Jesus' alternative to the Religious Right

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As a follow-up to the points on religion and politics which I made towards the end of my previous post, I present this interesting article.

I found it quoted in full on the RSS feed of a blog I regularly follow, from a Christian blogger who has expressed strong anti-Obama opinions in the last few weeks. I was pleased to see that he had apparently had a change of heart in endorsing these sentiments. But he seems to have deleted this post from his blog. Perhaps he understood how inconsistent these thoughts are with his anti-Obama views. Or possibly he realised, or was reminded, that by reproducing the full article he was breaching copyright. (Since there is no longer a mention of this on the blog, I will not identify the blogger.)

The article is in the Jewish World Review, written by Cal Thomas (who I initially assumed to be a Jew, but I am now told is an evangelical Christian). The title is Religious Right, R.I.P., and indeed the initial thrust of the article is to proclaim that after 30 years this movement is at an end. But it is encouraging to see the alternative put forward to a primarily Jewish audience (and using the Jewish convention of writing “G-d” for “God”):

If results are what conservative Evangelicals want, they already have a model. It is contained in the life and commands of Jesus of Nazareth. Suppose millions of conservative Evangelicals engaged in an old and proven type of radical behavior. Suppose they followed the admonition of Jesus to “love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you, feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit those in prison and care for widows and orphans,” not as ends, as so many liberals do by using government, but as a means of demonstrating G-d’s love for the whole person in order that people might seek Him?

Such a strategy could be more “transformational” than electing a new president, even the first president of color. …

Evangelicals are at a junction. They can take the path that will lead them to more futility and ineffective attempts to reform culture through government, or they can embrace the far more powerful methods outlined by the One they claim to follow. By following His example, they will decrease, but He will increase. They will get no credit, but they will see results. If conservative Evangelicals choose obscurity and seek to glorify G-d, they will get much of what they hope for, but can never achieve, in and through politics.

Amen!

UPDATE: Thanks to Tim and Barry for clarifying that Cal Thomas is not in fact a Jew. In fact I found the same article, but with “God” instead of “G-d”, on his own website. So it seems that this article was in fact not written specifically for a Jewish audience. But I am astonished that the presumably Jewish editors of the Jewish World Review chose to publish it, unedited except for “G-d” and an excellent change from “Scripture teaches” to “G-d teaches in His Word”.

When Barack met Gene

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Ruth Gledhill has an interesting report (see also her newspaper article) of three meetings between now President-Elect Barack Obama and the controversial Bishop Gene Robinson. Apparently Obama sought out Robinson – but I think only as one of a series of meetings with many religious leaders, so this should not be taken as an endorsement. Ruth writes that these meetings took place “in May and June last year”, but I think she means this year, although pre-Lambeth and pre-US election campaign May and June 2008 must seem at least a year ago!

Ruth’s account is taken from an interview she had with Robinson. Here are some extracts from Gene’s words about Barack:

I must say I don’t know if it is an expression here in England or not but he is the genuine article. I think he is exactly who he says he is. …

He is impressive, he’s smart, he is an amazing listener. For someone who’s called on to speak all the time when he asks you a question it is not for show, he is actually wanting to know what you think and listens, or at least gives you that impression. I think we’ve had eight years of someone who has listened to almost no-one. …

He certainly indicated his broad and deep support for the full civil rights for gay and lesbian people but frankly we talked more about – I pressed him on the Millennium Development Goals. …

The thing that I liked about him and what he said on this issue is that he and I would agree about the rightful place of religion vis-a-vis the secular state. That is to say, we don’t impose our religious values on the secular state because God said so. Our faith informs our own values and then we take those values into the civil market place, the civil discourse, and then you argue for them based on the constitution. You don’t say to someone, you must believe this because this is what God believes. I think God gives us our values and then we argue for those on the basis of the constitution and care of our neighbour. …

He has no hesitation whatsoever to talk about his faith. I find that remarkable not only in a politician but also in a Democrat. For years it’s only been Republicans who wanted to talk about religion. …

One of the things Barack and I did talk about when we were together was just  the experience of being first and the danger of that and we talked about being demonised by one side and, I don’t know if the word is angelicised, by the other. Expectations are laid on you both negative and positive and neither are true. And the importance of remaining centred and grounded in the middle of that so that you don’t begin to believe either your negative press or your positive press.

Good material which, I must say, raises both Barack and Gene in my estimation, although I continue to believe that practising homosexuals should not be in positions of leadership in the church. I particularly like this:

we don’t impose our religious values on the secular state because God said so. Our faith informs our own values and then we take those values into the civil market place, the civil discourse, and then you argue for them …

But of course I differ from Robinson, and perhaps Obama, in believing that among the values which should be informed by faith are recognition that homosexual practice and abortion are not God’s will for his people.

So let’s avoid demonising or angelicising either Barack or Gene but let them “remain[] centred and grounded in the middle”.

UPDATE: It’s only an hour since I posted this, but I have more good news about Barack Obama. Ruth Gledhill reported Gene Robinson “was guarded” about Obama’s attitude to the Millennium Development Goals. But Dave Warnock pointed me to Obama and Biden’s new “Change” website, where, on this page, I read:

Fight Global Poverty: Obama and Biden will embrace the Millennium Development Goal of cutting extreme poverty around the world in half by 2015, and they will double our foreign assistance to $50 billion to achieve that goal. They will help the world’s weakest states to build healthy and educated communities, reduce poverty, develop markets, and generate wealth.

Halving extreme poverty is in fact only one of the eight Millennium Development Goals, but it is surely the most significant, and probably the most expensive. It would be good to see if Obama and Biden have declared policies relating to the other seven goals, but their foreign policy agenda document is incomplete on the web page.

Congratulations, Obama!

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Congratulations to Barack Obama on his convincing win! The people of the USA have spoken, and the peoples of the world will be glad, because Obama promises to seek peace and reconciliation worldwide, and to act on climate change. Here are some of his international and environmental policies as summarised by Avaaz.org (in an e-mail I received):

  • Reduce the US’s carbon emissions 80% by 2050 and play a strong positive role in negotiating a binding global treaty to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol
  • Withdraw all combat troops from Iraq within 16 months and keep no permanent bases in the country
  • Establish a clear goal of eliminating all nuclear weapons across the globe
  • Close the Guantanamo Bay detention center
  • Double US aid to cut extreme poverty in half by 2015 and accelerate the fight against HIV/AIDS, tuberculoses and Malaria
  • Open diplomatic talks with countries like Iran and Syria, to pursue peaceful resolution of tensions
  • De-politicize military intelligence to avoid ever repeating the kind of manipulation that led the US into Iraq
  • Launch a major diplomatic effort to stop the killings in Darfur
  • Only negotiate new trade agreements that contain labor and environmental protections
  • Invest $150 billion over ten years to support renewable energy and get 1 million plug-in electric cars on the road by 2015

Now I don’t agree with Obama on abortion. However, abortion was not a real issue in this election, but the matters above were real issues, and ones about which Christians should be just as concerned as they are about abortion. Let’s pray for Obama and press him to put into practice policies like the ones listed above which will make our world a better place.

Mission Under Scrutiny

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Eddie Arthur, posting from a remote mountain location in the Philippines, is in danger of losing his humourless readers with a picture and references to Starbucks before they get to the meat of his post – and then in danger of losing his more humour-loving readers by presenting this meat as “One last thing”. So I will rescue this strong meat from oblivion by reposting it here.

The meat in question is a quote from Mission Under Scrutiny by J. Andrew Kirk. (The author is not a close relation of mine, but there is some evidence that we have a common ancestor in or before the 15th century.) Here is what Eddie quotes, complete with typos and missing question marks, understandable from a jet-lagged visitor to the Philippines:

… how well does it (the church) communicate with its context? Is the church reviewing the efficacy of its attempts to transmit the good news of Jesus Christ within its neighbourhood? How aware is it of the distance between the Gospel message and the beliefs and values of most citizens today. Has it really taken on board the fact that the vast majority of people living in Europe now are no longer lapsed Christian believers, or even the un-churched in the sense that belonging to the church would still be culturally appropriate? Neither Christian belief or moral values nor belonging to a faith community are remotely within their horizon. There is little or no residue of a common language that could form a bridge between the Jesus story and their own stories. The church often gives the impression that it is content to minister to an ever dwindling population. Christians have to learn how to make the unchanging message of salvation in Christ meaningful to generations preoccupied with other concerns. (p.95)

Indeed! Too often our churches here in the UK, even those like mine which have a heart for evangelism, content themselves with evangelistic methods which work reasonably well with the minority of the population with some church background. An explicit example is “Back to Church Sunday”, but even initiatives like the Alpha Course tend to assume some kind of Christian upbringing. Methods originating in the USA, which so often attract cult followings over here, tend to have this problem simply because in the USA, at least in the more conservative parts of it, it is still possible to assume much more Christian background than is possible here in England.

These methods do bear fruit among people brought up in contact with the Christians, and so are pronounced successful and embraced by many churches. But they barely touch the growing majority of our nation who have no Christian background at all, and are often in fact repelled by anything they do see of church culture, whether traditional or modern style, as being completely outside their cultural expectations.

I don’t know how we can reach such people, but the first step towards doing so is to recognise that even our apparent success stories are in fact failures.

UPDATE 5th November: as Eddie tidied up his typos, I have updated this to his tidied up version.

The Prodigal God

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James Spinti has got me thinking with a series of posts about Timothy Keller’s book The Prodigal God, recently published in the USA and soon to be here in the UK. Each post consists of a quote from the book and one of James’ “idle musings”. These posts start here, then here, here, and here, with probably more to come as James seems to be less than a third of his way through the book.

Keller, and James, manage to put their fingers on some raw spots in today’s church life and perhaps also in our personal ones. Here is an example of Keller’s writing, from this post:

We see that the elder brother “became angry.” All of his words are dripping with resentment. The first sign you have an elder brother spirit is that when your life doesn’t go as you want, you aren’t just sorrowful but deeply angry and bitter. Elder brothers believe that if they live a good life they should get a good life, that God owes them a smooth road if they try to live up to standards.

Ouch!

The Parable of the Unforgiving Bankers?

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Sally wonders whether bankers, who have been forgiven debts of billions of dollars, will now forgive the debts of small borrowers in difficulties, or whether they will play the part of the unforgiving servant in Jesus’ parable, Matthew 18:23-35. It seems from the report Sally links to that our Chancellor of the Exchequer is taking the part of the king in that parable, but I wonder if he will be able to enforce his will as firmly as the king did.

Bargain of the Week

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Last week I bought for a friend a book, through an amazon.co.uk reseller, for 1p (plus £2.75 shipping). It is a paperback novel, the kind one might expect to find for 10p at a jumble sale. The reseller had probably received it as part of a clearance lot and was glad to make the pound or so profit on the shipping.

But just now I went back (just for interest!) to look at the availability of another copy of this book. The best price now is £228.40 (plus £2.75 shipping)! That is more than 20,000 times what I paid, or 2 million per cent inflation!

This was not entirely chance. My friend had been looking out for this book to buy as a Christmas present (I won’t name the book in case the intended recipient reads this), and hadn’t been able to find it as it is known to be rare and hard to find. The seller’s mistake was not to recognise this rarity among a pile of rubbish.

Has anyone out there bought a better bargain than this?

The 4-Variable IQ Test

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As many of you will know I am a bit of a sucker for online personality quizzes. So I took another one recommended by Sally: The 4-Variable IQ Test (warning: after taking this you are required to register to view your results). And I am not surprised that the result was as follows (not sure if the picture of Einstein at a blackboard will come out):

Your result for The 4-Variable IQ Test …

Mathematical

15% interpersonal, 20% visual, 20% verbal and 45% mathematical!

Mathematical

Brother-from-another-mother! Like mine, your highest scoring intelligence is Mathematical. You thrive on logic, numbers, things representing numbers, and sets of things that are sets of other things,  with numbers nowhere in sight.  You probably like the online comic called XKCD, and if you don’t, check it out.

You probably knew you’d score “Mathematical” as you took the test, and mathy types are usually super-high scorers on this axis, and low on the others. Why? Because you (we) yearn for math.

Anyway, your specific scores follow.  On any axis, a score above 25% means you use that kind of thinking more than average, and a score below 25% means you use it less. It says nothing about cognitive skills, just your interest.

Your brain is roughly:

15% Interpersonal

20%Visual

20%Verbal

45%Mathematical