[via Slacktivist]

Disappointment, despair and Harold Camping

Father Matthew on Pat Robertson, Demonization and Christ

[via A New Anglican's Journey]

Minority Report

How would you feel if I told you that a country was passing a law that would severely restrict the rights and freedoms of Christians? That the government of a country, which was entirely controlled by followers of another religion had decided to band together and do something about the “Christian threat”? What if they published the names of people they suspected to be Christians in the newspaper, and encouraged the public to harm them or refuse to associate with them? What if they passed a law so that if you were caught practicing your faith in your own home you could be thrown in jail for 7 years? What if they made it a law that if your neighbour found out you were a Christian they were forced to report it to the police or face 3 years in prison themselves? What if that law had a provision in it that if you were caught multiple times you could be put to death?

How would you feel? Angry? Sad? Would you be motivated to do something about it? Would you ask your member of parliament or senator to approve sanctions against the country treating your Christian brothers and sisters in such a way? What would you do?

Now stop. Because it IS really happening right now. In Uganda.

But there is one difference, which is why you probably haven’t heard about it.{continue...}

[via Bridging the Gap]

the tale of the least of these

[via Borrowed Breath]

Susan Boyle and Invisible Women

[via Faith Dance]

Who's Really Innocent? Who Deserves Salvation?

I was reminded of how conservative Christians seemed to find Mel Gibson's Passion film meaningful mostly because of the ill-treatment that Jesus suffered during and before the crucifixion. I found it very interesting that those who pointed to the Roman's mistreatment of Christ were the most silent or even approving of Bush's torture regime. Not a new observation, but in yesterday's conversation, this idea was articulated most clearly when some one noted that perhaps conservative Christians saw a difference between torturing the Son of God and torturing someone who openly wanted to kill innocent people. I think that statement reflects a lot of the belief in conservative America....

Thinking about these two thoughts--the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, and the issue of how we respond to others (yes, even those who profess to do evil)--and I have to say that I think the conservative theology is missing a pretty key element. I am no theologian, but isn't the power of the Easter story that Jesus gave himself as a sacrificial lamb for all of humanity? Isn't it based on the idea that he didn't deserve to die, but we all do? That we do not deserve grace or salvation, but he extends it to us anyway?

To go from that story to suggesting that it might be ok to mistreat others based on what they "deserve" strikes me as missing the point. {full post}

[via Streak's Blog]

"No one's ever said that to me before."



[via biscotti brain. Thanks Erin!]

Suspend Hesitation

Sometimes life is about shooting blind. You don't really know what you're going to get. You set your face in one direction and trust that you'll capture what you need. Something powerful happens when you suspend hesitation. When you find yourself in a distant place, and trust the opportunities that come. When you pick up a lonely child and spend some time in an embrace. When you wash the feet of a stranger. When you learn that in serving, you become the served.

[via biscotti brain]

Thank-you God, for sneaking ever so quietly into this world. Keep being patient with us. {full post}

[via Tim Sean Youmans]

Being Warm in the Cold

(also on Twitter: salvationarmysk)

Salvation Army Community Centre: It's cold outside

How we handle the extreme cold at the Centre

[via Weblog: News from the Salvation Army Community Centre, HT: Jordon Cooper]

Related:

Since we are now thigh deep in the giving season, I feel it is pertinent to share my complete and total disgust with the fact that shoppers trampled a man to death on Black Friday. If you're not familiar with the story, and don't mind having your faith in humanity tested, read more here. A few onlookers even stopped shopping long enough to make jokes about how overweight the person was that they had just killed in their haste to save five bucks on a panini maker....

In order to maintain my giving spirit in the face of such a dreadful story, I've decided to give you five good reasons to do your shopping at your local Deseret Industries, Salvation Army or other community thrift store: {full post}

[via East Coast Frost]

How Long?

How long, now, have we been waiting for you to come back to us?

Almost eighty generations. Almost two thousand years.

How long, now, have we been waiting for you to come back to us?

Countless wars. Countless plagues and famines and floods.

How long, now, have we been waiting for you to come back to us?

We are bleeding.

How long?

We are suffering.

How long?

We are dying.

How long?

Our hearts are breaking.

How long?

Our minds are breaking.

How long?

Our bodies are breaking.

We are still waiting.{continue...}

[via On Journeying with those in Exile]

Approaching Defeats

Before our morning Bible study some of us walk up to the local coffee shop, bypassing Starbucks. We're friends with the owners and the staff and we've been walking up there almost every day for a decade.

When Bill opens the place, he takes some time to banter with us, mostly making fun of our friend Gary. With nonstop Olympics coverage this week, Gary's been regaling us with stories of his glory days when he almost made the U.S. Olympic team in gymnastics in 1964.

Many of us have such stories-- the if-only tales of fame and success just out of reach.{continue...}

[via The Wittenburg Door]

Not A Thing

It struck me recently that a lot of people think they know what’s wrong with this world, and it also struck me that they’re all wrong.

Seriously — almost every political and religious group, every opinionated person, every publication with an opinion, has said at one time or another what they think is wrong with this world.

Conservatives think that we’ve become a welfare state (giving too many handouts to the poor), while many liberals think we’ve allowed too much corporate welfare (and I tend to agree with this more — we give billions to corporations and much less to the poor and sick). Others think that abortion is the problem, others think it’s declining morals, others think it’s infidels, and others say it’s infidelity. Other things that are wrong with this world, depending on the group: the media, young people, environmentalists, McDonald’s, criminals, gays, black people, white people, foreigners overrunning our country, bigots, radicals, the Establishment, poor people, corporations, lazy people, evil people, Fox News, the Internet … the list could go on and on, obviously.

So what’s really wrong with the world, in my opinion?

Not a thing. {continue...}

[via Zen Habits, HT: Swinging from the Vine]

Extra Support

Honestly, I have never been a fan of boundaries going up - it involves separation or at least admission that some issue/relationship is too difficult to work through.

I was thinking today that instead of the concept of boundaries, with its fences that can get larger and larger until people are very far apart, I like the idea of scaffolding.

Scaffolding on a building provides work space, and possibly even extra proteciton or support to work projects that are either too hard to get to, or that are vulnerable in some way. Boundary fences keep animals or people separated from something. Relationally, if I say that I need some new boundaries with someone, I am saying that I need separation in some, or all areas. I wonder what it would mean for me to say I need scaffolding instead.

[via My True Self]

Deserved It The Most

“I’m sorry you met me.” I said through angry, frightened tears. I was desperate for her to go, to pull away from me so I could inflict pain on only one person. The person I felt deserved it the most. Me.

“I love you.” She yelled through the phone.

“How can you say that? That doesn’t make any sense.” I responded.

“You don’t get to decide who I love. I love you. That’s my decision. You can’t take that away from me. I love you. I choose to love you.” She repeated words like these over and over again. She attacked me with love that day. And forgiveness I didn’t deserve. Forgiveness I couldn’t earn or make sense of.

I was overwhelmed that day. {the rest...}

[via The Prodigal Jon]

More Transcendental Love

In Sickness and In Health

[via Radical Womanhood]

Bringing The Basics To Neighbours

This is a question I’m going to be asking myself too: what are you doing this advent/Christmas season to help bring about these basic human rights to your neighbors?

[via ThinkChristian.NET]

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The Advent of Openness

Advent Conspiracy

[from this post via ThinkChristian.NET]

To Action

They seem to think that prayer is wholly unconnected to action. Considering what they're praying for, of course, this is probably a good thing. {the rest}

[via slacktivist]

Violates Human Decency

[video HT: Death and the Maiden]

If you'd opened our paper Wednesday to pages 2 and 3 of the local section, you'd have read the following headlines: "10 charged in alleged child porn network," "Man charged with rape of teen," and "Father of two pleads guilty in child porn case." All on the same day. Yeesh.

Anyone who is proven guilty of the things these men are accused of needs to be taken off the streets. Incarceration is needed in such cases for all three of the classic reasons: public safety, punishment and deterrence. (I don't know how effective the last really is, though, since these crimes don't tend to be the result of rational calculation, but such as it is I think the pedagogical effect here still matters.)

But here's the problem: If any of these dozen suspects gets convicted, do you know what will happen to them in prison?

That's a yes or no question. and the answer is yes. You do know -- we all know. They will very likely be beaten and raped, repeatedly. They will, in essence, by be sentenced to torture, to cruel and unusual punishment. This violates the Eighth Amendment, and it violates basic decency. It is both illegal and inhuman. Like all torture, it is intolerable and counterproductive.

The fact that this torture will be administered at the hands of their fellow prisoners and not by officials of the state hardly matters, because the state is -- we are -- placing them into a situation in which we all seem to know that this is what will happen. The state's hands are clean only in the meaningless technical sense that America's hands are "clean" in cases of extraordinary rendition -- when we ship terror suspects off to Syria or Saudi Arabia, outsourcing torture.[via slacktivist]