unlearning adulthood

It wasn’t until I started growing up that I realized that I couldn't really do anything to effectively change the world in order to make it a better place. Don’t we all remember that as teenagers and young children we believed that we could actually do something to help the world? I heard it once said that it wasn’t until seminary that they realized when Jesus said “sell all that you have and give it to the poor” he really meant to be willing to. In the same vain it wasn’t till I grew up that I realized that it is important to be willing to have imagination and ideas about how the world should be but that’s it. We should expect to be able to actually affect change in the world as we know it. I think that is absurd to say the least but it definitely may explain the apathy and the confusion about what we think it means to be a Christian in modern culture. It may explain why we align Christianity with a certain set of political ideals that may or may not be Biblical. It may be why we need to seek out good theology as a replacement for the bad and not just throwing theology to the wind. The challenge for us is merely to dream, to be creative, to have imagination and see the world reconciled into the eschatological utopia God willed from the beginning. Simply to say we are responsible for having the vision to be part of the reconciliation of this world into the New Heaven and the New Earth.

Blog Updates

Hey friends!
I am very encouraged so far! I hope this is as energizing to you all as it is to me. I just wanted to tell you that I've updated the links on the side bar of the blog. Also, Deke metioned we should have a suggested reading list, so that is up as well. Thanks Deke for the good idea. We would like to keep those rotating so if you stumble across a great site, send it my way and I'll put it up (we aren't limited to 3 either). Same goes for the readings. Even if you have a great article, we can put that up as well. Also, if there are other "lists" to put in the side bar we can do that as well. Just let me know if you have an idea. Let you imagination run wild. After all that's what this blog is for.

I can't express how excited I am about this blog's potential. There are still quite a few people who are going to join!

Peace in Christ,
David

Some quotes that speak to us and our society in America: How might we respond?

Excerpts from The Irresisitble Revolution by Shane Claiborne

“Even if there were no heaven and there were no hell, would you still follow Jesus? Would you follow him for the life, joy and fulfillment he gives you right now?’ I am more and more convinced each day that I would. Don’t get me wrong. I’m excited about the afterlife. We are going to party like there’s no tomorrow. And yet I am convinced that Jesus came not just to prepare us to die but to teach us how to live (Claiborne, p.117).”

“And that’s when things get messy. When people begin moving beyond charity and toward justice and solidarity with the poor and oppressed, as Jesus did, they get in trouble. Once we are actually friends with folks in struggle, we start to ask why people are poor, which is never as popular as giving to charity. One of my friends has a shirt marked with the words of late Catholic bishop Dom Helder Camara: ‘When I fed the hungry they called me a saint. When I asked why people are hungry, they called me a communist.’….People do not get crucified for charity. People are crucified for living out a love that disrupts the social order, that calls forth a new world. People are not crucified for helping poor people. People are crucified for joining them (Claiborne, p. 129).”

These are a couple of quotes that I read tonight from Shane Claiborne’s book The Irresistible Revolution. In this book he deals with many things in his story but one of the big issues he discusses is what it means to be Christian and have that played out in our lives. I thought these quotes were particularly interesting because we are challenged to thing about our existence as more than a time seeking a place in an afterlife but being part of the reconciliation of this Earth into the New Earth spoken of in the scriptures the very Earth that we pray as we were taught to pray “on earth as it is in heaven..” Also in looking at what it means for us to not just help the poor by feeding and clothing them but by asking why they are poor. Forcing us also to ask a similar question; in fact if we are bold enough to ask the question why are there poor we must in the same breath ask why are their rich and what does that mean for our society.

Just some food for thought and a teaser to get someone else to read this great book.

Only the beginning...

Hey Friends,
This is a blog for conversations about life, culture and Christ (in no particular order). Feel free to use this as a place to vent, muse, discuss, and/or dream in the community of friends. Through it all, let us more completely become the body of Christ. Enjoy.

To quote (with a few changes) from the movie from which this blog gets its name:

"We don't read and write [about theology] because it's cute. We read and write [about theology] because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. And medicine, law, business, engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for. To quote from Whitman, "O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life?" Answer. That you are here - that life exists, and identity; that the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. That the powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. What will your verse be?"

And to quote Christ, the reason why we even have this blog:

"I have come that they might have life, and have it to the fullest."

Listen. Learn. Love. Serve.
David