I am quickly becoming a big fan of Relevant magazine. It is a refreshing change from the status quo of the Christian media culture, and publishes interesting articles about, as their cover advertises, God, life, and progressive culture. I appreciate the magazine’s ability to talk about matters of faith in a real way while remaining very much, well, culturally relevant. Their cover stories are always great, but this issue’s was particularly good.
The story was called 7 Burning Issues, and it featured questions related to injustice, war, consumerism, faith, culture, politics, and gay rights. You know, standard fare, nothing too difficult or controverisal ;-). To make it even better, the panel answering the questions included Brian McLaren, Shane Caliborne, N.T. Wright, and Jim Wallis, four of my favorite authors/thinkers/cool guys whose books you should all read. Their answers were all really fantastic…here are a few excerpts that really stuck out to me, with my comments in italics (hopefully this isn’t illegal!).
Wallis on social justice: “The message to Christians today is very clear. Any gospel that isnt good news to poor people simply isn’t the Gospel of Jesus Christ; any evangelism that doesn’t include social justice ignores the perfectly integrated life and message of Jesus.
The false dichotomy of evangelism and social justice simply has to be overcome if either are going to have any sort of significant impact. I’m reminding of a professor I had at Fuller last quarter who said that Christians must learn to “lead” with social justice, honesty, integrity, humility, and values of that sort, because if we simply “lead” with the four spiritual laws in a culture that doesn’t really much care we aren’t going to get anywhere. That also kinda sounds like something Hal said yesterday morning in church…good works lead to good will that leads to the hearing of the good news. There’s a lot of truth to that, and there is also a lot of truth to the idea that to be Christian is to be a person of good works.
McLaren on how we should respond to homosexuality: “When the issue of homosexuality comes up, people quickly say, “What about Romans 1? What about Leviticus? What about 1 Corinthians 6?” I want to say, “Well, what about 1 Corinthians 13? What about James 3?”
McLaren is right on here. Passages like 1 Corinthians 13 and James 3 must be our criterion for interpreting passages like Romans 1 and 1 Corinthians 6. Does that mean we ignore what Romans 1 and 1 Cor. 6 say? Certainly not. It does simply mean that we seek to show love first. Period.
Claiborne of interacting with culture: “part of what I think we have to do is not just figure out how we interact with the culture, but create a new culture where we bring one another to life and call each other to the best of who God wants us to be. So it’s not “How much secularism can I get away with?” but “How can I be set apart is a way that celebrates the distinctiveness of who we are as people in this world who are resident aliens?”
That point is absolutely huge. At the end of the day it’s really about us as Christians changing the questions we are asking. He is right to point out that many of us, myself included, are often seeking how much ’secularism’ or ‘worldliness’ we can ‘get away with’, which in my few reflects a major problem with our hearts. It’s as if our goal is to resemble the world most closely, rather than setting ourselves about from the world for the purpose of living as the people of God. I guess the question then becomes, are we willing to hold ourselves to the high standard that a new way of thinking would require of us?
And finally, N.T. Wright on money: “Money becomes a god very, very easily. So giving it away cheerfully and wisely is a step towards really saying money is not the ruling force in our lives.”
I’m currently listening to an amazing series of messages by Andy Stanley at North Point Church where he is talking all about the heart. One of the messages was on greed. He hammered home the point that prioritized, percentage giving is probably the most effective means of countering greed in our lives. He added weight and credibility to the point by adding that if people are skeptical of him then they can give somewhere else. He and Wright and correct is saying that the only way any of us can hope to get a handle on our greed is to make giving a priority.
So those are just a few small excerpts. I highly encourage you all to pick up this issue and read the full article. That’s all from me for now…I’m going on a mini technology fast now, so I won’t be back online until tomorrow afternoon.
