Non-violence - A Better Way

Michael Westmoreland-White, one of my favorite bloggers, has been blogging about peace and non-violence for many years. He has written a wonderful post about the history of success in non-violent movements around the world.

"I am not claiming that organized nonviolent action always “works,” especially not without loss of life on the part of the nonviolent resisters. However, in war one side always loses and sometimes the war is so devastating that both sides lose. So, violence has a very poor track record in the defense of such values as justice, freedom, etc. At the very least, the claim that is often made to pacifists such as myself that often the only choices available are violent action or do nothing apathy is proven false. One can try other options, including organized nonviolent direct action. If we spent the resources preparing for such actions that we do preparing for violent military and/or police actions, how many more nonviolent solutions might be possible?" - Michael Westmoreland-White

I agree! I would also extend his thoughts by considering a practice of preemptive mercy. What if we fought terrorism with a preemptive strike of building schools, hospitals, roads, electrical infrastructure, and even mosques for those nations struggling to contain terrorists? That would be some serious shock and awe!

The reality is that we live in a nation that can't embrace this strategy even in our own cities. We prefer to build prisons rather than building schools. We prefer creating tax loopholes rather than protecting jobs. We prefer the exploitation of our natural resources rather than ending our addiction to oil. We are quick to bail out corporate billionaires and slow to help hurting families. There is no doubt that our current leadership prefers the short term satisfaction of violence instead of diplomacy. We've made humility a dirty word and lifted pride to the status of sacred worship.

Augusta Emerging Faith Cohort

There is a new cohort in town!

If you are in the Augusta, GA area and would like to join the conversation then please visit the site and join the facebook group to get connected.

Only a Theory

Kenneth Miller's newest book, "Only a Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul" is a solid update to his earlier book "Finding Darwin's God". This new book dismantles Intelligent Design and recaps his experiences with the Intelligent Design trial in Dover, Pa. He also makes a more personal connection with the reader this time around. I enjoyed this book much more and would recommend it for anyone that maybe, like myself, was only taught a cursory reading of Evolution as a student, and also anyone unfamiliar with the misguided details of Intelligent Design. Evolution is the basis for all of modern biology and our most recent fossil and DNA discoveries confirm Darwin's now thoroughly tested assertions.

Miller makes the point that this battle is not going away anytime soon. Creationists are growing more vocal and continue to divide people of faith along the lines of this debate. This is about more than just a simple sticker on a text book. The future of science in America is at stake and the future of religion may also be in jeopardy. Miller does a wonderful job of responding to the ID movement's flawed logic. I also appreciated that he didn't venture too far into the area of theology where he might have been outside his area of expertise. Miller is a Christian and does make a heart felt appeal to the reader to reconcile faith and science. I agree that this reconciliation is both necessary and plausible.

N.T. Wright on Colbert Report

You can watch the full episode online.

I've enjoyed certain things that Bishop Wright has written, but in the back of my mind I always wondered if behind his eloquent words there was little more than a sophisticated version of John Hagee waiting to pop out. After hearing this interview, I guess my suspicions were correct. Wright's logic seems just as goofy and literalistic as all the left behind weirdos. I thought maybe Bishop Wright would be a breath of fresh air for Christianity and maybe convince a few people that Christianity doesn't have to mean checking your brain at the church door. Don't get me wrong, Wright's version of the Jesus is more likable than Hagee's. However, he still makes Christian belief sound about one half-baked superstition shy of Scientology.

The "big news" that Wright reveals here is not that we can finally let all the goofiness of our ancient religious superstition die out with the last ages of fundamentalism. Instead, he's asking us to imagine there is another level of mythical fairytale added on top of the old story. A life-after-life-after-death. Not one fictitious heaven, but two. Now he wants us to buy into literal resurrection of all the decayed human bodies that ever lived. Keep in mind that most of the molecules that made up the bodies of those people have long been fossilized or consumed by other life forms. How exactly could that work? It seems Wright, like his American fundamentalist counterparts, fell victim to the same inability to recognize a metaphor or literary allegory. Get a grip. The book of Revelation is about the Christian hopes and dreams of the end of Roman Imperialism (i.e. the end of the world as they knew it), not the literal end of the Earth or even a literal remaking of the physical Earth. It is a call for all of us humans to end the way we've lived and start living a new way.

If Wright's different kind of superstition can somehow entice more Evangelicals to care about the environment and step up to our responsibilities for the poor, then I guess he is better than the left behind crowd. But not by much.

McCain and Oil Prices

McCain wants to jump in the debate and pretend his party and now his staff were not directly related to the problem. Does he really think he can pull off this flip-flop and nobody will notice? Will the media really let him play both sides of this issue? Keith Olbermann won't!



If you wonder why this information hasn't been public knowledge, then simply count the number of energy industry commercials that are sandwiched in the middle of our national news shows.

A Christianity Worth Believing

While I was on vacation this week I read Doug Pagitt's new book, “A Christianity Worth Believing: Hope-Filled, Open-Armed, Alive-And-Well Faith”. Doug offers a fresh perspective on theology for emerging Christianity. His new book is introspective and honest as he walks the reader through his own journey of rediscovering what it means to be a Christian. He fell in love with Jesus as a teenager, but soon realized his introduction to fundamentalism didn't live up to the story of Jesus that drew him into the faith. Doug does a wonderful job explaining how he eventually came to reconcile Jesus and Christianity.

I think Doug correctly locates the problem in the superficial way we were taught to read the Bible in western Christianity. Today, he says, we’re still interpreting the story of Jesus through the lenses developed for a world dominated by Greek dualism and gods that needed to be appeased. Total depravity and substitutionary atonement are doctrinal byproducts of the combination of this ancient mentality mingled with the modern world of legal systems. This book will no doubt receive its share of criticism from the reformed movement as Doug targets their two pet dogmas. I'm sure they will argue that he doesn't go deep enough in proving his case. I agree, and I would have enjoyed hearing a more detailed analysis, but there are already plenty of books aimed at waging theological wars. Doug takes a much more personal approach, and it makes this book a joy to read. Instead of an in depth theological dismantling of these misguided theories, Doug takes the lighter approach of story telling. Like most of us who come from Evangelical backgrounds, we love stories and we are used to getting fed theology through a good story. Personal stories are what makes Evangelical sermons so popular. Doug and his fellow emergent leaders Brian McLaren and Tony Jones are taking the best of progressive mainline theology and packaging it in the powerful art of personal stories. I think this is a potent mixture and will continue to catch on well with younger Evangelicals curious about emerging Christianity and already asking questions that are out of bounds in their local church.

Vacation Time!

I'll be back...


...maybe