As Stephen Mattson wrote in a post for Sojourners’ God’s Politics blog, reveling in #SochiProblems really feels like “Hey, let’s laugh about how other people actually live.”
Or — more accurately — how many (probably most) people in the would be lucky and grateful to live.
Faith
3-03-2014
The quote is from an article that appeared on the Sojourners website yesterday. I thought it deserved to be highlighted, and so I made it into a meme image.
3-03-2014
"Offering your child to God is a way of offering yourself to God again, and it felt that way to me. For the religious and not, there is a powerful spirituality in the birth of a child. Already, we're learning a little about the unconditional love of God for us in the way we feel about our own child. Through one of the most universal human experiences, parent after parent is taught the lessons of love and life. And all is grace." - Jim Wallis, following the birth of his son, Luke
3-03-2014
5. The social justice movement and poverty
The social justice movement is gaining popularity among young Christians today. In his most recent encyclical, Pope Francis critiqued the free market and attacked income inequality. Jim Wallis of Sojourners once argued for an increased minimum wage because he says “God hates inequality.” How should Christian libertarians respond to the social justice movement and the left’s concerns about poverty and economic justice?
3-03-2014
Jim Wallis, president and founder of Sojourners, and best-selling author of books such as “God’s Politics.”
Stephan Bauman, president and CEO of World Relief, an international organization with 4,000 staffers and 40,000 volunteers.
2-28-2014
Osborn is an adjunct professor in the Department of International Relations at the University of Southern California. His articles have appeared in a variety of popular as well as scholarly publications including Commonweal, First Things, Sojourners, Review of International Studies, and Politics and Religion. Osborn’s writing has been shaped in important ways by his experiences growing up in Thailand, Taiwan, and Zimbabwe to missionary parents. His first book, Anarchy and Apocalypse: Essays on Faith, Violence, and Theodicy (2010), defends a distinctive form of nonviolent nonconformity with power or Christian anarchism.
2-28-2014
I’m not sure whether this set-up as the anti-Francis was deliberate, but to me the contrast was striking indeed. Over at Sojourners, the Rev. Greg Coates also noticed “The Anti(Gospel) of Francis Underwood”: “I was left in awe at the show’s brutal honesty of what a life purely committed to power potentially looks like.” In the end, Coats says, the show poses a crucial question to us viewers: “Will you follow the way of violent power or will you follow the way of self-sacrificial love? Will you trample over others or will you empty yourself, taking the very nature of a servant? In short, will you choose the way of Francis Underwood or the way of Jesus Christ?”
Given Pope Francis’ theme of mercy and the anti-Francis’ theme of “ruthless pragmatism,” I don’t think it would be too much of a stretch to rephrase that last sentence: “Will you choose the way of Francis Underwood or the way or Pope Francis?”
2-28-2014
Lisa Sharon Harper, Sojourners’ director of mobilizing, was the founding executive director of New York Faith & Justice—an organization at the hub of a new ecumenical movement to end poverty in New York City. In that capacity, she helped establish Faith Leaders for Environmental Justice, a citywide collaborative effort of faith leaders committed to leveraging the power of their constituencies and their moral authority in partnership with communities bearing the weight of environmental injustice. She also organized faith leaders to speak out for immigration reform and organized the South Bronx Conversations for Change, a dialogue-to-change project between police and the community.
2-28-2014
This very helpful book grew out of a nine-month conversation among six politically diverse Christians at Respectful Conversation.net. The convener, Heie, summarizes it here, taking up in turn a series of contentious issues ranging from immigration, gun control, and abortion to a variety of foreign policy questions, noting where there is common ground and where there are sharp differences. The six participants—Amy E. Black, Paul Brink, David P. Gushee, Lisa Sharon Harper, Stephen V. Monsma, and Eric Teetsel—model the overarching commitment to "respectful conversation" even as they disagree.
2-28-2014
Speakers at the conference included Dr. Bernice King, a Baptist minister and CEO of The King Center; Rich Stearns, president of the non-profit humanitarian group World Vision U.S.; Jim Wallis, president and founder of Sojourners; Rev. Gabriel Salguero, president of National Latino Evangelical Coalition; and Lynne Hybels, founder of Willow Creek Community Church.
2-28-2014
“Not all liberal churches are MTD,” says a reader, who sent me this article from the leftie Christian site Sojourners, in which writer Stephen Mattson lists “7 Things Churches No Longer Do, But Should.” Excerpt:
2-28-2014
The Rev. John C. Wester, bishop of the Salt Lake City Diocese, signed on to the ecumenical appeal with other notable faith leaders, including Leith Anderson, president of the National Association of Evangelicals; Jim Wallis, president and founder of the Sojourners social-justice group; and leading Catholic churchmen from Brooklyn, Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta and Washington, D.C.
2-28-2014
I'm taking a course this semester on Spirituality and Leadership. The course has just started but we've already heard a wonderful variety of voices. This week, our readings include an article by Lisa Sharon Harper, the director of mobilizing for Sojourners. I heard her speak a few years ago at an Interfaith Immigration breakfast in Seattle and was deeply inspired by her commitment to a lived faith that does justice. I just finished reading her chapter, "Singing the Creator's Song in a Strange Land," in the book Learning to Lead: Lessons in Leadership for People of Faith. I am challenged and inspired by this quote, which I in turn share with you in the latest installment of Theology Quotes on the blog.
2-28-2014
Peace and Conflict Transformation (PACT) at Anderson University welcomes Lisa Sharon Harper to campus on Thursday, Feb. 27. Harper is an author, activist, educator, and senior director of mobilizing for Sojourners.
2-28-2014
My friend Jonathan Merritt and Kirsten Powers co-penned a piece on the Daily Beast titled, “Conservative Christians Selectively Apply Biblical Teachings in the Same-Sex Marriage Debate.” Their essay, written in opposition to the Arizona legislation allowing companies to refuse service to same-sex couples on religious grounds, is fair and even-handed. In fact, if anything, it’s too safe.
Christian Piatt 2-27-2014
Close-up of hands, Diego Cervo / Shutterstock.com
I get asked questions sometimes that I feel are useful for a larger audience to consider and discuss. One such question was submitted to me by a reader a while back, which echoes the sentiments within many other similar questions I’ve received. Here’s the essence at the heart of those questions.
What do I do if I’m not sure what I believe?
First of all, don’t freak out. Most of the book of Ecclesiastes in the Old Testament is about a priest suffering a crisis of faith. And though some argue it was more a fulfillment of prophecy (quoting a psalm) rather than a personal cry of distress, it’s hard not to feel Jesus’ own existential suffering when he cries out from the cross for a God who seems to be missing.
Justin Fung 2-25-2014
Disappointed young man, Katarzyna Wojtasik / Shutterstock.com
Editor's Note: This post was adapted from Sunday's message at The District Church in Washington, D.C.
Psychiatrist M. Scott Peck writes in his book The Road Less Traveled that one of the stages of growing up is “giving up the distorted images of one’s parents” — in other words, realizing that they’re not perfect. This also holds true for other leaders in our lives. We learn that our political leaders, our youth group leaders, our mentors, our teachers aren’t perfect. This isn’t always a bad thing, because sometimes we feel like our leaders let us down, but it’s actually because we had unrealistic expectations of them — such as being perfect, such as never making mistakes, such as not doing everything you want them to do.
(Pretty much nobody I know does everything I want them to do. That doesn’t make them failures; that makes me have to examine what kind of expectations I’m putting on them!)
So I’m not talking about that kind of let-down. I’m talking about those situations we’ve all experienced where we’ve been let down by some kind of failure on the leader’s part. Just this week, Pastor David Yonggi Cho, the founder of one of the largest churches in the world — 750,000 people, and he’d been pastor there for almost five decades — was found guilty of embezzling almost $12 million . I’m talking about that kind of let down. I’m talking about:
- a father who wasn’t present—physically or emotionally,
- a pastor who had an affair,
- a youth leader who ended up turning away from God.
Those are the ones that are most devastating, right? But it doesn’t even have to be that dramatic. It could be a small group leader who wasn’t present when you were going through something, a supervisor or boss at work who doesn’t listen or seem to care.
Kelli Woodford 2-21-2014
Shattered dancer image, markos86 / Shutterstock.com
For me, action had become a way to look good and gain respect — but it obscured the more important inner work. It anesthetized the throbbing nerves of my aching interiority. And I needed it because my insides were bleeding so bad and hurting so raw from so many years of neglect that if I allowed myself to get off the action pill, it might just all catch up with me. An addiction to avoidance sanctioned by the church. Radical ruptures, indeed.
What I have asked myself in the days since those passionate experiences have left deafness and dryness in their wake is about the hard work of the Kingdom that has nothing to do with revolutionary activism. What about the work that is only done in the privacy of the human heart? Where are the voices encouraging people that they indeed can hear God speak within them — and that that is the Voice for which they ought to be straining? In all my followings, I rarely encountered a Christian leader who dared to enact Augustine's famous words and turn the Truth loose, trusting that it will defend itself.
2-20-2014
CT has noted other Christian figures who have announced cancer diagnoses, including popular author Margaret Feinberg and Sojourners CEO Jim Wallis. Philosopher Dallas Willard revealed his diagnosis with stage 4 cancer in a tweet in May; he died just days later. Christian singer-songwriter Darlene Zschech recently revealed she has started chemo treatments for breast cancer as well.
2-20-2014
The main simulcast event will pair internationally acclaimed speakers, including Dr. Bernice King and Jim Wallis, with musical and other performing artists, including Josh Garrels, Micah Bournes and Jars of Clay.