Press Release: IPC calls for new "Politics of Honesty"
Washington DC July 9, 2007 Faith issues once again emerged as a key issue in the presidential races of 2008. The Institute for Progressive Christianity (IPC) called attention to former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani as he was caught once again in the spotlight of public criticism from Catholic bishops on his views on abortion. This year, Giuliani professes to hate abortion, though in previous electoral incarnations in liberal New York State he was pro-choice.
Former Republican governor of Democratic Massachusetts Mitt Romney was also attacked as a flip-flopper due to changing moral views on stem cell research and for minimizing his personal Mormon faith, seen by many as a vote-loser to his protestant Christian constituency. On the left, Senator John Edwards was attacked for addressing poverty "as a moral issue," and yet being wealthy.
"When major public figures feel the need to tack to different constituencies in order to get elected, what we have here may be less the failure of the candidate, and more the indictment of a failed system," Rev. Mark Farr, President of the Institute for Progressive Christianity, said today. "What have we wrought, when our very politics demands dishonesty from candidates?" he added.
The IPC called today for all Christians to heed a deeper Gospel truth than the 'gotcha' politics of today's media - from the left or the right. The IPC asserts that Jesus taught that honesty has a higher value to the Christian than either a candidate with an apparently unchanging belief system, or one who only says what they think today's audience will like.
The Board of the IPC issued this statement:
"As Christians, it is time to stand up for honesty in politics. Do you believe above all that your politician is being truthful, or is he or she simply pandering to your views? Honesty and sincerity is more important and more Christian, than the fleeting decision about flip- flopping politicians. The Institute calls on Christians watching today's political races to act in two ways: First: discard the politics of demonization of any public figure who chooses to change his or her opinion, if it that change is sincerely held.
Second: create a new, more Gospel-centric valuation of candidates that prioritizes honesty in a politician, rather than those who pander to views, just because they think we will like them, or who stick to positions out of fear of being called a flip-flopper."
IPC Executive Director Stephen Rockwell added: "Christians have always seen themselves as the leaven in the lump, those who follow a higher calling. So it is time to put our money where our mouths are, and think and vote more Christianly, rather than being conformed to the attitudes of this world. If this doesn't include avoiding the attitudes of the K-Street spin doctors of this world, and instead seeking the deeper truths of our faith when evaluating candidates, what does it mean?"
About The Institute for Progressive Christianity
We are Progressive
We are progressive in that we desire to promote: the Love of God, Neighbor and Self; Compassion; Justice; and the Common Good.
We are Christian
We are an ecumenical group of Christians of different theological orientations: Liberal, Mainline Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, and Evangelical. We believe in being in community that maintains unity while acknowledging and supporting our diversity. We are united in our conviction that our progressive values flow directly from our understanding of the message and example of Jesus.
We are an Institute
We have faith that we can positively confront the ills of this world with a progressive Christian witness that is coherent, convicted, intelligent, and passionate. In a spirit of being affirmative, we believe that engaging society's questions should be done transparently and authentically from a reasoned yet inspired place of substance. We research, analyze, and discuss the issues with an eye to welcoming other people into a dialogue where we can encourage and provoke each other to fulfill our destinies as unique but interdependent reflections of the Creator.
http://instituteforprogressivechristianity.org/joomla/
CrossLeft
IPC's Blogging and Activism Website:
Institute for Progressive Christianity
Stephen Rockwell
Executive Director
email: srockwell@instituteforprogressivechristianity.org
phone: 215-317-1865
The Institute for Progressive Christianity
Mark Farr
President
email: farrsindc@yahoo.com
phone: 202-422-8303
- Stephen Rockwell's blog
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Honesty and Sincerity -and leaders MUST be led
A few hours from now I leave for Tel Aviv and stopped by Crossleft to see if anything was new.
I LOL as the WAWA Blog for today is all about honesty and sincerity and being true;
And WAWA's DO SOMETHING page is all about confronting, challenging and communicating with politicians who are NOT!
July 12, 2007
Today's WAWA BLOG July 12, 2007
Here's To My 5th
Today's blog is dedicated to my Spiritual Companion/Friend/Director and Prayer Intercessor, who this morning emailed me to "Have Fun" on my 5th trip to Israel Palestine.
Family and friends have said the very same thing to me, and up until today, I had always replied:
"I do NOT go on these trips to have fun, but because I want to change the world as we now know it. If only everybody did something, it would happen and then I could just stay home!"
Then it hit me like a light, that God was speaking through all these people to me;
To lighten up, not be attached to any plan or outcome, for God's yoke is light and his burden is easy, and God loves to have fun with us.
The following 'confession' flowed out of me and it was FUN getting it all out!
I was raised in the Roman Catholic Church but tuned it out INSPIRED by the honesty of John Lennon who told a reporter and a friend that the Beatles were more popular with my generation than Jesus was, and he was most correct.
My friends and I knew every lyric to every Beatles song, but nobody ever quoted Jesus and Lennon's off the cuff remark sparked a 'fundamentalist revolution' of album burnings all over the south.
I THANKED GOD that I lived in Levittown, Long Island then and didn't have to see any of that idiocy except on TV.
I was aghast -and ashamed-at how judgmental and hypocritical Christians could be.
Lennon also made me think about my own hypocrisy, and that led me to drop the institutional church; for the first time.
It happened at weekly confession; in the late summer of 1966, just a few weeks before I began the 7th grade.
There I was at the altar, on my knees and mindlessly repeating the same old prayers as the week before. In the middle of the three Our Fathers and ten Hail Mary's, it hit me like a light. Those words that I uttered never changed anything, and I got up and walked out; knowing I was DOOMED for hell, for I had failed at confession!
Not until I was 27, did I yell HELP, and there are no words to describe the PRESENCE of God that came upon me; I knew I was loved and accepted JUST AS I WAS and that God understood everything about me and all was OK!
I didn't go back Roman until I was about 45, and that lasted but one year; from Good Friday to the week after Easter, and I left for the LAST time, because I could not accept the Roman Catholic Church conditions of worthiness in receiving Holy Communion.
They insisted I do paper work and request an annulment, but I know if we are truly sorry, God forgives us our sins as well as our mistakes, and Jesus never said paperwork was required.
I was married for the first time in my early twenties, but it was a mistake and error in judgment on my part. He was a nice guy, had a day job, played guitar at night and he was a consistent source of cannabis sativa; a flowering seed bearing plant that when smoked, will get you high.
Cannabis sativa once grew wild throughout America, but became illegal to grow or possess with the passage of the Marijuana Act of 1937. The Marijuana Act was determined to be unconstitutional in 1969. That led to the passing of the Controlled Substance Act of 1970 and although:
On the third day, God said, "Let the land produce vegetation; seed bearing plants." And it was so. The land produced plants bearing seed...And God saw that it was good.-Genesis 1: 11-13
In 1984, when my daughter arrived in the world, I desired to be clean and sober and my battle with my psychological addiction to pot began. Only through the struggling and wrestling to be clean and sober did I begin to realize how unhealthy a marriage I was in.
By 1988 I was tired of living a lie and knew the only way out was a divorce and to begin a new life.
It has been said that an employee should never date their boss, and maybe it was the rebel in me-but I also am totally convinced, it was God's plan for my life, for I did date my boss and today we celebrated our 17th year of marriage.
Neither of us are who we were in 1990, and now I do-most every night imbibe in a Vodka and tonic; sometimes even two, and will even drink a bit more than that at weddings and parties. I also have no doubt, if cannabis were legal, it would be my drug of choice.
I also often wonder what the ancients were burning as incense, for mind altering substances can unlock the windows in our minds if our hearts are open; and we can then connect more readily to our spiritual side...
ARE YOU aware that the very first mention of Israel in the Bible is when Jacob wrestled/struggled with The Divine, and only after being rendered crippled and clinging to The Divine, was he renamed ISRAEL! -Genesis 32:23-33
That story just so happened to be the first reading in the Roman Liturgy for July 10, 2007. Although I no longer attend any church in the USA, I read and meditate [for Christians that word means THINK!] and I follow the Roman Catholic liturgy for my daily devotions.
My intuition tells me that ANYONE who wrestles, struggles, reaches for and clings to God, is also Israel.
Israel is more than a geographical location without defined borders.
God does not want to be bored and He/She LOVES to wrestle with us human beings, and if we have ears to hear and hearts that are open, we will hear Her/His calls to us to be His/Her hands and feet in this dysfunctional world.
I leave for Tel Aviv for my fifth time on Friday the 13th of July.
During my first trip to Israel Palestine, I kept recalling a prayer Thomas Merton penned and it has been coming back into my heart/conscience as I make my plans and prepare:
Oh, God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not necessarily mean that I actually am. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will always lead me by the right road, although I may know nothing about it... and I will not fear.
"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans"-John Lennon
I make plans anyway-in fact, for this journey to Israel Palestine; I have Plan A, Plan B and Plan C.
I trust God is always in charge and what will be will be and that "all things work for the good for those who love God and are called to his purpose."-Romans 8:28
Join me on my fifth trip to the Holy Land as I live it out with me on the WAWA Blog, beginning Friday the 13th of July.
If you pray; please pray for me to remain in God's will and I do thank you for every positive thought.
P.S. Dear Reader,
Now is the time for me, to also 'confess' that I have been praying for you since I put up my website-and it will be two years on the 22nd of July-to come to understand that we do indeed "have it in our power to begin the world again."-Tom Paine
P.S.S. That power is the power of the Holy Spirit; The Divine spark within every man, woman and child. May we all WAKE UP and know it and then DO SOMETHING to begin the world again; and it starts in your own back yard.
All Good 2 U and
PROVOKED I HOPE!
e
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Eileen Fleming,
Reporter and Editor of
http://www.wearewideawake.org/
Author "KEEP HOPE ALIVE" and "Memoirs of a Nice Irish American 'Girl's' Life in Occupied Territory"