"Getting" Jesus

Hat tip to Graham. And Christians wonder why non-Christians don't want any of our "Good News". It often seems that non-Christians "get" Jesus better than we do.

Some tid-bits from the video:

If you're a Christian who supports killing your enemies and torture, you have to come up with a new name for yourself.

...Christians have been lawyering the bible to try to figure out how "love thy neighbor" can mean "hate thy neighbor" and how "turn the other cheek" can mean "s***w you, I'm buying space lasers". Martin Luther King gets to call himself a Christian because he actually practiced loving his enemies.

...Jesus lays on that hippy stuff pretty thick. He has lines like "Do not repay evil with evil" and "Do not take revenge on someone who wrongs you." Really. It's in that book you hold up when you scream at gay people. And not to put too fine a point on it, but "non-violence" was kinda Jesus' trademark. Kinda his big thing. To not follow that part of it is like joining Greenpeace and hating whales.

Day of Prayer for Zimbabwe

I have just received this from a Zimbabwean friend:

ON SUNDAY 27TH April, 2008.

A desperate cry from the hearts of Zimbabwe screams across the world.

It calls upon all Christians of every denomination in every nation to focus their prayers, in churches, halls, homes or elsewhere, on Sunday 27th April, 2008 on the critical situation in Zimbabwe, a nation in dire distress and teetering on the brink of human disaster.

Let the cry for help touch your heart and mind. Let it move you to do what you can immediately to ensure this DAY OF PRAYER takes place in your country and neighbourhood.

Please pass on this message right now to all the churches and Christian organisations known to you and to the media as well as to everyone anxious to rescue Zimbabwe from violence, the concealing and juggling of election results, deceit, oppression and corruption, and to bring about righteousness, joy, peace, compassion, honesty, justice, democracy and freedom from fear and want.

May a continual strong stream of prayer and supplication flow up to the Lord on behalf of all the people on this DAY OF PRAYER, exhorting His divine intervention throughout the nation.

"It is by making the truth publicly known that we recommend ourselves to the honest judgment of mankind in the sight of God." ( 2 Corinthians 4:2)

SOME ADVICE TO ZIMBABWEANS
"Who so putteth his trust in the Lord shall be safe." (Proverbs 29:25)
"Stand fast, and do not let yourselves be caught again in the yoke of slavery." (Galatians 5:1)
"Make no mistake, you cannot cheat God." (Galatians 6:7)
"Do not be overcome by evil but overcame evil with good" (Romans 12:21)

Bob Stumbles. Chancellor, Anglican Diocese of Harare. 19.04.2008.

Death Threats to Gay Christian Leaders

I have just learned via the website Thinking Anglicans about violence and threats against leaders of the group Changing Attitude.

The story of the violence against the Nigerian Director of Changing Attitude and the death threats against him and against the Director of Changing Attitude England can be found here.

The sad and ironic thing is that the underlying ethos of Changing Attitude is an ethos of peaceful resistance and non-violence. This is not the first time that the Nigerian Director of Changing Attitude has received a death threat and I believe (though I'm not certain) that it's not the first time he has been physically attacked.

Changing Attitude have written a letter to the members of GAFCON and I think that their ethos of peaceful resistance is well-reflected in the language of that letter:

We recognise the integrity of those who hold this position at the same time as we disagree with it. We are not resistant to engaging in the debate with those who hold radically different views.We recognise that it is extremely difficult to conduct this debate in language that does not polarise opinions or inflame tensions.

Physically harming gay Christians and threatening them with death is another example of the use of violence for the sake of a 'holy cause'. The traditional view of homosexuality has a long history in the Christian tradition and is rooted in an approach to biblical interpretation that is well respected, but it's utter anathema to harm people and threaten them with death. This violence must stop!

Christians and Violence

Our circuit supports a mission project in Western Kenya which was heavily affected by the violence that rocked the country after the Kenyan elections. Among other things, the mission project cares for orphans - both children and young people - by providing them with education in basic literacy skills (children) and education in a trade (young people). It's probably worth saying that a number of children and young people went missing during the violence but, thanks be to God, were all found safe and well.

We have recently received an annual report from the project co-ordinator: a Kenyan woman. In the report, she reflects on the violence engendered by the aftermath of the Kenyan elections and writes:

For Kenyans who marvel at the fact that professed Christians killed their neighbors and destroyed their livelihoods, now is the appropriate time for us to meditate on the place of violence in Christianity and the tendency of many believers to project an understanding of salvation separated from ethics. As Christians we have failed to make a definite stand on violence mainly because classic formulations of central doctrines accommodate and support it by claiming that God saved the world through the violence of the cross. Hence since it can do good, it is not to be tabooed as intrinsically evil.

One of Jesus’ main messages was that we must love our enemies, forgive people who injure us and overcome evil with good. We should forgive one another and foster peaceful coexistence with our neighbors. We need to start a new life all together and we cannot leave out our displaced brothers and sisters in the camps.

Grace

I loved this take on Grace from James Alison*:

Gratuity is experienced as the lack of retaliation where some sort of retaliation is to be expected, and then as the giving of something unexpected. This surprising nonreciprocation is what pulls the person experiencing it out of the reciprocating mode-of-being and enables that person to begin to recieve and then transmit love as something simply given.

To me, this explains why Grace can never be limited to a select few and why God can never be violent.

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*Alison, James, The Joy of Being Wrong: Original Sin through Easter eyes, The Crossroad Publishing Company, New York, 1998.