All a castrating single Christian egalitarian wants for the holidays…

Posted on December 3rd, 2009 by Aretha Campbell

One of the gifts a castrating single Christian egalitarian wants for the holidays …is a potential partner. Like many of my single Christian friends I have been lovingly (and not so lovingly) interrogated about my continued singleness. However, until recently I believed securing a partner was a fringe benefit; something that miraculously comes to you while you are “seeking first the kingdom/ “kin-dom” of God.” But then I had a moment of insight and thought, “what could be a better example of the kingdom/ “kin-dom” of God than a loving life- long partnership premised on and sustained by the love of Christ?”

I have listened to several suggestions, some more memorable than others, as to how to achieve my goal. There are those who have advocate Internet dating. Apart from my pride that tells me that I really don’t have a problem attracting men, my only real problem with Internet-dating is human nature. The average human is self-interested and as a result is prone to “airbrushing,” which is greatly facilitated by Internet. The potential suitor can be anything he or she believes you want until he or she achieves the desired end. Another more novel approach is that of a “mail-order mate’ but unfortunately for me these services are more suited to males seeking “traditional women” from developing countries.

I must confess that I like traditional things. I love my grandmother’s sweet potato pudding with the creamy custard on top. I prefer when my pudding is made from fresh ( not canned or frozen) coconut milk. In the old days the coconut milk was obtained by hand grating the coconut, but as soon my grandmother bought a blender she no longer grated the coconut by hand.  She did not believe that scraped fingers made the pudding more delicious. In essence I believe my grandmother was teaching us that tradition is great as long as it does no harm.  

Second only to low self-esteem, a traditional view of male-female relationship is one of the main features of relationships characterized by domestic violence, so like my grandmother I don’t grater things by hand that are safer to blend.

So we have come to my real problem. I am an unrepentant castrating single Christian egalitarian.  I know I am treading on dangerous waters when I mention castration, but my form of Christianity renders it necessary.  It is the kind of Christianity in which the possession of a phallus whether organically grown, bought or made is not the criterion for leadership; Christianity that views the Bible as divinely inspired yet gravely affected by human limitations as exemplified in instances such as Pauline theology.  In Pauline theology women are commanded to be both silent in church as well as cover their heads when prophesying— mildly contradictory. Another example is that of Bible translators who in Romans 16 changed the name of Paul’s relative Junia (female), who is described as a prominent apostle, to Junias (male). Mine is the kind of Christianity that confesses that “ as many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male or female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3).” No, we are not all the same. We are still beautifully diverse but our worth, our purpose, our possibility are determined by Christ who loves all of us and not our genitalia. 

So I know I have been more naughty than nice this year (most years) but since I am asking a God of grace and not a Santa of merit I will keep hope alive. A merry everything to you and yours.

Renegade

Posted in Gender Equality | 3 Comments »

Christmastime is Here, Part III: O Come, O Come Emmanuel

Posted on December 1st, 2009 by James G. Gilmore

This is Part III of a reflecting on Christmas, consumerism, religion, politics, and Kingdom economics.
Part I: Black Friday
Part II: Who Gets the Gift?

One of the things that frustrates me most about this time of year – particularly as I’ve been getting more and more into liturgy (having grown up in mostly non-liturgical churches) – is that we call everything between the day after Thanksgiving and December 25 “the Christmas season.” The lights go up, the Santas appear at the malls, everything’s red and green, and immediately it’s Happy Time!

What’s lost, of course, is that liturgically, the Christmas season starts on December 25 (and ends with the Feast of Epiphany on January 5). The time before Christmas, as we all know from having opened the little doors on the calendars, is Advent.

What we lose, though, isn’t just a liturgical season; it’s an entire frame of mind. Christmas is a time of victory, of exuberant celebration – the Christ has come into the world! It’s no wonder the corporate interests want to advertise this, because it gives them another opportunity to say “spend spend spend!”

Advent, though, is about longing. It’s about hope. It’s about the achings of a people who’ve lived under foreign occupation and foreign oppression for half a millennium, who’ve struggled to maintain their identity and their homeland against all odds, who are just waiting for something good to happen for once.

It’s about a people disappointed in leaders like the Hasmonean Dynasty, who had led a successful revolt against the Greek occupiers in the second century BCE, only to descend into civil war and ultimately sell out to the Romans in exchange for a secure throne and a gravy train. (King Herod was one of their descendants.)

It’s about a people who are proud of who they are but unsure about how that’s supposed to work in a rapidly-changing world, a people suffering under oppression and occupation by an army that only barely tolerates their culture.

Mostly, though, it’s about a people who are waiting, hoping, praying for a Messiah to rise up and inaugurate the Kingdom, a new David to reunite Israel, right all wrongs, throw off the oppressors (both the Romans and the puppet leaders they’d set up among the Israelites) and return Israel to its rightful glory.

What we lose when we ignore Advent is the longing and waiting: the sense that the world isn’t what it’s supposed to be, that there are oppressors. When we skip to Christmas, we get caught up in the celebration, and forget exactly what it is we’re celebrating. Advent gives us an opportunity to look for the oppression in the world and stand alongside the oppressed and occupied, to feel their pain and tell them to keep holding out hope.

Perhaps more importantly, Advent gives us the opportunity to examine ourselves: Are we standing with the Israelites of the first century, oppressed, hungry, and waiting and longing for the Messiah? Or are we standing with those who are oppressing them? Who are the oppressed in the world today, and who are their oppressors? And what can we do, as citizens of the most powerful nation in the world, to stand with the former and against the latter? We ask ourselves about what we consume, about the costs of that consumption, about the arrangements our nation makes in our names in order to uphold our lifestyles.

No wonder the corporations want to skip it.

But the message of Advent is ultimately hope. The verses of the quintessential Advent hymn, “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” are all about longing and suffering, but the chorus rings the point of Advent:

Rejoice, rejoice; Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

Stay tuned for Part IV, where the rubber meets the road.

Posted in Human Rights, Peace Concerns | 1 Comment »

Christmastime is Here, Part II: Who Gets the Gift?

Posted on November 28th, 2009 by James G. Gilmore

This is Part II of a ???-part series reflecting on Christmas, consumerism, religion, politics, and Kingdom economics. Click here to read Part I: Black Friday.

Yesterday I reflected a little bit on Black Friday and the irony that is celebrating the birth of a humble Savior by engaging in orgies of consumption and stress that only make the rich richer and the poor poorer. My basic question was this:

Shouldn’t Christian believers – those who take the story of the Advent and Christ’s birth to heart – be offering another way? When the world is crying out for justice and compassion, isn’t God calling us to sacrifice of ourselves to make this happen?

So today, I think I’m going to get down to brass tacks: What’s the alternative? What can we as Christians do during the Christmas season to offer a true witness to the one who fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich away empty, as Mary sings in the Magnificat?

I’m going to suggest here that we, as American Christians, need to seriously rethink what we’re doing during the Christmas season. The metaphor I’d like to play around with today is this: If Christmas is a celebration of the birthday of Jesus Christ, shouldn’t He be getting all the presents?

No, I’m not talking about taking all the money you’d spend on gifts this year and giving them to your local church – though if that’s where you feel led, go do so and be blessed. But for the rest of us, we have to ask ourselves: if we can’t literally give of our material gifts to Christ Himself, shouldn’t we give them to the people Christ identifies with? The Gospels make it clear who Christ declares to be His chief concern during His life on earth: the poor, the meek, the oppressed, the outsiders, the peacemakers, the widows and orphans and foreigners in our midst.

Note, if you will, who’s absent from that list, who receives (directly or indirectly) Christ’s proclamations of woe: the rich, the “high priests” (whether religious or political), the money-changers, the oppressive and occupying Roman authorities. When the rich young ruler comes to Jesus, He tells him to sell everything he owns, because it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom.

So I think we should be asking this question: Who’s getting gifts from us this year? Of course we’d answer, “Well, my friends and family are, obviously.” Sure, but who else? I had to buy that sweater or that Blu-Ray player or that iPod somewhere – who got the money? Was it the miner who mined the raw material, or the worker who put it together in the factory, or the trucker who drove it across the country, or the person in the retail uniform who rung it up for me?

And if it wasn’t these people – the people who actually did the work to get what I bought into my hands and into the wrapping paper – then who did get my gift?

Do we as Christians have a responsibility to ensure that we only patronize businesses and companies that pay their workers a fair wage, that give their workers ample time off in order to have lives outside of work, that have basic safety standards? Do we have a responsibility as Christians to look for the union label, to inform ourselves about the business practices of the companies we buy from, to look at reports on things like CEO pay and corporate governance and factory conditions and outsourcing?

Further (and I don’t know if I can make a theological case for this), do we as American Christians have some kind of responsibility – call it patriotic, call it looking out for your neighbor, whatever – to make an effort to buy from companies that pay American workers a fair wage?

And finally, returning back to the metaphor we started with here: If, on the celebration of Jesus Christ’s birthday, we’re going to give our presents to the people He identifies with, should we as Christians be buying more stuff for ourselves and one another at all?

More questions, fewer answers. We’ll continue tomorrow or Monday.

Posted in Economic Justice, Human Rights | 7 Comments »

Christmastime is Here, Part I: Black Friday

Posted on November 27th, 2009 by James G. Gilmore

Okay, so for those of us who follow the liturgical calendar, Christmastime technically isn’t here yet – we’re in the season of Advent. I’ll probably write more on that later on… maybe on Sunday or Monday, after Advent has officially started.

But to the retailers, this is the beginning of the Christmas season: Black Friday – a rather appropriate name, if unintentionally so. As I drove back from a lovely Thanksgiving meal with friends last night at midnight or so, we saw people already lined up outside the Target and Best Buy in my neighborhood, just waiting for the stores to open at 5am so they could get the deeply-discounted flat-screen TVs and all those other wonderful “door-buster” deals the retailers were offering.

And I couldn’t help but have a thought that’s recurred in my head for the past five years or so around this time of year: How far we’ve come from the Son of God being born in a humble manger, one of an oppressed people in an occupied and war-torn country.

How far we’ve come from Mary’s words in the Magnificat, with the Christ child growing in her womb:

[God] has brought down rulers from their thrones
but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things
but has sent the rich away empty.

Look outside at Black Friday – at people trampling one another to save a hundred bucks on a plasma TV, at angry faces behind steering wheels in mall parking lots as they try to find space, at the insane amounts of money working its way from regular folks’ Visa cards up to fat-cat CEOs while they lay off American workers and hire more children in the 2/3-World to work for a buck a day in unsafe factories. Look outside at the orgy of consumption, while it’s almost certain that within a mile of these big-box retailers is a homeless family trying to keep warm another night in their car.

Is this how we celebrate a Savior born into the least majestic of conditions? Is this how we celebrate the humble being lifted up? Is this how we celebrate the hungry being filled with good things, the rich being sent away empty?

Perhaps more to the point: Shouldn’t Christian believers – those who take the story of the Advent and Christ’s birth to heart – be offering another way? When the world is crying out for justice and compassion, isn’t God calling us to sacrifice of ourselves to make this happen?

I’ll be continuing this series probably tomorrow, with some reflections on how we might be more just and compassionate during this holiday season.

(Oh, for those who were wondering where the title came from, it’s from perhaps the greatest Christmas movie ever made.)

Posted in Economic Justice, Human Rights | 3 Comments »

“US evangelicals warm to climate change science in Capitol Hill campaign”

Posted on November 19th, 2009 by Edwin Estevez

Leading environmental scientists and evangelical Christians join forces to lobby senators in support of the climate bill

Read Article Here

The Earth is the Lord’s, and the Fullness Thereof,” (Ps. 24:1) and the tradition has always then wondered whether we received dominion of the earth (and this has a significant history of consequences, especially as political systems further defined “dominion”); another emphasis has been placed on stewardship rather than dominion.

Read about Matthew 25 Network’s approach to this issue here: http://matthew25.org/issues/ (scroll down to Environmental Stewardship).

There are of course many issues at play here:  the fatalism that has existed when some traditions have viewed their eschatology as a way to see the earth’s destruction as simply a sign of the ending age.  And yet, there is that ever-present issue of God’s sovereignty, or as one theologian puts it, the sovereignty of God’s grace.

At last, is the earth the Lord’s?  Is it subject to God’s Kingdom?  And what role has the Church in all of this?  Are we called to be observers of the world as it destroys itself, as fate would have it, or are we called to witness to God’s kingdom? To act in correspondence to God’s Grace?

I think as people of faith, we need to wrestle with all these issues, and take seriously whether or not we have “surrendered all” of the spheres of our existence just as we are called to follow God, a God who is For Us and decidedly Lord of all creation.

So, take these next days to wrestle with that.  And then give thanks, both at your dining table and with your actions.

If you’re interested in becoming active:

http://www.greenfaith.org/    Here’s an organization where their faith has empowered their action on behalf of creation.

http://climatebill.org/  Here’s a site that is tracking the 2009 Climate bill and also has ways you can be involved

If you’re interested in finding out more:

Wendell Berry’s The Unsettling America (1977)

Vigen Guroian, Inheriting Paradise (1999)

 

Michael Pollan, Second Nature (2003) and The Omnivore’s Dilemma (2007)

Posted in Christian Community, Economic Justice, Environmental Stewardship | No Comments »

Psalm 109:8 and Violent Rhetoric

Posted on November 18th, 2009 by James G. Gilmore

The Christian Science Monitor is reporting on a new phenomenon making its way throughout evangelical culture: bumper-stickers that read “Pray for Obama: Psalm 109:8″. If you take the time to look up the verse you see this:

8 May his days be few;
may another take his place of leadership. (NIV)

Okay, cute, right? They want someone else to be President. How amusing. Whatever.

Except that the Psalm doesn’t stop there. It goes on to say:

9 May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.

10 May his children be wandering beggars;
may they be driven from their ruined homes.

Aaaaaaaand now we’re getting into the territory where things turn decidedly un-Christian.

It’s pretty clear to me that this imprecatory psalm isn’t innocuous; at the very least, the person praying this psalm is praying for the death of the President. If one considers the link between violent language and violent deeds – a link we’ve talked about before – it becomes pretty clear that this could be seen as a clarion call to assassination.

Frank Schaeffer (son of Francis Schaeffer) makes this point succinctly in his interview with Rachel Maddow about this phenomenon:

“But now it turns out [in right-wing rhetoric] that he joins the ranks of the unjust kings of ancient Israel, unjust rulers to which all these Biblical allusions are directed, who should be slaughtered if not by God then by just men [. . .] Really, this is trawling for assassins, and this is serious business.”

I’d like to echo what Schaeffer said right there: This is serious business. Words do things; violent rhetoric breeds violent actions. When someone is praying for the President to be struck down by God, it’s only one step further for that person to decide that he or she is God’s instrument to carry out what he or she sees as God’s justice. This is scary stuff here – and it’s only being compounded (again, as Schaeffer points out) by the Manichaean, apocalyptic worldview many evangelical Christians are succumbing to.

But of course, we Christians know that many of the people who would pray this psalm don’t really want to see President Obama struck down – they just want him voted out of office in 2012. Fine. But that’s not what this psalm says, and if we’re nothing else in this world, we should be honest. Praying for God to strike down political leaders we disagree with is not Christian – and those who display bumper stickers, or T-shirts, or coffee mugs bearing a Bible reference that calls for Michelle Obama to be made a widow and Sasha and Malia to be “fatherless” and “wandering beggars” soil the name of Christ in this world. They give all Christians a bad name with their implication that such thinking is in any way in line with Christian morality or values.

In other words – all Christians should stand side-by-side against such thinking. There’s nothing “cute” or “amusing” about a bumper sticker or a T-shirt that calls for the President of the United States to be killed, whether that be by God’s hand or man’s. For the sake of the Gospel, for the sake of Christianity’s reputation in a skeptical world, we must stand against this phenomenon and be vocal about our stance. We must make it clear that such rhetoric is in no way Christian, and that those who would pray such a thing are not praying in the Holy Spirit.

The upshot of this is clear: If you’re a Christian, and someone you know has one of these bumper-stickers, you have a responsibility to say something to them – particularly if they’re part of your church. If responsible Christians don’t stand up against hateful and violent language among us, we shouldn’t be surprised when the world thinks we’re hateful and violent. We need to stand up to our fellow Christians and let them know that things like this bumper-sticker are not of Christ, and tell them in the name of Jesus that they need to stop using violent and hateful language.

And we need to pray for President Obama, whether or not we agree with his politics, as Paul says in 1 Timothy:

I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone— for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.

May we continue to hold up our President and all our leaders in prayer during these troubling times.

Posted in Christian Community, Religious Right | 5 Comments »

“Birthday sex”: butterflies and mangoes

Posted on October 14th, 2009 by Aretha Campbell

Prior to embarking on my birthday adventure, I read my morning meditation from the book of Exodus, and by chance, I was up to the point in the narrative in which Moses was told to prepare the Hebrew people to meet their God by bathing themselves and abstaining from sex. I believe it was an especially suitable text as part of my plans for my birthday celebration was to visit the Museum of Sex located in lower Manhattan. A more timid soul would have believed this was a sign from God to avoid such a den of iniquity but like Balaam I rode on to my destination via New Jersey transit mindful not to whip any donkeys.

The Museum of Sex at the time of my visit had two floors of display. The first floor provided examples of animal sexuality which generally debunked generally held ideas of the heterosexual, patriarchal nature of the animal world. Also on the first floor were different samples of the use of sexual intercourse or lack thereof over the course of American history by the media with examples such as the Sinclair Institute. The first portion of the second floor addressed issues of sexual paraphernalia, self-pleasuring/ masturbation and the changes in perception over time. The final section mainly addressed sex-workers in adult entertainment/ pornography industry. (It is an adult museum)

Why did I go to the museum? Part of the reason is that I like to shock people and sadly human sexuality still remains taboo especially in Christian circles. How could I explain my visit to Museum of Sex to a church to which I might be called in the future as I can no longer hide behind the guise of my visit being a requirement for seminary? I went on a journey of reconciliation and the best kind starts with the individual. Sexuality is one of the MANY areas within the Christian worldview that cries out for reconciliation. From the time of Moses to the present, sexuality and sexual expressions have been viewed as things that defile and make the person untouchable by even God.

As a result of the depreciation of sexuality our approach to sexual ethics for a long time has been the antithesis of the Nike slogan “just don’t do it.” But from the pulpit to the pews our lives have belied our message pedophile-priests and parishioners, date rapes on seminary campuses, sexual addictions, adultery and incest. And as a “Christian country” we support a billion dollar pornography industry, and we are avid participants in sex -slave trade and sex tourism. And some who really abstain in truth do it for reasons that reveal a hate for the physical- the sexual. Virginity, especially in case of women, has been held as a mark of superiority rendering them good enough to wed. Others refuse to participate in loving relationships because of fear of rejection for less than ideal body parts or unrealistic expectations of others.

Is sexual reconciliation possible within the individual or the church? The paradigm of clean and unclean sexuality and the hate of the physical body are both nullified in the incarnation of Jesus. If we accept that God became human, lived in the body of a woman, entered the world through her birthing canal and was clothed in male flesh the idea that there is something intrinsically wrong with the “material” aspect of humanity is quickly debunked. Second while Jesus did not address the issue of sex his treatment of those identified as unclean clearly indicated that the things viewed by humans as unclean such as leprosy, woman with issue of blood were not the things that the God-man viewed as breaches in God- human relationships. The incarnation and ministry of Jesus reiterates the value of the materiality of humanity. The incarnation reveals that sexuality, a naturally occurring element of humanity, is not inherently wrong.

Is there room for a Christian sexual ethic?

There are those within the church that advocate the seventies “free love, free sex” position but are quickly dismissed because of the lack of theological basis and short sightedness of their position. Could we really promote an anything goes sexual ethic -how about pedophilia or incest? A Christian sexual ethic is not a private sphere but should be an aspect of one’s general Christian ethic which is generally premised on the incarnation, life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus. One’s sexual praxis should be predicated on one’s publicly attested theological view of God and curtailed by love for self and the other. For example my belief in a God who loves humanity as we are results in shift from paradigms of clean and unclean sexuality to concepts of health/life-giving and unhealthy/ death-dealing, hence intercourse with a child is wrong because children like caterpillars are not “mature” enough to mate.

And my personal word to my future congregants? Sexual expression is akin to mango season in my country of origin. Prior to its season (time of harvest) mangoes might look fit to eat but if you bite in too early the mango sap will burn your mouth and the flesh will be too sour to enjoy. Though skilful cooks can use the green mangoes to make curries and stews  the distinct taste of the mango will be lost and seeds of the mango will not bear fruit… but if you wait till mango season, as one song records at that time you won’t have to coax the mango off the tree it will “ripe and drop.” The mango wanting only to exercise its potential to give life does everything to achieve its goal. The once almost impenetrable skin will give way to the advances of your teeth revealing succulent syrupy flesh rich with nectar; a mutually beneficial offering pleasing to your taste and an opportunity to uncover the mangoes potential to give life- its seed. And when its “mango time” even coffee one of Jamaica’s most lauded exports is regulated to the background— in service of mango monogamy.

Renegade – “running and running away but you can’t run away from yourself”

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

A Conservative Bible? You’ve got to be kidding me.

Posted on October 5th, 2009 by James G. Gilmore

Apparently the Bible is too liberal… so the same people who brought us Conservapedia (the right-wing conservative version of Wikipedia, complete with made-up facts) are going to rework the Bible to make it fit into their worldview.

Seriously.

You just can’t make this stuff up.

Among their conservative principles for Bible translation:

Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning

Their full free-market meaning? Yeah, Jesus was totally thinking about laissez-faire and the invisible hand of Adam Smith’s free market when He told the rich young ruler to sell all he had and give it to the poor. And the whole parable about the farmer casting his seed over the field? Clearly, Jesus is talking there about optimizing crop yields and exploiting laborers in order to maximize agricultural profits.

Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story

(For the record, here’s the story in question.)

Yeah, because we wouldn’t want sentiments like “let he who is without sin cast the first stone” to complicate our worldview. We wouldn’t want to contemplate whether or not we’re acting hypocritically before we condemn others.

Of course, given the spotty record of right-wing religious figures who demagogue about family values, maybe they are better off excising that passage…

And finally, the coup de grace…

10. Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word “Lord” rather than “Jehovah” or “Yahweh” or “Lord God.”

Why not go the whole way and replace “Lord” with an inarticulate guttural grunt, a thumbs-up, or a “guy nod”? God doesn’t want those boring liberal words mucking up His pristine Bible. Conservative God doesn’t use words, He uses action… so next time you’re in church and they ask you to read a passage aloud, instead of all that boring text with its “high word-to-substance ratio” you should just punch the guy next to you in the jaw. That’s what Conservative Action God wants.

Posted in Christian Community | 20 Comments »

Pray for Health Care Reform

Posted on September 28th, 2009 by James G. Gilmore

Our nation’s health care system is broken – and our people are suffering daily because of this grave injustice in the richest nation on the planet.

Millions of our fellow citizens are suffering right now because they don’t have health insurance. If they’re fortunate enough to be healthy right now, they worry about what would happen to them if they all of a sudden became sick, or were injured, and had to pay the exorbitant prices charged by doctors and hospitals to the uninsured.

Those who are fortunate enough to have insurance are also worried – because our system rewards cost-cutting measures for insurance companies like finding any imaginable excuse to not cover people when they get sick. It’s our nation’s dirty little secret that many of those who went bankrupt due to medical costs had insurance when they got sick – and their insurance company did whatever they could to get out of paying for treatment. Those who have insurance are worried because they could lose their jobs and have no insurance at all.

Given the millions of people suffering in this country from our nation’s completely broken health-care system – a system that rewards greed and venality instead of good care and compassion – why are we Christians not using the tools we have at our disposal to change the system?

In other words – why aren’t we praying for health care reform?

As Christians, we hold as one of our beliefs the idea that prayer does something. Whether or not we theologically believe in a God who changes God’s mind due to the prayers of the people, we can’t escape that Scripture calls us to bring our petitions and concerns before God – including (in 1 Timothy 2:2) for those in positions of authority. We are supposed to bring the concerns of our nation – not just our own private fears and thoughts – before God.

And it’s quite clear, given the tenor of the debate in Washington over the issue, that some hearts need to be changed. We need God to quicken some of the hearts of our Representatives and Senators so that they care more about the people they’ve been elected to serve than they do about the profits of the health insurance industry. We need God to call those who do favor strong reform to speak out with a prophetic voice in calling their fellow members to the cause. We need God to energize the hearts of more of the people to call, and write, and advocate for real, serious health care reform. In short – like every other great struggle for progress in our nation’s history – we need God’s help to make it happen.

Perhaps, in addition to calling and writing letters to our representatives in Congress, in addition to writing letters to the editor of our local papers, in addition to talking to our neighbors about the necessity for health care reform, we should be organizing to petition God for health care reform. We should be asking for the microphone when it’s passed around during the “Prayers of the People” and calling our brothers and sisters to beseech God to change hearts as necessary. We should be making health care reform part of our own prayers, part of the prayers of our small groups, part of the prayers of our Sunday schools.

Prayer is no substitute for action, but we as Christians believe that prayer and action are a much more potent force when brought together.

Won’t you join me in praying for health care reform?

Posted in Christian Community, Health Care, Human Rights | 16 Comments »

Truth, reparation and reconciliation: 9/11

Posted on September 11th, 2009 by Aretha Campbell

Truth, reparation and reconciliation: 9/11

In seminary I took a class on forgiveness and one of our discussion topics was the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001. I was the only person in the class with first-hand knowledge of what that day was like. At the time of the attacks, I was a student at John Jay College of Criminal Justice located at 59th street in Manhattan and travelled under World Trade Centre earlier that morning to attend an 8 am class. I was one of the many people trying to get to safety, one of many who in the subsequent weeks walked around in a daze wondering when I would wake up from this nightmare. There are those who witnessed more, friends who lost loved ones, stood looking up while people jumped out of the buildings, searched through the rubble to find body parts.  So what about forgiveness?

Forgiveness is often touted as the sine qua non Christian virtue. Whether it is a harsh word or genocide the Christian advice most frequently doled out is forgive. The definitions of forgiveness range from not seeking revenge to maintaining relationships with the wrong doers. While I can readily accede that revenge seeking is not a Christian attitude, the same can be said for the maintenance or establishment of unhealthy relationships. My position is premised on my belief that the essential Christian state of being is love (God , self and others). My love policy is best summed up by a line from a Jamaican song “harm no one and let no one harm you.”

So what about those terrorists “axis of evil”?  I believe that love for self and fellow beings mandates that people and things that are inimical to human existence be quarantined until they cease to be so. I believe every effort should be made to find the guilty and thwart their schemes. Can I imagine a scenario in which those who lost their loved ones could establish relationships with the 911 terrorists? Yes if certain conditions are met: truth (repentance) and reparation ( fruit of repentance).  If the offenders were to come to share the point of view of the victims, that 9/11 was a wrong act and the offenders were willing to make reparation.

Renegade

Posted in Uncategorized | No Comments »

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