Countdown Day 64
The religion that was ostensibly founded by a nonviolent man of peace had now embraced the very violence he prohibited. The religion that grew in response to a man who was tortured and killed by the Roman Empire was now torturing and killing others in league with that empire. Dynamic faith that moves mountains was out; static belief that burns or banishes heretics was in. Catalytic faith as an agent of social transformation was out; codified belief as a tool of social control was in. And that kind of belief has stayed “in” ever since. (12)
From A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith (available February 9, 2010)
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Countdown Day 65
The Christianization of the empire and the imperialization (or Greco-Romanization) of Christianity … was problematic from the beginning, because during the first two hundred and fifty years, the bishops of the church participated in the identification and execution of about twenty-five thousand people as heretics. Do you see the irony of this? Perhaps “tragedy” or “atrocity” would be a better word. (12)
From A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith (available February 9, 2010)
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Countdown Day 66
To live in [God's participatory] universe does not mean we're just stuck in static cycles like gerbils on a wheel. Nor are we spurting around aimlessly in an anything-goes universe like a deflating balloon, with one direction no better than any other. No, there is a trajectory to history, a flow in creation, a moral arc to the universe that slowly but surely tends toward justice, as Dr. King used to say. (194)
From A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith (available February 9, 2010)
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Dirty diamonds, dirty gold …
Please take five minutes and read my friend Tom Austin's excellent update about conflict-gold in Congo, where arguably the most neglected humanitarian crisis on earth is still taking place. Another example where the power of ethical buying and fair trade needs to be brought to bear!
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Countdown Day 67
Sorry for the mixup on yesterday's post day ... I'm on the road with limited internet access. Yesterday I spent several hours filming group study introductions for the book, and feel more excited than ever for the book to be released - in just 67 days!
Youth workers began feeling the pain first, and soon so did faculty and staff at Christian colleges and universities, as did workers in parachurch ministries and mission agencies, with church planters and pastors and priests in local churches not far behind. As time went on administrators and leaders in denominations began seeing the writing on their office walls too. (10)
From A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith (available February 9, 2010)
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