It's evangelicals in the comparatively poor south who see a bright future ahead - Africans, Latin Americans and Middle Easterners. Those from the developed world, where evangelical Christianity was born, are the pessimists. And Americans are among the most glum of all, with more than eight out of 10 evangelical Christian leaders there saying that the movement is losing influence in the United States today.
The joyful environmentalists: Eugene Peterson and Peter Harris
Christianity Today has a refreshing interview by Andy Crouch with retired pastor Eugene Peterson and Peter Harris, the co-founder of Christian conservation organization A Rocha, discussing creation care not as a desperate attempt to “save the planet” but as a way to honor God and bring him pleasure. I love this quote from Harris on the question of biblical support for environmental stewardship:
Our job in reading Scripture is not primarily to find proof texts about creatures with wings or legs. Our job is to discover: Who is God? Who is Jesus Christ? What do they care about? And how does the Spirit enable us to live that life?
Let's disagree, but not hate Capital Commentary, from the Center for Public Justice, has a reflection from former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson on the disappointment by many that the release of Sarah Palin’s emails didn’t produce any real scandals, and how this is a symptom of a broader problem:
This hunt for incriminating material tells us a lot about the press—concerned more about scandal, as usual, than news. But the absence of scandal teaches another lesson. We are often too quick to turn disagreement into disdain... There is a tendency in American politics to assume that political opponents are also bad and cynical people. That they are not just wrong, but evil—and evil because they are wrong. This is the most basic explanation for political polarization in America—the tendency to deny the humanity of people we disagree with. This is not only dangerous to democracy, it is often badly mistaken.
The evolution of Derek Webb
An interview at Beliefnet with one of my favorite artists. He discusses how he’s evolved, how not everyone likes it, and how he approached the creative process with his last record, Feedback, an instrumental take on the Lord’s Prayer:
I thought, I don’t know anything about instrumental music; that will be a real challenge and that sounds fun. I don’t know a lot about the Lord’s Prayer, so I’d love to dive into that. By the time it was done, the decisions were made that led to the album. So, ‘What is the product going to look like?’ Well, who cares? Who knows? ‘Do you think anyone’s going to buy it or want to listen to it?’ I don’t know. I don’t want to spend my life thinking about things like that. I want to spend my life really loving and enjoying the process.
Who, what and where is Bon Iver? I stumbled upon this on Paul Burkhart’s blog, a New York Times Magazine profile of the dude behind dreamy-indie-folk band Bon Iver, whose much-anticipated new album came out this week and closes with an oddly mesmerizing 80s-esque anthem.
Video: Shopping with $1 in Guatemala Finally, a video from the World Food Program, with a vivid demonstration in a public market of how tough it is to shop for food if you're a poor person in a place like Guatemala.
There’s a cool new project over at Christianity Today called “This Is Our City.” It’s still in its infancy stages, but I’m excited about it and I know a lot of you will be as well. A sort of introductory video is below, featuring Christians committed to loving their home city of Richmond, Virginia, but first, the blurb from the project’s home page:
A new generation of Christians believes God has called them to love their cities and to work for their shalom. These Christians are bringing their gifts and energies to all sectors of public life—including government, technology, the arts, commerce, and education—to enact systemic renewal from the cultural “upstream,” and to bless their neighbors in the process. They embody a new approach to evangelical cultural engagement.
This Is Our City, a multimedia project of Christianity Today, seeks to spotlight the ways these Christians are responding to their cities’ particular challenges with excellence, biblical faith, and an irenic spirit. And we need your help to tell their stories. To this end, we invite you to a This Is Our City listening session, a small gathering of influential Christians who can speak to the work God is doing in your city, and the people he is working through. This informal gathering will let you connect with other Christian leaders in your city—and let you shape the stories we end up publishing in Christianity Today. We hope you will join us.
I think this is a project that will resonate with a lot of us who are trying to figure out what it means to seek the shalom of our cities. You can follow the project on Twitter here.
With the Haiti earthquake almost a month behind us, it’s natural to feel ready to think about something - anything - else. A lot of us have watched the news, given to organizations we believe in, and in some small sense have perhaps even grieved with our Haitian brothers and sisters in their time of need.
But we all know that it will take years to rebuild Haiti. So how do we ensure that, in our President’s words, Haiti will not be forsaken nor forgotten? For starters, by getting to know the context.
In the week just before the quake, ironically, I read a memoir called Following Jesus Through the Eye of the Needle by Kent Annan, co-founder of Haiti Partners. It had been highly recommended by Andy Crouch, who calls it "an unsparingly honest story of relocation to Haiti that captures the complexities of crossing differences of power, wealth, and culture in hopes of being part of God's work of transformation, without and within. It's funny, gritty, and strangely hopeful—just what a Christian memoir should be."
So when I heard there had been a 7.0 magnitude earthquake with an epicenter near Port-au-Prince, I pictured the shacks on those steep hillsides Annan had described, and I knew they must have been destroyed. I thought of the real people described in the book, and I wondered if any were alive.
In the days that followed, I decided I wanted to learn more. I went to Busboys and Poets and picked up a copy of Mountains Beyond Mountains, which tells the remarkable true story of Paul Farmer, a Harvard doctor who has devoted his life to curing infectious diseases in the world’s most impoverished places - especially Haiti.
Both books are challenging, entertaining, informative, and inspiring, and if you want to learn more about Haiti they may be worth checking out. You might also be interested in this music video from Arcade Fire, a stellar rock band with one Haitian member. This video was filmed on location in Haiti, capturing its vibrancy of life before the devastation. As you watch, consider what it will take for Haitians to once again experience this vibrancy.
Repaso: Evangelical gloom/optimism, joyful environmentalists, Derek Webb’s evolution, and more
Should evangelicals be gloomy or optimistic about the future?
When it comes to our future, a new Pew survey finds that the world’s evangelical leaders are split between hope and despair. The findings are noteworthy:
The joyful environmentalists: Eugene Peterson and Peter Harris
Christianity Today has a refreshing interview by Andy Crouch with retired pastor Eugene Peterson and Peter Harris, the co-founder of Christian conservation organization A Rocha, discussing creation care not as a desperate attempt to “save the planet” but as a way to honor God and bring him pleasure. I love this quote from Harris on the question of biblical support for environmental stewardship:
Let's disagree, but not hate
Capital Commentary, from the Center for Public Justice, has a reflection from former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson on the disappointment by many that the release of Sarah Palin’s emails didn’t produce any real scandals, and how this is a symptom of a broader problem:
The evolution of Derek Webb
An interview at Beliefnet with one of my favorite artists. He discusses how he’s evolved, how not everyone likes it, and how he approached the creative process with his last record, Feedback, an instrumental take on the Lord’s Prayer:
Who, what and where is Bon Iver?
I stumbled upon this on Paul Burkhart’s blog, a New York Times Magazine profile of the dude behind dreamy-indie-folk band Bon Iver, whose much-anticipated new album came out this week and closes with an oddly mesmerizing 80s-esque anthem.
Video: Shopping with $1 in Guatemala
Finally, a video from the World Food Program, with a vivid demonstration in a public market of how tough it is to shop for food if you're a poor person in a place like Guatemala.
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