Repaso: Byron Borger on Cockburn’s legacy; Ross Douthat on heresy; social entrepreneurship & faith; peacebuilding & the “war on drugs”; poverty & charity in the early church

1. Byron Borger talks Bruce Cockburn
You may recall that two months ago I posted a review of Brian Walsh's Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination (Brazos). Bookseller Byron Borger has been praising the book for some time (and wrote a blurb on the back cover), but he has just now posted some extended reflections on the importance of Cockburn as an artist who grapples honestly with matters of faith:

One does not have to like every Cockburn song or album, let alone agree with every view he seems to express, to appreciate his exceptional gift as songwriter and musician and to be aided by his observations, rendered in song.  And one need not agree with every line in every Brian Walsh book to appreciate his preacherly gospel call to be faithful to the Biblical narrative, and to reject worldly accommodation to the idols of modernity.

2. CT’s interview with Ross Douthat
New York Times columnist Ross Douthat has a new book out called Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (Free Press). In it he argues that Christianity in the U.S. has a heresy problem and that we need to return to more traditional beliefs and expressions of faith. I haven’t read the book yet, but it’s generating a lot of buzz. Here’s a snippet from Christianity Today’s interview:

[T]he nature of heresy is not that it takes a Christian teaching and gets it completely wrong. Instead, it takes a Christian teaching and emphasizes it to the exclusion of anything that might counterbalance it. It isn't wrong to suggest that there are biblical passages that state that God blesses his servants in this life as well as the next. There are biblical passages that suggest a link between a nation's morality, a nation's religious beliefs, and its historical fate. But Christian orthodoxy always counterbalances those emphases with other truths.

3. Social entrepreneurship and Christian faith
Though I wasn’t able to attend in person, I enjoyed watching a bit of the livestream of the Q DC event last week. I was especially inspired to see presentations from three Praxis Fellows -- social entrepreneurs building high-impact organizations as embodiments of the gospel in all spheres of life. Dave Blanchard and Josh Kwan of Praxis have a piece in the Washington Post about their work:

We are inspired by Jesus’s example, and we started Praxis to help other Christians who are trying to restore society and culture so that a hurting world may be whole again. Praxis is an accelerator program for social entrepreneurs and innovators compelled by their faith to create new ventures that advance the common good.  Each year, we provide Praxis Fellows with the knowledge and networks needed to build world-class organizations that address key social issues.

4. Ten Stories from mewithoutYou
I’m really looking forward to the new album from mewithoutYou, due to release on May 15. I never cared for them as a band until last time with It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All A Dream! It's Alright. We’ll see how this one feels, though, listening to it now on the other side of the country, far from the band’s native Pennsylvania.

5. Rhetoric and reality at the border
The Washington Office on Latin America has released a new report focused on security and migration at the border between the U.S. and Mexico, looking at the data rather than the partisan talking points. Here’s the executive summary and here’s the full report (both are PDFs).

6. Peacebuilding and the “war on drugs”
The MCC Latin America Advocacy Blog has a post on the connection between peacebuilding and the “war on drugs” and puts forward some good questions:

Addressing root causes; the need for a just peace, not just controlled peace; looking at the problem through a public health lens rather than a public security lens; doesn’t this sound like a discussion of conflict transformation and peacebuilding? Are there other contributions that a peacebuilding model can offer in this debate?  An emphasis on human relationships and an analysis of power dynamics? Working simultaneously at multiple levels from the community to the nation state? Striving for justpeace, “an adaptive process-structure of human relationships characterized by high justice and low violence” (Lederach)?

7. Philadelphia’s homeless feeding ban
My friend Paul Burkhart, who lives in Philadelphia, has some interesting (provocative?) thoughts on the city’s new ban on giving food to homeless people in public areas. He shifts our attention from hunger (which he says isn’t the big issue here) to dignity:

All humanity has dignity because it is made in the image of God. We all are well-aware by now (hopefully) that when it comes to our choices, we so often want things that are not good for us. We frequently want to engage in things that in the end rob us of this dignity as the highest of God’s creatures. How does God honor our dignity? I propose that it’s less about letting us do what we want, and more about acting for our good, sometimes even in spite of our choices.

8. Poverty and charity in the early church
The Gospel Coalition has shared this video featuring John Dickson from the Centre for Public Christianity and Macquarie University, produced as part of The Faith Effect from World Vision Australia:

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: UK Study Tour blog; "Stairs in Canterbury Cathedral, Worn from Pilgrims crawling to pay homage to the murdered Thomas Becket"]