Category: DOC Thoughts
Fandom Christianity
I recently reposted a link on my Facebook page about phrases that are driving millennials away from the Church though many remain interested in practicing Christianity. This article by Rev Mark Sandlin, Fandom of God is Upon Us and It’s Killing the Church, is another observation about the state of what I call “pop-Christianity.” Rev. Sandlin’s observations are probably more on target than many would want to admit. A paragraph and I encourage you to keep reading. Visit Rev. Sandlin’s blog, The God Article.
The Fandom of God Is Upon Us and It’s Killing the Church
Mark Sandlin | Huffington Post | Nov 11, 2013When the Church’s focus is on fandom practices rather than on kingdom practices it tends to become not only self-centered and self-serving but self-selecting as well. When we are fans of Jesus rather than followers of Jesus, our focus is inward turned, like in fandoms, concerned with and finding full satisfaction in what we think and feel and believe. We are more interested in who gets to be labeled insiders, who are “real/true” fans of God, than we are with following the sometimes difficult teachings of Jesus when it comes to those we see as different. Our world shrinks. It becomes far too easy to worry about those we claim as our “own” and to forget that there is a world of hurting people who we are not only called to stand with but who we are to recognize as equally created in the image of God.
Race and Politics in America
I’ve yet to ask it, but the next time I have an opportunity to talk with one of my Congressional Reps I want to ask, “Can you reflect on the changing color of leadership in America? ” I’m sure I will get a comfortable answer about the positive aspects of diversity. The follow up is, “Is diversity, gender, age, race, and orientation, important for the Federal and State legislatures; and if it is, then is it unconstitutional, or at least unfair, for one party to be able to redraw voting districts based on race and economics that ensures that diversity is limited?” Reading Rev. Jim Wallis’ latest on the Huffington Post, reminded me that there is little truth telling and lots of historical revisionism or at the very least a passive acceptance of “separate, but equal.” Here is are two paragraphs and a link.
The Most Controversial Sentence I Ever Wrote
Jim Wallis | The Blog (Huffington Post) | 10/24/13The most controversial sentence I ever wrote, considering the response to it, was not about abortion, marriage equality, the wars in Vietnam or Iraq, elections, or anything to do with national or church politics. It was a statement about the founding of the United States of America. Here’s the sentence.
“The United States of America was established as a white society, founded upon the near genocide of another race and then the enslavement of yet another.”
And it’s time to be honest about the deep-seated sense of race in the heart of our national politics. But when people of color speak the truth about the realities of race in our culture and politics, they are always accused of “playing the race card.” So let me, as a white man and an evangelical Christian, do some truth-telling about race in American politics right now.