I must be onto something, since someone else is writing a entire book on my ideas. 
Peter Lim - Assistant Professor of the History of Christianity at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee - is currently writing a book entitled Xenophobia to Philozenia: A Trinitarian Theology of Immigration. He is quoted in several recent articles about the New Sanctuary Movement (read their pledge), including (more…)
Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
As such, I believe it is open to debate about the best way to address border security, or to enforce current laws, or to confront the exploitation of workers, or to deal with the crisis of the health care system or social services or education. These things are open to debate.
What is not open to debate is (more…)
From the ever-expanding YouTube, John Piper on the so-called prosperity gospel.
I wonder why there isn’t more teaching and strong responses like this to the prosperity gospel phenomenon.
HT: Deep(ish) Thoughts. Also, read more here.
Worth Saying - Right below my disdain for the ‘prosperity gospel’ movement is those who theologically oppose the so-called prosperity gospel, but still live within the general American practice of personal prosperity and individual wealth. For some, please explain the difference.
It’s 10:30pm and I’m listening to the last call to prayer go out. There is a mosque just down the street from where I’m staying. Five times a day there cries out from the loudspeakers a call to prayer. Five times a day from before sunrise to after sunset.
I’ve actually asked myself this question numerous times. Even though I’m open to their being a rational explanation for this, I haven’t yet heard it. Honestly, I have a hard time following all of the anti-abortion soapbox in America without an even stronger adoption message following suit. Plus, I know personally of several Christians that have spent tens of thousands of dollars on fertility options, even as Anthony Bradley reminds us that:
“America has nearly 115,000 orphaned kids in foster care waiting to be adopted.
Some wonder how this is possible in a country with Christian families. Surely, there are 115,000 missional families in America, right? Missional families, for example, embrace the redemptive mission of God and practice “true religion” in their local communities (James 1:27). Missional Christians in America could eliminate the foster care system tomorrow if we would stop “shootin’ up” with the American Dream (heroine) in order to get high on a lame life lived for the sake of comfort and ease.
“Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world,” writes James (1:27). As a matter of fact, the Bible has over 40 verses mandating God’s people to look after orphans and the fatherless for various reasons.
According to the American Religious Identity Survey, conducted by the City University of New York, there are over 224 million Christians in the United States. So, why are there 115,000 orphans in a country that has over 224 million Christians?”
Read the whole article. (HT: DJ Chang)
Now that I’m here - and figured out a little more about the specifics parameters of what I can share - the vow of secrecy is lifted a little. I’m writing from Turkey, in a city near the Aegean Sea. After flying through Munich on a trip that started Thursday afternoon and concluded Friday at midnight, we arrived safe and sound. (One of my travelling companions still bemoans how we lost a whole day of our lives in travel.)
After getting adjusted to the 10 hour time change, yesterday we took a walk around the city. It so many ways, it reminds me a lot of walking around (more…)
No, I’m not parachuting into Bagdad. But I am leaving today to visit a student ministry we’ve built a partnership in a Muslim country in the mid-east. While I’m gone, I’d appreciate your prayers:
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This from a recent NY Times article, “The Founding Immigrants” -
“As we celebrate another Fourth of July, this picture of American intolerance clashes sharply with tidy schoolbook images of the great melting pot. Why has the land of “all men are created equal” forged countless ghettoes and intricate networks of social exclusion? Why the signs reading “No Irish Need Apply”? And why has each new generation of immigrants had to face down a rich glossary of now unmentionable epithets?
Disdain for what is foreign is, sad to say, as American as apple pie, slavery and lynching.”
“Life for me outweighs the game of basketball.“
But it does stand out. I’m glad that players, or now, ex-players like Derek fisher exist.
Eddy Ekmekji reflects on “How much renewal do renewal movements bring?” In light of how much schism and division gets labeled ‘the will of God,’ - both large & small - I think it is critical quesiton.
I’m talking about the East LA Coalition meeting at El Gallo Cafe. As John Lewis has discovered, it is a great place to meet, work, rest, whatever. And the East Los Angeles / Boyle Heights Coalition that is starting to meet up is very promising. I’m eager to have other ministries from the area join us in collaborating, encouraging, networking and partnering together to serve East LA, Boyle Heights, Lincoln Height, El Sereno, City Terrace, etc.
I’m really getting excited about this Fall and heading into Christmas season. Why? Because of what’s cooking up for our new student outreach at CSULA starting in late September through November, and what’s happening with La Fe in Los Angeles - on Nov.16th we’re gearing up for the 5th annualCumbre de Alabanza and in December between Christmas and New Year’s, about 500 Latino students from around the U.S. will meet in Torrance for La Fe ‘07 - InterVarsity’s triennial Latino student conference.
While I’m not sure if this story can be taken as typical of every church service everywhere, I do think it raises to the forefront the challenge of not just remembering ‘the least,’ but also putting the ’service’ back into worship service.
P.S. I found the story at Disabled Christianity.
MORE: The WSJ has a disparaging story on the front page - Hard Lessons from Mainstreaming - that portrays the practice of mainstreaming in special education as the desolating sacrilege that is ruining public education, even when their own facts water that analysis down… a lot.
“Job is not a patient man, at least not in the usual sense of the word. He is rather a rebellious believer. His rebellion is against the suffering of the innocent, against a theology that justifies it, and even against the depiction of God that such a theology conveys.” Gustavo Gutierrez - author of On Job: God-Talk and the suffering of the innocent
Last week - as we studied the middle section of Mark’s Gospel at our end-of-the-year summer confernce for CSULA - I taught the section in Mark 10:1-16 about divorce. In preping the passage, I did some research about divorce in the U.S. (see below).
But one stat hit closer to home than the rest - the 75-85% of parents of special needs children that divorce - took on a whole new dimension while at Catalina with my students.
I just found this out:
In 2006 over 17 million students enrolled in U.S. universities.
2,031 of those students began to follow Jesus through the ministry of InterVarsity.
…apparently is time for blogging. This past few weeks my plate has been pretty full. In addition to an ongoing contest with sleep that Isabel has been having, I’ve just had a lot of deadlines and teaching assignments to prep.
In mid-May, I taught a seminar at the Urban Youth Worker’s Institute on the faith transition to college. You’d think that would have been easy to prep, considering that is what I do for a living. But it was challenging to prep because I didn’t want it to just be an information download. Plus, I wanted to challenge some of the common notions that college is only a faith killer. Did you know that for all of the hype about how between 50-70% of college students lose their faith, the number is even higher for their same-age peers that don’t go to college? Anyway, leading the seminar was very re-inspiring for me about both the strategic significance for spiritual formation, as well as what I enjoy most about working with college students.
For example, I love (more…)
ie. the camera was found. Tell the gremlins to keep their grubby mitts off our stuff (but thank them for putting it in mami’s sweatshirt pocket.)
It’s not Friday, but since you’ve all been so patient, here is the last shot that we took before the gremlins got to work.
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“No wonder that the well-installed like to speak about the triumphant Christ, while the poor and the lowly prefer to speak about suffering, flagellated, and crowned with thorns Jesus of Nazareth! One justifies power and glory while the other assures us that the God of life is with us in suffering and struggles.”Rev. Virgilio Elizondo - Notre Dame Professor of Pastoral and Hispanic Theology
