One of Jesus' most in-your-face stories, and a personal favorite of mine, is the Parable of the Dishonest Manager in Luke 16. I would loosely paraphrase its central insight as follows: "If you have the sense God gave a dog, you will realize that you can't hold onto money very long anyway, but you can keep the friends you make by giving it to those in need. You do the math." The passage doesn't say anything about burning sulfur, just about priorities and how to take the long view.

An attractive feature of this parable is that it sets a really low bar for divine commendation. The manager doesn't have sense enough to stay out of trouble to begin with. What's more, even after he has his "friends are friends forever" epiphany, he starts backsliding almost at once: He quickly gives his master's first debtor a 50% markdown, but for debtor number two the manager gets pointlessly stingy and only takes off 20%. He still gets praise for knowing what side his bread is buttered on.

And, because the kingdom of God is so often about taking things way over the top, the final verses go on to radically redefine what honesty and faithfulness are. Good stewardship is supposed to be about accurate accounting and careful saving, right? Not here. Money is inherently "dishonest," and impromptu unauthorized debt forgiveness is "faithfulness." (In fact, the master fires the manager before even seeing his accounting - the grounds for dismissal appear to have been less fiscal irresponsibility and more that he made enemies willing to accuse him).

The Protestant Work Ethic is not invited to this party, and you can virtually hear the groans of the prodigal son's responsible brother if he happens to look ahead from his seat in chapter 15.

Despite this parable, other parts of the Bible suggest to me that it's reasonable to save something for retirement. But I want to combine this conventional form of stewardship with long-view social accounting, which is why I'm excited about the special Web extra to our May issue about faith and finances. In it, my colleague Julie has accumulated a heaping helping of Web sites that can help you figure out how and where to invest retirement savings for the common good (and also where to free your mind with Bible study, teach your teenage kids about money, and plan - and pray over - your household budget).

Check it out – and e-mail it to a friend to share the abundance!

Elizabeth Palmberg is an assistant editor of Sojourners.

[Continued from part 1]

I pondered what I might offer to spotlight the significance of such a dialogue and the future it foretells. Then I ran across this exegesis of Luke's account of the evening of Jesus' resurrection. It's by Debbie Blue.

With the wryest of humor, Blue contextualizes the two men walking the road to Emmaus, which may be tantamount to saying they were heading nowhere fast, considering scholars haven't been able to confirm the existence of an actual town named Emmaus. (What an amazing metaphor for our despair in the face of suffering, and the difficulty of being reconciled to each other and God afterwards.) The two men meet a stranger along the way who asks them why they are aggrieved. Their response is to almost reprimand the stranger's cluelessness: "Do you not know what happened this weekend. We lost hope." To which the stranger replies with reciprocal exasperation, "Did you not know that the whole story has been driving toward this irredeemable act of shared suffering—the death of God—so that the unprecedented hope of resurrection might come?"

Blue says it this way:

Jesus is like, 'Fools and slow of hear to believe. Can't you see that this all had to happen: that the mechanisms of the social order that lead to violence had to be undone, the self-deceptive and ferocious need to make ourselves out as innocent, the rat race, the ladder climbing, the fear of a violent God who demands blood and vengeance? Can't you see that all that had to be undone? You're free! Quit holding onto the bars and rattling them. The cage doors are open; walk out.' Jesus comes back from a wholly different place than they've ever been, and he walks right up to them and he reveals a whole new story. [Yet they don't recognize it.]

He walks with them, and they stop just shy of nowhere. And Jesus doesn't lecture them, judge them, condemn them, dislike them. He doesn't express a sense of betrayal and disappointment. He doesn't talk about how hopeless and ugly the whole lot of humanity is. He breaks bread. And he feeds them. And he tells them to go out and preach mercy to the world.

He becomes present to these people, people totally caught up, as we all are, in the reigning social, political and economic structures, in order to help them see or live or feel an alternative—to help them die and live again. He becomes present so that little by little they will be enabled to walk out of the cages… So that they might be able to tell new stories instead of the same old predictable stories…

The bread has been broken and the bread's been blessed. It may not seem like it, but we're free to get off the road and eat.

Ehrman and Wright may have very different ideas of what suffering in life means and address it with different hopes of what is to come. But like Brian McLaren, I too am immensely glad both men have entered into dialogue—giving us a beautiful example of how to jump off the road to Emmaus, share a meal with a stranger and write new, life-giving stories together.

Melvin Bray is a devoted husband, committed father, learner, teacher, writer, storyteller, lover of people, connoisseur of creativity, seeker of justice, purveyor of sustainability and believer in possibilities. As founder of Kid Cultivators, he lives, loves, works and dreams with friends in Atlanta, Georgia.

As did Brian McLaren, I recently read the conversation between N. T. Wright and Bart Ehrman, hosted by Beliefnet. I must admit my incredible bias upfront. I have a deep appreciation for Tom Wright and was embarrassingly quite ignorant of Bart Ehrman. Wright had given me the language and academic credibility for a narrative theology at which I had arrived serendipitously. I had long appreciated Wright for challenging the Christian tradition to reckon with the contextual realities that shape biblical claims. Although my faith may require less now in terms of traditional apologetic constructions to substantiate it, I am grateful for Wright's insistence on intellectual honesty when interpreting scripture.

But I was immediately captivated by Ehrman's story. It was the best thing he could have done for me. While a fan and student of the quality of thinking that Wright epitomizes, I adamantly believe that everyone has the right to tell his/her own story.

Ehrman's concern for the pain of others, sounding very Jesus-like, completely resonated with me over the course of the first three postings. But then Wright's comments took a turn that was seemingly unexpected for Ehrman. Wright introduced resurrection as God's unprecedented response to suffering that, in a linear sense, infuses the pain of suffering with a promise that heretofore had not existed. Wright's insistence on the significance of resurrection is not landmark within the Christianity, but his understanding of resurrection is somewhat different from what has come to be viewed as traditional. From that point on, Wright's conversation took a trajectory that embraced the legitimacy of suffering but asserted that it was not the end of the story. Ehrman, however, continued to make his case against the church's traditional and, for Ehrman, insufficient or contradictory explanations of suffering. It seemed as if he could not hear Wright's disassociation from penal-substitution as the only way to tell the story of God at work in the world.

There is a quite subtle form of intellectual dishonesty that dismisses others concerns and insists on making parallel presentations that are not open to conversational refinement. I did not get the sense that this was what Ehrman was doing. Rather Ehrman seemed so used to hearing the language Wright uses (the basic claims of Christianity) aligned in such a way as to bracket out any possibilities except the party line, that he did not appear to recognize that it was not happening quite that way this time.

My heart ached over the experiences Ehrman must have suffered that make his expectations and response ever so reasonable. I wonder how many others have grown accustomed to having their concerns bracketed out of the Christian conversation.

[to be continued...]

Melvin Bray is a devoted husband, committed father, learner, teacher, writer, storyteller, lover of people, connoisseur of creativity, seeker of justice, and believer in possibilities. As founder of Kid Cultivators, he lives, loves, and dreams with friends in Atlanta, Georgia.

It's true that the blogosphere has created space for some truly unremarkable interchanges to take place. You can't call them conversations or dialogues, both of which imply the occurrence of actual communication. I guess "mutual flaming" would be more descriptive.

But sometimes the blogosphere is used for substantive dialogue, and when that happens, it should be celebrated. A case in point - the recent Beliefnet dialogue between Bart Ehrman and N. T. Wright on the existence of evil. Both have written books on the subject.

Ehrman, an Evangelical Christian in his younger years, describes how in later adulthood his faith became a casualty of his inability to reconcile the world's heinous suffering with the existence of a gracious and good God. N.T. Wright, an Anglican bishop and scholar, responds.

This "blogalogue" isn't a debate: there is no winner, except those who read and gain insight from the dialogue partners - both in the substance of their comments and in their mutually respectful mode of discourse.

My favorite line from N.T. Wright:

... once God decides (with the call of Abraham) to work to address the problem of evil through people who are part of the problem as well as part of the solution, there is going to be an awful lot of messiness, which will reach its climax when God not only gets his feet muddy with the mess of the world but his hands bloody with the nails of the world.

My favorite line from Bart Ehrman:

The issue of human suffering is not a logical problem to be solved or some kind of mathematical equation. It is a human problem that requires empathy, sympathy, emotional involvement, and action.

In the end, Ehrman makes this proposal:

Even if we cannot, in the end, know the reasons for suffering, we can at the least have appropriate responses to it. We ourselves can feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, clothe the naked; we can work to solve problems of poverty; we can give money to agencies finding cures for cancer and AIDS; we can volunteer more often locally; we can give more to international relief efforts. We can, in fact, fulfill the urgent demands implicit in Matthew's account of the judgment between the sheep and the goats, for "as you have done this to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you have done it unto me.

On this a proponent of Christian faith and a former proponent can agree, thanks be to God! And so may we all ...

Brian McLaren (brianmclaren.net) serves as Board Chair for Sojourners. He is an author and speaker (deepshift.org). His most recent books include Everything Must Change (2007) and Finding Our Way Again (2008).

Jim Wallis, in his book The Great Awakening said,

Imagine something called Justice Revivals in the powerful tradition of revivals past, but focusing on the great moral issues of our time. Imagine linking the tradition of Billy Graham with the tradition of Martin Luther King Jr. Imagine a new generation of young people catching fire and offering their gifts, talents, and lives in a new spiritual movement for social justice. Imagine such revivals taking place in cities’ great convention centers, but resulting in thousands of small groups for ongoing discipleship, training, and action in every neighborhood of those cities. Imagine disillusioned believers coming back to faith after many years of alienation, while other seekers discover the power of faith for the first time. Imagine social movements rising out of spiritual revival and actually changing the wind of both our culture and our politics. Imagine a fulfillment in our time of the words of the prophet Amos: ‘Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.’ Just imagine.

We plan on three nights of preaching and worship. Tonight, Wednesday, April 16, we will call people to make a commitment to Christ. Matt Redman, the writer of many of our worship songs, and his band will join us for worship. On Thursday night, we will call people to work for justice in the Central Ohio community and we will host the Raymond Wise Gospel Choir as our worship leaders. And on Friday night, we will focus on issues of global justice. Worship we will be led by Vineyard Columbus’ new worship pastor, Clarence Church, together with some worship leaders from other churches in Central Ohio.

Then on Saturday, thousands of members of Central Ohio churches will fan out into our community and to dozens of servant evangelism projects such as fixing up local schools, visiting nursing homes, and working on homes for Habitat for Humanity.

We have several goals that we hope to accomplish through the Justice Revival. First of all, we want to transform the public face of Christianity here in Central Ohio. I want our city to know that we followers of Jesus are not at war with our city. I want Christians to be Jeremiah 29:7 people, who “seek the peace and prosperity of the city [where we live] and pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, [we] too will prosper.”

I want hundreds of people to be saved through this Justice Revival and to come into fellowship with local churches throughout our community. I want to see churches across Central Ohio united in the practical service of our city and in reaching our city for Christ. Many of Columbus’ largest churches are already involved in helping to host this Justice Revival including First Church of God, Grove City Nazarene, Faith Ministries, Reynoldsburg United Methodist Church, First Community Church, Rhema Christian Center, and New Salem Baptist. We also have several other Vineyards involved.

We particularly want to call attention to the condition of children in our city by having local churches adopt local public schools for the purpose of mentoring kids. And we want to call attention to global issues of justice especially the Darfur, the tragedy of global sex trafficking, the 30,000 children a day who die of malnutrition and preventable diseases, and the billion people on our planet who live on less than $1 a day.

Through the Justice Revival we want to help redefine what it means to be a Christian disciple so that thousands of Christians will understand that they can’t be good followers of Jesus without also committing to Jesus’ agenda, which includes feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, clothing the naked, giving care to the sick, and visiting the prisoner (Matthew 25:35-36).

Rich Nathan is the pastor of the Vineyard Church in Columbus, Ohio, which is the co-sponsor with Sojourners of next week's Justice Revival. Click here for more details.

Following the publication of The New Atheist Crusaders and Their Unholy Grail I received hordes of books critiquing Dawkins & Co. While most of the responses tended to veer off into Kirk Cameron country, I found a few gems such as John F. Haught's God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens. Following is an interview with Dr. Haught, senior fellow of Science & Religion at Georgetown University's Woodstock Theological Center.

Why do you call Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris softcore atheists?

Because they fail to probe deeply into the logical, ethical, and cultural implications of a consistent atheism. They think of belief in God more as a nuisance to be removed than as a stimulus to radical personal, cultural, and ethical upheaval. I contrast them with "hardcore" atheists—writers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus. The latter all realized that atheism is not easy to pull off without seismic implications. As Sartre said, the road to atheism is "a cruel and long-range affair." The true atheist must be willing to risk madness (Nietzsche) and embrace the absurd (Camus). In my view, the hardcore atheists were not consistently atheistic either, but at least they attempted to think out what atheism would really mean if it were true.

How do you respond to the new atheists' claims that all faith is irrational?

They define faith very narrowly as "belief without evidence." To be rational, they claim, we must empty our minds of any ideas for which scientifically accessible "evidence" is in principle unavailable. Since religions can claim no such evidence, they must be irrational. However, the claim that science is the most authoritative way to truth is itself a belief without evidence. If all faith is irrational, then so is the new atheism, by definition.

How is intolerance of tolerance a truly novel feature to the new atheists' solution to the problems of human misery?

According to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens, as soon as people embrace even the most innocent beliefs they are opening up a space in their minds for the eventual invasion of the most monstrous forms of religious lunacy (such as the ideas behind suicide bombings). So, to eliminate much human misery, let's get rid of faith altogether! Such intolerance of faith is by no means new. What is new is the new atheists' intolerance of the modern liberal principle that the faith of others should be respected. By respecting faith, they claim, we are all accomplices in evil. The irony here is that the new atheists seem to forget that the freedom to advance their own uncritical belief in scientism and scientific naturalism is also due to the modern liberal tolerance of "faith."

Why do you diagnose the new atheists as suffering from a bad case of explanatory monism?

Explanatory monism is the reductionist postulate that there is only one valid explanatory slot available to make sense of things. For example, Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins assume that since we can now understand morality and religion in terms of evolutionary biology, theological explanation is superfluous. I argue instead that both theology and evolutionary science can contribute to our understanding.

Elaborate what you mean by this statement: "deepening of theology that has occurred in previous conceptions between serious atheists and Christians has little chance of happening in the works of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris?"

In God and the New Atheism I show that that the new atheists are as literalist in their understanding of scriptures and theology as are the anti-Darwinian religious fundamentalists they oppose. The level of challenge they pose to contemporary theology is glaringly low in comparison with serious atheists such as Feuerbach, Marx, and Nietzsche who at least knew enough about religious thought to engage theologians of the stature of Karl Barth, Paul Tillich, or Karl Rahner.

What are some ways we can create spaces for this serious dialogue to begin?

The new atheist phenomenon emerges from and appeals to a culture shaped in great measure by a noxious blend of poor science education with and equally undeveloped religious and theological education. There is greater need than ever today to improve both. Current interest in the science and religion dialogue is a hopeful development, but it needs to take place at every level of education, not least in seminaries and schools of theology.

Publishers Weekly cited Becky Garrison as one of "four evangelicals with fresh views" alongside Jim Wallis, Shane Claiborne, and Ron Sider.

My dear friend, Ken Wilson, who pastors the Ann Arbor Vineyard, showed me a chart that I found very helpful:

What has happened in the last generation is that there has been border-blending among the four great movements in the church. So we find many evangelicals who feel very comfortable praying for the sick and casting out demons; and there are many evangelicals who engage in liturgical practices such as using the Anglican Book of Common Prayer in their devotional lives, etc.

But while there has been a huge move of border-blending, there are still many corner-dwellers, people who believe that it is entirely wrong for someone in their camp to engage in practices associated with one of the other three camps. Corner-dwellers get really mean and mad when we step out of our traditional boxes.

So, for example, some conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists get mean and mad when we claim to be evangelical, but we engage in border-blending with one of the other wings of the church. Like the Pharisees of Jesus'’ day, some angry corner-dwellers may set themselves up as the judge of what is biblical - like the Pharisees, they get really mad when we associate with “the wrong sort of people,” and, like the Pharisees, they are constantly looking for reasons to accuse border-blenders for our supposed theological errors.

I look forward to a day when an evangelical church that does a Justice Revival not only doesn’t create any controversy, but hardly raises an eyebrow. I look forward to a day when Christians who hear about a Justice Revival say: “So, what else is new? Of course, evangelical churches are involved in social justice. That is what Christian churches are supposed to do. We are supposed to follow Jesus, who is both the God of justification and the God of justice!”

Rich Nathan is the pastor of the Vineyard Church in Columbus, Ohio, which is the co-sponsor with Sojourners of next week's Justice Revival. Click here for more details.

In church one day, my pastor asked us to raise our hands if we believed in what the Bible said. The right answer seemed pretty obvious, and the whole congregation and I raised our hands. Then he asked us to raise our hand if we had read the Bible in its entirety. Touché, Pastor Sean. Touché.

In his latest book, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man's Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible, A.J. Jacobs lives as a biblical fundamentalist so you don't have to. Jacobs describes himself as "Jewish in the way the Olive Garden is an Italian restaurant" and seeks advice from rabbis, pastors, church members, historians, and textbooks on his quest to live the "ultimate Biblical life." The book chronicles his attempt to conform to the myriad rules found in the Bible (Don't wear mixed fibers! Be fruitful and multiply! Stone adulterers! Forgive!), and the results are often pretty funny. Yes, Jacobs sets out to lampoon Biblical fundamentalists, but by the end of his experiment he finds himself changed - he reveres life more, he is a better father, and he has more respect for people of faith. I picked up this book for laughs, but was surprised when I ended up quite touched by it. A.J. Jacobs writes with the tone of a friend, and when I finished the book I felt I had found a fellow believer (he now calls himself a "reverent agnostic") walking by my side.

By day 264, you warm up to Christian literalists as embodied by Dr. Tony Campolo and the Red Letter Christians. How did your year-long experiment affect your perception of Christian "fundamentalists", especially in contrast to how they are portrayed in mainstream media?

It changed it drastically. Like many Americans, I used to have an embarrassingly simplistic view of evangelical Christianity. I thought it was this monolithic movement where everyone walked in lock step with Pat Robertson. I figured almost all evangelical Christians were focused on the issues of homosexuality and abortion. I hadn't heard of the Red Letter Christians and their focus on poverty and the environment. I missed the complexity of evangelical Christianity, as does much of the media. It's sort of the equivalent of saying, 'Oh, James Taylor and Kid Rock are both rock musicians, so they're pretty much the same.'

You call your book a "(gentle) attack" on fundamentalism, as you set out to show how absurd and impossible it is to live a literally Biblical lifestyle without dropping out of general society. Is there anything that especially surprised or delighted you about following the rules? How about anything that really scared you?

So much surprised and delighted me. I fell in love with the Sabbath. I enjoyed the ban on gossiping (not that I was totally successful; I live in New York and I work in the media, so gossip is about as omnipresent as air). And here's an odd one: I liked following the second commandment literally: No making images. I took this to the limit. No turning on the TV, no watching DVDs, no photos, no doodles. And it turned out to be really helpful. I think our culture is too much in love with images. Everything is image-driven, and we're forgetting how to read. And there's something sacred about reading.

What scared me? I guess how easy it is to become self-righteous. I had to fight it every day.

On day 14, you crib a line from "Chariots of Fire" about feeling God's pleasure as you tithe to charities. Have you managed to maintain any of the Biblical practices from your experiment so that you can continue feeling "the warm ember that starts at the back of [your] neck?"

I do still try to do good works. I don't do as much as I should. And I don't tithe as strictly as I should - I'm down from 10 percent to maybe seven or eight percent. But I try. Because my Bible year taught me something that I wish I had known for the first 38 years of my life.

If you want to be happy, you should pursue OTHER people's happiness. You should do good things for others. It's a paradox, but it works. Being unselfish leads to selfish fulfillment.

Who would OT God vote for? Who would NT Jesus endorse?

Wasn't it a wise man named Jim Wallis who said that God was not a Republican or Democrat?

I do remember that part of the Old Testament where God is choosing whom to anoint as the next king of Israel. And a man named Jesse parades all his sons before the prophet Samuel. And Samuel sees the tallest son, Eliab and figured he will be the new leader.

"But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart."

Which is good news for Dennis Kucinich. Too bad he dropped out.

But it does remind us: Look beyond the superficial.

You've given a lot of interviews for this book, most of which are on the web somewhere. Tell me something about you that I can't google.

I'll tell you all the answers to my four-year-old son's favorite questions. My favorite color is green. My favorite animal is a zebra. My favorite candy is caramel. And my favorite Dora character is probably Boots the Monkey. You won't find that on the Internet!

Anna Almendrala is the marketing and circulation assistant for Sojourners. For more information on the book, click here.

Let me give you an illustration of the difference between the narrow focus of contemporary American evangelicalism and the big focus of the Bible.

D.L. Moody, the great 19th-century evangelist, described his calling and said that he essentially understood the world as being like an ocean liner that hit an iceberg. God had said to him, "Moody, it is your job to pull as many drowning people out of the water into lifeboats as you can."

Now, that may have been Moody's calling. I don't fault him at all for his understanding of his particular calling. But his "lifeboat theology," which claims that really the only thing that matters is evangelism -- pulling as many folks into lifeboats as you can -- has been both a blessing and a great curse for contemporary evangelicalism. On the one hand, it has created an evangelistic urgency. And it is evangelical churches that are growing because of this passion. On the other hand, by narrowing the focus simply upon getting people to say the Sinner's Prayer, we have had almost nothing to say about whole slices of life.

Let me suggest an alterative theology: "Ark Theology." Noah's Ark not only saved people, it preserved God's other creatures as well. The covenant that God made with Noah and his descendents was not only with humanity, but we read in Genesis 9:10 these words:

and with every living creature that was with you -- the birds, the livestock and all the wild animals, all those that came out of the ark with you -- every living creature on earth.

The rainbow was not just a sign between God and people, but we read in Genesis 9:12, 15 and 17 these words:

And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come. (v. 12)

I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life. (v. 15)

So God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth." (v. 17)

The Ark Theology -- that God intends to restore all of creation, every realm, every creature, every part. Or as Abraham Kuypur, the great Dutch theologian and politician said nearly 100 years ago, "There is not a square inch of the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ who is sovereign over all, does not cry: 'Mine!'"

Lifeboat Theology: Jesus wants to be Lord of your life.

Ark Theology: Jesus is Lord over the universe.

Rich Nathan is the pastor of the Vineyard Church in Columbus, Ohio, which is the co-sponsor with Sojourners of next week's Justice Revival. Click here for more details.

Social justice is not a distraction from our commitment; it is part and parcel of the gospel of the kingdom. We read in Mark 1:15:

"The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!"

What is the message of the kingdom? Certainly the center of the message is the proclamation that through one's faith in Jesus Christ (the King), a person can be eternally saved. Thus my church regularly calls people to put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ in order to be born again and enter God's kingdom.

But that is not the circumference or totality of the message of the kingdom. The ultimate goal of the kingdom goes beyond the salvation of us as individuals (wonderful as that is) and involves the restoration and renovation of the entire universe. The message of the kingdom is a fulfillment of the prophet Isaiah's vision in Isaiah 65:17, 20-25:

"See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. ...

"Never again will there be infants who live but a few days, or older people who do not live out their years; those who die at a hundred will be thought mere youths; those who fail to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. No longer will they build houses and others live in them, or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people; my chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. They will not labor in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune; for they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them. Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear. The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, but dust will be the serpent's food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain," says the Lord.

This message was echoed by all the prophets. So the prophet Micah says this in 4:1-4:

In the last days the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as chief among the mountains; it will be raised above the hills, and peoples will stream to it. Many nations will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths." The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. He will judge between many peoples and will settle disputes for strong nations far and wide. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore. Everyone will sit under their own vine and under their own fig tree, and no one will make them afraid, for the Lord Almighty has spoken.

The apostle Paul speaks about the cosmic sweep of this message of the kingdom. He tells us that not only we, but the entire creation, will be freed from the curse of the fall (Romans 8:19-21). In Ephesians, the apostle Paul again enlarges the scope of the message beyond our individual salvation when he says in Ephesians 1:9-10:

[H]e made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment; to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ.

This enormous plan, involving the renovation and restoration of the entire universe, is what we pray for when we pray the Lord's Prayer, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

So when we Christians feed the hungry in the name of Jesus, or heal a sick person in the power of Christ, or work for peace in this war-torn world, or help reconcile a marriage, or extend help to immigrants, or work for the responsible care of the environment, these actions are not a distraction from our commission to preach the gospel of the kingdom. Rather, we are living out our calling as kingdom people to partner with God in bringing about the healing of the entire universe.

Rich Nathan is the pastor of the Vineyard Church in Columbus, Ohio, which is the co-sponsor with Sojourners of next week's Justice Revival. Click here for more details.

I've always wanted to be part of a church that seeks to be and to do everything the New Testament calls the church to be and to do. I've described this kind of church in the past as a holistic church, or a church that works on all eight cylinders. In other words, it is not enough if my church is known as a great worship center, or a great preaching church. The New Testament demands more.

New Testament scholar N.T. Wright gets us right to the heart of the matter when he says:

For generations the church has been polarized between those who see the main task being the saving of souls for heaven and the nurturing of those souls through the valley of this dark world, on the one hand, and on the other hand those who see the task of improving the lot of human beings and the world, rescuing the poor from their misery. The longer I've gone on as a New Testament scholar and wrestled with what the early Christians were originally talking about, the more it's borne in on me that distinction is one that we modern Westerners bring to the text rather than finding it in the text. Because the great emphasis in the New Testament is that the gospel is not how to escape the world; the gospel is that the crucified and risen Jesus is the Lord of the world. And that his death and Resurrection transformed the world, and that transformation can happen to you. You, in turn, can be part of the transforming work. That draws together what we traditionally call evangelism, bringing people to the point where they come to know God and Christ for themselves, with working for God's Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. That has always been at the heart of the Lord's Prayer, and how we've managed for years to say the Lord's Prayer without realizing that Jesus really meant it is very curious. Our Western culture since the 18th century has made a virtue of separating our religion from real life, or faith from politics. When I lecture about this, people will pop up and say, "Surely Jesus said my kingdom is not of this world." And the answer is no, what Jesus said in John 18 is, "My kingdom is not from this world." That's ek tou kosmoutoutou. It is quite clear in the text that Jesus' kingdom doesn't start with this world. It isn't a worldly kingdom, but it is for this world. It is from somewhere else, but it is for this world.

Social justice is simply a commitment on the part of Christians to improve the lot of human beings in this world, particularly the lot of the most marginalized to whom God shows particular concern. The God of the Bible is both a God of justification (declaring us right with God) and justice (putting the world to rights).

Social justice was the historic practice of the evangelical church before the 20th century. It would have been unthinkable for leaders like John Wesley or William Wilberforce to consider someone to be a good follower of Jesus Christ who was not actively involved in improving the social conditions of people in this world.

Doing justice is one of the major themes throughout scripture. God hates religion without an accompanying commitment to social justice:

I hate, I despise your religious festivals; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! ( Amos 5:21-24)

I have several hopes for my church regarding social justice. I hope that we become a church that breaks out of the boxes that church tradition tries to impose upon the evangelical church -- namely, that evangelical churches are not supposed to be involved with improving the social conditions of people in this world. My hope is that members of Vineyard Columbus would seek to walk in the shoes of those whose perspectives are shaped by poverty, racial oppression, and personal suffering. My hope is that the tilt of the hearts of Vineyard Columbus members would be toward the poor (and not just the rich), toward the sick (and not just the well), and toward peacemaking. I have a hope that Vineyard Columbus would not exist for itself, but for Christ and for the world.

Rich Nathan is the pastor of the Vineyard Church in Columbus, Ohio, which is the co-sponsor with Sojourners of next week's Justice Revival. Click here for more details.

Yesterday NPR ran a story about the on going Senate investigation of the so-called Grassley Six; Crefflo and Taffi Dollar, Paula and Randy White, Eddie Long, Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland and Joyce Meyer – prosperity gospel preachers whose 501(c)(3) status is being questioned in light of the Bentleys and Leer jets being purchased with "non-profit" funds from their respective churches.

As a Lutheran, I fully reject the gospel of prosperity, primarily on the grounds that I'm pretty sure it makes Jesus throw up in his mouth a little bit every time he thinks of it.

The NRP story opens with an audio clip of a Kenneth Copeland sermon, "This is the word become flesh, the word become health and healing, the word become massive wealth." How one goes form the word become flesh - God entering fully into the muck of our existence in the scandal of an illegitimate child born in the filth of a barn, the Almighty slipping into skin in the most vulnerable and beautiful way possible - to word become massive wealth is beyond me. Unless one ignores the entirety of all four gospels, except a poor reading of John 10:10, "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly." (NRSV) In a Joel Osteen sermon I've recently written about, he actually quotes that verse thusly: "Jesus came so that you can have an abundant life" - he equates life with financial prosperity. None of us truly know the mind of Christ, but my best guess is that he'd have something to say about this. We are left with precious little teachings from Jesus on many, many topics - wealth is not one of them. When Jesus spoke of wealth it was cautionary at best, and at worst, it was nearly condemning.

This is where things get uncomfortable. As I write snarky commentary about prosperity gospel preachers and how their lavish lifestyles are paid for primarily through the Social Security checks of the disempowered, I do so from the comfort of my 1948 brick ranch. My husband and I are a clergy couple, so everything we have is paid for by the tithes of others; our two cars (old but paid for), my expensive jeans, his garage full of back country gear, the $3 a dozen organic eggs in the fridge. All of it. I too live a lavish lifestyle funded by giving of the faithful and this realization is discomforting. It is undoubtedly the plank in my own eye.

Nadia Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran vicar living in Denver, Colorado where she is developing a new emerging church, House for all Sinners and Saints.  She blogs at www.sarcasticlutheran.com and has a book for Seabury Press coming out this Fall; a theological and cultural commentary based on having watched 24 consecutive hours of Trinity Broadcasting Network and survived.

When I interviewed Phyllis Tickle for Rising from the Ashes: Rethinking Church, she reflected on the seismic changes she sees occurring in contemporary Christianity. "Evangelicalism has lost much of its credibility and much of its spiritual energy as of late, in much the same way that mainline Protestantism has." Lest anyone find this news so depressing they want to run for cover, Phyllis offers some much needed historical and hopeful perspective. "About every 500 years, the church feels compelled to have a giant rummage sale." During the last such upheaval, the Great Reformation of 500 years ago, Protestantism took over hegemony. But Roman Catholicism did not die. It just had to drop back and reconfigure. Each time a rummage sale has happened, in other words, whatever held pride of place simply gets broken apart into smaller pieces, and then it picks itself up and to use Diana Butler Bass's term, "re-tradition.

As I ride along the religious superhighway, I find I need some new tools to help me navigate this process. For starters, Andrew Jones' blog provides excellent ongoing reflections of the changing Christian landscape from a global perspective, as Proost UK offers worship resources that help refuel me and recharge my batteries. Recently, I caught wind of Tickle's radical yet totally orthodox retelling of the gospel. In The Words of Jesus: A Gospel of the Sayings of Our Lord with Reflections Tickle categorizes the sayings of Jesus into five categories: Public Teachings, Private Instructions, Healing Dialogues, Intimate Conversations, and the Post-Resurrection Encounters.

"Psychologists have demonstrated many times over that what we say is tailored to and informed by the audience to whom we say it. In a sense, in other words, while each of us may be an integer, we have various configurations or arrangements of our "self" that we modify, exchange, and employ according to our perception of those whom we are at any given moment engaging. Jesus of Nazareth, being fully human, followed that same pattern, though once again I had never perceived or even entertained such a possibility until I began listening to Him shift emphases, adapt rhetoric, and fashion varying modes of analogy to fit those with whom He was speaking."

Thanks to Lacey's latest and, unfortunately, last book, The Liberator (a revolutionary retelling of the New Testament), the Inspired by the Bible Experience: New Testament audio CD (nothing says "Oh my God" like Samuel L. Jackson channeling the voice of the Almighty), and Tickle's commentary, I've been immersed in scripture from some rather unique vantage points. Over the past year, instead of trying to memorize scripture and verse, I'm allowing these sweet holy words to fall on my ears and into my mouth. It's like I'm falling in love all over again with this radical love-making, rule-breaking, life-taking Christ.

Becky Garrison is senior contributing writer for The Wittenburg Door. Portions of this posting are excerpted from The New Atheists Crusaders and Their Unholy Grail.  Reprinted with permission from Thomas Nelson, Inc.

On a Sunday when Americans flooded houses of worship seeking words of comfort, hope, and healing, Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago dared to forgo the singing of "God Bless America." Instead, Senator Barack Obama's pastor claimed the prophetic biblical message of the hour ought to call us to proclaim, "God Damn America."

The words remain jarring and infuriating. Wright's comments seem at best incomplete and untimely. At worst, they imply that God is vindictive, vengeful, and bloodthirsty, even during a time of tragedy--that the judgment of God is appropriately meted out through the tragic deaths of innocent people through terrorist acts of hatred and evil.

On Sept. 15, 2001, Rev. Wright was wrong. His words failed to connect with the pastoral needs of a nation in mourning.

Throughout his career, however, Rev. Wright has been "right" more often than not. He has followed in the traditions of Hebrew Testament prophets, challenging his nation to live up to its own creeds of justice and opportunity for all - including African Americans, other minorities, and the poor.

Wright is in good company. When his provocative language is read alongside the vitriolic words of many Hebrew Testament prophets, Wright's words ring true. The prophets connected their nation's injustice and neglect of the poor with the destruction of Israel, often using vitriolic language. The prophet Amos once described the wealthy women of Samaria as "fat cows." Isaiah referred to once faithful Israel as a prostitute.

Not only are most of Rev. Wright's words biblically correct; they are also historically accurate. The U.S. has participated in many acts of evil. From slavery to Jim Crow segregation, from sexism to the internment of Japanese during World War II, from environmental disasters to the neglect of the poor, America has a record on par with that of Hebrew Testament Israel.

When it comes to foreign policy, the U.S. did financially invest in South Africa during the days of apartheid, used the CIA to enact coups against democratically elected leaders in Iran and Guatemala in the 1950s, and remains the only nation to use nuclear weapons. Perhaps these domestic and foreign policy actions prove that Rev. Wright was right.

But this is only a part of the picture. While the U.S. is far from perfect, the nation has made significant progress regarding rights for minorities and women. The U.S. has often been a force for good in the world, from helping to rebuild Japan and Western Europe after World War II to the vast amounts of private and government funds offered to deal with global crises like the HIV-AIDS and malaria crises in Africa. Rev. Wright was not entirely right.

On March 18, Barack Obama used his speech about race to appropriately distance himself from the most vitriolic of his pastor's rhetoric. He has also removed Rev. Wright from a position on his campaign's spiritual advisory committee.

In the Hebrew Testament, prophets were as a rule not insiders in the royal palace. Jeremiah's words of prophetic judgment became so disruptive to the King threw the prophet into jail. Just over 40 years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr. gave up his access to President Lyndon Baines Johnson to prophetically speak out against the war in Vietnam. Put simply, prophets and presidents don't mix.

Thankfully, Senator Obama was careful not to condemn the entire prophetic ministry of Rev. Wright. Our nation desperately needs the prophetic voice he has embodied over decades of public ministry. And no matter who our next president is, he or she would be well served to consider the words of Rev. Wright, for he has been more right than wrong.

Troy Jackson is senior pastor of University Christian Church in Cincinnati, a graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, and earned his Ph.D. in United States history from the University of Kentucky. His book Becoming King: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Making of a National Leader (The University Press of Kentucky, 2008) will be available in the fall. Troy is a participant in Sojourners' "Windchangers" grassroots organizing pilot project in Ohio to work on the Vote Out Poverty Campaign.

When I got an invite to attend a screening of the documentary, Purple State of Mind, I went in expecting to see a blue state v. red state dialogue/debate with some quest to find political common ground.

Wrong.

Instead, I was treated to an honest and humorous dialogue between Craig Detweiler and John Marks, two former college roommates. The year 1984 wasn't only the name of a famous Orwellian book, but this year also signified Craig's first year in the faith, John's last. After this fateful year, the two men went on their separate faith paths. The film picks upon their conversation some 25 years later.

At first I struggled with the depiction of Christianity portrayed by these dudes. As a budding writer, I was far too geeky to be an Uber-high-school-athlete-turned-Christian-missionary like Craig. Nor did I have that Barbie-beautiful-Christian lifestyle that John eventually left behind. Simply put, my dogs ate my Barbies. My childhood was more Felliniesque than fairytale. Even though I was a pre-natal Episcopalian (my late father was a priest so do the ecclesiology and the science and it sort of makes sense), my relationship with the institutional church remains akin to an outsider lurking around the crevices. Except for a brief period in my mid-twenties when I experimented with a variety of religious experiences - including an adult Campus Crusade for Christ bible study, Cursillo, and the Young Republicans - my spiritual life has been anything but certain.

But as the documentary progressed, I began to see how these men's stories paralleled many of my own struggles. I too often wondered where God was in the midst of global conflicts and my own personal pain. Also, I've encountered more than my fair share of faith fakers. So I understand why someone would just give up on the God game. But I have encountered enough spiritual buds in my life that convince me to keep walking forward on this admittedly crooked spiritual path.

While neither Craig nor John compromise their beliefs, these former college buddies are able to maintain a conversation of the heart. Despite their glaring differences on matters of faith, their friendship enables them to move beyond the white noise of the Dawkins vs. Dobson extremists debates and explore where they have common ground in their shared humanity.

Unfortunately, such genuine dialogues are few and far between. Martin Marty, a church historian at the University of Chicago Divinity School, offers some sage counsel as he explores why we're in such an ideological quagmire these days:

"Fundamentalism is an expected reaction to the anomie that comes with social disorganization. When the social institutions become shaky, and uncertainty about the future becomes widespread, people look to religion to provide absolutes and a sense of security in the midst of their changing world."

Looks like both New Atheists and their Christian counterparts are grabbing onto their belief systems like Linus Van Pelt hanging onto his security blanket for dear life. With all that's going on in the world, I get the need to hold onto something safe. But who ever said the Christian journey was safe and comfy? Ever since the late, great Mike Yaconelli edited my first article, "Beavis and Butthead Are Saved," and got me started on this whole weird world of serving God through my writing, "safe" is never a word I've used to describe my faith journey. Scary, sweet, strange, sacrilegious, spiritual - yes. But safe? No way, no how. Never.

Becky Garrison is Senior Contributing Writer for The Wittenburg Door. Portions of this posting are excerpted from The New Atheists Crusaders and Their Unholy Grail, reprinted with permission from Thomas Nelson, Inc.

While working on my upcoming book for Seabury Press - Salvation on the Small Screen? 24 Hours of Christian Television, a theological and cultural commentary based on my experience watching 24 consecutive hours of the Trinity Broadcasting Network - I faced the issue of sanctification, sin, and leadership in the church. TBN preacher Paula White said the following on her show: "Sanctification is a progressive process you go from glory to glory to glory." (And by "progressive," I don't think she means Jim Wallis.)

I have no idea what she means when she says we go "from glory to glory to glory." I think I need an English-to-evangelical parallel dictionary, but I do know how I feel about progressive sanctification -- namely that it's hooey. And here's why: I believe we are all (watch me get all fancy on the Latin here) simul iustus et peccator – simultaneously saint and sinner. (As a matter of fact, I have this tattooed in Latin around my right wrist because I'm just that much of a theological fancy-pants.) While perhaps not perfect, this doctrine is one of the most useful things about my Lutheran theological camp. We hold that we are all 100% sinner and 100% saint. "But wait, Nadia," you say, "that's 200% percent." Well, yes and no; you see, the two are simultaneous. There is no process of sanctification, good works, prayer, yoga, recycling, Bible study, or holy living that makes us even 99% sinner and 101% saint, much less like 10/190.

The really liberating thing about this is that when we all come to the table fully aware that we are sinners, that we are broken on some level and never perfect, then the temptation to pretend otherwise is greatly diminished. To embrace your sinfulness and saintliness is not the same as being intentionally immoral. It is to be realistic that no one can possibly be 100% honest all the time, to always think of the neighbor before the self, to always honor God in everything you do, to at all times decrease in self so that others may increase. Even if our actions come close to this (they never do but if they did), we still are stuck with the reality of our minds and the thoughts of our hearts. You see, the spiritual poison of our own righteousness, of saying here are the rules we must follow to please God and to be sanctified, and I follow those rules so I have good reason to be prideful about my sanctification because I earned it is problematic. The moment we try and maintain our holiness, the moment we try to appear to be without sin, that junk just comes out sideways.

These televangelists and mega church personalities fall hard when they fall. When I fall, which is pretty much every day (including this moment as I write unkind things about these folks), I don't fall too far. Is this because of some sort of reverse righteousness? That could be a fair critique. I just know that as a Christian leader people are drawn to me not because I'm some sort of spiritually arrived person, but because I'm a pretty transparent one. Don't get me wrong: there are some icky parts I keep to myself, but for the most part I don't make too much of an effort to appear a whole lot better that I am. There's not a sin pressure valve that's building up ready to blow into a national crack-smoking, sex-for-money scandal. (Note to self: Avoid national crack-smoking, sex-for-money scandals.)

Nadia Bolz-Weber is a Lutheran vicar living in Denver, Colorado, where she is developing a new emerging church, House for all Sinners and Saints. She blogs at www.sarcasticlutheran.com.