Marriage for the 99%: Seeing Family as a Social Justice Issue | Christianity Today

Very interesting — marriage as one predictor of socioeconomic status.  This paragraph blew my mind:

Bill Galston, a senior fellow at Brookings who served as President Clinton’s domestic policy advisor, has explained that an American today must only do three things to avoid living in poverty: graduate from high school, marry before having a child, and have children after age 20. Only 8 percent of people who do these three things are poor, while a stunning 79 percent who fail to meet these expectations live in poverty.

I’m left with a lot of questions, but still food for thought.

Marriage for the 99%: Seeing Family as a Social Justice Issue | Christianity Today.

How to win a culture war and lose a generation

I think Rachel Held Evans is right on in this blog post.  Thoughts?

My generation is tired of the culture wars.

We are tired of fighting, tired of vain efforts to advance the Kingdom through politics and power, tired of drawing lines in the sand, tired of being known for what we are against, not what we are for.

And when it comes to homosexuality, we no longer think in the black-at-white categories of the generations before ours. We know too many wonderful people from the LGBT community to consider homosexuality a mere “issue.” These are people, and they are our friends. When they tell us that something hurts them, we listen. And Amendment One hurts like hell.

Regardless of whether you identify most with Side A or Side B, (or with one of the many variations within those two broad categories), it should be clear that amendments like these needlessly offend gays and lesbians, damage the reputation of Christians, and further alienate young adults—both Christians and non-Christian—from the Church.

So my question for those evangelicals leading the charge in the culture wars is this: Is it worth it?

via Rachel Held Evans | How to win a culture war and lose a generation.

Cinco de Mayo as American as July 4

Fascinating!  I hope we can recapture the sense of unity implied in this article.

Cinco de Mayo — the unofficial U.S. holiday long believed to have been imported, with celebratory beer, from Mexico — isn’t a Mexican holiday at all but rather an American one created by Latinos in the West during the Civil War, according to new research by a California professor.

via Cinco de Mayo a Mexican import? No, its as American as July 4, prof says – CNN.com.

Link

The author’s description of young people turned off by “Christianism” certainly struck a chord with me.  How about you?

As I get around the country there is one question I hear from pastors more than any other: How do we reach young people? They don’t need research from Barna, Lifeway, Pew, and Gallop to tell them young people are leaving the church. They see it every Sunday as the congregation gets a little more gray.But the evidence is mounting that reaching or retaining the young is going to take a lot more than new music styles or even a systematic rethinking of church leadership and organizational structures. There is the larger cultural matter of politics….

via Christianism Leads to Atheism | Out of Ur | Conversations for Ministry Leaders.

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For the past few months Christianity Today has published an excellent series of articles in the category “This Is Our City.”  In this article, the author offers a critique of the Tea-Party movement as represented in a new documentary.  While I felt the article itself didn’t go into as much detail and depth as I desired, I still found it thought-provoking.

Has anyone heard of the documentary mentioned in this article?  I’m intrigued…  I’d love to hear your thoughts and responses.

Why Liberty Needs Justice: A Response to the Tea Party-Occupy Film | This Is Our City | Christianity Today.

Link

Invisible Children is not the only group working in Uganda — check out the Anglican church’s response to Kony 2012:

While Invisible Children has been a good partner with the Church of Uganda, they are not the only organization working in Northern Uganda. The Church of Uganda, through its dioceses working in the affected areas, has a number of programmes related to rebuilding educational infrastructure, improving health services, providing water and sanitation services, orphan care, and community development projects. The Church is in every village with schools and health centres, is in touch with needs at the grassroots, and has a solid accountability structure. Some people may want to support the ongoing efforts to restore normal life to the people of Northern Uganda through other organizations….

via URGENT – The Church of Uganda responds to Kony 2012 campaign | Anglican Relief and Development Fund.

On Joseph Kony and Loving Your Enemies

Like much of the internet world in the past couple of days, I have watched and shared the video produced by Invisible Children, which urges us to bring Joseph Kony (leader of the terrorist group the Lord’s Resistance Army in central Africa) to justice in 2012.  The video is remarkable — moving and powerful — and if you haven’t seen it yet, it’s well worth the the 30 minutes:

Kony 2012: Share and Watch (scroll down for the video)

However, it seems that the story the video tells might not be completely accurate.  Various bloggers and news sites have pointed out that Joseph Kony is no longer present in Uganda, the Ugandan military and leadership are guilty of equally heinous crimes as Kony, etc.  Here are some of the more helpful articles I’ve come across that give us a more complete picture of the situation:

Christian Ethics, Invisible Children, Kony 2012, and International Advocacy (especially helpful from a theological perspective)

Some Resources on the Invisible Children controversy (very comprehensive list of articles, background, etc.)

My Take on #StopKony (critique from an American who actually lives in Uganda)

It’s important to be informed on issues like this — and to think carefully, rather than simply responding out of emotion and passion for justice (which is a good thing!).  Justice is complicated.

Moreover, the Kony 2012 campaign does not reflect one of the most central and challenging parts of the gospel: loving our enemies —

Jesus says it most unambiguously, “I say this to you: love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matt. 5:44); and in the depth of his agony on the cross, he prays for those who are killing him, “Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).  Here the full significance of the discipline of prayer becomes visible.  Prayer allows us to lead into the center of our hearts not only those who love us but also those who hate us.  This is possible only when we are willing to make our enemies part of ourselves and thus convert them first of all in our own hearts.

The first thing we are called to do when we think of others as our enemies is to pray for them. (Nouwen, Show Me the Way, 47)

This is not the easy way.  This is not, I think, the military way.  Nor is this the way that ignores the need for justice.  For when WE were enemies of God, God loved us and sacrificed himself for us.  God loved us, His enemies.  So then, how can we refuse to love our own enemies, knowing the profound peace and reconciliation that such love brought to us?

We are quick to use violence and force in the fight against injustice — such as the military intervention against Joseph Kony that Invisible Children seems to advocate — but can violence truly bring about justice?  Or is there a higher way that followers of God are asked to take?

Yes, I want to see Joseph Kony brought to justice — as well as the many other international figures who have harmed so many human beings, such as Charles Taylor, Omar al-Bashir, Bashar al-Assad, Robert Mugabe, etc.  I’m just not sure that the violent path, nor the American-centric path, is the way to walk…

“The first thing we are called to do when we think of others as our enemies is to pray for them.”  So let us pray.

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EDITED: Here’s a link to Invisible Children’s responses to the current critiques.  I do believe they have good intentions, but it’s good to have all the facts on both sides:

Invisible Children: Critiques

Link

Thought provoking article.  I highly recommend reading it and thinking through the point the author makes:

How can anyone who identifies as a follower of Jesus not only listen to, but support, this kind of disgusting language?  How can good people—the kind who show up at my door with a casserole the minute they find out I’m sick—openly cheer these kinds of remarks? 

 I can’t know for sure what goes on in people’s minds when they align themselves with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, but I suspect this reaction has something to do with three common blind spots among evangelicals…

Rachel Held Evans | Rush Limbaugh and three evangelical blind spots.

What do you think?

“Christophobia”

Interesting new term: Christophobia. What scares me the most about this article is how little we hear about it in the American news:

“Christophobia” in the Muslim World

Thoughts?

As much as I disagree with him on certain points, I try to respect John Piper as a faithful servant of God — really I do. But things like this make me very nervous and a more than slightly sad. I’ve been thinking a lot about how difficult it is to challenge things in our culture that we think are wrong without completely turning people off to the church and Christianity, and even to the core message of the gospel. I don’t have a lot of answers at this point — just questions, theories, and an underlying sadness.

At times like this, all I can think to do is to pray, “Your kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” But Lord… let me see it here on earth too.

Check out Scot McKnight’s post and discussion on Piper’s comments: “The Minneapolis Tornado and John Piper”.