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Repaso: November 2, 2012

November 2, 2012 — 2 Comments

1. Hurricane Sandy Relief
We’re all saddened and sobered by the devastation caused by this week’s storm in the Caribbean and northeastern U.S., and the photos of the aftermath are overwhelming. We’d do well to remember the victims in our prayers, and as Brian Fikkert from The Chalmers Center put it, we should help without hesitating. Tim Keller shared a couple of good ways to get involved, including donating to Hope for New York’s relief fund.

2. One church’s immigration journey
Tyler Johnson and Jim Mullins at Redemption Church here in the Phoenix area write about the “incredible opportunities and complex questions” the immigration issue has presented for the church:

Much of the affirmation we receive and the gospel transformation we witness is actually coming from within our congregations. The gospel-motivated love for our neighbors is pushing us across the boundaries of culture, comfort, and convenience. We frequently hear testimonies of how prejudice is being crushed, idols are being confronted, and joy is being made full. The people who serve these communities are finding that when they interact with members of the immigrant community—face-to-face in relationship—it personalizes the immigration issue. We, as a church, are learning the meaning of these words from our Lord Jesus: “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35).

3. CPJ’s Election Series 2012
In a few short days, the election season will be over. Many of us are looking forward to that. But in the meantime, it’s important that we weigh our voting decisions thoughtfully, considering all the issues. I recognize there are a million places to turn for opinions and commentary on the candidates and issues, but for me, the non-partisan Center for Public Justice’s election series has been especially helpful. It doesn’t cover every issue, certainly, but it does provide analysis from a variety of contributors on education, foreign policy, religious freedom, healthcare, abortion, immigration, and more.

4. Young Visionaries
Entrepreneur magazine is running a cool series of videos called Young Visionaries, telling the stories of entrepreneurs creating business ventures to address a variety of social, cultural, and environmental issues.

5. An Unexpected Briefing
We all yawn through those safety instruction videos on airplanes, right? Air New Zealand thought they’d change that.

Repaso is intended as a thought-provoking compilation of news and commentary from the past week related to the intersections of faith, development, justice and peace. As always, I welcome your thoughts on any of the links and ideas in this roundup!

[Photo credit: "A parking lot full of yellow cabs is flooded on Oct. 30 as a result of superstorm Sandy in Hoboken, N.J. (Charles Sykes/Associated Press)" via The Big Picture]

In Repaso Air New Zealand, Center for Public Justice, common good, election, entrepreneurship, Hobbit, Hope for New York, Hurricane Sandy, immigration, Jim Mullins, New York, politics, Repaso, social venture, storm, Tyler Johnson, Young Visionaries

Miroslav Volf on religious exclusivism as a basis for political pluralism

June 19, 2012 — Leave a comment

Since 1995, the Center for Public Justice has sponsored an annual Kuyper Lecture “to promote public consideration” of three key things:

Religion as a driving force – the deep, driving influence of competing religions in human society
Christ, the Light of the world – the comprehensive and inescapable claim of Jesus Christ on the world
An international Christian community – the strength and influence of international bonds of Christian community

Past lecturers include Mark Noll (author of The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind), James Skillen (author and former president of CPJ), and Michael Gerson (columnist and co-author of City of Man). This year the lecture was given by Yale professor Miroslav Volf on “A Public Faith: A Christian Alternative to Secular and Religious Political Exclusivism” at Gordon College. Volf’s thesis, which comes at about 3:15 in the video below, is this:

I believe that religious exclusivists indeed can embrace pluralism as a political project… not just out of pragmatic reasons because they need to achieve certain goals and under certain conditions it might be better for them to do so, but they can embrace pluralism as a political project from the deep resources of their faith itself.

Here’s the full video of the lecture, including responses afterwards.

Gordon College alumnus Laura Johnson interviewed Volf and summarized some of his key ideas, including some of the questions that prompted his focus on this topic:

When Miroslav Volf, Director of the Center for Faith & Culture at Yale University, taught his first session of a class on “Faith and Globalization,” he noticed that the issue of religious exclusivists, namely those who consider their faith be the one true faith, came up repeatedly. Teaching alongside former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, seven years to the day after the terrorists attacks of September 11, 2001, Volf noted a central theme that emerged from the class: “How can people of very different religious persuasions live under the same roof? How can they seek and arrange their common affairs together without coming to blows, without serious conflict?”

Another Gordon alum, Emily Boop, wrote a great response to the lecture for Capital Commentary:

Participating in a pluralist political order does not mean giving up deeply held convictions, but learning to live and work alongside those who have convictions—held just as firmly—that entirely contradict one’s own. Christianity is uniquely equipped to participate in such a system because our scriptures teach us to have a high view of other people who, like us, are made in the image of God. In Philippians 2:3, Paul clearly states, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.” Cultivating the virtue of humility is key for Christian engagement in politics, for it is difficult to label anyone who approaches politics with humility as “intolerant.”

These questions of religious exclusivism and political pluralism are urgently important for all of us to consider, as world events continue to unfold in real time, driven by and impacting both. If we live with full confidence that our beliefs are true, we don’t need to be afraid of conversations with those whose beliefs differ. On the contrary, those who are unable to engage in these kinds of conversations with both humility and strength of conviction reveal, in my view, that they’re really not very confident in their beliefs. I have more to say about this in my earlier review of Volf’s important book on this topic.

What do you make of Volf’s thesis? Do you think it’s possible to hold exclusive religious claims and yet embrace pluralism as a political project?

[Photo credit: celebratinggodsgoodness.org]

In Justice A Public Faith, Center for Public Justice, faith, Gordon College, justice, Kuyper Lecture, Miroslav Volf, peace, political pluralism, politics, religion, religious exclusivism

Repaso: The legacy of Newbigin, Gerson on prudential politics, gospel of immigration, and radical cartography

September 17, 2011 — 5 Comments

1. The lasting legacy of Lesslie Newbigin
Michael Goheen writes for Q Ideas about the contributions Lesslie Newbigin made to Western Christianity and our understanding of mission:

It is a peculiarity of Western culture to isolate the domain of religion from the rest of life. Religion, he said, is a “set of beliefs, experiences, and practices that seek to grasp and express the ultimate nature of things, that which gives shape and meaning to life, that which claims final loyalty.” Thus religion includes the comprehensive worldviews that shape Western culture, like the modern scientific worldview in both its Marxist and its liberal-democratic-capitalist expressions. If the Western church is to be faithful to the gospel and its mission, we will need to work hard to understand the religious beliefs of our culture in order to extricate ourselves from idolatry.

2. Gerson on prudential politics
Michael Gerson writes for Capital Commentary about competing political priorities and the choices facing GOP voters especially:

[N]early every political choice involves the weighing of competing priorities—freedom and the common good. This is the reason that prudence is the highest of political virtues. And prudence is exactly what some political ideologies lack. Socialism places an unbalanced emphasis on equality above all else—resulting in the routine violation of individual rights. Libertarianism places an unbalanced emphasis on autonomy above all else—resulting in a nation without airport security and food safety laws. Raising a single, pure, simple principle in politics can be powerful—but it is almost always dangerous. Complexity is the nature of politics. It is also the sign of a serious political thinker or candidate.

3. The gospel of immigration
Dr. Russell Moore, from the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, urges us to remember the personhood of immigrants – documented or otherwise:

I’m amazed when I hear evangelical Christians speak of undocumented immigrants in this country with disdain as “those people” who are “draining our health care and welfare resources.” It’s horrifying to hear those identified with the Gospel speak, whatever their position on the issues, with mean-spirited disdain for the immigrants themselves. While evangelicals, like other Americans, might disagree on the political specifics of achieving a just and compassionate immigration policy, our rhetoric must be informed by more than politics, but instead by Gospel and mission.

4. Radical cartography
I find this kind of stuff fascinating: a Yale professor named Bill Rankin created a map of Chicago that shows racial and ethnic segregation in the city. It is here. Below is a spin-off map of Detroit from another guy named Eric Fisher. That one is here. If you click on the links you can see info on the various color designations.

Repaso: Aid industry vs humanitarian relief, social justice and evangelism, 9/11, and intercontinental ballistic microfinance

September 9, 2011 — 1 Comment

1. Aid industry vs humanitarian relief
Scott Gilmore of Peace Dividend Trust blogs about a key distinction that all too often gets lost in relief/development debates:

[W]hen aid types whine about new NGOs “crowding the field” and spreading scarce resources too thin, I say balderdash. If your NGO isn’t getting funded because another NGO is, then you need to make your NGO faster, smarter, leaner, and more effective. And, even if there is a short reduction in the overall effectiveness of the NGO sector in a particular country because there are too many, it is offset by the long-term improvement that competition and innovation will bring. But that’s for the aid industry. Not for humanitarian relief. It is called humanitarian relief for a reason. Short-term relief, to save the starving for example, is a public service not an industry. The immediate threat to life outweighs the long-term need for competitive innovation.

2. Social justice and evangelism
Maggie Canty-Shafer writes for Neue about a theme I’ve explored from time to time here as well:

Social justice is a complex subject for Christians. No one can disagree that Scripture commands to love the poor and oppressed, but what that looks like practically today is largely debated and at times ignored. As the world becomes increasingly more globalized and information more accessible, awareness along with responsibility has grown. This responsibility comes multiple fold. Why, how and even if we combine social justice with evangelism is an ever-evolving discussion that must be considered from a local and global level. Both the individual and the church must play a role for the Body to have the impact Scripture intended—an impact we’re capable of but nowhere near.

3. TV archive from 9/11/01
As we all know, the tenth anniversary of the tragic 9/11 attacks is this Sunday. Here’s an amazing collection of TV coverage from that Tuesday morning and the hours and days after it (HT @brettmccracken):

The 9/11 Television News Archive is a library of news coverage of the events of 9/11/2001 and their aftermath as presented by U.S. and international broadcasters. A resource for scholars, journalists, and the public, it presents one week of news broadcasts for study, research and analysis. Television is our pre-eminent medium of information, entertainment and persuasion, but until now it has not been a medium of record. This Archive attempts to address this gap by making TV news coverage of this critical week in September 2001 available to those studying these events and their treatment in the media.

4. 9/11 and the ‘Christian nation’ question
Gideon Strauss from the Center for Public Justice tackles this issue for the ThinkChristian blog, and he’s astute as always:

9/11 changed many things, but it did not make America a more or less Christian nation. America is not the New Jerusalem. America is not the Whore Babylon. It is a nation among nations. Called, like all nations, to live its political life in pursuit of public justice. Mixed, like all nations, in the composition of its citizenry with regard to religious commitments and convictions. For Christians, this means that we should not seek political hegemony in America, but that we should seek to live faithfully: proclaiming the gospel in word and deed, pursuing public justice and the common good alongside our neighbors who do not share our gospel faith.

5. Intercontinental ballistic microfinance
Here’s a really cool video from Kiva, showing the rise in its total loans and paybacks from the time it started until today, represented by dots bouncing across the globe. What’s especially cool is what happens when Kiva is featured on Frontline in 2006 (HT A View From The Cave).

Repaso: Economic hitman on CSR, Mark Hatfield essay, Bono and justice, evangelicals and evangelism, planking, and more

August 12, 2011 — 1 Comment

1. “Economic hitman” talks corporate social responsibility
John Perkins — not the one who started Christian Community Development Association, but the one who wrote “Confessions of an Economic Hitman” — was interviewed by Forbes.com, by and large a very pro-business outlet. The interview is on corporate social responsibility, or CSR, and how Perkins sees business changing. He had this to say about recent trends in Latin America in reaction to what has been business as usual:

These countries are not getting rid of the corporations, not nationalizing them, not driving them out – because they recognize that they need them – but saying to these corporations, “If you’re going to drill for oil here in Ecuador, or if you’re going to drill for gas here in Bolivia, or grow bananas in El Salvador, that’s okay, but you must share a larger percentage of the profits with our people. You’ve got to pay higher taxes, and you’ve got to pay higher wage rates. You must make sure that the people working on these projects are adequately compensated and that they’re not working as slaves to you. And you have to offer the same protections for our environment as those required in Alaska and other states.

2. Mark Hatfield: Christ’s call to service
The Center for Public Justice has reprinted an essay from 1977 by Sen. Mark Hatfield (R-OR), who died this week. I didn’t know much about Hatfield before this, to be honest, but this is a great essay on how Christian faith should shape political responsibility:

We must not suppose that Christ was a-political. On the contrary, His message could not have been addressed more pointedly to the social and political injustices and realities of His time. The Sermon on the Mount, for instance, contains four beatitudes which deal with giving comfort and hope to the oppressed, and four others which give encouragement and blessing to those who help the cause of the oppressed. The truth is that our Lord set forth a hope for social and political renewal, for achieving God’s purposes and standards of justice, which was far more radical in its dimensions than any of the movements of His time. That hope is rooted in a response to the good news of the kingdom of God, and involves, today as then, a total transformation of the way life is defined.

3. Justice and the pivotal moment
Charlie Peacock, longtime Nashville music guru, has a post at the Art House America blog about catching up with Bono when U2 recently came to town, and reflecting back on “the pivotal moment” in 2002 when American evangelicals first really started getting on board with justice issues, and HIV/AIDS in Africa in particular. Though I’d prefer to say my commitment to justice and development wasn’t because of a rock star, 2002-3 was a pivotal moment for me too, and yes, Bono had something to do with it. Here’s how Peacock describes that time:

Because the Spirit of Justice is never just blowing through one person or one town, all sorts of people simultaneously met and heard similar messages bouncing off God’s satellites. Grass roots and grass tops were all up in the mix. It was a strange mixture of people mobilizing across America and the planet to fight the worst of disease, hunger, and extreme poverty. Political enemies put down their blue/red rhetoric and championed help for Africa. Christians who previously groaned that AIDS is nothing but a sex problem became infected with the love that Christ has for the poor and inflicted. They turned and returned to a better way of being human — one that cares for all that God loves. Countries, institutions, and corporations released some of the brain trust and wealth they had stored up for themselves. They offered it for the good of people and planet. In short, for a moment in time, an ad hoc gathering of people sought justice and loved mercy, and those who named it as such woke each day to walk humbly with God.

4. Why evangelicals should stop evangelizing
For those who stay on top of social media discussions about faith, it may be obvious that I’m a bit behind on this one, but this post about evangelism by Carl Medearis, a Christian and “international expert in Arab-American and Muslim-Christian relations” has been widely circulated and discussed over the past few weeks. This obviously has a lot to do with the post’s provocative title, but its 3,600+ comments show that it’s a topic people feel strongly about. One good response I came across is this one from Adam Jeskewith InterVarsity.

5. Help the poor, help the world
Byron Borger from the one-of-a-kind Hearts and Minds Books (not far from Lancaster) reviews two excellent books on Christian responses to poverty over at the Q Blog. I like to think I’m connected to both authors. The first is “The Hole in our Gospel” by Richard Stearns, World Vision’s president. We met once, at a Christmas party at the DC office and along with my fellow interns we sang him a couple of Christmas carols. It was weird. Next is “Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger” by Ron Sider, one of my heroes, who heads up Evangelicals for Social Action, for which I’ve done some writing. We met briefly after he spoke at Eastern a couple of years ago. Both books are very worthwhile, and both authors are stand-up guys.

6. Planking
My friend Brandon, who is a youth pastor and much more in touch with pop culture than I am, has been getting into “planking” this summer — a trend that strikes me as both puzzling and painful. Well, as it happens, he and his planking made the front page of Lancaster’s paper yesterday. Whether this is proof of Brandon being cutting edge, or just a lack of real news in Lancaster, is up for debate, but it’s cool either way. Here’s my favorite quote:

“This will not be a lifelong passion,” he said.