Big publishing news …
In our final deepshift newsletter (you can read it in full after the jump), you'll find information about my upcoming publishing projects. An excerpt:
"... September 1 of this year, The Justice Project will be released by Baker. I am joined by co-editors Ashley Bunting Seeber and Elisa Padilla to present a book with chapters by Christians engaged with justice issues from around the world. If I could bring together about thirty of my favorite people and give each of them the chance to share with you their insights and experience working for justice, and then condense their stories and messages into a book ... it would be The Justice Project.
"Then, around March 1 of 2010, my next major book will be released by my new publisher, HarperOne. The tentative title is A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions that are Transforming the Faith. In all my books to date, I feel that I've been excavating, scraping away layers of debris, trying to get to the core issues that need to be courageously addressed in our lifetimes. This is the book where I feel I've gotten down to ten bedrock issues - which, as the subtitle suggests, I've articulated as ten transformative questions: What is the shape of the biblical narrative? What is the Bible and what is it for? Why does God seem so genocidal in some biblical passages? What does it mean to say Jesus is the way? What is the gospel? What future does the church have? Why are Christians so preoccupied with sexuality? How should we relate to people of other religions? How should we view the future? Where do we go from here?"
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A Christian Nation?
On Faith posted my response to President Obama's statement about the US not being "a Christian nation" here. A quote:
I agree wholeheartedly with historian Richard Hughes, author of "Myths America Lives By" and of the upcoming "Christian America and the Kingdom of God." When we in the US flatter ourselves with a mythologized national identity -- seeing ourselves as the Chosen Nation, as Nature's Nation, as a Christian Nation, as a Millennial Nation, and as an Innocent Nation -- we make it more likely not only that we will behave unjustly, but that we will be ignorant and un-self-aware as we do so. So I was glad when President Obama simply told the truth.
When people tell me that we are or have been a Christian nation, I want to ask, "When?" Was it in the colonial era or during westward expansion, when we began stealing the lands of the Native Americans, making and breaking treaties, killing wantonly, and justifying our actions by the Bible? Was it in the era of slavery or segregation, when again, we used the Bible to justify the unjustifiable? Was it in more recent history, when we dropped the first nuclear bomb and killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, when we overthrew democratically elected governments in the Cold War era, when we plundered the environment without concern for the birds of the air or flowers of the field, or when we sanctioned or turned a blind eye to torture earlier this decade? Was it earlier this week, when I turned on the TV or radio and heard people scapegoating immigrants and gay people and Muslims?
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Sex and Love
Jonathan Merritt may be the most courageous Southern Baptist in America this week for his USA today editorial on how Evangelicals need to love gay people. Even if we might take a stand that differs from his in some ways. those of us who know the world Jonathan comes from know he is showing remarkable courage to say what he's saying and should be applauded and appreciated. He reports:
According to Public Religion Research, 37% of evangelicals ages 18-34 have a close friend or relative who is gay. Only 16% of evangelicals 35 and older can say the same.
Another hero in this regard is Andrew Marin, whose new book Love is an Orientation gently educates and thoughtfully challenges Evangelicals to rethink some of their assumptions about gay people. I wrote the foreword for Andrew's book.
And last but in no way least there is Wendy Gritter, who helped produce an extremely helpful video called Bridging the Gap. Its purpose is not to take a for-or-against position on homosexuality, but to create space for Christians, whatever their opinion on the issue, to learn to be more loving and Christ-like to their gay and lesbian friends and neighbors. (Video trailer after the jump.)
By the way, Tony Jones continues to foster good dialogue on this and other subjects at his site.
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Abolition of nuclear weapons
Twice recently I posted on abolishing nuclear weapons. Right around that time, President Obama said ...
“Just as we stood for freedom in the 20th century, we must stand together for the right of people everywhere to live free from fear in the 21st. And as a nuclear power—as the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon—the United States has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it.”
“So today, I state clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons. This goal will not be reached quickly—perhaps not in my lifetime. It will take patience and persistence. But now we, too, must ignore the voices who tell us that the world cannot change. First, the United States will take concrete steps toward a world without nuclear weapons.”
(links after the jump)
To add your voice in support of this important step forward, check in with the Two Futures Project here.
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Another amazing weekend … a great week ahead
Sometimes I am just overwhelmed. I can't contain the gratitude I feel for being able to meet, dialogue, and collaborate with such tremendous people. It happened again this weekend at the Sacred Activism conference in North Carolina.
In addition to an amazing gathering of conferees, I had the privilege of working with
... Fred Burnham, priest and historian of science, who organized the event ...
... Bishop Eugene Sutton, my neighbor here in Maryland, and an extraordinarily gifted preacher
... Sister Joan Chittister, someone I have admired for years, and whose presence was even more energetic and alive and brilliant than I expected
... David Korten, a brilliant economist/activist whose work was so important to my work in Everything Must Change
... Courtney Cowart, a new friend who works like a community organizer and writes and speaks like a poet
People often ask how I handle all the negative stuff that gets aimed in my general direction, and I can only say the the kindness and inspiration of the friends I meet far outweighs whatever negativity comes my way from anybody else.
This week I'll be at North Park University in Chicago for Earth Day, then in Little Rock Arkansas over the weekend ... and next week will be the poverty summit here in DC sponsored by sojo.net.
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