Jesus for President

Jesus for President-Shane Claiborne
Section III: When the Empire Got Baptized Part V

God Bless America (This ought to be fun since I work with a 501c3 non-profit church that has this painted on the side of their building)

Ched Myers does great work with the idea of “God Bless America” in his article “Mixed Blessing: A Theological Inquiry into a Patriotic Cant,…

In the Hebrew Bible, the imperative “Bless!” occurs only thirty out of the several hundred times the verb barak (”to kneel,” as before a king) appears. OF those thirty occurrences, the majority are liturgical exhortations to “bless the Lord,” mostly in the Psalter (e.g. Ps. 66:8; 96:2; 104:1). In other words, the act of blessing is most often directed toward heaven, not solicited from it! Only four times in the entire Hebrew scriptural tradition do we find requests in the imperative for divine blessing. Even more intersting (or troubling, from the point of view of the “patriots”) is the use of blessing in the New Testament. Of the forty-one appearances of the Greek verb eulogeoo (”speaking a good word”), only twice do we find it in the imperative mood. In neither case does it involve God. It does, however, involve us–and our enemies. In his famous sermon on the Plain, Jesus invites his disciples to “bless those who curse you”. These instructions are later echoed by the apostle Paul: “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse”. The lesson is unmistakable: we would do much better to ask God’s blessing on the world, and to bless God by loving our enemies.p199

Did I Miss Earth Day?

April 22nd…yup I missed it. However, I found this great site called “The Story of Stuff”. Here is a sample:

And check out Eugene Cho’s thoughts on this as well.

If you have an hour and a half of free time you should check this out…

Speaking of Faith on NPR journalist, Krista Tippet, interviews Greg Boyd, Shane Claiborne and Chuck Colson about Evangelicals and Politics. It is a great discussion as I think it shows the wide range in which people who follow Jesus can differ in how they think their faith interacts with politics. Good stuff! Check out the video or audio

A Wedding, a Reception and a Game

Yesterday was a full day. It started off with Matt and Stacia’s wedding at the Manteca courthouse. If you missed the vows let me recap what the judge said:

Do you?
Do you?
You’re done.

You may now kiss the bride.
But seriously, the judge said that he never saw so many people in his courtroom before…for a wedding. He also mentioned after the bride and groom kissed that he had never seen such a happy crowd…for a wedding.

I was then able to catch the first half of the reception, offer a prayer for the marriage and snag a plate of food.

From there I gathered together with a great group of friends, threw sunflowers seeds and people and somehow got put in a head lock twice. It was a great evening with good people…

What a Great Idea

Where Jim Wallis Stands: The longtime activist on abortion, gay marriage, Iraq — and biblical orthodoxy

Jim Wallis was recently interviewed by Christianity Today. I have found his talks, books and other thoughts very helpful. He is usually criticized by liberals and conservative Christians alike. The ironic part is that he receives much of his criticism because of his willingness to try to see both sides of these seemingly opposite teams. Here are the introductory words to the article and the link to the whole thing:

Jim Wallis wants you to know he’s not a liberal. Yes, he’s been a chief critic of the Religious Right since its inception, gave the Democratic weekly radio address after the 2006 midterm elections, and has been an often-controversial voice for social justice since his early-’70s days at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. But, he says, his chief critics these days are liberals, not conservatives. “There is a Religious Left in this country, and I’m not a part of it,” Wallis said when he stopped by Christianity Today’s offices during his February tour for his latest book, The Great Awakening. Meanwhile, he says, theologically conservative evangelicals (especially young ones) are flocking to his message and are “deserting the Religious Right in droves” because it attempted to “restrict the language of ‘moral values’ to just two issues—abortion and gay marriage.”

Check out the full article here.

Busy

It’s been a pretty busy week. I feel a little tired and a little stressed but I think that I’m coming out of it. Between the apartment getting broken into on Thursday; staying up on Friday night (Rich’s bday party/ultimate hide’n’seek/Contact Spoons [i won]/swimming) till 3am; all day Saturday at Giants game in the sun; Crosswalk on Sunday and taxes and homework on Monday…I’m done. Actually I have work and tutoring tonight and then Wednesday should be a breather.

MLK-April 4th

“Press on and keep pressing. If you can’t fly, run; if you can’t run, walk; if you can’t walk-CRAWL.” - Martin Luther King, Jr., March 31, 1956

Diet Dew Facts

Quotable Quotes-Jesus for President

Jesus for President-Shane Claiborne
Section III When the Empire got Baptized part IV

What was so evil about Sodom? “now this was the sin of your sister Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy” (Ezek. 16:49). That’s not what we learned in Sunday school.p187

When we are talking about a baptized empire, one that has dazzled the church into fonformity, we are not just talking about the violent militarism of Rome or the United States or Iran or North Korea. We are also talking about a much more prevalent, subtle, and powerful empire that seeps into every home - our daily global lifestyle.188