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Social Justice, Compassion, Elimination of Torture, Reduction of Abortions

Billy Graham, a peerless communicator and the public face of evangelicalism for over sixty years, turns 90 today. Happy Birthday, Billy! Here are two entertaining videos that reveal his sincere and engaged interaction with those of other traditions…in this case, Woody Allen. 

Here is the first…

Here is the second…

My friend asked this in a previous post of mine. My answer? Well, Jesus didn’t live in a democracy, so that wasn’t a real option for him. I don’t think we can argue about voting in the abstract — is voting always a good thing or a bad thing? We need to ask what voting is doing in a particular context, whether voting is liberating or oppressing for those who live in that particular context. We will need to reason from the way of life Jesus lived in Palestine.

Jesus was about creating a community of the outcasts and marginalized and giving them a voice — transforming them from objects of God’s wrath to subjects in God’s kingdom. The ‘rule of Paul’ as some call it, was the idea that everyone got a voice when Christians got together. They didn’t know who the Holy Spirit might speak through, so, even those who were considered less important, had a voice at the gathering.

We need to ask, for a particular context and time, is voting a liberating or an oppressive activity? Was voting a Jesus-like activity in South Africa when blacks voted for the first time in 1994? I would say it was. Is voting a Jesus-like thing when a one-party government has 99% support? Probably not — voting would reinforce the illusion of support that those in power hold. 

So, the question must be asked — is this a time to vote, is it a liberating activity for those in our country or or not? Does this election offer a means by which those who have been shut out and lack a real role in the political process receive their voice?  I think for many in the country, voting in this election represents a turning of the tide. I believe we have, in this election, an opportunity to elect a person who represents voices that have rarely been heard, at this level, in the political process. Giving a voice to the voiceless is something Christians need to rally around. And back up with a vote. Today.

I created a slide (still rough) that merged the work of David Bosch, Andrew Walls, and Wilbert Shenk into a map of the local theologies in history. We often think of theology as revealing universals that will be true for all people in all cultures for all time, but in reality theology is more about answering local questions that reside in particular contexts at particular times. The church gets into problems when it asserts that one theology is to be imposed on all other churches or cultures, outside of the one local culture where and when that particular theology was created. Reflection about God and creation, through the Bible, and with the church, while immersed in the culture, needs to be done for every context and time…

Emerging Churches, the book I wrote with Eddie Gibbs in 2005, was just translated into Korean! Here is an English version of the Korean web page and, here is a blown up picture. How cool is that? I really love the cover.

In talking with young Korean leaders this summer, I found out there may be up to twenty emerging churches in Seoul, all younger than two years old. Very exciting stuff.

Saatchi and Saatchi are moving from green to blue. They feel that green is a focus on the environment while blue connects that environment to people. Green focuses on the huge problems, but neglects the resources that might provide the solutions, i.e. people (blue).  Green remains pretty abstract; but blue connects the environment to people, making those same issues concrete and real. Green makes you choose environment over people, but blue helps you say ‘yes’ to both. Blue builds on green but takes it in a new direction. Here are some of their first thoughts on changes:

As I read this, I thought about the Christian faith — do churches have a color? Is it our task to come up with another color, as Saatchi and Saatchi has done, or is our task to work with the colors already there, the greens, the blues, and make them brighter — or maybe darker in places? Or maybe we create some sort of hybrid color? Or rainbows?

What are your thoughts — does the church have a color?

I don’t consider myself a liberal, or a conservative, or even a middle of the road type of person. Although others may categorize me as white, evangelical, and male, I am first and foremost (I hope) a follower of Jesus. When I make big decisions, I try to root my decisions in how I understand Jesus to have lived. I don’t believe in the divisions that create some issues to be moral or personal or ethical or secular. I believe all of life is to be lived spiritually, and life is most fruitful if we look to Jesus in all things — not just ‘religious things’ . Basing my decisions on him may put me in different camps, depending on the time and context in which I live. In the past, I’ve voted Republican, I’ve voted Democrat, and I’ve not voted out of Christian convictions. I’ve considered these three options for this election as well. For the following reasons, I decided to vote for Obama on Tuesday:

1) The poor will be better off with Obama. I believe this to be the first question we must ask of a candidate. Jesus promised a jubilee to his followers. He created a community that shared generously with one another. For a Christian to support a candidate, that candidate must look to create a system that resembles this community of sharing. I don’t call it “socialism” — I call it gospel…

2) Blessed are the peacemakers — we must support people who strive for peace. And Jesus was not saying use the sword to achieve peace — it was ‘use the means of peace to achieve the ends of peace’ (why would he say ‘love your enemies in the same Sermon?). I believe Obama seeks to end the war. I’ve been concerned by the strong military talk by both candidates. However, I think Obama is taking a more direct route to peace. We must support the peacemakers to align ourselves with the Sermon on the Mount.

3) I believe Obama will begin to repair the damage done in our relationships with other countries. I believe he will look to bring reconciliation where there are divisions. In Christian baptism, the two peoples, Jews and Gentiles, become one. The body of Christ, made up of many members from many races, is to be one. It is at the heart of our faith that we overcome our divisions while celebrating our differences. For a candidate to receive the Christian vote, he or she must seek to do likewise. In the United States, I believe that Obama will be a force in healing the racial divide in our country. It is a huge task, and we might not get very far, but I think he will move us in the right direction.

4) I believe Obama will bring other voices to the table. Jesus spent time with the outcasts and sinners shut out from the main halls of power. I believe a candidate, to get the Christian vote, must create a space to hear other voices. I believe Obama himself is one of these other voices. In addition, we need to talk to those who hate us, and we need to know why. I believe Obama will do this in foreign policy — and I believe he will do it here in the US.

5) We are to be better stewards of creation. Right now, it appears we’ve damaged the way the earth is to function through driving our cars and consuming so much of our natural resources. We need to move in the direction of better stewardship of creation as we honor God’s gifts to us. I believe Obama has a better plan to move to alternative fuels and energy than does John McCain. I believe, after 9-11, we should have pushed for energy independence for many of our families through tax breaks for solar panels on houses.

For these five reasons, I’m casting my vote for Obama on Tuesday…

A while back, Andrew Jones noted the significance of the DailyKos. For the last week or so, I have compared the political/social/religious change strategy of Jesus, in his context, with dailykos founder Marcos Zuniga’s strategy in Taking on the System. My hope is to create a hybrid of the two — to see what Jesus-like social engagement might look like in 2008. In this 3rd installment of Jesus and Kos (part 1, part 2), I look at mobilization strategy.

Zuniga discusses the need to take charge and create a group of followers who exist outside the media and political establishment. He exhorts activists to raise up an army of volunteers who, although newbies at first, become experts as they participate in change. He encourages activists to go ahead without authorization — to not wait for the experts (the gatekeepers). These political change movements create alternative sources of information that come from the margins — the unauthorized. These bloggers do not possess the sanctioned qualifications to write or speak — they lack degrees or the right kind of experience. The expert gatekeepers get very upset about these boundaries breaking down, because the experts’ great influence depends on limiting those who are considered to be credible. Zuniga encourages activists to ignore them. Respect comes to those who create great content, not to those who have all the extra letters after their name. Finally, in this Chapter 2 — he writes that collaboration is key - networking with those who share similar passions.

Jesus created a movement outside the halls of power in Jerusalem. He was not a rabbi or official leader or any kind — he probably was a carpenter. He asked people to follow him, to join him in the movement. He did not wait to get approval; he created an alternative movement, unsanctioned by political/religious authorities. The gatekeepers became very frustrated by Jesus bypassing them — if people could be forgiven on the periphery, who needed the temple? To his hearers, Jesus taught as one with authority and not like the other religious leaders. It didn’t matter that he didn’t have the proper schooling — his message of the kingdom of God captivated his hearers. Like John the Baptists’ movement (a related network?), Jesus’ activities in Palestine engaged the populace and ignited a movement of political, religious, and social change.

How do we mashup these two mobilization strategies? Here goes: 21st century Jesus-followers must consider participating in a network of bloggers who exist outside the typical church, media, and political structures. These unauthorized writers, who have no seminary, media, or political credentials, create great content about God’s dream for people (the kingdom), both inside and outside the church. The message and the movement of these bloggers may frighten the gatekeepers, because gatekeepers form their identity around the idea that they,  and not these upstart bloggers, speak for God.

Although these new forms of community may not resemble anything like a congregation, is it possible we may be seeing a new form of religious structure emerging?

From Harvard Business this month, Vineet Nayar wrote that it is time to invert the management pyramid. In this article he cites how management was developed in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, establishing command and control structures within organizations. Over the last century, cultural change drove new ways to innovate in organizations, most frequently through collaboration and teamwork. However, organizations still kept the classic management structures, which worked against innovative processes.

In our churches, similar changes have occurred. We’ve inherited management structures that were introduced to our tradition fifty or more years ago. In our day-to-day lives together as a church community, we assume a command/control structure is the way to get things done. However, the culture has moved on — one person cannot, within their person, have all the tools to direct an organization in an informed and intelligent manner. Likewise, our churches falter when it is the pastor who is assumed to do most of the ministry and leading. It does not need to be this way. Within most church traditions, appeals can be made to move towards a collective priesthood, one where a variety of gifts might lead and inspire the community at different levels. The pastor must shift his/her role towards one that creates space for the people to take center stage.

Nayar asks the hard questions, ones we must pose to the churches: “Do we have the humility to step out of our egos and hand over the mike to our subordinates? Do we possess the courage to unstructure an existing, rigid regime that we have known to work in the past?” Do churches possess the humility and courage Nayar talks about? I think many of our churches do, and now is the time to change.

For more thoughts on this topic, check out this post over at Subversive Influence…