Faith, Politics, Voting … Introduction
Recently I needed to set the record straight about an AP article that had a misstatement about my relation to the Barack Obama campaign.
This week, a CNN story had a similar statement that requires some clarification:
Brian McLaren, a former pastor who spent 24 years in the pulpit and is now an informal adviser to the Obama campaign, believes that a significant portion of evangelical voters are ready to break from their traditional home in the the Republican Party and take a new leap of faith with Obama.
A few friends contacted me and said they were afraid the article gave the impression that I left a 24-year pastorate in order to become an Obama advisor, which isn't true. I left the pastorate in January 2006 - long before the campaign began - in order to devote more time to writing, travel, and networking. If I am an advisor to the campaign at all, it is very informally - probably nothing more than the fact that at least one campaign staffer has read some of my books.
The article accurately reflects my belief that increasing numbers of evangelical voters have become increasingly alienated from the Religious Right and are moving toward Senator Obama. I'm certainly one of them. While I was never a fan of the Religious Right, for many years I sat on the sidelines and didn't speak out publicly that the leaders of the Religious Right didn't speak for me. Looking back, I'm ashamed of my inaction and I believe my silence unintentionally empowered "the powers that be." Since leaving the pastorate, I have felt more free to speak out as a Christian and private citizen about my discomfort with the agenda of the Religious Right, and my hopes for a better way of relating faith, politics, and voting. I plan to be more involved in this election than any in my life ... and that includes offering whatever advice I can to whomever might find it helpful.
Over the coming months, I'd like to share on this blog a few thoughts about the way I see faith, politics, and voting to be connected. I'll post under this heading, using Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, etc., if people want to follow the thread.
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The Lord’s Prayer
When I was writing The Secret Message of Jesus and Everything Must Change, I became more and more amazed at the radical message and profoundly formative power of what we commonly call the Lord's Prayer. For me, as for many, the words had become so familiar that I was tempted to go on autopilot whenever I said them.
I tried to render the prayer into fresh language that would convey some of this power and depth, while retaining its primal and understated simplicity. Then I began singing a kind of simple chant of the prayer in my own private devotional life, which I eventually began teaching to others. People frequently ask me to share it with them, so I put together this little video ...
Please forgive the roughness of my voice and my video production skills. (I'm just using isight and imovie on my mac.)
I should add that you can also have someone sing a line of the prayer "solo," and then have the congregation echo it ... this slows people down even more, so that they really savor the words and let the prayer echo in their hearts.
I hope you'll find some value in this version of this amazing prayer - in your personal prayer life, and in your faith community as well.
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Politics in Church? Sojourners Presentation
Here's the powerpoint presentation from my talk at Sojourners' Pentecost event in DC.
Click to download the file.
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Slides/Notes from Brian’s Lectures
A lot of people have been asking for some of my powerpoint presentations. They're now available in PDF format here ...
I hope they'll be useful. Feel free to adapt and use them in ways that would be useful in your context.
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more on batwa
You can learn more about the Batwa land project at Kelley Johnson Nikondeha's blog here ...
And more on life as visitors to Burundi at Ron and Sarah Gonski's blog here ... be sure to check out their description of "hospital prisoners," which is another amazing story.
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