justice

Recently, I came across an extraordinary statement in a comment on this blog: "I don't think that Jesus was that concerned about life on the physical plane." This statement, which took my breath away, epitomizes a certain implicit and unBiblical attitude among Christians that I think is so widespread as to be rarely questioned or even made conscious.

While no one would dispute that Jesus cared primarily about our spiritual well-being, this concern cannot occur without caring about the facts of life on earth. To say that Jesus cares about our spirit, but is not that concerned about events on the physical plane is precisely the kind of specious dichotomy that is at the center of so much carelessness about issues of peace and justice among many Christians. Out of such dichotomies, wars are concocted, economies are ravaged, and the ecology of the earth laid waste.

God cares. He cares about us as spiritual beings. He cares about us as physical beings. In the Catholic tradition, the spiritual and physical parts of humanity are parts of a single totality which we call the "human being". This synthesis between the spiritual and earthly parts of man was made by St. Thomas Aquinas in the 12th century and I'd like to briefly recap it for those who may not be familiar with it.

As the current leading political issue is, rightfully, the economy, I would like to assemble a team of writers, editors and reviewers to author a white paper on the topic of progressive Christain economic policy. With Kety's inside connections to the Obama campaign I would like us to develop a paper that places economic issues in a progressive Christian context.

Rev. Roger has graciously provided us with several good biblical references. With Bill Peltz' well established experience as a stock broker I invite others like these two to step forth and offer your thoughts and experiences.

I would base it in the premise that we, as divinely created creatures, have free will to choose and are bound by the consequences of our actions to provide mutual service one to another. The Golden Rule, AKA, the Ethic of Reciprocity, would be our guide. We would pursue policies that provide a level playing field for all persons.

So if we are a Christian nation, then what would a Progressive Christian Economic Policy encompass, how would it be implemented, what kind of legislation would be needed to put it into action?

I wanted to lay out some of the key points of common ground that I think all of us share as followers of Christ, whether we lean towards conservative/literal interpretation of the Bible or a liberal/metaphoric interpretation. I believe that these common points are also foundational components of progressive politics. I don't intend to unpack each of these extensively here, but rather I want to put them on the table for discussion and for everyone's consideration.

1. Reciprocity as derived from the Golden Rule and the command to love our neighbors. The idea of reciprocity is a foundational principle for most secular formulations of liberalism. Jesus says of the command to do unto others as we would have them do to us, "...this sums up the law and the prophets" Mt 7:12. It is a command that directly dictates the manner in which we are to relate to others. The laws that we support and advocate through our political involvement effect our neighbors and so this command is perhaps the most relevant in the Bible to the way in which we ought to formulate our political agendas.

Remember LIBERTY?

Part 1 in a Series: "It Was God That Kept Us Afloat"

It was the events of THAT DAY we call 9/11 that woke this pampered physician's wife up to the fact on the ground that people in the world hated the U.S. so much, that they would target and murder innocent Americans.

I did not react with fear, but curiosity. I did not want to shop as President Bush encouraged us all to do if we wanted to help. I wanted my questions answered and the MSM was not asking them and Congress was not demanding them.

Seven years ago, I was your typical uninformed, misinformed American, but with diligence and persistence I have learned much. But, it was not until June 2005 and my first journey to the Little Town of Bethlehem: Occupied Territory did my rage erupt against the empire; the American governments allegiance to Israel's Military Occupation of Palestine.

I wrote the following last night for the WAWA Blog Dec. 26, 2007. In this morning's email was this message from Vanunu.

PS- In 1986, Vanunu a secular Jew converted to Christianity just days before being kidnapped by the Mossad and spending 18 years in jail for telling the world the truth that Israel was already nuclear.

Bad news, Dec. 25 th. The police come to the American Colony to arrest me. I was meeting a young German girl who wanted to know more about my story. They took us to the police questioning me, hold me until midnight 24:00. Not so impresive all this again arrest. I think the police was waiting for my arrest in Beet Lehem,since I did come to B L. they found new reason to arest me. Any way life will continue as I am doing all the Time.
vmjc

On Christmas Eve evening I picked up my mail and opened up a card from Jerusalem sent to me by Mordechai Vanunu. He made me laugh out loud, for he addressed it to: "Eileen Flaming" not Fleming, which is my actual name.

But, upon reflection, I think Vanunu has renamed me well; for I am flaming over the hypocrisy and injustice of empire and apathy and ignorance of good Christians who have no eyes to see, ears to hear, or hearts that bleed for the poor and oppressed in the Holy land and the entire Middle East.

The Bible and Global Trends in Christianity- by Ian Lawton (www.christ-community.net )

Jos is a province in Nigeria. Between 2000 and 2005, 50,000 people were killed or expelled through inter-religious fighting. Conflicts between Christians and Muslims, such as that in Jos, are mirrored across Africa and Asia. It’s a trend that is defining global Christianity, as more American evangelicals find their networks in Africa and Asia. It’s also a trend that reveals the double edged role of the Bible; both as justification for political agenda when read literally, and as a potential agent for global healing when read as life affirming myth.

Consider these emerging trends:
1. In 1900, Africa had 10 million Christians representing 10 percent of the population; by 2000, that was up 360 million, or 46 percent of the population. That is the largest quantitative change that has ever occurred in the history of religion. All denominations have been growing, and Anglicanism in particular. The worldwide Anglican Church is going to be overwhelmingly an African body in the near future.

On a Friday afternoon in Levittown, Long Island my fourth grade best friend, Kat and I took our time getting home on November 22, 1963.

It was eerily quiet and calm in the streets and not until Phil passed us by on his bicycle and yelled, "Kennedy has been shot!"

Did I even have a clue as to why nobody else was outside.

Six days later after that day that changed the world as I had known it, on Thanksgiving Day, LBJ took the oath of office standing next to a very distressed widow and announced that Florida's NASA Launch Operation Center would be renamed the John F. Kennedy Space Center and he asked the public to remain "determined that from this midnight of tragedy we shall move toward a new American greatness."

Zion's Zealots

[Miami, Fl. November 6, 2007] The James L. Knight Center was packed to the rafters with John Hagee's tribe of Christian Zionists and south Florida's right wing Jewish community. Zion's Fire Banners, dancers, singers and a band whipped the crowd into a frenzy of spinning, jumping, clapping, twirling and moved the rotund Hagee to link arms with men in skull caps and dance the Hora-not to Hava Nagila, but to repeated choruses of:

Shout for joy and victory! Bat Yerushalyim

From one end of the stage to the other, the largest American and Israeli flags I have ever seen were draped side by side and by the end of the evening I imagined every star on the red-white-and blue had morphed into the Star of David.

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Joe Martinez pointed to the flags and exclaimed: "Isn't that beautiful up there together? I get goose bumps! All nations have been created by an act of man, except Israel was created by an act of God."

"It Was God That Kept Us Afloat" Part 1 in a Series

It was the events of THAT DAY we call 9/11 that woke this pampered physician's wife up to the fact on the ground that people in the world hated the U.S. so much, that they would target and murder innocent Americans.

I did not react with fear, but curiosity. I did not want to shop as President Bush encouraged us all to do if we wanted to help. I wanted my questions answered and the MSM was not asking them and Congress was not demanding them.

Seven years ago, I was your typical uninformed, misinformed American, but with diligence and persistence I have learned much. But, it was not until June 2005 and my first journey to the Little Town of Bethlehem: Occupied Territory did my rage erupt against the empire; the American governments allegiance to Israel's Military Occupation of Palestine.

I can't resist the Hebrew prophets. So here's another in this series of riffs on the assigned readings for Sunday services at my church. Here's my take on the one I'll be reading on the Second Sunday in Advent -- December 2, this year: Isaiah 11: 1-10. And I'm afraid it's turned into something of a sermon. But even a lector can indulge in a bit of exegesis.

This is a famous passage -- about lions and livestock lying down together, and a little child shall lead them. It's a vision of a highly stylized utopia, a "version of pastoral", built on very different principles from the normal, natural world.

At one level, it harkens back to the ideal of the Garden of Eden -- carnivores no longer eat meat: "the lion shall eat straw like the ox". The former predators and the former prey shall lie down together and all are tame enough to be led by a child.