April 2005 Archives

This from Mike James is, well, mind boggling, concerning the lunacy of the Bush Budget (what they call a budget- and still, no accounting for Iraq n it. How irresponsible is that? And how does the public let them get away with it?)

Maikimo.net › Weblog › A bazillion here and a bazillion there …
I like Mike's conlcuding remarks:

Let’s see now … We’re fed nearly endless assertions that

* Fiscal irresponsibility is fiscal responsibility
* Big government is small government
* Division is unity
* Hatred is compassion
* War is peace
* Lies are truth
* Deception is revelation

Nuts: the new sane?

Nope. Nuts is nuts.

* Ends justify means

Over on this blog by Van I have taken to defending JIm Wallis again, against some more broad, and inaccurate perceptions of him.

Van has at least a couple Hauerwas books on his list, and so I don't believe he could really approve of the post that accused Wallis of "politicking" over and in spite of the "biblical mandate of Christian love and service with public policy.". I don't see the neccessary exclusion of those two.

Complete with spell checking

All Consuming

The web is a big place and sometimes people in one corner may not know what the people in the other corner are doing. Let all your friends know what you're up to over here by putting something like this on your site over there: (Omitted here) You can change those two red things at the end of the URL if you want to customize your javascript include. Instead of putting all, you can put in one or more of your tags, and it'll only display items that match those tags. To include more than one tag, just put commas between them, like this: godel,brains,petunias. The 3 at the end can be changed to show more or fewer items on the page at once.

I did the above to create a "dlature is consuming xyz sidebar (see my previous post).

The other thing, about using tags, is also cool. I could put one of those lists on different category pages, and show books I'm consuming (or movies, albums, etc.) related to those categories. Maybe I'll expnad my categories. This is a cool thing. If only more book blogging going on was somehow captured. Maybe incorporating some technorati stuff for the book links? (Still, I could have sworn that allconsuming used to do this. Did something on the net change that made this too much of a chore? )

I had learned of All Consuming over a year ago, and recently, I revisited it, and made a list of what I am "consuming". It appears as a syndication in the lower right column of my blog home page (which is what this page is if you are reading it by visiting my main URL).

This seems like a good candidate to build on the "stacks" and "gardens" thing that has kind of turned into a thing amongst some bloggers. They have some other intriguing features, like RSS feeds for subscribing to the lists of others, or publishing your list as RSS. I haven't found it yet, but I would like to see a feed done for the list of people who are "consuming" a book, and also a category for "Finished consuming" or "Completed", kind of like a Que, where DONE books get into a different list , and "in process" books stay in the "consuming" category. Something else I'd like to see (and I could have sworn it used to do this: aggregating all the Amazon links to the various books, or even to the ISBN numbers ---so as to include links to other bookstores to which books in blog mentions are being linked.)

I would also like to find a javascript function that returns an error message if a particular javascript syndication is taking too long to load (like the site is down or slow, which then slows the loading of my page. I've run into theis issue at work, too, so I'd like to know if any of you know how I might go about this.

Anyway, check it out, see the below link to the Politics of Jesus page on allconsuming.net

The Politics of Jesus on All Consuming

I just saw this on edgehill.org (website of Edgehill United Methodist Church in Nashville)

God's Politics

Edgehill United Methodist Church Presents: God's Politics, an evening with Jim Wallis and special guests Jars Of Clay, Buddy Miller and Ashley Cleveland

Tuesday, May 24th 7:00 PM, Belcourt Theater-Nashville, TN
Tickets $10 (available at Edgehill UMC: 615-254-7628)

Best-selling author Jim Wallis is a Christian leader for social change. He is a speaker, author, activist, and international commentator on ethics and public life. His latest book, God's Politics, offers a clarion call to make both our religious communities and our government more accountable to key values of the prophetic religious tradition - that is, make them pro-justice, pro-peace, pro-environment, pro-equality, pro-consistent ethic of life (beyond single issue voting), and pro-family (without making scapegoats of single mothers or gays and lesbians). These are the values of love and justice, reconciliation, and community that Jesus taught and that are at the core of what many of us believe, Christian or not.

On this special night Jim is joined by three of Nashville's most acclaimed and respected artists for a combination of music, speaking and lively Q&A time. Grammy (R) Award winners Jars Of Clay and Ashley Cleveland return to Nashville after a month on the road together, each in support of new projects that reclaim and rework classic and ancient Christian hymns and spirituals for a new generation of progressive music listeners (Jars Of Clay: Redemption Songs; Ashley Cleveland: Men & Angels Say). Grammy nominated Buddy Miller is one of the finest guitarists and songwriters working today. Emmylou Harris, in whose band Buddy served for 8 years, calls the 51-year old Ohio-born Nashville transplant “one of the best guitar players of all time.” Steve Earle, another former bandmate, pronounces him “the best country singer working today.” His latest CD is the acclaimed Universal United House of Prayer.

Jim Wallis was a founder of Sojourners - Christians for justice and peace - more than 30 years ago and continues to serve as the editor of Sojourners magazine, covering faith, politics and culture. In 1995, Wallis was instrumental in forming Call to Renewal, a national federation of churches, denominations, and faith-based organizations from across the theological and political spectrum working to overcome poverty.

Wallis speaks at more than 200 events a year and his columns appear in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, and other major newspapers. His most recent book is God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It (Harper Collins, 2005). He offers regular commentary and analysis for radio and television and teaches a course at Harvard University on "Faith, Politics, and Society."

The evening is presented by Edgehill United Methodist Church 1502 Edgehill Ave. Nashville, TN 37212 www.edgehill.org

I'm there , man

After the plug by Kaz, I rented and just watched the Corporation (in two sittings--- started it too late last night), tonight. Really excellent. LOts of video interview snippets from Howard Zinn, Noam Chomsky, Michael Moore, and lots of other top minds on how corporations shape so much of government policy, and sell themselves so that they have the people who suffer from their exploits supporting them in the process, so effective is their PR and media campaigning and "undercover reporting" (ie: pressuring of news agencies) and creation of "think tanks" that evangelize and distribute "news" for them.

Highly recommened by me as well.

The previous post I quoted and reacted to Jeremy's piece, specifically about the "disembodiment" part; and I wanted to add that yes, there certainly IS the danger, and it is somewhat inherent in the "geek world" as well, that we put too much stock in the online world to the exclusion of the face-to-face. It is a good thing when online activity (a lot of it, anyway) has begun to supplant TV watching. It is NOT a good thing when online activity drives us to prefer online to ftf; but I can also understand easily how that happens. I seem to be in that predicament right now, and really, it's been growing for the past 10 years. I think it has to do with how disconnected we've become in our "Church life", moving away from an emphasis on and a focus on the call to "Life Together" and substituting an easy fix, one-way, "good to see you, see you later" , kind of experience. It seems that online, even though it is "easier" and "more convenient" for people to have a chance to find one another through common concerns and interests (and thus less of a "sacrifice" than the time it would take to get around to the same kinds of revelations in face to face settings --- sometimes such chance conversations can take weeks , months, or years) , it nevertheless is one way for this opportunity to actually happen; so that we actually sense that we are being heard. I believe this is extremely important for the Church to learn. We MUST become a "Third Place" to which people gravitate. They "gravitate" becuase they are pulled there by the force of belonging; of the pull that "the opportunity to know and to be known" makes them desire to be there; to "go out of their way to be there" (or, it's not really "out of their way" because to be there IS their way).

It's been a long time since I felt that way about a Church. I know that it's possible, and it's out there, but right now, this online community is all I have, and a few isolated opportunities with people face to face; but they are not people with whom I am bound together by covenant.

So the online world, and in the past 2 years, the blogosphere, and in particular those of the Progressive Christian Blogger types (or for those who for whatever reason don't like that designation but feel akin to the concerns expressed) ---- these have been my motivation and encouragement to keep on looking, and watching, and listening. Maybe, like the ones who "meet their significant other" online, I might be hoooked up with a community where some of these accountabilities are expected; who know no other way to be church than to actually BE Church and truly watch wait , as at Pentecost, "all together in one place".

Then the online tools can help us fill some of that "in between time" when we wish we were still engaged in that conversation we found it so difficult to leave until next time; like some sleepless night at 3am when we can't call someone but are as pumped as if we had just had a shot of adrenaline, and want to talk , so we write, knowing that people will listen, soon, or later, and shoot back comments and encouragements. So there, the online stuff is less of a "disembodied" experience, because we are still carrying with us, and drawing from, the fellowship of the spirit that has already begun.

Jeremy Huggins, in the Blogging our Hearts Out article linked by Eric and Kaz (link below):

Gatheringsonline.org

blogging is both encouraging and facilitating discussion that the traditional church needs to enter into.

This is much the same kind of message I have been blogging about as well, especially in that first year (June 2002 - June 2003) when I was writing stuff about Cluetraikn and Churches (reference to The Cluretrain Manifesto), which emphasizes how "markets are conversations", and there's a lot to be said about how this describes something important in gthe Church's theology and its call: to be an enabler of conversation. This has led to mega-Church expereinces, and the smaller Churches trying to imitate that experience, and the relational emphasis becomes a "Me and Jesus" and out the exhaust goes the concept of The Body , except in some vague, "mass experience" kind of "connection". The "deeps" are not connecting to "deeps". We are not known, except as a body that helps fill the meeting place.

Now I will point out one place in Jeremy's talk where I would emphasize something differently:

“To be is to be related, and to be related is to be plugged in,” say the authors of Imagologies. While one could argue that the blog is merely an extension of the body, like a second mouth or an external memory card for one’s life, the fact remains that my blog, which is contingent on my having a power source and an internet connection, is no more a part of my body than is my computer itself, at this stage in technological development. [3]
---Saarinen, Esa, and Mark C. Taylor. Imagologies: Media Philosophy. Routledge, 1994.

I'd say that there is a LOT of difference in the self vs diembodied/blog self and the self vs computer box. The blog is much more a part of our identity than the computer is (even though there are certainly technological medium/message implications and effects going on between us and our computer and communications software we use). Disembodied, yes, but that depends upon the writer as well. Many bloggers remain constantly aware of the WHOLE person, who is at once a body, a mind, a participant in many forms of community, and a part of a public dialogue.

But yes, the blog IS more a part of ME than my computer, and thus, if one holds to the self as body-mind-community-ego, etc. related to the body in that relationship , at a level closer to that of the computer. It is closer becuase it , however accurately, is an extension of the self (and even an inaccurate extension of the self is still somethign with which we identify. By virtue of our WANTING to project a particular image of ourself, we have made it a part of ourself --- even given it is but a hope. But hopes are what I would identify as an important part of who we are, even though we often fail to live up to that.

Eric posted yesterday:
Eric's Tasty Morsels of Thought - The Matthews House Project, Blogging, and Online Debate

Dale recently read a book by David Dark called The Gospel According to America: A Meditation on a God-blessed, Christ-haunted Idea which Dale just got around to mentioning in his latest post about the Church's relationship to Scripture.

(italics mine)

Actually ...

(and Eric, I'm not mad at you, by the way. I don't assume that everybody who reads my blog sees all of my posts, day in and day out, even you, who read --probably more than most-- and comment)
but......... I did have a few other posts on Dark's book:

I just added links to this post on April 13 :
quoting myself:

The Gospel According to America I have written on a couple of times - here , here and here ---, and may return to it in future posts (I really liked it)

I guess one could say that I was won over the "Dark side" (huh-huh)

After all, it is good to re-emphasize this book. I still plan on returning to it. It is likely that some futurer event (maybe even the present debate over the "Justice Sunday" where Frist and Mohler and others are denouncing crticis as "critics of our faith". Dark would certainly have a lot to contribute to that argument, namely, the blurring of the line between one's "platform" and the faith.

I have also been reading in Eric's friend Kaz's blog (and I just rented The Corporation, planning on watching it today), and also am reading an article on Blogging from the Heart from The Matthew's House Project The latter article has plenty of fodder for my favorite subject, which I have lately made efforts to revive in my .....in my ....uh...place where the wheels turn (as in "he's really got his wheels turning")....IOW, stuff that really energizes me. It's one of those things I'm really a lot better at than defending political or theological positions (although the latter can be done in a good way ....emphasis and challenge upon the CAN). It's really what got me into the Web as a Web page producer and writer. It harkens back to my intiial Web days (see New Media Communications, my first Web site). Gotta go watch some baseball ---(my son's team). More later.

the Black Hat-White Hat , glaring , "obvious" evil vs "believers" who all listen intently to all the "harvesting" of the "end times verses" (actually, I never believed, even when I was a pre-millineal, pre-Trib, rapture-spouting Christian, that Jesus was born again as a Baby at the end times.)

THis is pretty much Omen meets Left Behind, with some of those "extras" added by some of the developments oveer the 30 years or so since The Omen was playing. The evil forces are "Satanist" with glaring eyes (they glow in the dark when you look at them at a certain angle--- like the "fashion model/demon ladies on the plane staring at Bill Pullman(Massey) as he talks to the nun." (Actually, there probably aren't that many actual nuns who swalow the whole end times scenario as put forth here. But it always seems to make heavy use of Catholic and Greek orthodox Churches with big, traditonal cathedrals, and both the demons and the girl in a trance are speaking Latin.)

Anyway, I now will probably watch the rest of it, although my curiosity has taken a different turn now. Now I'm waiting to see how else the story can be popularized and how the good vs evil plays out.

Wow!

Adobe to acquire Macromedia - Dreamweaver MX and UltraDev Zone - DMXzone.COM

We have found some very important news directly from the official Adobe website! Just read this:

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq: ADBE) has announced a definitive agreement to acquire Macromedia (Nasdaq: MACR) in an all-stock transaction valued at approximately $3.4 billion.

It's really getting to ridiculous levels of dogmatic shrill-ness.

SojoMail

Jim Wallis speaks to this in the latest sojomail:

James Dobson of Focus on the Family, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council, Prison Fellowship's Chuck Colson, and Southern Baptist leader Albert Mohler are hosting "Justice Sunday," a telecast this weekend from a mega-church in Louisville, Kentucky. Their message is that those who don't support President Bush's judicial nominees are hostile to "people of faith."

Despite the fact that many Democrats who oppose some of President Bush's nominees are themselves people of faith, Republicans and their religious supporters are questioning the faith and religious integrity of their opponents.

That is an escalation of the religious/political war. And the two together sound like assertions of a Republican theocracy.

...What I hear, from one end of this country to the other, is how tired we are of ideological religion and how hungry we are for prophetic faith.

From sojomail, their quote of the week is from newly poped Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI as of May 2, 2003.

Next Page - New Pope A Strong Critic of War

As a Cardinal, the new pope was a staunch critic of the U.S. led invasion of Iraq. On one occasion before the war, he was asked whether it would be just. "Certainly not," he said, and explained that the situation led him to conclude that "the damage would be greater than the values one hopes to save."

“All I can do is invite you to read the Catechism, and the conclusion seems obvious to me…” The conclusion is one he gave many times: "the concept of preventive war does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church."

Even after the war, Ratzinger did not cease criticism of U.S. violence and imperialism: "it was right to resist the war and its threats of destruction...It should never be the responsibility of just one nation to make decisions for the world."

Yet perhaps the most important insight of Ratzinger came during a press conference on May 2, 2003. After suggesting that perhaps it would be necessary to revise the Catechism section on just war (perhaps because it had been used by George Weigel and others to endorse a war the Church opposed), Ratzinger offered a deep insight that included but went beyond the issue of war Iraq:

and here's the part Sojomail quoted:

"There were not sufficient reasons to unleash a war against Iraq. To say nothing of the fact that, given the new weapons that make possible destructions that go beyond the combatant groups, today we should be asking ourselves if it is still licit to admit the very existence of a 'just war'."

Eric's Tasty Morsels of Thought - The Matthews House Project, Blogging, and Online Debate

Quote of a quote from Eric's post on Kaz's post on Jeremy Huggins' post on The Matthew's House Project

While one could argue that the blog is merely an extension of the body, like a second mouth or an external memory card for one's life, the fact remains that my blog, which is contingent on my having a power source and an internet connection, is no more a part of my body than is my computer itself, at this stage in technological development. [3]

Really good stuff, and is just the kind of discussion I crave, and have with my blog/self/extension/blogosphere all the time.

We, as Christians revere the Bible because it is the authoritative history, and it is the witness to the life laid out in the Gospels, and provides a place of dialogue with God's revelation.

Hauerwas' Unleashing the Scriptures has a lot of Sociology of Theology embedded in it. This is the study of how culture and tradtion and the various mixes of the two are present in the learning of interpretive processes, and assumpti ons which underwrite and to some degree "predetermine what is read".

When I hear people say "the pure unadlutrated word of God", I wonder how they can miss the fact that they are assuming that the word they receive is pure in the act of being received, or that it remains untouched by their own tradtion, and the assumptions we have been taught to carry into our reading. It cannot be PURE even upon reception, since our capacity to handle truth is, as David Dark liked to put it in his The Gospel According to America, not "undarkly"; (reference to the Apostle Paul's "we see through a glass darkly, but THEN we shall see face to face"). Our receptors are not innately "untinted". We have filters. The first task is to recognize them as often and as quickly as possible. But not to stop and give up , reasoning, "why bother if we are so polluted and hopelessly stained by the world?" Hauerwas might say that the Church is called to be a tranformative community; one which , because of the Resurrection, become a community of liberation from "the darkness".

"NO 'text' can be substituted for the People of God." (p.28)

David Burrell of Notre Dame University, in the foreword to The Peaceable Kingdom (and a foreword that warmed me up quite nicely to dive in)

[Hauerwas' argument is] a thoroughly Catholic argument, in that sense which transcends "Roman" and increasingly includes Protestants who would participate in a long-standing tradition, For it locates the self firmly within a community, shaped in its freedom by the language and practices of that community, learning how to follow Jesus by continued schooling in that community's response. Moreover, it traces that response as the bishops first of South and now of North America have indicated: to Jerusalem, where Jesus confronts the powers of this world. It is a world comprised of those, including So the primary task of those who would make Jesus' story theirs is to stand within that world--their world --witnessing to a peaceable Kingdom which reflects the right understanding of that very world. Such a stance wilt make stringent demands on those who would so follow Jesus. Much as Gandhi saw that a policy of satyagraha would require communities whose way of life would comprise training in nonviolent resistance, so Hauerwas argues for a church which could form its members in the virtues of patience and hope, as well as the capacity rightly to discriminate in particular situations. Again, it not rules so much as practices which will guide us here: practices embodied in a community and justified through the continuing efforts of such a group to live up to its convictions. A new form of casuistry, if you will, and one which fleshes out the mini-narratives which characterized that phase of Catholic moral teaching, to make the process that much more formative in the lives of those who would follow Jesus-- to Jerusalem.

Patience, with hope, will indeed be the virtues needed to grow up into the reality of a community witnessing to the peaceable kingdom. And here Hauerwas carries our appreciation of the virtues some steps further than his earlier writings. He makes explicit here how these are developed in relation with other persons. The peace that we can know, with ourselves, is the fruit of forgiving others, and forgiving others requires a context of truthfulness which assists us in shedding our illusions, Since that description could hardly characterize the world in which we live, it must depict the community we would form in the likeness of the kingdom Jesus preached and
embodied.
In pursuing that task, moreover, we come to experience the joy associated with doing the one thing that is true! This fact adumbrates yet another dimension to the virtues of patience and hope: how they prepare us to live by the truth. Aquinas knew it as the contemplative life, and his teaching on the virtues required for living an active Christian life culminates in their predisposing us to contemplation.
The final pages of this exercise in understanding the Christian life do the same. For patience and hope assume the place they do in the program Hauerwas outlines for us, not simply because they help us to
cope with the tragic gap between the world in which we stand and
the kingdom to which we would witness. That they do, but they do
so only because they are also at work to attune us to the reality of that world and that kingdom. If they empower us to confront evil, within and without, by nonviolent resistance, that is because they are also teaching us how to contemplate that truth which promises to make us free.

David B. Burrell C.S.C.

Tonight's revised stack :the ones I have kept by my side (in my book bag, on the nightstand, sitting right in front of me as a I blog), and from which will be pulling stuff from over the next several days. Crossan and McLaren are still around, but I may not be back to them for a few days....I had been reading some more Generous Orthodoxy and In Search of Paul until I got Unleashing the Scripture and devoured it.

I just found this Seminary Paper by a Church of the Saviour member (in the community called "The Seeker's Church"---read on in this article for an explanation of how Seekers and Church of the Saviour are related, and why I say this author is a COS member and a member of Seekers Church. Lots of quotes from Call to Commitment (and probably other Elizabeth O'Connor books).

Who Do We Say We Are? A Question For The Seekers Church

author: Kate Cudlipp,Washington, D.C.April 2002
Some highlights from the above link

As I thought about my limitations, it came to me that these are the very reasons I am part of a community. My vision is partial. I need others to help me see more clearly and expansively what is, and to open for me new vistas of what might be. It is through others that God’s vision for creation is made available to me, and through me, I believe, that others sometimes see glimpses of that vision. My goal in this paper is to initiate conversations. Thus, it is my hope that the observations and reflections in the last section will contribute to the ongoing conversations that help us grow in our life together and become more authentically one small expression of the Body of Christ.

Yes, we DO need a community; a "company of the conmmitted". That "Peaceable Community". One of Elizabeth O'Connor's later updates to the history of COS is The New Community (Harper and Row 1976, the year I first read Call to Commitment and Journey Inward, Journey Outward) These are absolutely the most inspiring, moving, and challenging stories of what it is to be Church I have ever read. I never expect anything else in that category to touch it.

The still-small church took on another physical project out of a call to plant a place of hospitality in the city. It rented a vacant storefront space in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood, spent hundreds of members’ hours cleaning and turning the space into a warm place for the public, and in 1960, opened the Potter’s House, a coffee house that offered much more than coffee. It was envisioned as a welcoming place for any who cared to wander in, a place for music and art, a place where church members could gather to discuss and pray and plan for new calls. It was to be a place of living evangelism. Several C of S members who would later become members of Seekers Church were part of one of the various mission groups that grew up around the Potter’s House.

The Potter's House was way before its time, but it's ministry still goes on. They are now a sister community in the Church of the Saviour tradition, along with the Seeker's Church from which this author writes. It's coffeehouse predates the hippy, cool generation of the late 60's and the 70's. I visited it in 1984, 1995, and 1996, and met Elizabeth O'Connor, as well as Gordon Cosby (the 1984 visit was a youth "Mission trip" where our group helped out on a couple of their projects, and took a "tour" of the many ministries of Church of the Saviour (their Feed the Hungry program, Health Clinic, Jubilee Jobs, and Jubilee Housing, Christ House , a nd on and on and on. There was a mission group during those years to aid the people of Nicaragua, who were under siege from both sides of a civil war , one side being supplied and armed by our government. Part of this group's mission was to raise awareness of this in the halls of government, in addition to getting aid and supplies and arranging protection for the peasant farmers under attack. This community has known no bounds. And their "membership" is just over 100. They have many more heavily involved persons, some of which are "intern members". The membership expecations and "process" is quite unique, and much is expected. It all centers around MISSION GROUPS and CALL; each mission group is also a small group committed to accountable discipleship with one another (the Inward Journey) and carrying out their MISSION (the Outward JOurney) Thus the name of the "sequel" to Call to Commitment, Journey Inward, Journey Outward.

The quest to which the Church of the Saviour is devoted is this: Is it possible, in the twentieth century, working with people recently turned from secularism or from merely nominal Christianity, to create conditions under which the Living Christ shall manifest himself as he did when his church was young? Is there any leaven by which the mere numbers of a great congregation can be transformed into dynamic, redemptive fellowships? Can the Church of the Saviour act as a pilot project, a demonstration of the kind of fellowship which Christ required of his followers, a fellowship so intensely alive that it will shine as a harbor light to men and women puzzled and lost?

(My bold) Demonstation of the Fellowship possible; one that cannot help but shine as a light.

Another formulation of the essence of the church in that booklet notes that, “From the earliest days of the church…a core assumption has been that the greatest impact on the world comes about by small, highly committed and disciplined communities of people focused on outward mission, inward transformation, and loving, accountable community.”

Where is this to happen in my life in the near future? I feel ready (and yet again, intimidated, but knowing that my very life with God depends upon it.)

(I have a "short history of COS" in the small boook of Elizabeth O'Connor's, reproduced completely online with the author's permission in 1995, Servant Leaders, Servant Structures or here, on this blog, starting here, and work your way up through the chapter sections.)

My heart is full tonight. I have read Unleashing the Scripture (and yes, I want to blog a few things from it, and talk a bit about how Hauerwas embodied his subtitle: Freeing the Bible from Captivity to America.)

Then I stopped at Border's on the way home and was about to buy "A Hauerwas Reader", but I got a coupon for $5 off any purchase starting TOMOROW, so I'll wait (maybe even just order it from Amazon, and maybe do one of their "combo deals" and get another Hauerwas title that looks good, A Community of Character

I also realized I had The Peaceable Kingdom in my "stack" at home, and I found myself reading something that happened to have come from that book when I was looking at the "Hauerwas Reader", so I resolved to pick that up when I got home. I did. And I have never read a more enticing Foreword than that which David Burrell wrote for The Peaceable Kingdom. More on that in a bit. Then the preface and the first 4 pages of Hauerwas' intro, and I am hooked. I'll have to scan some big sections so I can cut and paste some quotes, so MEATY is what I have only begun to read.

Eric posted a good one on his former fundamentalist days, and links to a site he found via a friend, and was pleased to see Pastor Draven writing there (as was I)

LeavingFundamentalism.org [Home]

subtitle: Resources for surviving the journey out of conservative Christianity

An interesting article about Baseball Fan Blogs

A blog for baseball fans builds a league of sites | CNET News.com

Here's a good one (via Jesus Politics) from James "Focus on the Family" Dobson, bemoaning how the "liberal Supreme Court judges" "pick and choose the people in countries or continents that agree with them". Uhhhhh..... sounds familiar James. You mean like what Bush did with Iraq? You mean like "Most of them" (who's doing the "picking and choosing here" , Jim?")

Focus Action - Dr. Dobson's Action Newsletter: April 2005

Kennedy and his liberal colleagues simply pick and choose the people in countries or continents that agree with them, usually from Europe and Canada, and ignore the rest, such as South America, Asia, and Africa. This is what we call "judicial tyranny!" and for good reason.

Dobson, in the process of backing the idea of capital punishement for Juveniles. Dobson shows his disdain for "world opinion" (his quotes, not mine). This kind of goes to the Religious Right's rebellion against any authority that is not "bribable" or manipulatable (word?) ; so if the Church stands against something, if it's not in the right-wing political lexicon, then that authority is questioned and campaigns are mounted to discredit that opinion. How 'bout we give them their REAL wishes and EXCOMMUNICATE them?

I finished Sider's Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience last week, and it was certainly a sound warning to the compacency and inadequacy of today's Church,. the evangelical Church in particular.

The Evangelical Scandal - Christianity Today Magazine

But historic biblical faith understood the church as a new community. The basic New Testament images of the church are of the body of Christ, the people of God, and the family of God. All these stress the fact that we're talking about a new community—a new, visible social order. That new community in the New Testament was living so differently from the world that people would say, "Wow, what's going on here?" Jews were accepting Gentiles. The rich were accepting the poor and sharing with the poor. Men were accepting women as equals. It just astonished people because the church was so different from the world. It was countercultural.

Furthermore, [the New Testament church] understood that being a member of the body of Christ meant that you were accountable to each other. If one suffered, you all suffered. If one rejoiced, you all rejoiced. There was dramatic economic sharing in the New Testament, and there was church discipline.

This is eerie, and artful, and infuriating when I saw that it was a collage of the dead American soldiers who were there becuase this guy, and the people with whom he runs, decided that those soldiers should go die to do their dirty work for them.

The War President

I am no stranger to the end times hullaballoo. When I was in High School (my senior year, I was really into books by Hal Lindsey (The Late Great Planet Earth and There's A New World Coming and Satan is Alive and Well On Planet Earth and a guy named Salem Kirban, who wrote a novel called 666 (on the Rapture and 7 year Tribulation and then a sequel called 1000 (on the Millineum or Thousand Year Reign). I still remember how, even though I was fascinated with all the "Bible passages" and conjecturing about "clues hidden throughout Scripture", and however strongly I took these seriously (which I did to some extent), I was negatively impressed with Kirban's idea of who the "elect" were. He made frequent reference to the "missing people" who were also members of Churches that sang traditional hymns and not all this "newfangled stuff". Even at 18, I was mature enough to see the blind fundamntalism of that confusion of faith and forms of piety.

I am wondering how much of this I am going to see in this first episode of "Revelations". I already notice in the trailers the crazed "satanic-like" guy who is , I suppose, one of the "evils" let loose (ie the Four Horsemen, etc."), and provides a good "white hat-black hat" way for the audience to side with the good guys who have rightly divbined the signs (probably using their Schofield Bibles along with their Left Behind secret decoder rings. Ok sorry, a bit too heavy on the sarcasm. More at 11 (or in the morning, as I may be hitting the sack afterward)

This post from Joshuia Claybourn on Blogs4God is positive on the "Revelations" opening episode, saying that it casts Christianity in a positive light.

blogs4God - a Semi-Definitive List of Christian Blogs

Christians often complain about a lack of representation in mainstream media, but they often fail to admit that modern Christian shows often lack quality screenplays, acting, and production.

Certainly true in almost every case. Not that it has to be that way. Just usually is.

Such is not the case with "Revelations." which offers a refreshingly well-made series putting Christianity in a positive light. It's truly a production that both Christians and secularists will enjoy.

For me, to forward the "Left Behind" , "Premillineal" hypotheses is not exactly what I would have in mind for "positive". It only serves to confirm what in the minds of secularists and many Christian alike, a rather esoteric, highly selective, and almost always completely wrong use and reading of the apocalyptic literature, and also the use of many scriptures that were entirely historical in their focus, and completely in reaction to events in Israel , and "refitted" to be prooftexts for the "Checklists" of elements that the pre-millineal dispensationalists have amassed for their catalog of "official end-times events".

It's imperative that Christians support mainstream inclusion of Christian media, and tuning in to see "Revelations" on Wednesday is one way to do that. You won't regret it.

Uh, not so fast Josh. I'm not about to trust a "mainstream media" (one whose "political agenda" which nearly all of the adherents of the Left Behind theological scenarios have learned to reject due to it's "liberal bias", and now thery're suddenly trustworthy in their handling of "The End Times"?) I find little consistency in that.

I expect nothing of the actual message of Revelation in the "Production", one whose trailers are chock full of the usual "Omen" and "carnage" and evil Satanists running the bad guys who are "set loose" on us. (I missed most of the initial airing Wednesday; I believe it is on again tonight, and I'll try to tune in and see for myself, although I expect I'll be feeling I could have spent my time more wisely afterward. We'll see.....yep, just checked...part 1 is showing again at 10pm Eastern tonight, at least here in Nashville).

this, from a comment on Eric's blog by giveawayboy, is a good articulation:

Eric's Tasty Morsels of Thought - Random acts of kindness!

Christianity has more hope of loving America and expressing patriotic sentiments than Christ-americanism has of being truly patriotic or even Christian. The one is Heaven's response to mankind and those is particularly interested in local communities. The other, rooted in that vaporous land which exists as the deflation of true devotion and patriotism is arrogance posturing as substance.

I've been waiting for the first somewhat extensive critique of the "Revelations" mini-series opener, and this one by Chuck Currie expresses a lot of what I feeL:

Chuck Currie

Christians can find much in Revelation to learn from. The dominant economic system of our modern time oppresses and wreaks havoc in much the same way Rome did. God calls us to oppose these systems the same way God called early Christian communities to oppose the oppression of their time. NBC’s interpretation of the Bible misses the core message of the faith – and all for money and ratings. There is an irony in that NBC is one of the two networks that banned the United Church of Christ for airing television commercials the network claimed other Christians might find offensive because of their progressive theological message. Nothing could be more offensive than twisting the fundamental message of the Bible for profit. Does NBC simply not understand the theological implications of their show or do they simply not care?

They don't care. It's "entertainment". Just like "Left Behind", which sells itself as covert theology, which has an effect much like that of the outlawed subliminal advertising. What people mistake for "legitimate theology" is an appeal to their "movie-going, novel reading, horror-flick" fantasies. To imply that it's "evangelism" as well is out and out slick marketing (albeit manipulative and ultimately having negative impact upon the Bible's apocalyptic message, whcih is to prophetically warn us against Empires and their deceptions and destructions. And "prophetically" is also distorted into a role of crystal ball gazers who "know what's going to happen in the future".

When I began to learn of what these OT prophets were actually facing in their day, the ridiculous applications of their prophetic utterings were made clear, and the way American Christians can avoid the message of the Prophets as moral/political/econmonic critique of America.

Richard Land suggested that Christians would be able to "see through" the Biblical innacuracies; but he himself does not seem to catch the drift of apocalyptic passages; and instead joins the "premillinealist" fray becuase this has been on the list of "must haves" for a about 100 years amongst fundamentalist Churches. The Southern Baptist Seminaries who use to be able to teach actual Biblical history was where I learned most of this. Now they are stripping away all of the "rebel chaff" and "purifying" their ranks of all the "non-orthodox". Pretty sad.

Jesus Politics (Dr. Land is the New Dr. King) posts this Baptist Press article where Land is still quoting MLK...(or is it the same quote being recycled? I dunno)

Richard Land is talking about the "breadth" of issues they are concerned about. The amazement we now have about how bigoted the Conservatives were in the 60's is going to be the same kind of disgust with which millions will view the neoconservatives (and their best Church allies, the Southern Baptists) some day when all their skullduggery and their outlandish support for coprporate advanatage over the bulk of the American citizenry is exposed as the dterimental, sickeningly selfish , cynical politics that it is.

The Old Testament prophets and Jesus are watching, and remembering, and still speaking us to us today.

IN addition, King had a "poor people's campaign" and spoke clearly against Vietname. The do the same with King as they do with the Pope. They squelch the clear messages of king and John Paul to cast themselves in postive light. Land's Southern Baptist Convention fundamentalist ancestors were the most vociforous and racist opponents of Dr. King's movement WHEN IT WAS HAAPENING. They were certainly also strongly in support of slavery , and among the last to let go of that, and kept segregation rolling for the next 100+ years. So what will humanity discover about itself over the next 100 years? And how far behind will the Southern Baptists lag before they join up with what the rest who live in reality land?

Land at Harvard: Religious right concerned about many issues - (BP)

the quote from Land:

“Dr. King took his profoundly Christian beliefs about what was right and what was wrong into the public arena to condemn and to seek to transform a great social evil in our culture,” Land said. “Segregationists were trying to impose their immorality on Dr. King and were doing a fairly successful job of it, by the way. Dr. King, based on his convictions as a Baptist minister like the abolitionists before him, used his religiously informed moral values to challenge that immorality, and when he convinced enough Americans that he was right, it changed. And by the way, they did change the law.”

Hauerwas' sermon on the Road to Emmaus is profound, and an observation about the power of the fellowship that I had never connected with in quite the same way before.

After Jesus had been explaining to them about "all that had happened" and "Did not the Christ have to suffer?", they as yet had not recognized him. It was not until he was "at the table with them" when "he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. THEN THEIR EYES WERE OPENED and they recognized him".

Prior to this, they had been speaking of Jesus as "a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him up to be condemned to death, and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since this happened." (Luke 24:19-21)

They had not yet recognized him. He appeared, unrecognized, did some teaching, still not recognized, and then when asked to stay and at the breaking of bread, and "their eyes were opened and they recognized him" (24:31)

Jesus' resurrection makes us agents in God's history of reconciliation by transforming us into a commuinty of the reconciled. The good news is that we were once no people, but now we are a people of peace that stand as a sign that resurrection is the end of the new beginning for the world.

Only such a people will be capable of rightly reading the Scripture. Only such a people are capable of in fact performing the Scripture.

Awesome.

This has been such a thorn in the side of American Christendom. It is something caught between two polarities; that of the individual in relation to God and God's revelation, and that of the Church, which obviously constitutes an "authority" in Scripture itself, and is called upon more often than references to some written authority. Many people assume that when The New Testament speaks of the "Word of God" that it is implying our present Bible, which is historically impossible. Then we have Biblical criticsim that posits later revsions to the present day Scripture from the source material, inserted and edited by the early Church fathers to emphasize the authority of the Church as preordained. When the authority of the Church evolved (in these cases, DEvolved) into abuses such as the selling of indulgences and the manipulation of innocent and trusting souls, then the Reformers (and Hauerwas says "rightly so") were concerned with the Scriptures "act as a judge on the Church" (p.27)

Ironically, by freeing the Bible from the Church and putting it in the possession of the individual conscience, the Bible becomes, in the process, the possession of nationalistic ideologies. America becomes a Christian nation sanctioned by God.

I was schooled in Sociology at the University level, and hooked up later in theological studies with persons such as Tony Campolo (through his writings and several lectures on tape or video) enought to know that there is quite a slippery slope when it comes to theology and worldview; often the latter determining the former, but it seems that the element of "conversion" (and usually a very gradual one) happens as theological truths escape into the realm of worldview, so that these areas of life fall under a new authority; what Gordon Cosby calls "an alternate reality" (Cosby is the founding pastor of the Church of the Saviour, a community that over the years has become the closest thing I have known to a people who actually embody in the corporate life as God's people a readily apparent "alternate reality"). I believe that this is much of what Hauerwas is trying to get across when he says that the Bible canonly be rightly understood by those already under transformation. (Hauerwas says this in many different forms during his articles and speeches, and I'll have to run across another one of those and post it here in due time).

Eric mentioned how he was taking a cue from me on my posting pics of what I'm reading, and it's been about a month, so I snapped a couple more (posted "what I just finished" last night; and these are the "top of the stack" candidates (minus Crossan's In Search of Paul). All of these have bookmarks in them. I dove right into Unleashing the Scriptures when it arrived yesterday.

NOT pictured here (it wasn't in the room when I placed the books on my chair) is Sider's The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience. While there were places where I was a little put off (not much , mind you, but just a little) by some "typical sounding" "Bible authority" and certain conservative opinions, what endears me to Sider is that he is absolutely consistent in his comprehension of Biblical Christianity and what the Scripture seems to be saying about the Church. The Church, in Sider's eyes (and I agree) has become a commodity; a "product", and thusly, devoid of demand, accountability, or sense of authority in the lives of its members.

Sider also explores several ways in which the Church has become almost indistinguishable in its lifestyle in contrast to the culture (the only "contrast" being "religious trappings and symbols and language". Sider is also aghast at how little the Church members are giving; he points out that if the Church in America simply tithed at 10%, there would be enough money just from the American Church to pay for health care and education for every person on earth! That is rather staggering. I remember reading Sider's Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger in the late 70's (or was it the early 80's?). Made an impact. I'm not real sure I'll recover real soon from the sense of lacking that I feel concerning my own giving over the past few years. Econmomics have at times been hard, and I worry about savings and college for kids, and the economy and where it's headed, but then I think "yeah, but what should I be doing at this moment in time?".

The Church of the Saviour's "MInistry of Money" , and a lot of what they do as a Church to maintain an integrity of Church memebership has been on my radar often over the past 30 years since I first began to read about their journey through Elizabeth O'Connor's books, and made 2 or 3 visits to their communities over the past 20 years. Giving everything one can, basically everything above and beyond "what one needs to live on" is quite an expectation, but those words are often heard when the communities of that Church talk about money issues.

Keillor's HomeGrown Democrat is a CD set, with the complete book read by Keillor. Listened to it on the way back from Cincinnati on March 29. The Gospel According to America I have written on a couple of times - here , here and here ---, and may return to it in future posts (I really liked it)

God's Politics I finished while in Atlanta March 10-13.

Well, gotta head out to eat. More later. Hope to watch Hotel Riwanda later tonight.

from Big Lowitzki's Blog

Some of America's Richest Say 'No, Thanks' to Bush Tax Cuts

''It's obscene that Washington is handing out tax breaks to millionaires with one hand and shredding the safety net with the other,'' said Marta Drury, a member of Responsible Wealth, a national network of affluent Americans advocating what they term ''widespread prosperity'' and concerned that a deepening wealth divide in America is undermining the country's social and democratic fabric.

''So I'm calculating my 2004 tax cut and donating it to organizations fighting for responsible, fair, and adequate taxes. I don't believe that people like me with incomes over $200,000 need $69 billion in tax cuts,'' Drury added, referring to the total estimated value of 2004 tax cuts granted Americans in her income bracket.

With apologies to the Bible commentary published by Abingdon Press, there is indeed what I would call a New Interpreter hermeneutic to be discovered and "traveled" by the postmodern pilgrim. I belive it has been a "feature" of the Scriptures that has been hirtherto unable to be "captured" by the traditional book.

The Gospel of John's concluding verse hints at this:

Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
---John 20:25

This for me is one of the best "hints" in the New Testament that the Word of God is not contained, in a BOOK or in anything (since "the whole world would not have room" for such as that.)

via Ethics Daily via Jesus Politics

Welcome to Ethics Daily.com!

Campolo said he was “greatly sadden[ed]” by Baptist relations in the U.S., particularly last summer’s split in the Baptist World Alliance. The Southern Baptist denomination withdrew membership from the organization, and Campolo said he is unconvinced by the SBC leaders’ denial that the denomination intends to set up a rival organization to the BWA.

Campolo predicted the convention’s eagerness to exert an international presence will affect the spread of Christianity over the next 20 years, tarnishing its image because of its association with right-wing politics. But it is only a matter of time, he said, before “thoughtful converts” realize that the Bible addresses a broader range of issues.

“The next 20 years are going to be glorious years for those on the religious right,” Campolo said. “But a reaction will set in over the next quarter of a century that may hurt Christianity in all its forms.”

Yeah!

The following items were included in this shipment:
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Qty Item Price Shipped Subtotal
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1 Unleashing the Scripture $18.00 1 $18.00

Eric commented last week on one of my posts, and included some quotes from this book. I commented, I gotta get me one of those, so I did. Hopefully, it'll be here tomorrow (since it's shipped out from Lexington, KY). Thanks again, Eric , for recommendng that one. I've also been eyeing and reading a couple selections in "A Hauerwas Reader" whenever I go into Barnes and Noble. Maybe I'll ask for that for my Birthday or something (next month).

Yesterday's post about "framing" which Larry was talking about here has me thinking , once again, about the way that blogs can provide a "place" and an "encouragement" for laying the cards on the table and getting down to some real personal theology.

Ironically, there is little if no opportunity to actually do this at most Churches. When political issues are avoided like the plague, and so members are not "confronted" at all with the kinds of questions with which citizens of this country who are alo Christians ought to be concerned, this is becoming an epidemic of "privacy" and "individualism".

The avoidance of difficult dialogue is a heresy for the Church. DIALOGUE MUST HAPPEN. It is the incubator for the Holy Spirit (ie. "where two or more are gathered, there I am in the midst of them"). If dialogue is a requirement (an dI belive that it is), then any avenue which encourages and enhances this is required work for the Church.

With most American households having access to the Web, and increasing numbers on broadband, this "always connected" reality is making it clear that here is an area of vast untapped potential.

When I remember my high school youth group days, and Mel, my youth minister immersing us in "Serendipity" events (a relationally centered theology which highlighted the need for us to tell our stories; to get us to tell things about ourselves.

When we are able to tell our stories, and given outlets to express our concerns, then we have a corrective/instructive social/spiritual device to help keep the "framers" from predetermining the boundaries of reality. Social and political issues can no longer be restricted to conservative/liberal , and "bound and gagged" by the narrow bi-polar oversimplifications fed to us by the media.

There remains the problem of what can happen in an open dialogue; will "flame wars" break out whose tone and volume overshadow the eqwually important values of perwsonal respect and seeking-of-understanding?

I think of how Jesus said that " I did not come to bring peace but a sword" (not an endorsement of anything military, for he goes on to elaborate, talking about how family members will find themselves in conflict because of the gospel.)

34 Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35 For I have come to turn `a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law - 36 a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.' ---Matthew 10:34-36

So this poses the question in my mind of how far we ought to take this notion that avoiding any and all "controversial" issues is the "Christian" thing to do. This also is not to suggest that we not concern ourselves with the effectiveness and respect for other with whom we are engaged in confrontation on some Biblical notion.

Today was the 1 year anniversary of my beginning work at my present job. I enter that second year with some renewed energies about the possibilities of seeing my vocation and my calling converge.

My previous entry ended up moving away from a place of meeting, and of conversation, and back into what seems to be the same immovable, unyielding place. I started to sense that, and I stopped. That was hours ago. I have since eaten lunch, and spent a while in the bookstore reading the first couple of chapters in Brian McLaren's new book, a third of a trilogy that began with A New Kind Of Christian and The Story We Find Ourselves In: Further Adventures of a New Kind of Christian
entitled The Last Word ... And the Word After That.

I finally realized I had been away from home all afternoon, and put it down (and thinking, I'll probably end up having to buy that one , too).

My mind went back to the thoughts I had begun in the previous post, and how it may well have seemed to anybody who was reading it from a view more sympathetic to the Christian Right, that my narrative there was not heading in a direction suitable for dialogue; I ended up talking about how difficult it seems for Fox News junkies to recognize "Spin" in the "No-Spin Zone"; and how that "Zone" is about as "spinny" as they come.

It seems that Christians don't have much of an alternative to offset that spin. There is basically nothing. But most people who would tend toward the Brian McLaren, "Progressive", Generous Orthodoxy of the "New Evangelicals" or whatever, have nothing to help them reflect on the theological issues in play in our present publich discourse about life, politics, and justice.

We need a Church like that. But Churches are deathly afraid of what kind of dialogue might come out of that; or worse, what would happen to dialogue in Church when people begin to ask certain theological questions about what a just society and a Compassionate government looks like.

It seems that there is no time like the present for issues such as this. The intensity and "shrill-ness" of the debate in this country; and also in the Churches, is much stonger (which , in many casesw, means "worse"). As Jim Wallis has been saying about theological views of the Church and its role in the public square: "The answer is not NO theology, but Better theology". The key to improving our situation and the "quality" of moral/political discourse lies not in "NO discussion", but in BETTER discussion. But I say this, and I find it hard to come up with how.

This post arose in me in reading a post by Larry on this issue of framing.

Reflecting on Digital Empowerment

The new media allow us to frame the conversation. Framing is critically important. Contemporary mainstream journalism made a turn somewhere in the past few years toward isolating messages (sound bites), often by leaving out context and presenting the most controversial voices. I hear, read and see stories today that don't even include the old standards--"who, what, when, where, why and how." Stories are framed as if there are only two opposing positions. This "either-or" form of storytelling doesn't really get at the complexities that lie somewhere in the middle. It's sensational and often it's just plain sloppy journalism. New media allow us to tell our own story.

Itis difficult when many in the Religious Right seem to have a predisposed refusal to accept the legitimacy of any criticism of this administration. They seem to bend over backwards to offer defenses that appear to have little logical support behind them beyond what the administration says about itself, or what Fox News has provided them; I hear the same arguments presented, the same paranoias about the "liberal media" (and an accompanying inability to see how Fox News rep[resents the excat flipside of the kind of "conspiratorial" liberal manipulations of which they accuse all the major networks-- all except, of course, for Fox, whose staff receives daily memos from Fox Corporate headquarters, instructing them on what to emphasize that day. This of course, the FoxNews junkies simply refuse to acknowledge.

Indeed, Fox News represents a deliberate effort to determine the framing of the conversation.

Ron Sider has written The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience which identifies some disturbing trends in American evangelicalism: mainly, that the lifestyles of American Christians, evangelicals in particular, are far from showing a "people set apart" from the world. In fact, in some cases, it is quite the opposite.

Just starting, but I have always respected Sider, who seems to take seriously the various ethical implications and, thus, expectations of the Christian community.

Some highlights from Chapter 1 and 2

Scandalous behavior is rapidly destroying American Christianity. By their daily activity, most "Christians" regularly commit treason. With their mouths they claim that Jesus is Lord, but with their actions they demonstrate allegiance to money, sex, and self-fulfillment.

The findings in numerous national polls conducted by highly respected pollsters like The Gallup Organization and The Barna Group are simply shocking. "Gallup and Barna," laments evangelical theologian Michael Horton, "hand us survey after survey demonstrating that evangelical Christians are as likely to embrace lifestyles every bit as hedonistic, materialistic, self-centered, and sexually immoral as the world in general."1 Divorce is more common among "born-again" Christians than in the general American population. Only 6 percent of evangelicals tithe. White evangelicals are the most likely people to object to neighbors of another race. Josh McDowell has pointed out that the sexual promiscuity of evangelical youth is only a little less outrageous than that of their nonevangelical peers.

Larry has posted reflections on the electronic media, and blogs in particular, and I am sensing a groundswell of thoughts within me around the issues of online dialogue, and how we might help heal the fractured and virulent discourse in America, and in particular, to heal some theological divisions.

Reflecting on Digital Empowerment

The electronic, digital culture has arrived. In addition to traditional (or old) media venues, the national dialogue is taking place now in blogs, e-mail, chat rooms, electronic forums (fora, if you are really traditional) and other Internet-based settings, and they will increasingly become central to the exchange of ideas and information-sharing.

Not the least of the underlying social dynamics: the "availability, in digital , searchable form, conversations that are "seekable" via electronic means.

A couple of years ago, I reacted to Quentin Schultze's "Habits of the HighTech Heart" with a good amount of "Aw, come on!", so intent was he on "defending" his take on the "essence of the faith" from the kind of thinking he thrust upon the "high tech world" as dangerous to "spiritual sensibilities". He pounded this theme home all the way through the book, hardly ever exploring how the medium might actually provide some opportunities for some new forms of human community (not REPLACING it, but AUGMENTING, EXTENDING, and even INTRODUCING people that will seek each other out offline.

SojoMail

Many conservatives are pointing to the pope's clear teachings on abortion, euthanasia, and sexual morality, which are often contrary to the positions of many liberals. But they seem to forget the strong and passionate opposition of this pope to the war in Iraq, capital punishment, and the operations of a global economy that neglect the poor and deny human rights for millions. This pope helped bring down communism, but also was no capitalist and constantly lifted up a vision of economic justice. Promoting a "culture of life" was the language of John Paul's papacy before it became the rhetoric of President Bush, and its meaning goes far beyond the narrow interpretations of the Republican Party. Yes, Pope John Paul II certainly opposed John Kerry's views on abortion, but the White House did not get the photo op they wanted when the president visited the Vatican and the pope shook his finger disapprovingly at George W. Bush over the American war in Iraq.