come on out, bring your friends and bring your kids. We're going to have a whole lot of fun.
Last night I finally saw Juno, Roger Ebert's favorite film of 2007 and recipient of four Oscar nominations, which has as its center the story of an unplanned pregnancy and the people affected by it. The protagonist, Juno MacGuff, played by Ellen Page in one of those so-good-she's-either-brilliant-or-really-like-that-in-real-life performances, is a misfit attracted to her male mirror image. Wiser beyond her years, slightly jaded by life and negotiating the pitfalls of the high school psychological assault course, she responds to her pregnancy by initially seeking an abortion – and the nonchalance with which she is treated is the only thing sadder than the unthinking speed with which she makes the decision. She is greeted by a lone protestor – the sole representative of institutional Christianity in the movie – as young as her, who, while a welcome change from the angry fundamentalist stereotype, may know as little about adult life as Juno does about the experience of pregnancy she's about to have. But something unsettles Juno, and she is unable to go through with the termination. Instead, she plans to have the child and help a couple seeking to adopt.
And that's it – the rest of the film is a deceptively simple story, taking Juno through the following months, her relationship with family, her best friend, and Paulie Bleeker – the dude she hung out with a little too late one night. There's not much to the tale at first glance, but I found the way in which it is told (by writer Diablo Cody and director Jason Reitman – son of Ivan, who brought us Ghostbusters and the wonderful presidential satire Dave) – so utterly beguiling that by the time the film was over I wanted to go straight back to the start to rediscover these characters all over again.
Why? Because the characters in this film not only feel like real people, they are the kind of people you would be happy to spend time with. Because the film does as good a job as the best films of its type at reminding us of what it feels like to be young and not fit in (even the prospective adoptive father is trying to find his liberation in a stifling world). Because there are no grandstanding scenes, no emotional outbursts, no melodramatic moments of "closure." The characters behave the way many of us might hope to be able to do in similar situations - Juno's parents respond to her surprising news with grace, never for a second falling into the cliché of fearing what the neighbours might think. Juno is confident enough not to join so many others of her generation by giving into the stigma of shame, and Paulie ultimately just wants to be a good guy for her.
If this sounds sentimental, that's certainly not the tone of the film. If it sounds unrealistic, however, then perhaps that is indicative of a culture in which perfectionism or arrogance are often preferred over honestly managing the frailty of being human. Diablo Cody was once a stripper and so is likely to have experienced moralistic condemnation at the hands of others. It is a triumph that she has composed a film so full of generosity and so lacking in bitterness, so full of hope for family, for children, for people being able to pick themselves up, dust themselves off, and start all over again. Alongside the clear exploration of how to respond to unplanned pregnancy, this film has something to say to those of us seeking to explore what forgiveness and redemption means. More than that, in its embrace of the totality of our existence – from its acknowledgement that the promotion of values often has more to do with helping people move on from things that didn't work out than with dogmatic confrontation, to its critique of the fact that some religious voices seem incapable of communicating compassion, Juno is a truly pro-life film.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
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But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:
"In the last days it will be, God declares,
that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams.
Even upon my slaves, both men and women,
in those days I will pour out my Spirit;
and they shall prophesy.
I used to be a person uncommonly terrified with thunder, and it used to strike me with terror when I saw a thunder storm rising. But now, on the contrary, it rejoiced me. I felt God at the first appearance of a thunderstorm. And used to take the opportunity at such times to fix myself to view the clouds, and see the lightnings play, and hear the majestic and awful voice of God’s thunder, which often times was exceeding entertaining, leading me to sweet contemplations of my great and glorious God.
John Edwards ended his campaign this afternoon at the same place he started it and with the same theme—ending poverty as a moral imperative. In the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, Edwards said that he was stepping aside in this presidential campaign, but that he would now continue his life-long work for economic justice. Before announcing his decision, he called both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to ask for a pledge to make ending poverty central to their campaigns for president and to their presidencies if they are elected.
John Edwards has changed the shape and the agenda of this campaign. He has put the needs of the poor and working families on the political agenda for the first time in many years. His clear and consistent voice has made sure that universal health care, fundamental issues of economic inequality, and the plight of so many Americans who are barely getting by would be on the front burner of this election campaign. John Edwards has championed the poor more than any white presidential candidate since Robert Kennedy did many decades ago. His campaign may be ending today, but he has already shaped the priorities of this election year in a decisive way.
Again today, he reminded us that "we have a moral responsibility to each other," as his valiant wife Elizabeth could be seen wiping a tear from her eyes. Because, he said, "But for the grace of God, there goes us." He called for an end to government "walking away" from poor and working people. Nobody has spoken of the 37 million Americans who wake up every morning in poverty more than John Edwards.
As he was on his way to give the announcement to withdraw from the presidential race, he stopped to talk to some homeless people under a bridge. One woman said, "Promise me you won't forget us." Edwards promised that he wouldn't. I believe him. I have admired John Edwards greatly - especially among the presidential candidates in recent years - and today I was so proud of him once again.
He closed by saying, "This son of a mill worker's gonna be just fine. Our job now is to make certain that America will be fine … it's time for all of us, all of us together, to make the two Americas one." And today he made a commitment for his party (to which he is now likely to continually hold them to account): "We will never forget you. We will fight for you. We will stand up for you." He said to all of those he had heard in the past several days asking him to speak for them, "I want you to know that you almost changed my mind."
The Bible says that a nation will be judged, more than anything else, by how it treats its poorest and most vulnerable. And seldom do we see a political candidate who sounds like a biblical prophet. So I just want to say thank you to John and Elizabeth Edwards. You may not become president this time, but you have been a prophet to the nation and will continue to be. As you said in your closing remarks, your presidential campaign may be over, but it's time to get to work. And I know we will be working together. God bless you both.
Learn more about The Great Awakening at www.sojo.net/greatawakening. There you'll find more videos, book excerpts, a free study guide, screensavers, and other downloads - including mp3s from Derek Webb. Plus, book tour dates and the opportunity to create or join book groups in your community.
The creator goes off on one wild, specific tangent after another, or millions simultaneously, with an exuberance that would seem to be unwarranted, and with an abandoned energy sprung from an unfathomable font. What is going on here? The point of the dragonfly’s terrible lip, the giant water bug, birdson, or the beautiful dazzle and flash of sunlighted minnows, is not that it all fits together like clockwork—for it doesn’t, particularly, not even inside the goldfish bowl—but that it all flows so freely wild, like the creek, that it all surges in such a free fringed tangle. Freedom is the world’s water and weather, the world’s nourishment freely given, its soil and sap: and the creator loves pizzazz.
Therefore thus says the Lord God,
See, I am laying in Zion a foundation stone,
a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation:
"One who trusts will not panic."
And I will make justice the line,
and righteousness the plummet;
hail will sweep away the refuge of lies,
and waters will overwhelm the shelter.
Nothing has exposed the severe ethical troubles of the world´s second largest burger chain quite so lucidly as a slave break in Florida´s tomato country in November.
Burger King, under fire for turning a blind eye to the rampant human rights abuses in the fields where they buy their tomatoes, decided to react. But in lieu of taking responsibility for the conditions, like McDonald´s, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell have in recent years, Burger King opted to deny that farmworker enslavement and sub-poverty wages exist.
In mid-November, Burger King led a high profile press tour through Immokalee, Fla – the epicenter of our nation´s fresh tomato production and home to the award-winning farmworker group, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW).
The CIW has unearthed, investigated, and assisted federal officials in prosecuting five forced labor operations in Florida agriculture in the last decade alone – resulting in the liberation of more than 1,000 people. By working together with people of faith across the country, the CIW has persuaded a number of major fast food restaurants to sign on to codes of conduct that establish a zero-tolerance policy for modern-day slavery.
Yet on Nov. 20, a so-called independent auditor accompanying Burger King on its press junket through Immokalee was quoted in the Miami Herald dismissing the CIW´s accusations of widespread abuse, stating: "We have found no slave labor."
The very same day, Nov. 20, a report was filed with the Sheriff´s office in Immokalee by three men - all of them tomato pickers - who had broken through the ventilation hatch of a U-haul truck their employers had locked them in and escaped. Earlier this month, their employers were indicted in federal court on charges of indentured servitude and peonage.
U.S. Attorney Doug Molloy called the operation – which, interestingly, was situated just three blocks from where Burger King was hosting its press tour – "slavery, plain and simple."
Why does slavery still exist? Slavery flourishes in U.S. agriculture because the everyday reality of sweatshop conditions provides the fertile soil that enable it to sprout, time and time again.
Farmworkers are among the least paid workers in the nation; to make $50 in a day, a worker must pick nearly two tons of tomatoes one-by-one. The back-breaking work they perform – without any benefits whatsoever – beneath a brutal sun (and at times a brutal crewleader) makes possible the food that nourishes our families and ourselves.
Until we fix a system that allows exploitation to be the norm, we´d be amiss to assume that the most extreme forms of that exploitation – human enslavement – will just vanish.
As such, Burger King would do well to carefully examine James 5:4 :
Behold, the wages you withheld from the workers who harvested your fields are crying aloud, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord.
Jordan Buckley works with Interfaith Action of Southwest Florida (interfaithact.org), animating people of faith to collaborate with farmworkers to eliminate modern-day slavery and sweatshop conditions in the U.S. agriculture industry.
At home, an abundance of books and papers overlays the heavy furniture I inherited from my grandparents. A perfectly simple room, with one perfect object to meditate on, remains a dream until I step outside, onto the Plains. A tree. A butte. The sunrise. It always makes me wonder: What is enough? Are there enough trees here? As always, it seems that the more I can distinguish my true needs and my wants, the more I am shocked to realize how little is enough.
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When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. "Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?" He said to him, "'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."
Tonight, President Bush delivers his 7th State of the Union address. We are certain to hear about the President's plan for stimulating the economy.
Yet, for many people of faith, there is a hunger for a new vision of our life together where bold changes are enacted to address the most pressing moral issues of our time. I’ve written about this hunger for change in my latest book, The Great Awakening , in which I talk about how spiritually-based movements for social change have transformed our nation. The abolition movement to end slavery, the fight to end child labor, the civil rights movement – all of these were movements led by people of faith who hungered for a better way.
I believe we’re at another important moment in history. Together, we can end the moral scandal of poverty, the degradation of God's creation, the cultural assault on our families and children, and seeing war as the only way to confront evil. You can watch my reflections on "The Moral State of the Union" here, click here for the complete prepared text, or download the complete audio as an mp3.
I'm Jim Wallis, of Sojourners and author of The Great Awakening. As the President prepares to deliver his State of the Union message to the country, I want to share some of my reflections on the Moral State of the Union.
Everyday there seems to be some new outrageous charge leveled at Barack Obama. One of the most pernicious is that he is a Muslim who is dishonestly masquerading as a Christian. This charge is so malicious - and so untrue - that it is time to set the record straight.
Barack Obama has never been a Muslim. He has never attended a Muslim school. From about age eight to age nine Obama lived in Indonesia, the most populous Muslim country on earth, with more Muslim schools than one can count, yet his parents chose to enroll him in a secular, non-religious school comprised of teachers and students of all faiths. Nor can it be said that during his brief sojourn in Indonesia that his worldview was tainted by Islamic extremism; when Obama lived there, the practice of Islam in Indonesia was still among the world's most moderate.
Another false charge is that rather than using a Bible to be sworn into his elected office, Senator Obama instead used the Qur'an, the holy book of the Muslim faith. That is also a falsehood. The most cursory check of the facts shows that it was not Barack Obama who was sworn in with a Qur'an. It was Keith Ellison, the proudly Muslim congressman from Minnesota.
But by far the ugliest charge is that Barack Obama is lying about his Christian faith. The truth is that for years now, Barack Obama has been a baptized, fully confessed and practicing Christian, not only with his lips inside a church but, more importantly, with his limbs out in the community - striving to help the neediest and the most vulnerable of our brothers and sisters of all creeds and colors.
It is correct that Obama was not born into the Christian faith. Rather, Barack Obama made a conscious decision as a mature adult to become part of the body of Christ. One measure of the seriousness of his faith is that he has been an active and faithful churchgoer since he embraced the gospel of Jesus Christ as his own.
Dr. Jeremiah Wright - his pastor - a wise, sensitive Christian freedom-fighter (in the very best sense of the word), and a man deeply committed to his faith in Christ, whole-heartedly attests to this, as does every fellow parishioner who has encountered Obama in his home church - the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. (By the way, the United Church of Christ is a predominately white mainstream Christian denomination.)
But what is also troubling about all the false information being spread about Obama is its obsession with doctrines and creeds to the apparent detriment of any sense of the spirituality of service. This tragically flawed understanding of Christian faith is apparently more concerned with the fleeting testimony of one's mouth than with the abiding testimony of one's walk in the world. If this was not so, if what was really the concern of those seeking to discredit Obama was that one be a Christian rather than simply bearing the name, then why do they not attack the people "of faith" who tell every listening ear that they are Christians, yet everyday spit on the very tenets that Jesus taught by making greed, self-aggrandizement and treating poor people as children of a lesser God their de facto religion? Why not equally publicly indict the rapacious "prosperity preachers" and fake healers who appear in pulpits and on television weekly to steal from the poor so they themselves can live in imperial luxury like the Roman Caesar, the same Caesar whose empire tortured Jesus to death? According to the teachings of Jesus, transgressions like these are what believers should be exposing and denouncing. Indeed, in Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus makes it clear that betrayal of the poor and the vulnerable is among the worst sins possible. Moreover, there Jesus reveals that if nothing else will get one banished to Hell, hurting - even ignoring - those he calls "the least of these" surely will.
Also in that Matthew 25 passage, Jesus teaches that if we are to judge each other at all, it must be by the standard of whether we are trying to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and shelter the homeless. That is the gospel's paramount measure of faith, not how much one shouts Jesus' name or how often and how loudly one can recite doctrine and creeds. Jesus taught - and modeled - that what is most important for those who follow him is to spend their time and treasure in this world, engaging in loving, self-sacrificial actions with the express purpose of manifesting God's love and justice on earth as in heaven.
For me, that is the standard by which all those who seek to lead or govern us must be judged.
Contemporary American churches in particular do not require following Christ in his example, spirit, and teachings as a condition of membership—either of entering into or continuing in fellowship of a denomination or a local church.... Most problems in contemporary churches can be explained by the fact that members have not yet decided to follow Christ.
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For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
On Wednesday, Sojourners and Beliefnet, in collaboration with the National Association of Evangelicals Christian Student Leadership Conference, hosted a panel discussion on "Choosing a president: What do evangelicals really want?" I joined Steve Waldman and David Kuo of Beliefnet, Rich Cizik of the NAE, Bishop Harry Jackson of Hope Christian Church and the High Impact Leadership Coalition, Lynne Hybels of the Willow Creek Community Church, Rev. Joel Hunter of Northland Church and former president of the Christian Coalition, Rev. Sam Rodriguez of the National Hispanic Leadership Conference, and Rev. Cheryl Sanders of the Third Street Church of God and Howard University School of Divinity in a 90-minute conversation.
I was honored to be part of the group, and found the discussion informative and inspiring. I encourage you to listen to the entire conversation, but here are my favorite quotes from each of the panelists:
Rich Cizik: "An historic shift is occurring, it's equivalent to an earthquake in slow motion, but people aren't sensing it, the national media hasn't picked up on it … We are no longer single issue voters, and we're not going to blindly follow prominent leaders in the Religious Right, or otherwise, who are telling us what we have to believe."
Harry Jackson: "It's impossible, though, to be a conscience to the entire nation and be partisan as well. So, at some point we've lost our ability to be an impartial conscience to the entire nation."
Lynne Hybels: "It took a very unlikely prophet named Bono to shake me up. It really was a challenge from him that sent me to Africa and really turned my life upside down. It's a shame that it took an Irish rock star to call the church to task on this, but I'm really glad he did. … [In] many of the great global issues like poverty, AIDS, and refugees, women are disproportionately impacted by all these great social global tragedies, and I would like to see women become disproportionately engaged on the solution side. Personally, that is my call to evangelical women – to pay attention to what's going on in the world and get involved."
Joel Hunter: "There is now a maturing of the movement. Any movement starts out with a negative, you're against something. It's kind of like the middle-school years. You define yourself by what you hate, what you're not. And as you grow up, you have to start defining yourself by who you are and what you want to build. That's where we are right now."
Sam Rodriguez: "The major difference between Latino evangelicals and white evangelicals is that many white evangelicals take their marching orders from Bishop Rush Limbaugh, Prophet Sean Hannity, and Apostle Lou Dobbs; and Latino evangelicals still listen to Matthew, Mark, Luke and John."
Cheryl Sanders: "Martin Luther King made this point in his writing and his speeches – he was a Christian, he was a gospel-preaching Christian – and he brought that evangelical message – the social gospel, if we want to call it that – to bear on civil rights, his center of concern, but it included economic justice, health care, and so many of the other things we're concerned about today. … In the history of African Americans and the church, there hasn't really been a time when it was detached from the social and political message."
I am now beginning a 20-city tour to talk about my new book, The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in A Post-Religious Right America. The conversation at every stop will be about how real and deep change could happen in this country and around the world—and is already beginning to. And that change begins with our own lives, our congregations and communities, and the kind of social movements that finally move politics. I invite you to come to one of our events, here is detailed city-by-city information on the tour. I'm looking forward to meeting people all around the country to talk about the "revival" that is already occurring and could bring the change and the hope that so many people are clearly longing for in this critical election year and beyond.
The New Year began with bang. When it comes to presidential politics, we certainly saw some new beginnings. Sen. Barack Obama made history by becoming the first African American to win in Iowa, making him the clear front-runner (well, at least for a week or so). But after Sen. Clinton won New Hampshire, not only did it become clear that this would be one of the most interesting and most-watched presidential races in history, something else rose to the surface. We were reminded that while this may be a year of new beginnings, some things have not changed.
After Sen. Clinton won New Hampshire, pundits and reporters began to raise questions about race and if, in the privacy of the voting booth, white people would not vote for a black man. Now it is clear from the results in Iowa and the support that Sen. Obama has been receiving from people of all races since the beginning of his campaign, that he is perceived by many as a candidate who transcends race. It's clear that for many people, a candidate's race is not their major concern. However, given the media's fascination with race—based on the outcome in New Hampshire and their inability to find a rational answer for the turn of events—some assumed it must be Obama's race. The reality is that we do not live in a colorblind society, because if we did there would have been no need to point out that Sen. Obama made history as the first black man to win in Iowa.
This got me thinking about the role that race plays in religion, the most intimate and personal aspect of our lives. Just yesterday I was asked by a reporter what I thought about how the religious community would respond on Feb. 5. Well, we have all heard it said over and over that church on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour in America. Churches, like our public schools and neighborhoods are still, in general, very segregated.
Even religious leaders and those aspiring to lead congregations have to deal with the issue of race in their churches. I remember when I was a student at Duke Divinity School, a student said to me that her church welcomes everyone regardless of race and that they wanted more black people to worship with them. My response was that it's one thing to let us worship with you, but another thing to allow us to share power in the pulpit. And I asked her, how would people in your church feel about having a black pastor or blacks on the trustee or deacon board? If we want equality then we have to be willing to share power and leadership. She responded with a question that I'll never forget. "If we let you do all of that then what makes us white?" My answer was simple: your racial identity should not be tied to your ability to control power and access. Would it be fair to think that race wouldn't impact how a person would vote if they believe that their racial identity is linked to their ability to control access and power?
My point is this: People of faith are just like everyone else in our society. If we are not careful, we can allow our biases to impact how we live out our faith even when it comes to our politics. But if we believe that God is in the business of restoring relationships and healing us when we are broken, then we have a responsibility to set that example for society. That's what makes us different - the fact that we are wounded healers guided by our faith in God to be agents of change and healing in a world where hurt people continue to hurt people. Our vote should not be based on gender or race but on our values - looking at candidates through the lens of whether or not he or she has the ability to improve the quality of life for all people so that all of us can live up to our God-given potential.
Is it possible that people of faith, consciously or subconsciously, similar to voters, show up in the pew and allow themselves to be led by the pastor because he or she looks like them and perhaps therefore can identify with their concerns more? Would people who are used to receiving their spiritual guidance from someone who looks like them be as easily led by someone of a different race? If we think they would not, then why would we think that kind of bias wouldn't have an impact on their vote? The same thing can be said for our view of women as faith leaders—and for that matter, leaders of the free world. In many denominations, regardless of race, women are still not allowed to become pastors or even answer a call to ministry. This makes one wonder if people who still hold these beliefs would ever be able to vote for a woman to become our commander in chief. We cannot choose to believe that God does not show favoritism (Acts 10:34) only when it's convenient or fits into our personal agenda. It applies at all times, and that includes the voting booth.
This is why I have to wonder: What are pastors preaching on Sunday morning? I can't recall ever hearing a sermon on healing as it relates to racial reconciliation and the wrongs perpetuated against women, African Americans, or any other race, for that matter. It seems like people are able to walk into church and worship God and then walk about still carrying the burden of gender and racial discrimination. I am also guilty of this sin.
When I spoke to that reporter I mentioned earlier, he asked what I thought was the difference between white voters in Iowa and voters in New Hampshire. Sen. Obama's campaign did some extraordinary organizing in Iowa and also in New Hampshire. But a part of me wonders if - unlike Iowa where during a caucus people have to publicly show their support for a candidate - some people in New Hampshire publicly supported Sen. Obama but in the privacy of the voting booth changed their minds. I'm told by a friend who is a political professional that this notion was "debunked and that people did not lie about voting for Sen. Obama." This is what folks in politics and the media call the Bradley or Wilder affect, and many believe that it did not happen in New Hampshire. However, after speaking with the reporter, I called a friend who is a prominent, well-respected pastor and supporter of Sen. Obama to see if I was being unfair. When I told him about my assertion he said, "that's exactly right, my wife and I had this discussion the other day, white people will support you publicly but not privately." So maybe I wasn't too far off in my answer, or maybe he and I represent a small segment of the African American community and most people feel otherwise. I don't think so. A recent Pew report showed that most African Americans still believe that racism in a factor in their everyday lives, while most white people feel that racism in not a factor in our society. As people of faith we have a responsibility to resist the temptation to allow the pain of our past to impact our future. This presidential cycle will have a tremendous impact on our lives and the lives of our children. All of us, who hold a deep and abiding faith, should pray for the strength to rise above our biases, whatever they are, so that they don't affect us at the voting booth.
John Sayles' comments about how film can be a vehicle for social change got me thinking about the positive signs of social change I've been observing recently as a journalist. Simply put, a global spirit seems to abound these days that infuses religion, politics, and the culture at large and transcends organizations and individuals.
On Jan. 21, I attended a lunch hosted by New York Theological Seminary and New York Faith & Justice to kick off Jim Wallis' book tour for The Great Awakening. As I looked around the room, I was pleasantly surprised that the ecumenical spirit I observed at the launch of NY Faith & Justice was proving to be the real deal. My prediction that this was not another PC peace and justice group proved to be right on target. Here in New York City, representatives from Union Theological Seminary and Campus Crusade for Christ seldom come together and break bread. Yet they were present in this room together.
I'll defer to Wallis and the Sojourners staff to fill in the details of the book's content and upcoming revivals. Suffice it to say, when Wallis preached about the need for us to put Matthew 25 into action and several African-American clergy began to chant "Preach it, brother," I started getting chills down my spine. I can't remember the last time I felt this moved by a room full of clergy and lay leaders.
While this particular gathering has a Christian focus, Wallis relayed his hope for interfaith cooperation on areas of mutual concern by relaying his experiences with Muslim and Jewish groups. What binds these religious leaders together is hope, which Wallis defines as "believing in spite of the evidence and then watching the evidence change." While "change" and "hope" have become the latest buzz words in the 2008 election, the conversation I heard in this room reminded me how Christians can be prophetic agents of social change without becoming pawns to a particular candidate.
I was further inspired when I trekked down to Trinity Church, Wall Street. Leading Christian, Jewish, and Muslim theologians gathered to explore the conference theme: "Religion and Violence: Untangling the Roots of Conflict." During these three days of dialogue and discussion, clergy and lay leaders began exploring the resources within each of their respective traditions that could promote peaceful co-existence without losing the unique identities of each faith. In particular, check out Constantine's Sword, a film that captured the essence of this gathering. This story of James Carroll, a former Catholic priest on a journey to confront his past and uncover the roots of religiously inspired violence and war, opens in New York City this April.
I also was encouraged by James H. Cone's appeal to his fellow academics to do theology that moves out of the academy and impacts the person in the pew. (Those who would like to explore this theme further can order the DVD or CD from the Trinity Institute's Web site).
Some church practitioners have been taking Cone's counsel to heart for some time. Thanks to Jonny Baker and Andrew Jones, I'm being kept abreast of some truly amazing social justice actions being undertaken by religious groups that employ both their head and their heart in the U.K. and elsewhere. Also, I'm inspired by the ongoing work of Karen Ward and her band of Apostles over in Seattle. I can't wait for Brian McLaren's Everything Must Change tour to hit New York City May 2-3, not to mention the Jesus for President Tour, hosted by Shane Claiborne, Chris Haw, and friends, and the upcoming documentary The Ordinary Radicals, directed by Jamie Moffett, co-founder of The Simple Way.
My New Year's resolution for 2008 is to "focus on what works." So what's working in your community?
Becky Garrison talks with worship leaders who are reaching those for whom church is not in their vocabulary in her book Rising from the Ashes: Rethinking Church.
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The ultimate challenge of Jesus’ ministry was to go to the city, the city of Jerusalem. This city, which was the center of education, religion, and politics, was also the place where corruption and crimes abounded. Yet, Jesus went there anyway. Following Jesus to the city was a risky business. Many would-be followers dropped out when they saw this ultimate danger. What will it require of us to move to the city? I ask this question whenever I find myself wanting to settle down in the comfort of material well-being. God may not ask us to physically move to the city, but God does require that we reach out to hurting people with the gospel, wherever they might be.
This early primary election season has clearly demonstrated the limits of the pollster's predictions, the pundit's prognostications, and the ability of politics to really address our deepest problems.
The polls have gotten it wrong several times now. And the political commentators have wrongly told us what was going or not going to happen so many times that many have just stopped listening. Obama would never catch up to Clinton's inevitability - then he won Iowa. The Clinton dynasty was finished and Obama was about to march to the nomination on pure momentum and inspiration - then Clinton won New Hampshire. Edwards would be strong in the early primaries - quickly it was a two-person race between Obama and Clinton. McCain was pronounced dead this summer by all the political talking heads - now his staff calls him "Lazarus," with comeback victories in New Hampshire and Florida. Romney was finished after investing so much in Iowa and New Hampshire and losing - then he won the next two contests. Huckabee wasn't worth covering until two months ago - then he shocked the establishment by winning Iowa. But then he failed to win South Carolina, where his evangelical base is the strongest. Thompson was the re-incarnation of Ronald Reagan - until he "fizzled." Giuliani was the early frontrunner - until he wasn't anymore, but may be again if he wins Florida, or not.
Iraq was to be a big campaign issue, and then it faded. Health care was big early on but isn't so much now. Race and gender bickering recently broke out between the potential first woman and first black president. Now the fear of recession is the big issue and "It's the economy, stupid," all over again. Change beat experience early on but experience and competence have made a comeback. And ALL the pundits said the early front-loaded primary season would produce clear nominees by early February. Now they talk about what fun it would be for journalists to have nominations go all the way to the conventions. Maybe this is all about their fun.
But have the following issues been primary in this primary election season: the shameful scandal of global poverty and the embarrassment of a growing number of poor families in America; the increasingly urgent threat of global warming; the horrendous costs of the war in Iraq and the consequences of a foreign policy that relies exclusively on war to fight evil; the gross violations of human life in places like Darfur, the Congo, and Kenya; the need for a bi-partisan effort to dramatically reduce abortion rates; the corruption of the popular culture and its daily assault upon our families and children? Nope.
All this points again to the fact that real change will never begin in Washington nor be simply a top-down process. I live in the nation's capital and, believe me, this will be the last place change comes. But it has always been like that. Change will grow from social movements, from grassroots efforts that rush up, not trickle down, and from critical culture and values shifts that ultimately will affect politics. Awakening the faith community, for example, to the biblical vision of social justice and the moral imperatives to address poverty, creation care, human rights, culture renewal, and a better way to combat evil in the world will more likely lead to deeper change than mere lobbying on Capitol Hill.
That's why I am excited to begin a 20-city tour to talk about my new book, The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in A Post-Religious Right America. The conversation at every stop will be about how real and deep change could happen in this country and around the world—and is already beginning to. And that change begins with our own lives, our congregations and communities, and the kind of social movements that do finally move politics. The book lays out not a laundry list of "issues" but rather a set of seven commitments that could lead to a "tipping point" on the greatest moral challenges of our time. Each of those seven chapters ends with "The Commitment" which describes what individuals and families can do, how congregations and community groups must lead, and then how changes in public policy must be the result.
It's a hopeful book, because I am very encouraged about what I see happening all over the country, despite the limits of politics already apparent in this early primary season. The Great Awakening describes the "revival" that is already occurring and could bring the change and the hope that so many people are clearly longing for in this critical election year and beyond. I hope this book gives you as much hope in reading it as I found in researching and writing it. It's the story of change from the bottom up—change that is a matter of faith.
Ours it is, therefore, to put in all our effort, talent, toil, and energy, in becoming true friends of the supreme Owner and eventual possessors of the heavenly kingdom, where we may enjoy an eternal Sabbath year, and forever celebrate our Redeemer's jubilee.
The Lord God helps me;
therefore I have not been disgraced;
therefore I have set my face like flint,
and I know that I shall not be put to shame;
he who vindicates me is near.
Who will contend with me?
Let us stand up together.
Who are my adversaries?
Let them confront me.
It is the Lord God who helps me;
who will declare me guilty?
All of them will wear out like a garment;
the moth will eat them up.
Recently, I had the opportunity to interview John Sayles about his movie Honeydripper, a multilayered and complex account of the birth of rock and roll in the Deep South. Following is an excerpt from our conversation. (The full interview with John Sayles will be published in a forthcoming issue of The Wittenburg Door.)
How would you describe the politics of your films?
My films are politically conscious as opposed to being politically unconscious. Part of who we are is what we live, what we see, and how we define ourselves. And politics is how we define ourselves. As a screenwriter of hire, very often my job is to get rid of all that stuff and just concentrate on the genre because it's thought to be distracting. But when I make a movie and want to talk a bit more honestly about people, you can't leave it out. For example, you can't really talk about the U.S. in the Deep South in 1951 without talking about segregation.
What was the significance of having a revival going on the same night that rock and roll was debuting at the Honeydripper Lounge?
That was a dichotomy that was very common in those little towns, both with white and black people, which was that you had to make a choice between being a sinner and being saved. It was often presented by the preachers as a very black and white choice, whereas there were a lot of people who somehow managed to do a little bit of both. For example, Sam Cooke started as a gospel singer and he caught a lot of flack when he started singing secular music.
What outreach, if any, are you doing to the black historical churches?
We're doing quite a bit actually. I know in Atlanta we're doing a lot with Hands on Atlanta around the Martin Luther King Jr. ceremonies. Danny Glover has a cousin who is the minister of a big church in Atlanta and he's going to work with them to do something. One of the things that we're doing with Honeydripper is we're trying to make its opening in each city an event.
How can the medium of film be a vehicle for social change?
Take race relations for instance. If you look at the history of American film, movies were probably part of the problem for the first 55 years of their existence. Even the comedies had hardly any African Americans in them. Then maybe in the late '50s, there started to be a few movies where African Americans seemed a bit more human. So, I think gradually television and movies are a little bit more part of the solution than part of the problem. It's all a conversation and there are a lot of voices in the conversation. Maybe one movie will be helpful or useful to people knowing a little bit more about each other.
Any suggestions for aspiring filmmakers, who want to make a social change but the dynamics of making movies has changed so much since you got started?
Documentaries are great. You don't need a theatrical release now. Just do your stuff and can get it out on the web.
(Author's note: A book I found that really captured the ethos of the South pre-1964 was Gurdon Brewster's No Turning Back: My Summer with Daddy King, an account of his experiences as an intern with Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in 1961 where he lived with Daddy King. Also, in his book, Boom! Voices of the Sixties, Tom Brokaw offers some intriguing reflections about his encounters with civil rights leaders, including Representatives John Lewis and Julian Bond, Reverend Andrew Young, Tom Turnipseed, and Reverend Thomas Gilmore.)
For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts
is the house of Israel,
and the people of Judah
are his pleasant planting;
he expected justice,
but saw bloodshed;
righteousness,
but heard a cry!
Most of our problems with prayer arise from our tendency to turn spiritual growing into a set of laws or a gymnastic exercise. I have seen great inner struggle, fatigue, and guilt result when we treat prayer like a discipline.... It is best to have some form of deliberate opening to God each day, but we need not be troubled if the form and expression change.
Flora Slosson Wuellner Prayer, Stress, and Our Inner Wounds
Faith and politics continues to be a major storyline in the election campaigning. Beliefnet is interested in what you think about the mix of religion and politics in this year's election. Click here and check out the survey on Religion and Politics.
Mary Nelson just posted on MLK's Riverside speech, but I have some reflections to add. I'll admit that I took a "day off" yesterday instead of a "day on," making a four-day weekend backpacking trip in the Adirondacks with some buddies. But I did participate in some popular education on the van ride home yesterday, observing the occasion by playing two of the three MLK speeches I've been able to find for free online. I skipped ubiquitous and well-known "I Have a Dream" speech. We did listen to his "Mountaintop" speech, given the night before he was assassinated. Though it's more popularly known for the haunting forshadowings of this death—"I may not get there with you ..."—we were struck by its connection of economic to racial justice.
But "Beyond Vietnam" is worth a listen as a history lesson, as a challenge to the more domesticated gloss that gets applied to MLK's legacy every January, and perhaps most importantly as a continuing challenge to society and the church to take seriously the imperative of nonviolence: "We still have a choice today; nonviolent coexistence or violent co-annihilation." A few passages are familiar to me by now since they're the kind of things that we at Sojourners frequently quote. There's the painfully relevant assertion that:
America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube.
And this warning:
I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. We must rapidly begin the shift from a "thing-oriented" society to a "person-oriented" society. When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.
But those passages are primarily political. Listening yesterday, another passage jumped out that I was less familiar with—one that rooted King's nonviolence in his faith, and an important reminder to Christians that allegiances to political movements and divisions must fall beneath our allegiance to Christ:
This is a calling that takes me beyond national allegiances, but even if it were not present I would yet have to live with the meaning of my commitment to the ministry of Jesus Christ. To me the relationship of this ministry to the making of peace is so obvious that I sometimes marvel at those who ask me why I'm speaking against the war. Could it be that they do not know that the good news was meant for all [people]—for Communist and capitalist, for their children and ours, for black and for white, for revolutionary and conservative? Have they forgotten that my ministry is in obedience to the One who loved his enemies so fully that he died for them?
Ryan Rodrick Beiler is the Web editor for Sojourners.
Martin Luther King's sermon at Riverside Church linked the devastating Vietnam war to the struggle over poverty. I began working that year in an under-resourced community and wore a "Bread not Bombs" sweatshirt to anti-war demonstrations. Sadly, not much has changed. The amount spent on the Iraq war (CBO estimate $9 billion a month, up to $1 trillion total), if directed elsewhere, would virtually ensure universal education, universal health care, and affordable housing.
King called for a revolution of values from racism, materialism, and militarism. Little has changed in 40 years for people in my low-income community. Racism still dominates. It is less overt now, but has expanded from divisions of black—white to Latino, Asian, Arab Muslim, and immigrants. Katrina pictures reminded us of how little progress we've made on economic disparity. Economic progress is measured by consumer spending. Environmental issues threaten our future. King ended his speech saying, " Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter—but beautiful—struggle for a new world."
My Sojourners Sweatshirt says, "HOPE is believing in spite of the evidence and watching the evidence change." Despite the evidence, I am strangely hopeful. I see young people wanting a better world, working for candidates, working in community and on environmental issues. I know generous people who share resources and skills to forge new opportunities for jobs. Economist Jeffrey Sachs (The End of Poverty) and Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus (Creating a World without Poverty) outline specific ways to change the disparities. Now let us dedicate ourselves to the long yet beautiful struggle for a new world.
Mary Nelson is president emeritus of Bethel New Life, a faith-based community development corporation on the west side of Chicago. She is also a board member of Sojourners.
So they called them and ordered them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them, "Whether it is right in God's sight to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge; for we cannot keep from speaking about what we have seen and heard."
A man prayed, and at first he thought that prayer was talking. But he became more and more quiet until in the end he realized that prayer is listening.
Listening is the first expression of communication in prayer. We know that listening precedes speaking in the development of children’s language skills. The same order applies to the development of our prayer life. Something in our spirit is touched by the Divine Spirit before we are drawn to speak.
God's Politics called on people to take back their faith after it had been "hijacked" by the Religious Right. Millions of Christians have done just that, and now the question is what are we going to do with our faith, now that we have it back? My new book, The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post-Religious Right America, addresses that question.
My friend E.J. Dionne Jr., a Washington Post syndicated columnist, has read the new book and describes how it is different from the last one. "The Great Awakening is the perfect successor to God's Politics," Dionne says. "If the earlier book helped open our eyes to what had gone wrong, The Great Awakening ... provides an historical and theological foundation for a transformative public religion."
When I am asked what has changed since God's Politics, I reply, "Everything." The subtitle of God's Politics was "Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It." Well, the hard Right continues to get it wrong, but evangelicals are leaving the Religious Right in droves. Meanwhile the Left is starting to get the idea that politics should be about values and that religion has much to contribute to progressive politics.
Two things in particular have changed. First, we now see the "leveling of the praying field" as many Democrats are rediscovering their own religious roots, with many coming out of the closet as people of faith. And their candidates are actively reaching out to the faith community. Perceived as the "secular party" in recent years, hostile to religion and values, Democrats are becoming a much more faith-friendly party—that's a real sea change.
Second, and more important, the agenda of the faith community—especially the evangelical community—is changing dramatically to include issues such as poverty and pandemic diseases, environmental care and climate change, trafficking and human rights, genocide, war and peace.
That change could significantly impact politics in the 2008 election. The Great Awakening explores the new broader and deeper faith agenda and shows how a new spiritual "revival" could spark real social and political change. Already, in the early primaries the clear victor is "change," revealing the deep hunger in America for a new direction in politics, which many on both sides of the spectrum believe to be badly broken. All the candidates are now competing to convince voters that they are the best change agents. Hopefully, The Great Awakening will be the spiritual and movement companion book to that political hunger.
Bill Hybels, senior pastor of Willow Creek Community Church, says that many evangelicals are ready for just such a "justice revival." He says, "We are interested in the poor, in racial reconciliation, in global poverty and AIDS, in the plight of women in the developing world."
And Rich Nathan, senior pastor of the Vineyard Church of Columbus, Ohio, says that "there is a spiritual awakening across America ... on behalf of the poor and the most marginalized."
Adam Hamilton, pastor of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, wants to "fan the flames of the 21st-century revival within American Christianity. This revival is a reclaiming of the fullness of the gospel—a gospel that invites people into relationship with God through Jesus Christ, transforms them from the inside out, and then calls them to pursue justice, to practice radical compassion, and to both pray and work for God's kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven."
The new book traces the history of "great awakenings" of the past, in the U.S. and world history, and then points to what is occurring now. I wrote the book because I believe it's "movement time" again.
U2's Bono, in one of the book's endorsements, says, "I had always been a skeptic of the church of personal peace and prosperity ... of righteous people standing in a holy huddle while the world rages outside the stained glass. But I've learned that there are many people of the cloth who are also in the world—and, from debt cancellation to the fight against AIDS and for human rights, they are on the march."
The Great Awakening speaks of two great hungers in our world today—the hunger for spirituality and the hunger for social justice. I believe that the connection between the two is one the world, and especially a new generation, is waiting for. The Great Awakening makes that vital connection and shows how spiritual renewal will likely be a necessary part of social change, and how perhaps only genuine spiritual revival can spark social and political transformation.
As a longtime social activist, I am now convinced that we will not get to social justice without spiritual revival. The book lays out seven key commitments that—if made on the personal, communal, and public policy level—could provide the "tipping point" on many of the key moral issues that we confront today.
I am not just saying that another Great Awakening may be coming. I'm convinced that it has already begun, and the book begins to tell its stories. As I've often said, this could be a revival that calls us to find common ground by moving to higher ground. It could transcend traditional divisions and bring people together across the theological and political spectrum on the major moral issues of our time. It asserts that religion should not be a wedge to divide us, but a bridge to bring us together.
As a teenager, I went to the black churches of Detroit after being kicked out of my white evangelical church. It was in the black churches that I first encountered the explosive combination of spiritual power and social change, and I have adopted that vision as my own.
In the months of working on this book my writing, praying, and vocational discernment got nicely tangled together. So I didn't just finish a book; I also got a clearer sense than ever before of what the next steps might be and what I am supposed to be doing. We decided to organize "Justice Revivals" in cities across the country, beginning this spring in Columbus, Ohio, where I recently met with a wide variety of pastors and leaders to prepare for this three-day gathering of preaching, praise, and a call to do justice.
It's the vision of the book, and a vision we are beginning to put into practice—a Justice Revival may be coming soon to a city near you.
Visit The Great Awakening Web site for more information and exclusive bonus content.
We still need prophets to summon us back to the spiritual roots of wholeness and peace. We still need broadcasters of God’s word and magnifiers of God’s truth, so that we will understand and turn and be healed.
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Tim Burton's striking and gruesome film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's musical 'Sweeney Todd' made me feel alternately impressed by Johnny Depp's singing talent and wince at the violence. The story of a 19th century barber who avenges the loss of his wife and daughter by providing the closest shave ever to a litany of customers including the judge who caused his pain left me preoccupied by thoughts closer to home.
If the film is trying to make a serious point, it is that Sweeney's spiral of violence never ends. The previous night I had attended a meeting of the Consultative Group on the Past – a body established by the UK Government to examine methods of helping the people of Northern Ireland to address the legacy of our own violent recent history. Two things were clear from the comments made at this meeting by members of the public: first, that the levels of genuine sorrow in this society are unfathomable – families ripped apart, minds taken to the edge of destruction, small communities shattered. This is real, and not interpretation. Second, we often lack the ability to empathise with the pain of the 'other' community. It is all too easy to see 'our' pain as exclusive, and to become blind to the suffering of the community on the other side of a political divide.
This is as true in situations of deep horror – such as the killing and mayhem that plagued Northern Ireland for so long – as it is for more benign contexts – such as political campaigning. I was impressed by Mike Huckabee's empathetic comments when he was asked to respond to the now well-known moment when Hillary Clinton teared up in New Hampshire. He made the common sense point that politics is tough, and that it's easy to become emotional on the campaign trail. He even risked the wrath of those who appear dedicated to brutalizing politics by acknowledging, as if it needed to be said, that Hillary Clinton is a human being and needs to be treated more humanely. I seem to recall him suggesting at a previous debate that if he were to fund a NASA mission to Mars he would want Hillary to be the first person on the rocket; so his more tender response to her tears is welcome.
Joking aside, what is the connection between 'Sweeney Todd', dealing with the past in Northern Ireland, and the US Presidential campaign? I think it's simple: a cynical world breeds the opposite of empathy. And where there is no empathy with those whom we feel are different, the killing can begin. History shows us that where no attempts are made to resurrect empathy as a meaningful part of politics, the killing may never stop. Obviously, politics requires a degree of robust debate; but all too often our political discourse is reduced to mocking, dehumanizing, or in some cases, let's face it, even killing our opponents. The serious questions I want to ask are: What would it mean to restore empathy with 'the other side' to our politics? What have we got to lose? What have we got to gain?
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
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Jesus reassures us that every effort to love ourselves and others more faithfully, however imperfectly we are able to do this, is a response to God’s call to love as he loved. It is a response to the two greatest commandments as they stand in relationship to one another.
and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
An unfortunate exchange of words between the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama this week threatened to explode into real conflict, involving the always volatile U.S. issue of race. The dust-up was as unexpected as it was unfortunate, and was sparked in part by comments made about the respective roles of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and President Lyndon Johnson in achieving the historic goals of the civil rights movement. But race is the wrong way to view this escalating war of words (with operatives on both sides doing their political jobs of trying to gain from the controversy). Both of these candidates have records on civil rights and racial justice that deserve to be trusted. The truly historic significance of an African American and a woman emerging as leading candidates for president should not be diminished by bad campaign exchanges over race and gender. In last night's debate, they returned to higher ground.
The real issue here is the more complicated relationship between social movements and national politics; between moral leaders and elected officials in bringing about social and political change.
The great practitioners of social change - like Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi - understood something very important. They knew that you don't change a society by merely replacing one politician with another. You change a society by changing the political wind. Change the wind, transform the debate, recast the discussion, alter the context in which political decisions are being made, and you will change the outcomes. Move the conversation around a crucial issue to a whole new place, and you will open up possibilities for change never dreamed of before. And you will be surprised at how fast the politicians adjust to the change in the wind.
The story of the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 is a good historical example.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. had just won the Nobel Peace Prize and was ready to come home from Norway. The freedom movement had achieved a great victory in securing the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and King was honored as the newest Nobel laureate. But the civil rights leader decided to stop by Washington, D.C., before heading back home to Atlanta—because he needed to meet with the president of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson.
King told Johnson that the next step on the road to freedom was a voting rights act, without which black Americans in the South would never be able to really change their communities. But the nation's master of realpolitik told the U.S.'s moral leader that he couldn't deliver a voting rights act. Johnson said he had cashed in all his "chits" with the southern senators to get the civil rights law passed and that he had no political capital left. It would be five or 10 years, the president told King, before a voting rights act would be politically possible. But we can't wait that long, said King. Without voting rights, civil rights couldn't be fully realized. I'm sorry, Johnson reportedly told King, but a voting rights law just wasn't politically realistic. They would have to wait.
But Martin Luther King Jr. was not one to simply complain, withdraw, or give up. Instead, King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) began organizing—in a little town nobody had ever heard of called Selma, Alabama.
On one fateful day, SCLC leaders marched right across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, alongside the people of Selma, to face the notorious Sheriff Jim Clark and his virtual army of angry white police. On what would be called Bloody Sunday, a young man (and now congressman from Atlanta) named John Lewis was beaten almost to death, and many others were injured or jailed.
Two weeks later, in response to that brutal event, hundreds of clergy from all across the nation and from every denomination came to Selma and joined in the Selma to Montgomery march. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel came down from New York to march beside the black Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr.
The whole nation was watching. The eyes of the U.S. were focused on Selma, as they had been on Birmingham before the civil rights law was passed. And after the historic Selma to Montgomery march for freedom, it took only five months, not five years or 10, to pass a new voting rights act: the Voting Rights Act of 1965. King had changed the wind.
It was a great thing that Johnson responded to the challenge as he did (other presidents might not have), but it was King, not Johnson, who had painted a vivid picture for the world to see that changed the winds of public opinion and made a voting rights act now possible. The Selma campaign had transfixed the nation, dramatically shifted the public debate, and fundamentally altered the political context to make a new voting rights law politically realistic.
It is a good lesson for this year's presidential race. Change must go deeper than politics. In fact, unless change goes deeper, politics won't really change. No matter which candidate finally wins this presidential election, he or she will not be able to really change the big things in the U.S. and the world that must be changed, unless and until there are social movements pushing for those changes from outside of politics. Because when politics fails to resolve or even address the most significant moral issues, what often occurs is that social movements rise up to change politics; and the best social movements always have spiritual foundations.
Even a candidate who runs on change, really wants it, and goes to Washington to make it, will confront a vast array of powerful forces which will do everything possible to prevent real change. Politics is unlikely to be changed merely from within - no matter who wins, and no matter how sincere they are, we will not see significant change unless, and until, the pressure increases from the outside. Remember, President Lyndon Johnson didn't become a civil rights leader until Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks made him one.
The word of the Lord to all of us in any form of exile is, "You shall be called Sought Out." Those who believe they are far from the life they envisioned may hear the news that someone is looking for them. Lostness is not our permanent state. Loneliness will be filled with the arrival of the One who seeks us.
Many peoples shall come and say,
"Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord,
to the house of the God of Jacob;
that he may teach us his ways
and that we may walk in his paths."
For out of Zion shall go forth instruction,
and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between the nations,
and shall arbitrate for many peoples;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more.
I commend Pastor Nathan for the courage and commitment to truth required to publicly reconsider what has strangely become status quo in parts of the U.S. evangelical world - an almost "biblical immunity" and unconditional support granted to the modern nation state of Israel. I especially appreciated the way he offered a lens for even the most serious adherents of scriptural authority to theologically unravel Christian Zionism.
As he showed, the way forward depends neither on tossing certain passages aside, nor on citing them individually, but on viewing them in light of the overarching meta-narrative of the Bible and the general direction of God's redeeming history.
Although there is more that I said amen to than questioned in this sermon, I'll offer (humbly) some things he may want to consider as he continues, or expands this dialogue:
1. The role of the U.S. and Great Britain in helping establish the fledgling Zionist state. Many Americans just don't realize where Arab anti-American sentiment stems from because they're unaware of how their own country has operated (and continues to operate) in foreign affairs.
2. That Middle Eastern Christians, or "Arab" Christians, are not monolithic in their opinions on the creation of modern state of Israel. There are a great deal (probably most, actually) who did NOT support the initial establishment of an Israeli nation state, however limited in its borders, and even if they now support its security. This is often confused as anti-Semitism though it has more to do with the above point (about the assistance of Israel by western powers) and that Christian Arabs have lived side-by-side with their Muslim and Jewish brothers and sisters for millennia without national separation. Many may also not view biblical justice as necessitating land ownership via a newly created nation-state.
3. That biblical justice is also linked to the idea of restitution, in the sense that he who commits the crime is the one expected to pay for it. The part in the sermon about biblical justice can also acknowledge that the horrendous mistreatment and annihilation of the Jews was not done by the Arabs of the East but by the Europeans of the West. Again, this doesn't necessarily mean that their homeland does not belong in the East, but there may be a rub (for Arabs) in implying that biblical justice would demand Easterners to pay (in land and lives) for the sins of Westerners. Of course, no ethnic group is ever totally innocent, but the presumptuousness of Western nations in applying solutions is a part of the problem for Arabs of all religious faiths.
4. Finally, under the last heading "What Christians should do" – I would add that one of the main things is for American Christians to get connected with the Palestinian church. One of the most powerful paradigm shifters is the realization for many U.S. Christians that Arab Christians (if they recognize their existence at all) are not a small fringe group who have been persecuted by Muslims. In the case of Palestinian Christians, there are (or were) hundreds of thousands. Christians blindly supporting U.S. foreign policy can take credit for shooting themselves in the virtual foot of Christ. For example, wouldn't it surprise most congregations to know that until recent years, in areas such as Bethlehem, Christians were the majority?
Deanna Murshed is director of integrated marketing for Sojourners
One night the Lord said to Paul in a vision, "Do not be afraid, but speak and do not be silent; for I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to harm you, for there are many in this city who are my people."
It is not easy words we say, nor is it the gifts we give that make us friends. Friendship invites us to share not only bread broken, but our brokenness. Friendship invites us to share not only wine poured into glasses, but our lives poured out.... We remember Jesus best when we are faithful to our lives and when we share in faithful friendship. This is our memorial to him, the memorial to which he calls us in each Eucharist.
In November our friend Pastor Rich Nathan sent us this compelling sermon and we've been looking for a good time to post it ever since. The occasion of Bush's trip to the Middle East seems to be a good time for Christians to reflect on their relationship with the modern nation of Israel. You can click to read the full text, or download mp3 audio from Rich's church, Vineyard Columbus.
Now, the issue of Israel is not just academic to me. Most of you know that I was raised in a Jewish family. And in terms of my personal identity, I consider myself to be a Jew who believes that Jesus is the Jewish Messiah, the one promised by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. There are three branches of modern-day Judaism. The strictest, that is the most adherent to Jewish tradition, is called Orthodox Judaism. The most liberal is called Reformed Judaism. And the middle is called Conservative Judaism. I was raised in the branch of Judaism known as Conservative Judaism.
So, growing up I went to a synagogue in which the prayers were all said in Hebrew. I wore the skull cap known as the yarmulke and a prayer shawl known as a tallis each week as I attended synagogue – and I attended weekly. I went to Hebrew School and Hebrew High School. I was bar mitzvah which is a rite of passage for Jewish boys at age 13. In growing up I had a deep attachment to Israel. I gave money as a child to plant trees in Israel. At Jewish holidays we always greeted each other with the Hebrew greeting, L'shana habaa biyerushalayim which means "Next year in Jerusalem."
In other words, next year may we celebrate this holiday in Jerusalem. As a child I celebrated the victory of the 6-Day War. "We won!" I remember saying that in my 6th grade class, "We won!" My Roman Catholic teacher responded and said, "The State Department doesn't recognize the victory in Israel as an American victory." I thought to myself in the 6th grade, "Well, maybe it is not an American victory, but it is my victory!" I even considered leaving college my freshman year and joining the Israeli Army when the Yom Kippur Day War broke out in 1973. I would have been able to do this as a Jew. I could have immediately enlisted in the Israeli Army.
Now, Israel is at the very center of almost all of the great divisions in the world today, especially the division between America and the Arab world. Many Christians believe that America must support Israel because the land was promised to the Jews by God 4000 years ago. And many Christians see the formation of Israel as the major sign that the return of Jesus Christ is near. Other Christians are not so sure. As we continue this series on the end times, I've called today's talk, "How Should Christians Relate to the state of Israel?" Let's pray.
When I asked a leading progressive biblical scholar who was doing the very best bible work on images of God and gender theology, she didn't hesitate in her answer: Elizabeth Johnson, she said.
Stale images of God aren't working for today's seekers, says Johnson. New ones are emerging from the experiences of all God's people – male and female. In the excerpt below, she reflects on God-language and invitational language in worship. But read the whole interview. It's excellent.
What does it mean that we call God by male terms?
I have this sentence that I quote over and over again: The symbol of God functions. The male symbol of God functions to privilege a certain way of male rule in the world and to undercut women's spiritual power, women's own sense of themselves as made in the image of God.
We women have to abstract ourselves from our bodies to see ourselves in the image of God if God is always depicted as male. It has serious ramifications for spirituality and for the identity of believers and for the community.
Why is there so much resistance to using feminine images of God?
I think the rejection of the inclusive language lectionary, which the U.S. bishops applied for in 1992 and which was rejected by the Vatican, was a clear recognition that once you start making room for even nonsexist language about humanity, let alone feminine images of God, there's a fear that women will want to move in socially and politically, and then you've got a challenge to church structure as we know it. I think there's a great deal of fear of women's power.
Can you imagine a church that took female images of God to heart?
Let me say, I think women and men are equal in sin and grace. I don't think women are going to be the salvation of the church or of this country. I think we can all get on power trips. I'm convinced of it, maybe because I've been in a women's religious community, and I have six sisters. I am disabused of this romantic notion of women's greatness as compared to men.
At this moment in history, women have figured out what's wrong with the current pattern and how their experiences have led to different ways of relating, organizing, and running things. Given the chance, they would bring that pattern into the church and let it play off and see what develops.
Rose Marie Berger, a Sojourners associate editor, is a Catholic peace activist and poet.
During the South Carolina Republican debate, Mike Huckabee garnered greatest applause when defending his views of wifely submission as part of his evangelical faith. The questioner quizzed Huckabee about being one of 131 signers of a 1998 USA Today ad by the Southern Baptist Convention that asserted, "a wife is to graciously submit herself to the servant leadership of her husband." Huckabee responded by saying "I am not the least bit ashamed of my faith." He joked that his own wife was not submissive and appeared to temper his original statement by affirming the idea of mutual submission in marriage (a view, by the way, specifically rejected by the Southern Baptist Convention).
Some evangelicals might find this acceptable, but many more do not—not to mention the American public as a whole. Over the last decade, the Pew Research Center has tracked a steady decrease of the impact of conservative religion on views of gender. In 1997, 28 percent of Americans strongly disagreed with the idea that women should return to "traditional roles." In 2007, 42 percent strongly disagreed with the same statement. One wonders how many Protestant Christians—evangelical and otherwise—are included in that 42 percent.
If the media thinks that Huckabee's views represent evangelical Christianity, they are wrong. Wifely submission is only one interpretation of scripture and not without significant criticism by biblical scholars and theologians. American evangelicalism has a long and conflicted record about its views of women, with egalitarianism as the alternative to submission. This week's other major news story—Hillary Clinton's New Hampshire primary victory—provides an instructive historical lesson about that evangelical alternative.
Hillary Clinton is not, of course, an "evangelical" using the current definition. She is a mainline United Methodist. However, she graduated Wellesley College. Although few would think of contemporary Wellesley as in any way evangelical, the school's 19th century heritage was that of evangelical feminism.
Henry and Pauline Durant founded Wellesley in 1871 (first classes held in 1875) as a distinctly evangelical institution. Henry, a wealthy lawyer, had become a lay-evangelist with a vision for a women's college that "will be Christian in its influence, discipline, and course of instruction." At the groundbreaking of Wellesley's first building, Mrs. Durant gave every workman a Bible as a gift before she placed another Bible in the cornerstone. The cornerstone prayer reads:
This building is humbly dedicated to our Heavenly Father with the hope and prayer that He may always be first in everything ... that His word may be faithfully taught here; and that He will use it as a means of leading precious souls to the Lord Jesus Christ.
All of Wellesley's early professors were required to teach the Bible along with their regular subjects; all trustees were obligated to be active members of evangelical churches. Revivalist Dwight L. Moody served as a trustee and ardently supported the school and his friends, the Durants, in their endeavor.
The Durants not only preached the gospel—they were equally committed to the "cause of God's poor." They believed that universal childhood education was the key to alleviating poverty and that medical care needed to be widely available to the indigent. The Wellesley evangelicals believed that women were as capable as men in every field, with one exception: religious matters. When it came to religion, they believed that women were superior to men. In 1880, Noah Porter, Yale College president, addressed Wellesley women praising that superiority while warning them that such giftedness exposed them to "unreasoning fanaticism and tenacious bigotry."
Wellesley women took this all quite seriously. Submitting to no one, these young evangelical women became scholars, professors, theologians, pastors, missionaries, teachers, doctors, and lawyers across the globe. Although the Wellesley of Hillary Rodham Clinton's day had become secularized, the feminist legacy of 19th century evangelicalism continued to influence its priorities—full equality for women, quality childhood education for all, universal access to health care, and a passion for the poor.
The upcoming primary in South Carolina will be critical for both the Democrats and the Republicans, say the media pundits. And South Carolina is full of evangelicals, they also say. But they have absolutely no clue about what that means.
For example, the exit polls in the Iowa caucus and New Hampshire primary have asked departing Republican voters if they are "evangelicals," but they don't ask the same question of exiting Democrats—therefore assuming there aren't any evangelicals voting for Democrats, an assumption that is demonstrably not true. The leading Democrats in the race—Obama, Clinton, and Edwards—speak explicitly and articulately as Christians and their campaigns have reached out as much to faith communities as the Republicans have.
The media experts on religion then go on to explain to us that evangelicals care mostly or only about abortion and gay marriage, and not about other issues. That is even more mistaken. The issues that most concern evangelicals today, especially a younger generation, include poverty, the environment and climate change, human rights, and the morality of a foreign policy where war is the first resort. This year those issues are drawing a growing number of evangelicals to consider the Democratic candidates.
By omitting the question of evangelical/born-again identification from the Democratic polls, you prevented the public from seeing the full picture of how the bipartisan courtship of evangelical voters affected the outcome of the first contest of the 2008 campaign and perpetuated the misperception that all evangelical Christians are Republicans. No party can own any faith. Evangelicals have broadened their agenda to include care for the planet, the poor and the stranger, and as a result are increasingly diverse politically.
One of the leading Republicans, of course, is Mike Huckabee, who is also an outspoken evangelical. Huckabee recently spoke to Reuters about the broadening evangelical agenda:
Unquestionably there is a maturing that is going on within the evangelical movement. It doesn't mean that evangelicals are any less concerned about traditional families and the sanctity of life. It just means that they also realize that we have real responsibility in areas like disease and hunger and poverty and that these are issues that people of faith have to address.
Yet the media, which is paying such close attention to Huckabee, doesn't seem to pay any attention to that. You might conclude that the media still just doesn't understand much about religion and the enormous changes taking place among evangelicals in particular. So far, the media analysts and prognosticators about South Carolina are about as accurate and credible as their insightful and confident predictions about the expected results from the New Hampshire primary. Will the media celebrities ever really listen to the American people or just tell us how we are going to vote? Religion could, indeed, play a major role in the outcome of the South Carolina primary, on both sides of the aisle. But our non-stop talking heads in the media parallel universe and the professional polling truth inventors haven't got a clue about how.
Far too often, activists do little to nurture their souls. Consequently, they "burn out." Ignoring the need for spiritual revitalization to sustain their zeal on behalf of the poor and oppressed, they wear out and fade into oblivion. Often those who were one-time dynamic spokespersons for social justice while living out countercultural values become exhausted from working hard with very little sense of accomplishment. Becoming cynical, they sometimes say disparaging things about those who still remain in the fray.
It was out of deep concern for the spiritual condition of social justice activists that I teamed up with a young professor from Spring Arbor University, Mary Darling, to write The God of Intimacy and Action: Reconnecting Ancient Spiritual Practices, Evangelism and Justice.
In this book I, along with my co-author, endeavor to present ways to renew the energies of social activists by tapping into spiritual practices of Catholic mystics that we Protestants often ignore. In particular, we focus much of our attention on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius whose directives can help us move beyond the often shallow and mundane prayer styles that are common among Protestants.
First, we explore what Ignatian spiritual directors call centering prayer. Centering prayer is something I do each morning for at least 15 minutes. During the early hours, I take time to center down on Jesus as I say his name over and over again. I do this until everything else is driven out of my mind and I am almost totally focused on Jesus. In stillness I wait for Jesus to reach out from the cross and absorb into his own body the sins that mark my soul. Then, in the midst of quietude, I wait for the Holy Spirit to flow into me and saturate my personhood. I have learned from experience that "they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength" (Isaiah 40:31).
Secondly, I practice Lectio Divina. This is a spiritually informed way of reading scripture in which there is no reliance on scholarly interpretations, such as Bible commentaries. I read some carefully chosen verses, shut the Bible, close my eyes, and wait patiently for the Holy Spirit to tell me what I need to hear from God through what I have just read. There is something mystical in recognizing how verses that I have read many times before speak to me in new ways when practicing Lectio Divina, bringing new meaning that is especially relevant to my existential situation.
Next, there is a practice called "The Prayer of Examen." This I do at bedtime. With my head on my pillow, I reflect on all the ways God used me to do good during the past day. I think of all the things I did that were "honest … just … pure … lovely … of good report … and worthy of praise" (see Philippians 4:8). Only after such "feel-good" self-affirmations am I ready to review the day for a second time--this time remembering the ways in which I sinned and fell short of what I should have been and done. I confess and wait for Christ's cleansing.
Of course, there is much more to the spiritual exercises that have proved so essential in keeping me alive spiritually and revitalizing my "first love" for working for justice and doing evangelism. In the book Mary and I go into these exercises in depth and attempt to show how biblically prescribed and spiritually valid mysticism has motivated leaders such as John Wesley and George Whitefield to proclaim a holistic gospel.
I hope you get this book and find it useful in making spiritual renewal a daily practice. Developing spiritual depth through such exercises will enable you, in accord with the teachings of Jesus, to bring forth fruit, some a hundredfold, some sixtyfold, and some thirtyfold (Matthew 13:8). Without such care of the soul you are apt, as the scriptures tell us, to "wither away" (Matthew 13:6).
The day after Christmas, President Bush signed an omnibus spending bill containing a major victory for all those committed to a world free of nuclear weapons: the complete elimination of funding for the Reliable Replacement Warhead (RRW) program. This program would have led to a new generation of nuclear warheads, and possibly a new nuclear arms race, under the guise of ensuring the reliability of current nuclear warheads.
Congress saw through the program—despite its euphemistic name—and so did the American public. When a reporter for the San Francisco Gate stopped Californians on the street last year and asked them what name they would have picked for the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, he received some spot-on answers, including, "Stupidly Provocative Warhead," "The Let's Kill Them All Warhead, and, "An Efficient and Comprehensive Instrument of Death and Destruction."
Whatever the administration called it, the Reliable Replacement Warhead program represented yet another effort to build newer and more usable weapons of mass destruction. (Ironically, the administration's funding proposal for the program came at a time when tensions between the U.S. and Iran over Iran's nuclear energy program were at an all-time high.) When will our political leadership realize that as long as nuclear weapons exist, we'll be living under the threat of nuclear annihilation?
Many Christians have been working to eliminate nuclear weapons for longer than I've been alive. These immoral weapons of mass destruction have robbed us of our security ever since the first one was exploded in the desert of New Mexico, less than an hour from my house. In over half a century, we haven't seen a whole lot of victories. But last year, former Secretaries of State George Shultz and Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense William Perry, and former Senator Sam Nunn laid out a bold new vision for a world free of nuclear weapons—thus bringing tremendous new energy to efforts to lift the nuclear threat once and for all.
And now, instead of funding the administration's request for the RRW program, Congress is demanding a new evaluation of nuclear weapons strategy for the 21st century. As it turns out, our current nuclear weapons policy hasn't been updated since the Cold War.
It's truly time for a change. Until the elimination of nuclear weapons becomes our number one priority, we're likely to see the Reliable Replacement Warhead program, repackaged in shiny new wrapping paper, coming up again year after year.
Jessica Wilbanks is the coordinator of Faithful Security, the National Religious Partnership on the Nuclear Weapons Danger.
Archbishop Elias Chacour, an Eastern-rite Palestinian Catholic bishop in the region of Galilee, is escorting President Bush on a tour of the Mount of the Beatitudes in Israel on Friday, Jan. 11. This date also marks the sixth year since the arrival of the first prisoners to the U.S. prison camp at Guantánamo Bay.
The Sermon [on the Mount] was calling for action in a certain direction. This is where Christ was calling on all his followers to get up and do something to get their hands dirty, protect the poor, heal the sick, release the prisoners - including those in Guantanamo Bay, and I will tell [President Bush] that.
Father Chacour, author of Blood Brothers and We Belong to the Land and three-time nominee for the Nobel Peace prize, is president and founder of Mar Elias Educational Institutions in Galilee. The school system serves 3,000 students from the major faith traditions in that area - Muslims, Christians, Druze, and Jews.
Rose Marie Berger, a Sojourners associate editor, is a Catholic peace activist and poet.
Many find Jesus’ teaching on enemy love and forgiveness a stumbling block to faith. Because we find it too difficult to practice, we dismiss it as unrealistic and utopian. We should think again, and we should pray that it is not unrealistic, because this congruence of Jesus—the consistency between his teaching on forgiveness and his action on the cross—is really our only hope. It is all that stands between us and the consequences of our monumental frailty. Thank God today that Jesus died as he lived, because with those words, “Father, forgive...” he forgives us all, and he forgives us still.
Peter Storey Listening at Golgotha: Jesus’ Words from the Cross
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The report's findings show that of the 2,253 questions that were asked in the Republican and Democratic debates through Dec. 27, only 5.1% of the questions posed to candidates dealt with human rights issues (CAPAF called their definition of what constituted a human rights issue "a generous interpretation" -- it included topics such as Darfur, torture, genocide in Iraq, and promoting democracy). This was in contrast to the 8.6% of questions about immigration, 10.7% on moral issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage, and 18.1% about general personal politics and party values.
In the report, William F. Schulz, a CAPAF senior fellow and former executive director of Amnesty International, offers a possible explanation for this marginal attention:
Human rights issues have rarely, if ever, been a principal focus of political campaigns for President or even for Congress. This reflects the fact that human rights are often perceived to be matters involving people far away whose needs and interests have very little relevance to our own.
However, he argues that human rights issues, such as the genocide in Darfur and military torture, do in fact have an impact on us here in the U.S. and should be a more prominent focus in the current presidential campaign:
Many U.S. actions have colored the attitude of the international community toward America and thereby implicated U.S. national interests quite directly: the "unsigning" of the treaty establishing the International Criminal Court; the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; the denial of habeas corpus to certain prisoners; revelations regarding U.S. use of torture. Moreover, the continuing saga of unstaunched death and destruction in Darfur, Sudan, has cast a pall over the reputation of every country that has failed to stop it.
One might assume that human rights would have been more central to the 2008 presidential campaigns to this point than in years past given the relationship of human rights controversies to U.S. policy and interests—the fact, for example, that how the world regards this country can have a very direct impact on America's national security, and the need, in light of Iraq and Darfur, to clarify when in the future the U.S. should commit its blood and treasure to countering regimes that abuse human rights.
Here at Sojourners, human rights issues, such as the genocide in Darfur and human trafficking, are incredibly important. They are not issues that "have little relevance to our own;" instead, they are central to our mission as people of faith to follow Christ's example of fighting for and working with the poor, rejected, and forgotten.
Despite the disheartening findings of the CAPAF report, I think change IS happening. This shift in values, the desire to focus on ending and eradicating these huge moral issues of our time, is happening. As a member of the progressive faith community, I hear a lot of discourse about this movement that we see happening all across the country, this "great awakening," this spiritual revival that is sparking a social movement.
But you don't have to take our word for it. All of the panelists at the CAPAF event yesterday affirmed that change is happening, and that a lot of progress has been made just in recent months to make these human rights issues compelling national values. In fact, two of the panelists, Gary Haugen, president of the International Justice Mission, and Gayle Smith, co-founder of the ENOUGH! Project, specifically singled out people of faith as being leaders in bringing about this change.
"We're seeing some shift in terms of what values are all about, from values as a matter of personal choice to values as an expression of solidarity and global citizenship," Smith said. "There is the beginning in the faith community of a translation of values from, again, within the four walls of our homes to the far reaches of the globe." Smith cited the increase in attention to the genocide in Darfur as one tangible example.
Haugen agreed, saying that the religious community has contributed to "a broadening of issues to include human rights and international human rights" in the national conversation. He also talked directly about the impact faith had in the abolition and civil rights movements, and how the spiritual foundation of those movements provided a "very profound motivator for sustaining a prolonged, successful fight."
"Religion can be a conviction to force us to act on hard, painful issues. It is a very powerful, sustaining, motivating force," Haugen continued. A force that is having a clear effect again now, he said.
It's true that issues such as genocide and global poverty are big and seemingly insurmountable. But, as the event reaffirmed for me yesterday, ultimately we have the conviction and force to win this fight.
In two weeks, you will have your first chance to read Jim Wallis' latest book, The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America. You'll soon hear about the upcoming book tour, a new website featuring the book and a slate of other activities planned around the launch.
I had the chance to read the manuscript a few months ago, and I feel real excitement about what this book can mean to our personal lives as sojourners, to our faith communities seeking justice and peace, and to our nation and world that stand at a real crossroads.
Three years ago, when God's Politics first came out, it took everyone by surprise. God's Politics struck a nerve – it diagnosed a nation that was polarized and a faith that had been hijacked. No one expected it to make the bestsellers lists. But because so many of us read the book with enthusiasm and encouraged others to do so, a new national conversation about faith and politics opened up. Sojourners' message and visibility reached a new level as many of us said, "At last someone is speaking up for the kind of faith I actually believe in. At last there's a Christian leader articulating a message that isn't an embarrassment to me." God's Politics proclaimed a faith that can and should change the big things – like poverty and war. As Jim was featured on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, The O'Reilly Factor,Meet the Press, CNN, NPR, and other high-profile places, we saw a new kind of Christianity become part of the national dialogue. As Jim often says, the monologue of a polarizing, combative, and narrow version of Christian faith was over, and a new dialogue had begun.
Now it's time for the next chapter. When The Great Awakening arrives in bookstores on Jan. 22, the conversation will get more practical as Jim explains how we can turn this new dialogue into action. Thousands of us will be reading stories of how spiritually-driven movements have led the charge for change in the past and why we're on the cusp of another such awakening right now. It's a book meant to equip everyday Christians with ways to talk about our deepest values and highest hopes for a better world, and then to translate our values and hopes into action.
We'll need your help, again. Our hope is that like God's Politics, this book will inspire another wave of commitment, and the tide of justice will continue to rise. We'll soon be inviting you to check out the book and to tell others about it, too. As an author and an avid reader, I have a feeling for how important a book release can be. On behalf of the whole Sojourners board and staff, I want to thank you for your support, prayers, and involvement around the release of The Great Awakening.
President Bush is in Israel today, meeting with Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and expressing optimism that a peace treaty could be signed by the conclusion of his term: "with proper help, the state of Palestine will emerge."
But even as he expresses support for a two-state solution, President Bush is hearing a lot from extremists in the religious right who oppose a just peace between Israel and the Palestinian people – and who'd like the White House to believe that their misguided fundamentalist theology and reckless militarism represent the views of all U.S. Christians.
Don't underestimate how extreme these groups are. A recent report by Bill Moyers covered a group called Christians United for Israel (CUFI), whose leader, Rev. John Hagee, has gone as far as to suggest that Hurricane Katrina was a punishment from God for U.S. support of Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. He's also urged a pre-emptive military strike against Iran.
Of course, Christians of every theological and political stripe care for the well-being and security of the Israeli people. But the extreme right goes too far by opposing diplomatic efforts to negotiate a peaceful settlement between the Israeli government and the Palestinian leadership. And there's reason to believe they have the ear of President Bush - who sent a personal greeting to be read at a recent CUFI convention:
I appreciate CUFI members and all event participants for your passion and dedication to enhancing the relationship between the United States and Israel. Your efforts set a shining example for others and help lay the foundation of peace for generations to come. Laura and I send our best wishes for a memorable event. May God bless you. George W. Bush, President of the United States.
Fortunately, dozens of evangelical leaders, including our own Jim Wallis, have recently come together to present an alternative point of view. In a public statement, they wrote:
In the context of our ongoing support for the security of Israel, we believe that unless the situation between Israel and Palestine improves quickly, the consequences will be devastating. ... As evangelical Christians, we believe our faith compels us to speak a word together at this crucial moment.
The Bible clearly teaches that God longs for justice and peace for all people. We believe that the principles about justice taught so powerfully by the Hebrew prophets apply to all nations, including the United States, Israel, and the Palestinians. …
We call on all evangelicals, all Christians, and everyone of good will to join us to work and pray faithfully in the coming months for a just, lasting two-state solution in the Holy Land.
8. Mohler said the agreement "sends the wrong signal" and contains basic theological problems, especially in "marginalizing" Jesus Christ. He also condemned the apology for the Crusades. "I just have to wonder how intellectually honest this is," he said. "Are these people suggesting that they wish the military conflict with Islam had ended differently — that Islam had conquered Europe?"
Would it send the right signal if we rebuffed their request for dialogue? Does it marginalize Jesus Christ to try to practice his teaching by loving our neighbor, loving the "other," reaching out to those whom we have offended and who have offended us in a desire to seek reconciliation and make peace? Are you aware of the atrocities associated with the Crusades – the rape, torture, mass slaughter – all by people who were supposed to be in a tradition of "just war theory?" Are you unaware that our behavior fell far below that of our own ideals, and don't you believe we should acknowledge that fact? Are you aware of how your line of thought could be used today to justify torture and other atrocities – that, to achieve a desired outcome in a "military conflict with Islam," we are justified in resorting to any and all means that were used in the Crusades? Do you realize how horrible this sounds – not just to a Muslim, but also to a fellow Christian?
9. Gary Bauer, president of the Campaign for Working Families, told CitizenLink the NAE leaders "have left the (card) table without their pants — that is, they've been taken and may not even realize they've been taken."
Was Jesus more concerned about "being taken" or giving himself to the dangerous work of reconciliation? Was it a mistake for him to allow himself to be stripped naked at the "table" of the cross? Whose politics should we professed followers of Christ follow in situations like this? And how do you know we have been taken? On what do you base your suspicion? Could your suspicion be a matter of religious prejudice, perhaps bordering on racism? How would you know if a group of Muslim scholars were completely sincere in their desire to reach out for peace? How do you defend your suspicion in light of the teaching of Jesus, which invites us to forgive seventy times 7 offenses in the pursuit of reconciliation?
10. Bauer said he already was dismayed by the NAE's recent controversial excursions into questionable areas such as global warming.
Can you see, even though you may disagree with it, the logic of our actions – those of us who are concerned about both the stewardship of the planet and the pursuit of peace with our Muslim neighbors? Can you see that Jesus' love for "outsiders" – the Syrophonecian woman, the Samaritan woman, the Roman centurion, not to mention notorious sinners – motivates us to love our Muslim neighbors; and it motivates us to join God in caring for the birds of the air and flowers of the field? Do you understand how for many of us these "excursions" flow from our understanding of Jesus' message – the good news of the kingdom of God?
11. Sookhdeo called for Christian leaders who signed the letter to withdraw their names, saying the confession of guilt puts Christian communities in Muslim areas of the world at risk.
By this reasoning, would you oppose the invasion of Iraq because it also put Christian communities in Muslim areas of the world at risk? And does it put Christians at risk more when Christians humbly admit their faults, or when they arrogantly remain in denial about them? When they reach out in friendship in response to Muslim scholars, or when they rebuff requests for dialogue?
Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet's reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple--truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward.
I would love to live as a river flows, carried by the surprise of its own unfolding.
The Irish writer, priest, and environmental activist, and my beloved friend - John O'Donohue - died unexpectedly and peacefully in the early hours of Friday, Jan. 4, 2008. His witness to peace, his work on the human heart, and his actions for justice make him someone that I want to introduce to readers of this blog who may not already know him.
John's work on retrieving the earthiness of celtic spirituality and helping make sense of it in a postmodern world is so profound that its impact has not yet been fully felt, and it represents something rare in a consumerist culture: a work of art that will outlast its author. He knew that work for justice and peace in the world depends on the inner work we must do to allow our own souls not to become corroded by whatever wounds we have sustained on our journeys.
What many may not know is that in addition to his ministry in the Catholic priesthood, and latterly as a writer and speaker, he was a serious environmental activist, helping to spearhead a small group that successfully prevented the despoilment of the Burren, one of Ireland's most stunning natural landscapes. He put his reputation on the line to save something worth preserving, even being prepared to go to prison to do so; and through building community consensus and taking on the powers that be, won an astonishing David and Goliath victory that resulted in substantial change to Irish law and politics.
John knew that we live in the intersection of the sacred and the profane, and he wanted to nudge us in the direction of understanding that holiness has more to do with being aware of the light around us, and living lives that honour it, than moral puritanism. In the introduction to his book To Bless the Space Between Us, to be published in March, he writes of how, in any given day, some of us humans will experience the shock of being told of the sudden death of a friend. John wanted us to be tender to the fact that the faces of strangers we meet every day all hide secrets that are both divine and tragic. We do not always know who among us is suffering some unnameable torment, nor who is rejoicing at the blessing of a lifetime.
In his activism, as well as his writing and speaking, and most of all, in his life, he wanted people to have shelter from the storms their lives would bring. To those of us privileged to know him, he showed love and friendship of a rare sort; he was the kind of spiritual teacher who revealed mysteries that most of us can't see; he truly lived a life to the full. And at the beginning of this year, which brings the 40th anniversary of the deaths of three other men who sought to embody an extraordinary kind of leadership – Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Senator Robert F. Kennedy, and Father Thomas Merton – most of all what I want to remember about John O'Donohue is that he taught me that the best corrective to evil is not just to kick against it, but to make something beautiful in its place.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful How Movies Helped Save My Soul and blogs at www.godisnotelsewhere.blogspot.com
Who has not, at some time, been lonely in the midst of a social event? The feeling of our separation from the rest of life is most acute when we are surrounded by it in noise and talk. We realize then much more than in moments of solitude how strange we are to each other, how estrangede life is from life.... The walls of distance, in time and space, have been removed by technical progress; but the walls of estrangement between heart and heart have been incredibly strengthened.
Sometimes, politics becomes so broken that the hunger for change becomes overwhelming. That's what is happening this year. And it's not just about one or two candidates now. Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee changed the political narrative with dramatic wins in Iowa, making the call for a change in politics into the 2008 paradigm. John Edwards has been a fundamental "change candidate" since the beginning of his campaign. And since Iowa, even political veterans like Hillary Clinton and John McCain, who both won last night in New Hampshire, did so by also claiming the mantle of change - with her saying that she has the experience to actually make change and not just "hope" for it, and with him saying that he has always been a thorn in the side of official Washington. Mitt Romney, who lost again in New Hampshire, started calling himself a change candidate, and Rudy Giuliani has been quick to make a claim to being a Washington outsider.
But while the candidates will now battle to convince voters that each has the vision and the capacity to really bring change; it is absolutely clear that change has already won this election. The voters have spoken and they want a new direction. Seventy percent of the country has consistently said they believe America is moving in the wrong direction, ninety-two percent of Democrats feel that way, and fifty-three percent of Republicans agree.
But as people of faith, we know that the change must go deeper than politics. In fact, unless change goes deeper, politics won't really change. And no matter which candidate finally wins this presidential election, he or she will not be able to really change the big things in the U.S. and the world that must be changed, unless and until there is a real movement pushing for those changes from outside of politics. Because when politics fails to resolve or even address the most significant moral issues, what often occurs is that social movements rise up to change politics; and the best social movements always have spiritual foundations.
Even a candidate who runs on change, really wants it, and goes to Washington to make it, will confront a vast array of powerful forces which will do everything possible to prevent real change. And, to be really honest, there are too many bad habits, negative choices, and cynical resignations in us as people that also serve as an obstacle to change. That's why I believe that it will take a new spiritual revival to finally make serious social change really possible. Changing hearts and minds and forging a constituency who will demand nothing less than a new direction. Remember, President Lyndon Johnson didn't become a civil rights leader until Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks made him one. And that's what we need again now.
In his speech last night in New Hampshire, Barack Obama said, "Change is what's happening in America." The crowd chanted back, "We want change!" over and over. At the Clinton headquarters, enthusiastic supporters waved signs which read "Ready for Change." John Edwards, who finished third last night, called on U.S. citizens to take back their country from those who have stolen democracy. And the Republican winner, John McCain, spoke of restoring the U.S.'s honor again.
Bless all their hearts. But political leaders in Washington have changed the U.S. less often than social movements have. The U.S. is signaling it is hungry for change again, and we will need to build the kind of spiritual and social movement that can deliver on that hope. Last night, Barack Obama said, "it's also about what you, the people who love this country, can do to change it." And he's right; it is really all about us.
The newest issue of Sojourners, hitting mailboxes and newsstands soon, has a photo of Andrew Natsios, President Bush's special envoy for Sudan at press time. Natsios stepped down in late December (because, many allege, he was frustrated by the federal government's failure to unify behind a policy to stop the genocide in Darfur), and was replaced by former U.N. ambassador Rich Williamson, by all accounts a good choice.
You are different. You are different because now you know that God exists, and [God] alone matters. It is an overwhelming, awesome thought.... You are different in the sense that now all people belong to you and are part of you, and you belong to all people. At the same time, you belong only to God, and you belong to [God] totally. There is a distinction between you and others, and at the same time, there is no distinction at all, but a blending of all into one. The demarcation that exists is a spiritual one, born of what you have lived and what you can never explain.
My heart cries out for the people of Kenya. The unfolding crisis conjures up haunting and horrific images of Rwanda. While the situation has not reached the scale of genocide, the flawed and arguably fraudulent elections held last month have already led to far too much bloodshed and represent a major step backwards in Kenya's democracy. The aftermath from the election has inflamed simmering ethnic tensions, pitting Luos and others who support opposition leader Raila Odinga against Kikuyus and their allies, who support President Mwai Kibaki.
The media seems to be under-reporting the scale and gravity of the tribal and politically motivated violence. From the shantytown of Kibera to the rural villages of Western Kenya, people are gripped by fear, particularly Kikuyus who make up about 22 percent of the population. The roughly 500 deaths reported so far fail to capture the countless number of people who have been injured by machete or the estimated 100,000 people already displaced by the conflict. The stolen election has awakened people's deepest fears and spurred barbaric acts between former neighbors.
I've been blessed to travel to Kenya twice - most recently a year ago - and have talked to many young Kenyan professionals who lamented the lingering tribalism that impedes Kenya's future. Fierce distrust and animosity between the over 40 tribes was often manipulated by the divide and rule machinations of British colonial rule. However these brothers and sisters also expressed real optimism that Kenya was moving in the direction of making tribalism a vestige of the past. I can only imagine what they are thinking and feeling now.
The Bush Administration made a costly mistake by rushing to recognize the flawed election results that re-elected President Kibaki to power. Since this initial blunder, our government has backtracked and tried to broker a needed political compromise through the recent visit of the Under Secretary of State for Africa Jendayi Frazier. Based on the European Commission's compelling evidence that the election was stolen, the U.S. must send an unequivocal message to Kibaki's government that we refuse to recognize the outcome of this deeply flawed process. America's commitment to democracy around the world becomes even more tarnished every time we lend a blind eye to clear evidence of electoral malfeasance. Fortunately, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Elders group have also been working to foster reconcilation and forge a political compromise between President Kibaki and opposition leader Odinga.
What should active Christian solidarity look like in the response to this crisis? Many of our churches have direct missionary and church to church relationships with Kenyans. We must keep them in our prayers and let them know that they are not alone as they pursue the courageous path toward reconciliation. We can give to humanitarian relief efforts that are increasingly needed across the country. Finally we can escalate political pressure on the Bush Administration to play an even greater role in getting both sides to break the current political stalemate, whether through the promise of holding a new election, conducting a re-count and independent investigation, or a proposed power-sharing arrangement. Averting further bloodshed is inextricably linked to solving the political crisis in Kenya. My prayer is that our celebration of the birth of one that we call the prince of peace will lead a deeper commitment to sowing seeds of peace and reconciliation in Kenya and across the world.
Adam Taylor is director of campaigns and organizing for Sojourners.
Your princes are rebels
and companions of thieves.
Everyone loves a bribe
and runs after gifts.
They do not defend the orphan,
and the widow's cause does not come before them.
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The new political buzzword is change. Every candidate claims to be the change candidate—and every pundit is contrasting "change" with "establishment." In the midst of the change-din, I would like to suggest that there is an important question to ask the candidates: "How will you lead change?"
Harvard leadership professor Ronald Heifetz has identified two major approaches to change: technical fixes and adaptive change. In her fine book, Leadership Can Be Taught, Sharon Daloz Parks describes Heifetz' distinction between the two.
Leaders who change through technical fixes believe that problems can be solved "with knowledge and procedures already in hand." Technical leaders emphasize expertise, education, and experience as key to resolving difficult issues. They also think that solutions to problems already exist. Leaders must employ solid techniques or processes to make things right. In this model, a technical-fix politician would try to convince voters of his or her competence, management skill, and problem-solving track record.
In contrast, adaptive change-type leaders believe that complex problems "require new learning, innovation, and new patterns." In this mode, "leadership is the activity of mobilizing people to address adaptive challenges." According to this leadership theory adaptive problems are "swamp issues," complex problems involving multiple levels of difficulty that elude regular routines and established platforms. According to Parks, adaptive leaders "call for changes of heart and mind—the transformation of long-standing habits and deeply held assumptions and values."
The presidential candidates all talk about change. But they appear to be talking past one another. Adaptive leaders baffle technical leaders. Technical leaders strike adaptive leaders are cold or mechanical. Yet all the candidates—and the media covering them—speak of "change" as if it has a single definition and that merely invoking it can somehow summon the voters' affections. It is not enough to say one is "ready for change" or that "Washington is broken." How do they intend to lead change? Will they change things by tinkering with systems—attempting to fix what already exists? Or do they believe that existing structures have failed and they must grapple with entirely new ways of thinking and open the way for unexpected solutions to arise?
It appears clear that voters are casting their ballots for adaptive leadership. Although adaptive leaders draw on many skills, two of the most significant include "authenticity and integrity" and "inspiring a sense of commonality amidst diversity." The candidates who understand this appear to be winning the larger cultural argument about change: Change is not about skillful technique; rather, change is about transformation, a new way of seeing and being in the world.
And that is a change that people of faith should cheer.
You can't be a rational person six days a week … and on one day of the week, go to a building, and think you're drinking the blood of a two-thousand-year-old space god.
If you polled the audience, my hunch is the majority would normally prefer Maher over Mass. But not this time. Even Catholic Conan was at a loss for words. Looks like Maher might have been on a mission to eradicate religion but he ended up shooting unbiblical blanks.
In all my years as a practicing Christian and a religious journalist, I have never encountered anyone who thought they were actually committing cannibalism as part of their Sunday ritual.With all the faith follies transpiring these days, surely an accomplished comedian such as Bill Maher can find ample fodder without resorting to bad theology. In an ironic twist, these are the same folks who chide Christians (and rightly so) for employing shoddy science and spouting "Jesus said it, I believe it, that settles it"-rhetoric.
While I'm tempted to throw the complete works of Henri Nouwen, Phyllis Tickle, and N.T. Wright at both strident secularists and their religious counterparts whenever they spout such nefarious nonsense, there is that whole turn the other cheek biz. Besides, as I've learned over the years, one cannot reason with the unreasonable.
Here's where the court jester or the satirist enters the scene. Just as there have always been those who misuse and misinterpret religion for their own personal and financial gain, there have a few of us crazy enough to take on the ungodly giants. As a religious satirist, I seek to deconstruct everything and anyone that tries to keep people away from the love of God. Whenever men try to create God in their own image or eradicate God from the face of the earth, I'm right behind them kicking down their prized creations. (Yes, sometimes I can kick a bit too hard, and for that I apologize.) Right after I've smashed these fallen idols to smithereens, for a few brief moments, a calm comes over me. I can see very tiny bits of God shining through the cracks.
It's these glimpses of God that keep me from cracking up.
Last year, my wife Jeanette and I returned to Honduras with a group from our congregation. What alarmed me was that a decade ago the MS (La Mara Salvatrucha) had a considerable presence in many of the poorest neighborhoods. Now they have a stronghold. One of my pastor friends told me, "Gabriel, people are afraid to come to church. The MS killed a woman in front of the church just the other day." The MS is going global. Recently Law & Order had an episode that featured the MS presence in New York City. The MS has chapters in California, Illinois, New Jersey, and elsewhere. Increasingly, some of our youngest and brightest are seduced into a culture of violence that is perpetuated to their children and later generations. Violence, sample one.
Last month, Benazir Bhutto was assassinated as she sought to be a voice (in spite of her shortcomings) for democracy in Pakistan. Violence and disruption ensued as many are still concerned about the future of democracy and stability in Pakistan. Violence, sample two.
Presently, tens of thousands of Kikuyus in Kenya are fleeing from ethnic violence in reaction to questions about recent elections. The Kalenjin and Kikuyus have fought before and this struggle is re-emerging in ever more violent ways. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, fighting between Congolese Tutsis and other factions, including some Rwandan Hutus, has sparked the Roman Catholic Conference of Bishops to call for an end to fighting. In Sri Lanka, the end of a truce looms large and there is a growing concern of escalating conflict. The long standing violent impasse between Palestinians and Israelis still remains unresolved. Violence, samples three to six.
The conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq do not appear to be headed to an end and there is the growing question of how the countries involved will come to a place where governmental stability and peace for its citizens will emerge. Violence, samples seven and eight.
In the midst of all these examples, and so many others too high in number to mention, the question is, "How do the followers of the Prince of Peace respond to this surge of global violence?" I think that one of the contemporary challenges of the followers of Jesus is to hear the beatitude anew: "Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God." While I recognize that many may disagree on how peace should be attained, few would disagree that genocide, gang violence, terrorism, and endless wars are not what Jesus expects from his disciples. Certainly, Jesus knew that humanity has a propensity to destroy those with whom they disagree. Still, the Jesus message is a call to a higher standard. Jesus in his life and ministry took the road less traveled.
Someone once asked a civil rights leader about his method of non-violence deeply influenced by Gandhi. The response: "It's how you pick up the phone." In short, we as followers of Jesus are challenged to emulate the Prince of Peace in even how we talk to on the phone or in traffic. People of every generation are calling for a revolution in culture where we do not rush to violence, but seek the way of peace. I am not saying that tyrants need not be confronted and that theories of just war theory are not valid. Neither am I saying that I too haven't sinfully yielded to the temptations of violence in thought or speech. What I am saying is, "There's too much violence in the world and regrettably, too often it is the first and only option." I pray for the day when all of God's children "will study war no more." Until then let us model peace, in as much as we are able.
Rev. Gabriel Salguero is the pastor of the Lamb’s Church of the Nazarene in New York City, a Ph.D. candidate at Union Theological Seminary, and the director of the Hispanic Leadership Program at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is also a Sojourners board member.
4. Dr. Albert Mohler, president of Southern Seminary (Southern Baptist), termed it "naiveté that borders on dishonesty."
Did it border on dishonesty for God, who has all power, to be expressed among us as a Word "veiled" in frail human flesh? Was it naive for Jesus to go to Jerusalem, knowing what waited for him there? Would it be naïve or dishonest for us to claim to love our neighbors and even our enemies, as Jesus taught us, and then to reject requests for dialogue? Wouldn't it be more naïve to think that the problems between Christians and Muslims around the world will be resolved by a refusal to dialogue? And when our neighbors come to us, reaching out their hands in friendship, and when our hearts tell us – after sincere prayer and reflection – that we cannot fold our arms in exclusion but must open them in friendship, how can we not respond?
5. Their response — initiated by Yale Divinity School and endorsed by other liberal Christian leaders — apologized for the sins of Christians during the Crusades and for "excesses" of the global war on terror, without mentioning Muslim atrocities.
When you have a conflict with your wife where both you and she have made mistakes, do you only agree to acknowledge your own faults if she will also acknowledge hers? If you say, "Yes, I may have made a small mistake, but you made even bigger ones," do you expect this to lead to a better relationship? If Muslims apologized for their faults, would you then be willing to dialogue with them in a respectful way?
6. It even seemed to acknowledge Allah as the God of the Bible.
Are you not aware that the word "Allah" is simply the Arabic word for God, just as in English we say God, and in Spanish people say Dios, and in Greek, theos? Did you know that when millions of Arabic Christians pray, they use this normal Arabic word for God? Don't you know that throughout history, the Christian faith has used the words for God already found in the language and culture into which they came with the good news of Jesus Christ?
7. The very name of the Muslim communiqué — A Common Word between Us and You — is from a verse in the Quran that condemns "people of the Scripture" (Christians) for alleged polytheism (the doctrine of the Trinity).
Are you aware that the trinity is not just a matter of disagreement, it is first a matter of misunderstanding between Christians and Muslims? Do you see that we can only deal with disagreements when we have achieved some basic understanding of what we mean by our key terms? Are you aware that many Muslims believe that our doctrine of the trinity affirms that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three different gods? Can you suggest a way of clearing up this misunderstanding without respectful dialogue? And are you aware that the apostle Paul respectfully quoted the writings of Greek philosophers and respectfully referred to Greek religion in his dialogue with the Athenian philosophers? With Paul's example in mind, should we never have any interaction with the Quran, one of the most important works of literature in the history of the world and unspeakably precious to about 21 percent of the world's population – except to argue with it? Have you ever actually read the Quran?
[TO BE CONTINUED…]
Brian McLaren (brianmclaren.net) was a pastor for 24 years. Now he serves as board chair for Sojourners. His most recent book is Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope, and he launches an eleven city tour at the end of January (deepshift.org). Just before the tour begins, he will be in Davos for the World Economic Forum, participating in Muslim-Christian dialogue.
Vanity of vanities, says the Teacher,
vanity of vanities! All is vanity.
What do people gain from all the toil
at which they toil under the sun?
A generation goes, and a generation comes,
but the earth remains forever.
Too often I looked at being relevant, popular, and powerful as ingredients of an effective ministry. The truth, however, is that these are not vocations but temptations. Jesus asks, "Do you love me?" Jesus sends us out to be shephers, and Jesus promises a life in which we increasingly have to stretch out our hands and be led to places where we would rather not go. He asks us to move from a concern for relevance to a life of prayer, from worries about popularity to communal and mutual ministry, and from a leadership built on power to a leadership in which we critically discern where God is leading us and our people.
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With the pivotal event of the Iowa Caucuses, news analyses have said that Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee are now the defining candidates of this campaign—even if they don't win their respective nominations. It appears Obama has a better chance to do that than Huckabee does, but there is no telling how far he can go and, win or not, he could help redefine the Republican Party. In Sunday's New York Times, Frank Rich acknowledged the clear policy differences between the two but described them as "flip sides of the same coin." They have made "change" and "hope" the defining words and themes of this presidential election year.
By winning in Iowa, Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee have created two political earthquakes in their respective parties. While there are significant differences between the two on political philosophy and policy positions, they both overturn the established orthodoxies of their respective parties and promise to exchange old politics for new. They are both populist, but not angry, and are insurgents who campaign on the two words most important to a new generation—"change" and "hope."
Many news reports have noted the similarities between the two.
Each is a "religious" candidate. Barack Obama is virtually a public theologian and the most sophisticated political leader in many years in articulating the relationship between faith and politics. Mike Huckabee is actually a former Baptist pastor who can out-preach, out-charm, and out-Bible almost anyone.
Both Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee are staking their political future on the U.S.'s hunger for change. Obama has turned the spiritual power of hope into a political vision that is inspiring a new generation. Huckabee also loves the religious language of hope and thinks of himself as a modern day David who has taken on the Goliaths who rule the people instead of serving them.
Each has a compelling personal story of humble beginnings leading to great success. Barack Obama's personal and racial history – having a white mother and African father and growing up in both Indonesia and multi-cultural Hawaii - makes him a very compelling agent of change. By winning over the majority of white voters (even in a place like Iowa) Obama has made new U.S. history and many consider him to have a serious chance to become the first African American president of the U.S.
Mike Huckabee also touts his poor beginnings and easily blends his social conservatism with a biblically sounding economic populism that takes on Wall Street Republican elites and appeals directly to the working class. After playing bass with Jay Leno's band, he told the late night television audience, "People are looking for a presidential candidate who reminds them more of the guy they work with rather than the guy that laid them off."
Both say they care about the poor. And both attack the special interests of wealth and power which stack the political deck against poor people and working class families. Barack Obama started his career as a community organizer in the streets of Chicago and peppers his political sermons with references to the biblical prophets' demands for social justice and Jesus' admonition to test our policies by their impact on "the least of these." Mike Huckabee easily blends his social conservatism with a biblical-sounding economic populism that appeals directly to middle and working-class families. And he did enough for the poor as governor of Arkansas that one conservative commentator has accused him of being a "Christian socialist."
Both Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee talk about moving beyond the political categories of left and right, liberal and conservative. Both call for real solutions instead of more blame, and pledge to work in a bi-partisan way to end the bitter political divisions and gridlock of Washington, D.C.
Both Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee believe that American foreign policy, over the last several years, has needlessly alienated the rest of the world and caused us to lose our moral standing among the nations. Obama continues to remind voters that he opposed the war in Iraq before it started. Both have criticized what Huckabee recently called the "arrogant bunker mentality" of U.S. foreign policy. And both believe the best way to change that is not through merely demonstrating the U.S.'s power, but rather by really talking to other nations - even our enemies - and by leading with more with generosity and compassion than with just military might.
Together, these two candidates—one Democrat and one Republican—are shaking up the presidential election contest of 2008. It remains to be seen if either of them will win their respective nominations, but they have already shaped and even defined the themes of this critical election year. Now, virtually all the candidates are using the language of "change" - now "change" defines the political paradigm of this election year.
I'm volunteering for a presidential candidate, mostly making phone calls to people in various states at volunteer headquarters. It is encouraging to work with people of all ages, walks of life, and races - people who, like me, were sideliners who are now enthusiastically involved with a sense of possibilities, believing that our efforts make a difference and things can change. My afternoon phone calls primarily reach elderly or others who are homebound. What a slice of the U.S.: "Organ" recitals (my kidneys, etc.), mad, lonely, sad, and hopeful. One sometimes gets the phone slammed down, or comments unbefitting of a U.S. citizen - "I'll never vote for a black or a woman" - but mostly people are pondering, reflecting on what's important to them and wanting better things for themselves and the country. There's the longing for peace and fairness. A recent Sunday's Psalm reading reflects the prayers of all of us for good leadership. Psalm 72 (I am using "president" in place of "king"):
Please help the president be honest and fair, just like you, our God. Let the president be honest and fair with all your people, especially the poor. Let peace and justice rule every mountain and hill. Let the president defend the poor, rescue the homeless, and crush everyone who hurts them. ... Let the president be fair with everyone, and let there be peace until the moon falls from the sky.
Through this daunting election year, may we be praying for leadership that reflects the Psalmist's hope for peace, fairness, and honesty - especially for the poor.
Mary Nelson is president emeritus of Bethel New Life, a faith-based community development corporation on the west side of Chicago. She is also a board member of Sojourners.
Before joining Sojourners, my wife, Amy, and I spent the last five years doing urban ministry in Boston. We were invited to start a church in an abandoned chop shop by the matriarch and saint of the neighborhood, Ma Siss. The Boston Globe and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Michael Paulson spent the last three years closely following the birth of the church. I just can't believe how many resources The Globe put into this - a full-time reporter for three years, then a photographer and videographer who visited countless times. I hope you will take some time out of your day to read this four-part series, see the slideshows, and watch the videos of how God's grace is made perfect in our weakness.
May it inspire you to grow deeper in your faith and increase our collective resolve to make poverty history.
On January 3, Focus on the Family's CitizenLink sent an email by associate editor Stephen Adams called, "Evangelical Leaders Pledge Common Cause with Islam." Their target once again was the National Association of Evangelicals, echoing an attempt last year to oust Richard Cizik for having common cause with the birds of the air and flowers of the field against global warming.
This time NAE President Leith Anderson and Vice President Rich Cizik are in trouble for signing a cordial reply to a request by 138 Muslim scholars for civil dialogue and increased understanding between Christians and Muslims. I too signed the document, and thought I would reply to the criticism, just as I did to the Muslim's request for dialogue. (Focus on the Family's statements are in italics.)
1. They apologize for the 'sins of Christians'
How can we not apologize for our sins? Should we claim we have no sins? Or should we knowingly refuse to acknowledge them? Isn't the humility to confess sins a Christian virtue?
2. [They] leave the deity of Christ open for discussion.
If we only have discussion with people who acknowledge the deity of Christ as we do, won't that mean we will only be speaking to Christians with whom we already agree? How can we be peacemakers – not to mention bearers of the good news, following Jesus' commands, if we consider it unfaithful to discuss essential matters with people who differ from us? And besides, are you aware of how some Muslims have been misinformed so that they misunderstand our understanding of the Deity of Christ – that they think we believe that the living God, like some Greek deity of antiquity, had physical sex with Mary? Wouldn't it make sense to try to better explain what we mean when we call Jesus Lord and Son of God, so as to correct this misunderstanding? Wouldn't respectful dialogue be required for that kind of communication to take place? And in the meantime, shouldn't religious leaders be reaching out to one another so that we don't leave the field to religious extremists and hawkish politicians who have proved themselves highly willing to resort to terrorism and war?
3. An attempt by leaders of the National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) to win friends and influence Muslims is alienating another group — evangelical Christians.
I'm sorry when anyone feels alienated by those of us who try to follow Jesus' command to be peacemakers and to treat others as we would be treated, but didn't Jesus, when faced with a choice of reaching out to those considered untouchable outsiders by the Pharisees, side with the excluded? We intend no offense to Focus on the Family or anyone else in this attempt to respond in a God-honoring way to our Muslim neighbors, and hope that by better understanding our motives, you will be less alienated in the future.
When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask.
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Last night, Iowa voted for change - dramatic change – in American politics. Democrat Barack Obama won decisively, and Republican Mike Huckabee won almost miraculously. John Edwards, the second place winner in the Democratic caucuses, contin
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Last night I finally saw Juno, Roger Ebert's favorite film of 2007 and recipient of four Oscar nominations, which has as its center the story of an unplanned pregnancy and the people affected by it. The protagonist, Juno MacGuff, played by Ellen Page in one of those so-good-she's-either-brilliant-or-really-like-that-in-real-life performances, is a misfit attracted to her male mirror image. Wiser beyond her years, slightly jaded by life and negotiating the pitfalls of the high school psychological assault course, she responds to her pregnancy by initially seeking an abortion – and the nonchalance with which she is treated is the only thing sadder than the unthinking speed with which she makes the decision. She is greeted by a lone protestor – the sole representative of institutional Christianity in the movie – as young as her, who, while a welcome change from the angry fundamentalist stereotype, may know as little about adult life as Juno does about the experience of pregnancy she's about to have. But something unsettles Juno, and she is unable to go through with the termination. Instead, she plans to have the child and help a couple seeking to adopt.
Gareth Higgins is a Christian writer and activist in Belfast, Northern Ireland. For the past decade he was the founder/director of the zero28 project, an initiative addressing questions of peace, justice, and culture. He is the author of the insightful 
John Edwards ended his campaign this afternoon at the same place he started it and with the same theme—ending poverty as a moral imperative. In the Ninth Ward of New Orleans, Edwards said that he was stepping aside in this presidential campaign, but that he would now continue his life-long work for economic justice. Before announcing his decision, he called both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to ask for a pledge to make ending poverty central to their campaigns for president and to their presidencies if they are elected.
Obery M. Hendricks, Jr., Ph.D. is a professor of biblical interpretation at New York Theological Seminary, the author of 
Rev. Romal Tune is the CEO of 
Becky Garrison talks with worship leaders who are reaching those for whom church is not in their vocabulary in her book 
Recently, I had the opportunity to interview John Sayles about his movie 
Mary Nelson is president emeritus of 
Tim Burton's striking and gruesome film adaptation of Stephen Sondheim's musical 'Sweeney Todd' made me feel alternately impressed by Johnny Depp's singing talent and wince at the violence. The story of a 19th century barber who avenges the loss of his wife and daughter by providing the closest shave ever to a litany of customers including the judge who caused his pain left me preoccupied by thoughts closer to home. 
Deanna Murshed is director of integrated marketing for Sojourners
In November our friend Pastor Rich Nathan sent us this compelling sermon and we've been looking for a good time to post it ever since. The occasion of Bush's trip to the Middle East seems to be a good time for Christians to reflect on their relationship with the modern nation of Israel. You can 
Archbishop Elias Chacour, an Eastern-rite Palestinian Catholic bishop in the region of Galilee, is escorting President Bush on a tour of the Mount of the Beatitudes in Israel on Friday, Jan. 11. This date also marks the sixth year since the arrival of the first prisoners to the
Brian McLaren (
Rev. Gabriel Salguero is the pastor of the Lamb’s Church of the Nazarene in New York City, a Ph.D. candidate at Union Theological Seminary, and the director of the Hispanic Leadership Program at Princeton Theological Seminary. He is also a Sojourners board member.
