Thoughts about politics and the church, repost from a friend of mine

I am just getting caught up on reading my friends' blogs and stumbled across this post from a friend of mine. Paul Sundberg posts on his blog "JUST KEEP ASKING" He is a friend of mine, the father/father-in-law of two of my dear friends from college. His is the pastor of an ELCA Lutheran Church in the Pacific Northwest. I really appreciate his perspective and this is not the first time I have reposted one of his posts. Without further ado, enjoy:





Last night’s vote on health care reform in the U.S., was hardly the end of it. Our divided nation will be more divided. Wrangling and rancor will continue, and indeed, increase. That is the way of the world. It is most certainly nothing new. But what a sad display: it remains disheartening and disturbing.

Still a Christian, I am most disturbed by those who identify themselves as Christians and who see our government as an enemy and not as an instrument of compassion. I continue to be dumbfounded by those who care about the first three trimesters of life and are totally callous about the fourth trimester. I continue to be appalled by those who call this a Christian nation, demanding legislated moral constraints, without demanding care for the least among us. I continue to be saddened by the Christians that label such care as socialism, and sees solutions only in capitalism (as though it was a social mechanism baptized by Jesus himself). Have they never read about the communities of Jesus in the New Testament?

No wonder why fewer and fewer Americans are finding hope and solace in the church.

We have so much work to do to show we still matter.

Re-Post of NY Times Op-Ed Piece about International Relief work and Global Missions

This op-ed piece was just too good to not repost. I will be honest with you, I think it is going to make some people uncomfortable. It made me a little bit uncomfortable, but as Christians, I think we are called to live with a little discomfort. Enjoy!

Learning From the Sin of Sodom
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published in the New York Times: February 27, 2010

For most of the last century, save-the-worlders were primarily Democrats and liberals. In contrast, many Republicans and religious conservatives denounced government aid programs, with Senator Jesse Helms calling them “money down a rat hole.”

Over the last decade, however, that divide has dissolved, in ways that many Americans haven’t noticed or appreciated. Evangelicals have become the new internationalists, pushing successfully for new American programs against AIDS and malaria, and doing superb work on issues from human trafficking in India to mass rape in Congo.

A pop quiz: What’s the largest U.S.-based international relief and development organization?

It’s not Save the Children, and it’s not CARE — both terrific secular organizations. Rather, it’s World Vision, a Seattle-based Christian organization (with strong evangelical roots) whose budget has roughly tripled over the last decade.

World Vision now has 40,000 staff members in nearly 100 countries. That’s more staff members than CARE, Save the Children and the worldwide operations of the United States Agency for International Development — combined.

A growing number of conservative Christians are explicitly and self-critically acknowledging that to be “pro-life” must mean more than opposing abortion. The head of World Vision in the United States, Richard Stearns, begins his fascinating book, “The Hole in Our Gospel,” with an account of a visit a decade ago to Uganda, where he met a 13-year-old AIDS orphan who was raising his younger brothers by himself.

“What sickened me most was this question: where was the Church?” he writes. “Where were the followers of Jesus Christ in the midst of perhaps the greatest humanitarian crisis of our time? Surely the Church should have been caring for these ‘orphans and widows in their distress.’ (James 1:27). Shouldn’t the pulpits across America have flamed with exhortations to rush to the front lines of compassion?

“How have we missed it so tragically, when even rock stars and Hollywood actors seem to understand?”

Mr. Stearns argues that evangelicals were often so focused on sexual morality and a personal relationship with God that they ignored the needy. He writes laceratingly about “a Church that had the wealth to build great sanctuaries but lacked the will to build schools, hospitals, and clinics.”

In one striking passage, Mr. Stearns quotes the prophet Ezekiel as saying that the great sin of the people of Sodom wasn’t so much that they were promiscuous or gay as that they were “arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy.” (Ezekiel 16:49.)

Hmm. Imagine if sodomy laws could be used to punish the stingy, unconcerned rich!

The American view of evangelicals is still shaped by preening television blowhards and hypocrites who seem obsessed with gays and fetuses. One study cited in the book found that even among churchgoers ages 16 to 29, the descriptions most associated with Christianity were “antihomosexual,” “judgmental,” “too involved in politics,” and “hypocritical.”

Some conservative Christians reinforced the worst view of themselves by inspiring Ugandan homophobes who backed a bill that would punish gays with life imprisonment or execution. Ditto for the Vatican, whose hostility to condoms contributes to the AIDS epidemic. But there’s more to the picture: I’ve also seen many Catholic nuns and priests heroically caring for AIDS patients — even quietly handing out condoms.

One of the most inspiring figures I’ve met while covering Congo’s brutal civil war is a determined Polish nun in the terrifying hinterland, feeding orphans, standing up to drunken soldiers and comforting survivors — all in a war zone. I came back and decided: I want to grow up and become a Polish nun.

Some Americans assume that religious groups offer aid to entice converts. That’s incorrect. Today, groups like World Vision ban the use of aid to lure anyone into a religious conversation.

Some liberals are pushing to end the longtime practice (it’s a myth that this started with President George W. Bush) of channeling American aid through faith-based organizations. That change would be a catastrophe. In Haiti, more than half of food distributions go through religious groups like World Vision that have indispensable networks on the ground. We mustn’t make Haitians the casualties in our cultural wars.

A root problem is a liberal snobbishness toward faith-based organizations. Those doing the sneering typically give away far less money than evangelicals. They’re also less likely to spend vacations volunteering at, say, a school or a clinic in Rwanda.

If secular liberals can give up some of their snootiness, and if evangelicals can retire some of their sanctimony, then we all might succeed together in making greater progress against common enemies of humanity, like illiteracy, human trafficking and maternal mortality.

The Spiritual Practice of Justice

There was a great insert in my Sunday bulletin at Church that I wanted to share with you:

There can be little growth in holiness without growth in a sense of social justice.
-Edward Hays in "A Lenten Hobo Honeymoon"

We must be for the poor not simply a handout but a voice on their behalf where the poor are not heard and their pain is not registered. If we are to really minister, it is up to us to first be transformed ourselves so taht we can then be really transfiguring.
-Joan Chittister from "In the Heart of the Temple: My Spiritual Vision"

Develop a daily cue to remind yourself to practice justice

• Every time you take money out of your wallet, it can be your cue to "practice justice"
• Every time you start your care, it can be your cue to "practice justice"
• Every time you see someone in need, it can be your cue to "practice justice"

Pick your own cue and use that to keep your calling front and center.

Reflections

• Identify an injustice that troubles you. What first made you aware of it? Reflect on one action you have done or can do to combat it.
• Do you think that all people are born with a yearning for justice, or does it have to be taught? Think back to your childhood and recall your most vivid experience of justice or injustice. How can you participate in teaching justice to a younger generation

I really got a lot out of this bulletin insert and wanted to share it with you. There was also a great Psalm that someone quoted this week that I wanted to share in light of this social justice posting and the healthcare debate:

Happy are they who consider the poor and needy! The LORD will deliver them in the time of trouble. The LORD preserves them and keeps them alive, so that they may be happy in the land; he does not hand them over to the will of their enemies. The LORD sustains them on their sickbed and ministers to them in their illness.

God is calling us to take care of the poor and needy and promises to take care of us when we do. We are called to care and to be the hands and feet of God, ministering to the disenfranchised, the hungry, the weak and the sick. Let us not forget.

Amazing, Inspiring, Profound and Thought-Provoking speech. . . excerpts below

A child in Guatemala. She lives in poverty

without safe drinking water or other very basic things

but represents hope for the future. All of us need to

believe in a better future, no matter where we are

or where we come from.

My mother-in-law sent me the speech below. I have taken excerpts out of the speech to share with you. If you want to see the whole thing click here http://www.paulhawken.com/paulhawken_frameset.html
Then click on "Multimedia" and you will see the speech as a PDF.

This speech was given by Paul Hawken at the University of Portland graduation this May, 2009. Paul's short bio is: Paul Hawken is a renowned entrepreneur, visionary environmental activist, and author of many books, most recently Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming.

Here are some amazing excerpts from the speech:

Healing or Stealing?

The Commencement Address by Paul Hawken to the Class of 2009, University of Portland

May 3, 2009

When I was invited to give this speech, I was asked if I could give a simple short talk that was “direct, naked, taut, honest, passionate, lean, shivering, startling, and graceful.” No pressure there. Let’s begin with the startling part. Class of 2009: you are going to have to figure out what it means to be a human being on earth at a time when every living system is declining, and the rate of decline is accelerating. Kind of a mind-boggling situation... but not one peer-reviewed paper published in the last thirty years can refute that statement. Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.

This planet came with a set of instructions, but we seem to have misplaced them. Important rules like don’t poison the water, soil, or air, don’t let the earth get overcrowded, and don’t touch the thermostat have been broken. . .

There is invisible writing on the back of the diploma you will receive, and in case you didn’t bring lemon juice to decode it, I can tell you what it says: You are Brilliant, and the Earth is Hiring. The earth couldn’t afford to send recruiters or limos to your school. It sent you rain, sunsets, ripe cherries, night blooming jasmine, and that unbelievably cute person you are dating. Take the hint. And here’s the deal: Forget that this task of planet-saving is not possible in the time required. Don’t be put off by people who know what is not possible. Do what needs to be done, and check to see if it was impossible only after you are done.

When asked if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science about what is happening on earth and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t understand the data. But if you meet the people who are working to restore this earth and the lives of the poor, and you aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a pulse. What I see everywhere in the world are ordinary people willing to confront despair, power, and incalculable odds in order to restore some semblance of grace, justice, and beauty to this world. The poet Adrienne Rich wrote, “So much has been destroyed I have cast my lot with those who, age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.” There could be no better description. Humanity is coalescing. It is reconstituting the world, and the action is taking place in schoolrooms, farms, jungles, villages, campuses, companies, refuge camps, deserts, fisheries, and slums.

You join a multitude of caring people. No one knows how many groups and organizations are working on the most salient issues of our day: climate change, poverty, deforestation, peace, water, hunger, conservation, human rights, and more. This is the largest movement the world has ever seen. Rather than control, it seeks connection. Rather than dominance, it strives to disperse concentrations of power. Like Mercy Corps, it works behind the scenes and gets the job done. Large as it is, no one knows the true size of this movement. It provides hope, support, and meaning to billions of people in the world. Its clout resides in idea, not in force. It is made up of teachers, children, peasants, businesspeople, rappers, organic farmers, nuns, artists, government workers, fisherfolk, engineers, students, incorrigible writers, weeping Muslims, concerned mothers, poets, doctors without borders, grieving Christians, street musicians, the President of the United States of America, and as the writer David James Duncan would say, the Creator, the One who loves us all in such a huge way. . .

Inspiration is not garnered from the litanies of what may befall us; it resides in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider. “One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice,” is Mary Oliver’s description of moving away from the profane toward a deep sense of connectedness to the living world.

Millions of people are working on behalf of strangers, even if the evening news is usually about the death of strangers. This kindness of strangers has religious, even mythic origins, and very specific eighteenth-century roots. Abolitionists were the first people to create a national and global movement to defend the rights of those they did not know. Until that time, no group had filed a grievance except on behalf of itself. The founders of this movement were largely unknown — Granville Clark, Thomas Clarkson, Josiah Wedgwood — and their goal was ridiculous on the face of it: at that time three out of four people in the world were enslaved. Enslaving each other was what human beings had done for ages. And the abolitionist movement was greeted with incredulity.

Conservative spokesmen ridiculed the abolitionists as liberals, progressives, do-gooders, meddlers, and activists. They were told they would ruin the economy and drive England into poverty. But for the first time in history a group of people organized themselves to help people they would never know, from whom they would never receive direct or indirect benefit. And today tens of millions of people do this every day. It is called the world of non-profits, civil society, schools, social entrepreneurship, non-governmental organizations, and companies who place social and environmental justice at the top of their strategic goals. The scope and scale of this effort is unparalleled in history. . .

This extraordinary time when we are globally aware of each other and the multiple dangers that threaten civilization has never happened, not in a thousand years, not in ten thousand years. . . We have done great things and we have gone way off course in terms of honoring creation. You are graduating to the most amazing, stupefying challenge ever bequested to any generation. The generations before you failed. They didn’t stay up all night. They got distracted and lost sight of the fact that life is a miracle every moment of your existence. Nature beckons you to be on her side. You couldn’t ask for a better boss. The most unrealistic person in the world is the cynic, not the dreamer. Hope only makes sense when it doesn’t make sense to be hopeful. This is your century. Take it and run as if your life depends on it.

Powerful Video

My mother-in-law sent me this video today. It moved me to tears. If you have 7 minutes, take a look. Here is a synopsis of the video:
This film is about the hunger and poverty brought about by Globalization. There are 10,000 people dying everyday due to hunger and malnutrition. This short film shows a forgotten portion of the society. The people who lives on the refuse of men to survive. What is inspiring is the hope and spirituality that never left these people.

Food insecurity, malnutrition and starvation go hand in hand with lack of access to safe drinking water. Let's all work together to try and solve these problems.

View this movie at cultureunplugged.com