Australians (and others) …
If you'd like to hear a beautifully-done Australian radio broadcast (ABC) on Jesus and the Kingdom of God in which I participated (along with Richard Horsely, Shane Claiborne, and others), you can listen to it here (July 5).
I'll be in Oz this October - hope to meet many old and new friends there! (Stay tuned at my schedule page for details.)
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Encouraging signs …
On Christian-Muslim relations ...
Rick Warren gets it right in calling for a Christian-Muslim coalition for the common good here.
On Nuclear Disarmament ...
Faithful Security reports ...
The Joint Understanding for the START Follow-on Treaty signed by President Obama and President Medvedev on July 6, 2009 commits the United States and Russia to "reduce their strategic warheads to a range of 1500-1675, and their strategic delivery systems to a range of 500-1100." Of course, negotiators for both sides still have to work out the details and draft the treaty, hopefully to be signed by the end of the year when the START I agreement expires. The follow-on agreement will contain the rigorous inspection regime.
While the agreement, to be implemented in seven years, represents a modest step in nuclear arms reduction, it is a significant step toward the goal of a nuclear weapon free world. The leaders at the G 8 Summit meeting in L'Aquila, Italy, released a statement that called for: moving toward a world without nuclear weapons, strengthening the nonproliferation treaty and securing nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists. While in L'Aquila President Obama formally announced his plan to host a Global Nuclear Security Summit in March 2010. The Global Nuclear Security Summit will likely involve up to 30 countries and will address the risks posed by nuclear terrorism, the safety of nuclear stockpiles and atomic smuggling.
Blessings from the staff of Faithful Security.
Among Episcopalians ...
There's a good vibe here in Anaheim at the Episcopal General Convention. My friend Sarah Dylan Breuer (who was just elected to the Executive Council, by the way) said it well in an article in the Center Aisle newsletter here:
"Three years ago, the tension was palpable, and emotions ran high. Some testified in tears, the pace was frenzied, and fear - perhaps even panic - was in the air and in many voices, both pro and con. Two days ago, debate was calm and reasoned on both sides, and observers noted that members of the House seemed to be listening to one another deeply and prayerfully."
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Prince Charles gets it right …
Graeme C sent me this link to an important speech by Prince Charles - another resonance with the message I tried to share in EMC. Noteworthy quote:
And this is why we need to ask ourselves whether the present form of globalization is entirely appropriate, given the circumstances confronting us. I mean there are, clearly, benefits, but we need to ask whether it requires adaptation so that it also enables, as it were, globalization from the bottom up. This, after all, is the way Nature operates! It grows things from the roots up, not from the sky down. At the moment we operate under a form of globalization that tends to render down all the rich diversity of a culture into a uniform, homogenized mono-culture. And this is where the Modernist paradigm needs to be called into question before the damage being done is irretrievable…
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For Episcopalians … on seizing the moment
This document should provide a lot of encouragement ...
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A good Samaritan story from Israel …
My friends Larry and Andrea passed on this beautiful story ... about an Israeli man who serves Palestinians.
Two noteworthy quotes:
“I don’t have a solution to this dispute. I just know that what is going on here is wrong. This is not about ideology. It is about decency.”
“Being gay has made me understand what it is like to be a despised minority,” Mr. Nawi said.
Sounds like Jesus' story of the good Samaritan to me.
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