Live Generously

To both of you that regularly read my blog, I apologize for the lack of substantive posts recently. I’ve got a lot on my mind that I’d like to write about, but unfortunately this is a particularly busy school week for me, so blogging has taken a back seat for the time being. That being said, I did want to make a few brief comments about some different things that have caught my eye.

1) One of the books I’m reading for my political theology class this week is called, The Beloved Community: How Faith Shapes Social Justice, from the Civil Rights Movement to Today, by Charles Marsh, a religion professor at the University of Virginia. In it there is an amazing quote from a book called A Theology for the Social Gospel by Walter Rauschenbusch. Rauschenbusch writes:

“A Kingdom theology involves the redemption of social life from the cramping influence of religious bigotry, from the repression of self-assertion in the relation of upper and lower classes, and from forms of slavery which human beings are treated as mere means to serve the ends of others…the redemption of society from political autocracies and economic oligarchies; the substitution of redemptive for vindictive penology; the abolition of constraint through hunger as part of the industrial system; and the abolition of war as the supreme expression of hate and the completest cessation of freedom.”

Amen.

It’s always refreshing to hear voices (that are thankfully becoming more and more prevalent) that advocate a theology that includes but goes far beyond personal piety.

2) A document was released yesterday entitled An Evangelical Manifesto. The following is from the document’s website:

“An Evangelical Manifesto is an open declaration of who Evangelicals are and what they stand for. It has been drafted and published by a representative group of Evangelical leaders who do not claim to speak for all Evangelicals, but who invite all other Evangelicals to stand with them and help clarify what Evangelical means in light of “confusions within and the consternation without” the movement. As the Manifesto states, the signers are not out to attack or exclude anyone, but to rally and to call for reform.”

The document is signed by a remarkably diverse group of 80 well known evangelicals including Dallas Willard, Jim Wallis, John Ortberg, and Fuller’s president Richard Mouw, and is supposedly meant to be a bit of a self-critique. It is currently sitting on my desk, but I haven’t had a chance to read it yet (although I very much look forward to it).

The evangelical community is most definitely needs to do some soul searching, so hopefully this document will be a good start. I myself often hesitate to call myself an “Evangelical” simply because of the well-earned litany of negative connotations the word has. Right-wing evangelicalism, I fear, has alienated many young people who love Jesus but are frustrated at the disconnect between the teachings of Jesus and the public issues that tend to attract the most attention from the evangelical community. Sadly, in many cases, this leads to disengagement, rather than a creative and theological search for a more holistic, Jesus-centered spirituality. The shame that many young people feel even at what the word “Evangelical” or the word “Christian” connotes can be seen in something as simple as what Christians tend to put on the “Religious Views” field on their facebook profiles. Responses range from “I love Jesus” to “JESUS!” to “grace” to “disciple” to “the cross”, nothing listed. There is nothing wrong with that (I myself have the religious views field empty), but it does reflect, I believe, the sense of alienation that many young people feel.

The entire 17-page manifesto can be found my following the link above.

3) My wife has been studying the gospel of Luke on her own recently, and wrote a great post last night discussing some of the things that she has learned. I have enjoyed talking with her about some of her insights, and her post is well worth reading.

5) I’ve been thinking about pacifism lately. Partially because I’m reading The Politics of Jesus by noted pacifist theologian John Howard Yoder, partially because of some of the ideas from Augustine’s City of God that I just came across which expand the definition of peace far beyond the absence of armed conflict, and partially just because it seems like something Jesus is a fan of (though I’ve thought that last part for a long time). More on this later…

5) And finally…the Padres suck. They really, really suck.

The end

For the last several weeks the folks over at Sojourners have done a series of posts on their God’s Politics blog (which is nearly always well worth reading) in recognition of the five year anniversary of the Iraq war. I have perused a few of them, and have found them to be at least interesting and at most insightful. I particularly enjoyed the always snarky Shane Claiborne’s post about celebrating Good Friday by going through the stations of the cross on the base of weapons juggernaut Lockheed Martin. I would expect nothing less from him.

I also enjoyed a post written last week by N.T. Wright (whose book I am currently reading) entitled Easter’s Challenge to Empire. In it, Wright talks through, well, the challenge that the truth of Easter brings to the empires of the world. And while Wright, in this instance, applies this concept specifically to issues of war and peace, I believe it is vital that–especially in the Easter season–we who claim to follow Jesus remain connected to the reality that his death and resurrection ushered in an entirely new way of living and an entirely new way of understanding reality (and an entirely new way of writing run-on sentences with too many commas). The whole post is well worth reading, but here are a few notable excerpts:

“It is the task of the followers of Jesus to remind those called to authority that the God who made the world intends to put the world to rights at last, and to call those authorities to acts of justice and mercy which will anticipate, in the present time, the future, coming, final victory of God over all evil, all violence, all arrogant abuse of power.”

“Where then is God in the war on terror? Grieving and groaning within the pain and horror of his battered but still beautiful world. Stirring in the hearts of human beings the desire for a more credible structure of global justice and mercy. Burning into the imagination of human beings a hope that peace and reconciliation might eventually win out over suspicion and hatred, that the world may be put to rights and that we may anticipate that in the present time. The Christian gospel, revealing the mysterious God we discover in Jesus and the Spirit, offers a framework for discerning where God is at work in the midst of the dangers and opportunities that confront us. All of us in our different callings are summoned to this task; some of you, perhaps, to make it your life’s work. Jesus is Lord. The Spirit is powerful. God is doing a new thing. Let’s get out there and join in.”

Good stuff. Ok, now I need to review the assigned reading so that I don’t look like a moron in class tonight.

I remember sitting on the couch in the living room of my fraternity house watching the coverage on CNN. The ‘countdown’ to the beginning of the war in Iraq was on. The moments ticked away and eventually whatever deadline had been set in place passed (I’m a little foggy on the details) and CNN declared that the war in Iraq had begun. I remember shaking my head at the TV screen, drawing the ire of many of my friends who could not yet recognize this war for what it was.

It’s hard to believe that was five years ago.

In honor of the fifth anniversary of this global tragedy the folks over at Sojourners have produced what they are calling A Call to Lament and Repent. It’s worth reading and I encourage you all to sign it. Frankly, I’m at a loss for what else to say. While I deeply respect the men and women who have sacrificed so bravely for our country as a part of this war effort, I continue to hold in contempt those whose dishonestly and irresponsibility have made that sacrifice necessary. If anything, the fact that I have come to befriend those who this war has personally affected has only increased my disdain for it (didn’t realize that was possible).