Jarrod McKenna posted this video on his blog yesterday. It is a music video of Radiohead’s “All I Need,” juxtaposing children on opposite sides of the world: one group rich, one very poor. They video is held together through a pair of shoes. The point of the video? “Some things cost more than you realize.” It’s a powerful and moving video, and worth watching. It’s for MTV’s EXIT a campaign meant to bring awareness to human trafficking and exploitation. Here’s the video:
This may be old news for some of you but last week Quaker Wendy Gonaver, an American Studies professor at Cal State Fullerton here in LA, was fired for refusing to sign the loyalty oath.
The LA Times reports:
As a Quaker from Pennsylvania and a lifelong pacifist, Gonaver objected to the California oath as an infringement of her rights of free speech and religious freedom. She offered to sign the pledge if she could attach a brief statement expressing her views, a practice allowed by other state institutions. But Cal State Fullerton rejected her statement and insisted that she sign the oath if she wanted the job.
“I wanted it on record that I am a pacifist,” said Gonaver, 38. “I was really upset. I didn’t expect to be fired. I was so shocked that I had to do this.”
This is the second time in the last year that a Quaker woman has been fired from a teaching Job in California for this reason. I personally am inspired by their witness in this situation, I can’t imagine how difficult it must be. But I have reflected on how I would like to respond if I were in their position. I certainly hope to teach someday, and I wonder if I would be able to lay my job on the line for something I too believe it. [Read more]
A blog I read fairly often has been posting quotes from Yoder’s essay on tradition, they’re worth sharing here, plus you might as well check out INHABITATIO DEI.
“We are not talking about ‘the authority of tradition’ as if tradition were a settled reality and we were then to figure out how it works. We are asking how, within the maelstrom of the traditioning process, we can keep our bearings and distinguish between the way the stream should be going and side channels that eddy but lead nowhere. Can we do this by some criterion beyond ourselves? The peculiarity of the term ‘tradition’ is that it points to that criterion beyond itself to which it claims to be a witness. We are therefore doing no violence to the claim of tradition when we test it by its fidelity to that origin. A witness is not being dishonored when we test his fidelity as an interpreter of the events to which he testifies. That is his dignity as witness; he wants to be tested for that.”
–John Howard Yoder, “The Authority of Tradition”, in The Priestly Kingdom: Social Ethics as Gospel (Notre Dame: UNDP, 1984), 77-78. From here.
But the attraction of a pope-in-a-stadium has its own unique meaning, I think. In a “post-modern” age Benedict represents something that is decidedly pre-modern. He comes to America as one who knows how to walk ancient paths. He models a chastity that stands in sharp contrast to the easy promiscuity of our culture. Yet he is conversant with our present-day patterns of thought. He brings much learning to what he has to say to us.
I’m pretty excited about what the Peace Tree is doing, and what Tom is trying to encourage through his four streams of church renewal. The four streams are missional, mosaic, emergent and new monastic. As you all know these have been around for awhile, and so it is not Tom who is guilty of my comments below, as much as all of us (I am as much an insider in this conversation as the rest of us). Yet, I have also had some cautions (or maybe criticisms) of these as categories when it comes to identifying with them as the categories that define our movements.
Today we listened to Krista Tippett’s discussion with Chuck Colson, Greg Boyd and Shane Claiborne on the role of Christians in politics. It’s well worth the listen:
A passionate discussion is unfolding in public and in private among Evangelical leaders and communities. Should Christians be involved in politics and if so, how? What has gone wrong, and what has been learned from the Moral Majority up until now. In this live public conversation, Krista probes these ideas with three formative Evangelicals.
Jesus Manifesto has posted a writing contest that I think some of you may want to know about, it sounds pretty interesting:
We want your words. Jesus Manifesto is inviting you to submit an original article exploring the theme of Pentecost. In particular we want you to explore the theme of Pentecost in light of the world’s struggles. In the so-called “first? world, Christendom is fading into memory. In the so-called “third? world, new religious realities are emerging as Pentecostalism, Catholicism, and Islam compete for souls. Meanwhile, our world is growing increasingly diverse as immigration patterns and globalization intensify both the interconnectedness and the fractured-ness of our world. Ours is a world where urban poor in US cities carry cell phones while urban poor in other cities live amidst disease and intractability.
Here’s a great piece by literary critic Stanley Fish, over at his New York Times blog “Think Again,” who offers brief history in the coming to America of French Theory (and namely deconstruction). Here’s a couple quotes I like from the post:
Tom Sine’s
