Spend 15 minutes and read the link. Please.
The Speech George Bush didn't give.
Wow. This guy (Brian McLaren) is sort of interesting to me. I have been advised and invited to go spend a couple days listening to him. Hmm. I don't know if I am going to or not.
Wow. This guy (Brian McLaren) is sort of interesting to me. I have been advised and invited to go spend a couple days listening to him. Hmm. I don't know if I am going to or not.
posted by Kurt at 1:01 PM
2 Comments:
I've been reading his stuff regularly in the weekly Sojourners email mag. That's the magazine founded by Jim Wallis. He's the evangelical flip side of the Religious Right, and until recently was ignored by the media.
You might be very surprised by what McClaren has to say. If you wade through the liberation and leftist terminology you find he addresses the concerns you and I have raised for years. And at times he's as contemptuous of the left as he is of the right.
I'm guessing that he's the Mo Ranch speaker this year. Interesting that they would choose one of the more strident voices from the Sojo net. Some of the other Sojourner writers can speak the language of conservatives and moderates.
If you look behind the words in the speech you can find the basics of the concerns of many:
- why was our response an attempt to wage war on a non-sovereignty?
- if we are engaged in a war with a non-nation how is the outcome of that war decided? what constitutes surrender? who signs the treaty ending the engagement?
- why do we not recognize that though the scale was huge compared to previous terrorist actions, it was still an illegal act by individuals, not nations, just as the acts of the Weather People, Shining Path, and others in the past?
- will we be true to our values as a people as we engage the world, even when it costs us?
- as followers of Jesus, how can we support acts of vengeance rather than turning the other cheek?
- do we believe scripture when it tells us that in responding in love towards acts of hate we "heap burning coals upon their heads?"
- do we understand that turning the other cheek is never an act of appeasement, but is always a part of a firm rejection of violent domination? that it never extends legitimacy to the illegal actions, no matter how grand the motive?
he's not the keynoter at Mo... i don't think that level of shake has reached the upper echelons of the leadership of the Synod of the Sun's male populace.
He is going to be in Dallas in a couple weeks. Terry and his wife both mentioned to me seperately that he "reminds them of me" and I should go.
i have told nini that after reading some of his stuff, i feel like me being there is the "preaching to the choir" scenario. i get it becuz i have said it myself.
as you and i discussed previously, it is wonderful to postulate about these ideas. great that someone is having them. however, it isn't effecting any change and provides no specific leadership to cause such change.
when does someone stand up and declare, "Follow me following Him!" and then orchestrate real change?
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