gathering in light

I found this post over at God’s Politics – Jim Wallis’ blog it was a statement about Ted Haggard and the issues that were raised in the last couple weeks, and I think it’s really good to read.

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Emily pointed this political cartoon out to me the other day. It’s more true than we’d like to admit.

In keeping with the conversation at bay, MacIntyre’s words on protest are fitting. In his seminal work “After Virtue” he focuses on arguing how and why the “Enlightenment project” failed. Essentially it is because the modern period has stripped away from humanity any social context in which to couch morality and instead focused solely on the individual (this in no way does justice to MacIntyre’s work).

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While at the politics and spirituality conference we got to hear Wallis, Richard Rohr and Anne Lamott speak. They were also given time after their talks to answer questions from them audience. This gave a bit of a chance for the rest of us to interact a little with the speakers. On the morning Wallis spoke he was asked about an Iraq exit strategy and what ideas he had concerning it.

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My last post about Jim Wallis’ new blog has generated an important discussion that’s got me thinking not only about the leaders we support but also what things about those leaders we support and where we draw the line (this post may not make a lot of sense unless you’ve at least looked those comments over).
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I’ve liked the stuff that Sojourners has been putting out as long as I have known about them, they focus on many issues that face the church from a position that tries to bring together conservative and liberal Christianity.  This has been something Jim Wallis has focused on repeatedly, with his newest book, and in his other writings and conferences.  Now he is launching his own blog, called…God’s Politics.
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I spent this past weekend at the Politics and Spirituality conference with the Beatitudes Society both of which I have much to write about and will do so over the next week or two.  But in this moment I continue to think of this day as the anniversary of September 11, one of the saddest America has witnessed since I’ve been around (‘78).
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Every now and then I like to have little bits of activism promoted through my site, ones that I feel are not too weird or are doing something worthwhile. Kent, PhD student in Ethics and Mennonite, sent me a link to the Ceasefire Campaign and I think it fits the criteria.
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I wonder sometimes, whether I’ve gone off the deep end; I find myself criticizing stuff like this so often.  There are so many things that get under my skin; I’m a very happy and fairly contented person, really I am.  It’s just when I see things like this I want to crawl under a rock.

Shawn pointed this out to me earlier, but then I ran across a post on the matter which prompted this short reflection.  Pastor Dan from Street Prophets commenting on this monument located in San Diego, wonders what role history plays in our determining tthoughts on these kinds of issues?  Every symbol/image displays historical and present cultures colliding.  This is a great question and one not easily answered – but he came close when he said something that sounded almost Quakerish,

“The trouble is that we’ve come so far so fast that we’ve out-stripped
the lifespans of our cultural artifacts, or their social signification,
anyway.”

Many of these things have lost social significance, but I don’t think that the cross and the statue are two of those things.   The thing is that we are always redefining symbols and borrowing themes from the past.  We do this in hopes of transferring some kind of message to the onlooker, evoking some response.  The idea or meaning behind the image to the left is not hard to  get at, in fact it’s overly simplistic.

A helpful question that Pastor Dan asks is, “So does it do more violence to call for the complete removal of the
cross than it does to seek some kind of compromise that allows it to
stay?”

Knowing that I tend to be critical I want to learn from this last question, how can the church meet a compromise in this situation? Can it? If so what might it look like?  My tendency is to want to remove this all together – is there some way we can redefine this so we don’t have to resort to such a response?

technorati tags:christian politics, God and Country

I was chatting with Shawn who just got back from his trip to St. Louis – on his way back he took a picture of an enormous Cross. The site of it made my stomach turn, domesticating the cross, and then making it the size of a large building strips the cross of the brutality, and torture that came with along with it. The severity of the Cross should never be overlooked. The cross stood for Roman power, how odd to consider that the crucifix stood for “empire” and how often the American church has uncritically supported our own “empire.” Then Shawn showed me an even sadder sight.

Cross of America – America’s new symbol of Unity and Remembrance.

We know that Christendom has not fallen and that Christ’s work on the cross has been handed over to the empire when we see images like this.

Ironically, when Jesus was on the cross it was because he was subverting the powers, calling them into question, he was a threat to the Roman government and that is why he died an “insurrectionist’s” death. The Church is called to be a witness to the nations, a prophetic voice that calls people to reconcilliation with God, peace and Justice. To use this symbol to promote empire sentiments is slightly missing the point of…well…the entire Gospel.

technorati tags:empire, jesus and empire