Links Update

If you haven’t caught this podcast about Naked Spirituality, check it out here.
Rene Padilla offers an incisive analysis of the Lausanne Movement here. And you can now learn about Kairos and Integral Mission in an English version of the Kairos website – here. Here’s a wonderful introduction to Kairos by Elisa Padilla.
Here are two of the best short reflections I’ve come across on the US budget debate, which has only just begun, even though government shut-down has been temporarily averted:

This from Michael Gerson. Quotable:

“We estimate, and I believe these are very conservative estimates, that H.R. 1 would lead to 70,000 kids dying. Of that 70,000, 30,000 would come from malaria control programs that would have to be scaled back, specifically. The other 40,000 is broken out as 24,000 who would die because of a lack of support for immunizations and other investments, and 16,000 would be because of the lack of skilled attendants at birth.”
…Fiscal conservatives tend to justify these reductions as shared sacrifice. But not all sacrifices are shared equally. Some get a pay freeze. Some get a benefit adjustment. Others get a fever and a small coffin. This is not fiscal prudence. It is the prioritization of the most problematic spending cuts — a disproportionate emphasis on the least justifiable reductions. One can be a budget cutter and still take exception to cuts at the expense of the most vulnerable people on earth.

This from Wes Granberg-Michaelson. Quotable:

I celebrate the way many congregations, including those in the Reformed Church in America, are deeply engaged in meeting the needs of the hungry in their communities. But let’s remember this fact, shared by David Beckmann, president of Bread for the World: Of all the food provided to meet the nutritional needs of those threatened with hunger, 94 percent comes from the government, and 6 percent from private charity. Even modest reductions in government programs will quickly overshadow all the good done by church and private groups.

If you haven’t signed up for MinEmergent (emergent village’s daily communique), I highly recommend it. You can do so here. Here’s a poem that came in a recent minemergent …

The truth of God is greater far
The truth of God is greater far
Than our poor human mind,
Than any doctrine, creed, or sect,
All partial and confined.
His treasures hold uncounted wealth
That hearts have never heard.
Our boundless God has yet more light
To shine out from His Word.
Who dares to limit God Himself
To what we understand,
To shrink His sprawling mystery
And hold it in our hand?
Immensity of purest love!
An ocean unexplored!
Our boundless God has yet more light
To shine out from His Word.
O Lord, Your Word is Jesus Christ,
Your truth in us begun,
But O the depths of all He is
And all that He has done!
Let faith and love each day increase
The hunger You have stirred:
May more and more of Christ our Light
Shine brightly from Your Word!
Words by Ken Bible and George Rawson (1807-1889)
Listen to this hymn here.
Submit a contribution to MinEmergent@gmail.com