ok. so, the issue of rich christians in an age of hunger continues, and in fact becomes even more poignant today with the current economic crisis on wall street, and the movement toward bail-out.

what is the christian's response to this current greedfest and the prospective trashing of the future of all, all but the most wealthy?

first: repent.
i think those of us who claim allegiance to the christ must repent. certainly, unless we are a wall street tycoon, we are not the cause of the current problem facing the u.s. economy, but as followers of the jesus-way, our calling to be kingdom people compels us to a wise, compassionate use of our accumulated wealth. if this is not occurring in our families and in our churches, then we are not faithful followers of the christ, no matter what else we are.

second: untangle.
we must untangle ourselves from the seduction of possessions and this ongoing captivity to culture. somehow, we must get beyond the next fix of acquiring more stuff (surely by now we know that heaping more things to ourselves will not satisfy), thus making us more like the christ and less like a consumer.

third: grow gratitude.
finally, we must somehow grow are heart of gratitude. that is, we must become thankful for what we have & we must learn how to be satisfied with what we have.

some links for follow-up:
Religion & Ethics Newsweekly
Evangelicals For Social Action
The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life

Tags: poverty

ronald sider has written other books besides rich christian in an age of hunger, the most important of which is churches that make a difference: reaching your community with good news and good works.

in this work sider talks about the holistic church, writing:

the holistic church integrates discipleship, evangelism and social action...

the holistic church works toward spiritual and social transformation

the holistic church supports a spectrum of social action that includes charity, compassion, community development, public policy, and justice advocacy, addressing both individual and systemic sources of human problems

in the holistic church ministry is seen as fundamentally relational, seeking to develop long-term relationships with ministry recipients and welcoming them into the church fellowship

in the holistic church mission is viewed as both local and global in scope. (page 16)


i think a strong argument could be made that, with the death of christendom (institutional demise), the subsequent loss of cultural position (marginalization) and failure of our cultural props (plausibility structure), the church in the west has lost its foundation and mission.

but here, in sider's holistic church, we find it all again. if we could somehow learn that the gospel is not about us, that the ministry of the gospel sends us into the streets, to the poor, to the left-out, locked-out and knocked-out, if we could get beyond our market capitalism and political aspirations, maybe we could still earn a hearing from our people.

but this takes work. it takes sacrifice. we can't build the multi-million dollar edifice to our empire. no, the phallic symbols of our potency -- buildings, crowds, tv time -- must be offered on the altar to the desperately needy.

Tags: poverty

ok. so, let's continue thinking-through some of the ideas found in bonhoeffer's letters and papers from prison (LPFP), by quoting a seminal passage from a letter he wrote to his friend eberhard bethge on 16, july, 1944.

[i know it may be a temptation to skip this extended quote; please don't do so.]

"and we cannot be honest unless we recognize that we have to live in a world etsi deus non daretur [as if there is not god]. and this is just what we do recognize -- before god! god himself compels us to recognize it. so our coming of age leads us to a true recognition of the situation before god. god would have us know that we must live as men who manage our lives without him. the god who is with us is the god who forsakes us (mark 15:34). the god who lets us live in the world without a working hypothesis of god, is the god before whom we stand continually. before god and with god we live without god. god lets himself be pushed out of the world on to a cross. he is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which he is with us and helps us. Matt. 8:17 makes it quite clear thatchrist helps us, not by virtue of omnipotence, but by virtue of his weakness and suffering ." (LPFP, page 360-361)

there is much here. the language is dense and thick, and bonhoeffer's shortened life only gives us a weak and irregular pulse on his full thought.

having said that, let's unpack some ideas that flow from this paragraph:

* people in the world come of age get along quite well without the god-hypothesis...

* the god-hypothesis basically means that god is in control of the world, that god is the answer in morals, politics, or science. bonhoeffer thinks this must be discarded by
christians because it already has been discarded in the world come of age...

* since people have chosen to push the god-hypothesis out of the world, and god has allowed this to occur, people must now take full responsibility for the world. thecavalry is
not on the way...

* christians must now see that the way to god is the way of the cross -- the way of weakness and humility...

more on these ideas to come...

Tags: bonhoeffer

made at wordle


in today's rapid and radical movement of culture away from all things institutional, which includes christendom as it is expressed in the institutional church, the call is clear for us to find a new missional movement within the community of the faithful -- a new way to follow the christ. (and by "us" i mean those not on the cutting edge, but rather those locked in the remnants of christendom, sometimes called the marginalized)

the rub here is that we are either paralyzed with fear because christendom was our plausibility structure and now we are left adrift cognitively (and sociologically), or we understand the it's a new day but we grieve so deeply for christendom (read nostalgia) that we are paralyzed by confusion over the next step.

there are no easy answers here, believe me. perhaps the best we can do is to move beyond fear toward some sort of faith. (da? ya think?)

now what would this faith look like?

= it would look beyond the past

= it would be willing to put everything on the table, including both doctrine & practice

= it would be willing to act courageously, even at the risk of going out of business (this is happening anyway, so what is there to loose?)

= it would mean we would have to become part of the community that we desire to reach and not a shrinking island of benign neglect

Tags: missional

ok. so i am one who believes in grace, god's grace, i mean. i believe and teach that god is open to any and all.

i didn't always believe this way. sadly, i once lived the life of a calvinist, but i found i wasn't a very good one.

i could almost get the hang of this election to salvation idea, but i struggled with the election to damnation; i struggled with the smugness i felt in my surety that i was part of the elect; i struggled with my willingness to let entire populations of people be damed; i struggled with the idea that jesus didn't die for everyone; i struggled with the fact that one woman i knew whose entire family was burned in a fire, and who became a raving crack addict because of it, would not be included because her life was hell now, and because she didn't quite measure up to god, and therefore the cross was not for her; i struggled because i felt left out of god's plan -- after all -- he really didn't need me, everything like prayer and proclaiming the good news was already settled; most of all i struggled with the idea that god is the author of everything, every thought, ever event, including monstrous human evil like auschwitz.

[i'm well aware that the calvinist has answers for all of the above, but as i say, i've seen their wares up close, and i'm not buying ]

GIFT
anyway, the upshot of this is that i left the calvinist camp, and decided to quit camping altogether. i decided that i would try to learn how to love others and just leave it at that. i decided that i would try, as best i could, to make sense of the good news, both to myself and others, and let god do the body count.

so, i've been at the jesus-way since 1962, and i must confess that i fail at this task of loving others most of the time; i'm not a very good pastor or christian. i want to be, and i'm diligent at my attempts, but as i say, most of the time it's just a no go.

this probably means that i left calvinism because of anyone i knew, i needed god's grace most of all, but i wasn't sure i was elected!

DEMAND
and yet, in the midst of this idea of the gift of grace for all, there is also the demand of the gospel -- that of following the ways of the christ. and this weighs heavy, and is quite dense.

said another way, with the gift of grace also comes the demand of discipleship. "broad is the way that leads to destruction," saidjesus, "and many are on that road." he also said: "narrow is the way to life, and few there be that find it."

to me this is a mighty & powerful contradiction.

i think this means if you were to have walked up to st. paul and asked (using old time lingo), "paul, are you saved?" paul would have answered, "yes." but if you were to ask that same question to the writer of the hebrews, or st. james' letter, they would say, "i dunno, i'm not there yet."

Tags: grace