A New Kind of Christianity: on God and Violence
A friend wrote:
Q: As you know from earlier communications, I’m enjoying your new book immensely. I’m wondering if you can help me a little with a question that keeps bouncing around in my head. In fact it kept me up most of the night last night. [My wife] tells me to stop reading certain material before I sleep.... The question has to do with our progressive understanding of God. I think you did a nice job with the math analogy when relating our understanding of God to the Order of Operations in math or learning math. I’m with you on that. What I struggle with is the idea that our added insight and mature understanding of God has done little to help us experience less violence in the world. If you look at the 20th century you’ll find more atrocities done, both in the name of God and in the name of the State than all centuries combined. Is this, in your opinion, the rebellious teenager going through her normal maturation, or is it perhaps a last ditch effort to exercise a form of fundamentalism control in some subconscious way? Or maybe it’s both and more. It troubles me that we seem to be progressing while failing miserably in the world of violence.
I understand you’re in London or on your way. When you get a moment I’d really appreciate any insight you can offer.
Reply after the jump ...
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Later today or tomorrow …
I plan to post a response to the March CT review of A New Kind of Christianity. I just got home from a tremendous weekend in England (thanks Faithworks and church.co.uk!) and am trying to catch up on all the emails that need an immediate response, and then will try to address the CT review, which I understand is generating a lot of attention.
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Jim Wallis gets it right on theology and health care reform, part 1
Whatever your political affiliation and opinions on health care reform (really, just put them aside for a moment), I hope you'll consider the questions Jim raises in an important short essay on war, health care, poverty, and debt. (excerpt after the jump)
Our current situation reminds me of a peaceful protest a few years ago in Washington, DC, in which I was arrested along with Jim and about a hundred others, including sagely activist Mary Nelson. I remember before our arrest Mary delivering a fiery "sermon on the sidewalk" where she said something like this:
We're reversing the inspired words of Mary, the mother of Jesus, in Luke 1:53. We're sending the poor away hungry and filling the rich with more and more good things!
After I had been handcuffed, the police officer who was escorting me to the transport van asked, "You people are really polite. What's this protest about?"
I replied, "We're protesting that we're cutting taxes for the rich and cutting services for the poor."
He replied, "Wow. That's great. Somebody in this town has to stand up for the poor. Thanks for what you're doing!"
Reading Jim's piece also brought back to mind the old trickle-down economic theory on which the Republican tax cuts were based: invest in the rich and the poor will be helped automatically. Shouldn't we re-evaluate how effective that huge "investment in the rich" has turned out in light of the investment banking crisis and the ensuing economic crash? We not only invested hundreds of billions in the richest Americans via tax cuts, but then we bailed out their investments with hundreds of billions more. This strikes me as a time to scrutinize a lot of our old economic platitudes in light of what reality has been trying to teach us in the last couple years.
Could it be that the rich would be more benefitted long-term by wise investment in the poor than they are by investment in themselves? Could it be that to compute the full cost of the tax cuts for the rich, we should include the costs of bailing out the big banks and other financial institutions in which their tax cuts were invested? Could it be that it is actually better - even financially - for our richest people to give than to receive? I know it sounds crazy. But sometimes the foolishness of God turns out - on balance sheets even - to be wiser than the wisdom of human beings.
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Responses: A New Kind of Christianity … a lawyer
Matt is blogging on the book question by question. He's a good writer and a thoughtful reader - I think many will benefit from his reflections, even though he's an admitted Dallas Cowboy fan!
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