links worthy of your perusal
Written by Mark Van Steenwyk : February 19, 2007
Tomorrow, I’m heading out of town for a few days of staff training with InterVarsity. My week will involve reading The Starfish and the Spider (if it is good, I’ll review it) with my supervisor and leading a Bible study on 2 Cor. 4-6 for the other new staff. I’ll be back for a day later this week, and then will head out to San Francisco for a week with Church of the Sojourners. I hope to post at least a couple times while I’m on the road…I want to continue with my series on Christian Anarchism.
In the meantime, here are some links worthy of your perusal:
Is America too Damn Religious? Listen to NPR’s audio of the 3 on 3 debate…it should make you wonder: “what ought our Christian witness look like in America?” I pray that Christianity-as-civil-religion is on its way out for good.
Open-Souce = Communism? Apparently, leftist dictators love Linux. Cuba (like Venezuela) is trying to break free from the use of Microsoft and going open source.
More and more religious films are popping up all the time. A new movied called Amazing Grace is coming to theatres later this month. The movie follows the story of Wilberforce’s abolition movement in the UK. The movie looks ok…
Brother Maynard offers six categories of post-charismatics. If you resonated with my recent post on being charismatic, you should check it out. Here are the six categories:
- Post-charismatic cessationists (folks who are so wounded by their charismatic experience that they reject charismata all together)
- Former charismatics (those who reject their charismatic past, though aren’t willing to say that the charismata have ceased)
- Functional cessationists (still open to the charismata, but don’t really pursue the charismata anymore)
- Detoxing Post-Charisatics (those that set the charismata and the charismatic culture aside for a season in order to find healing, but intend to remain chastened charismatics)
- (classic) post-charismatics (those who have rejected some of their past but still have big struggles with what their faith should look like)
- Realized post-charismatics (those who are relatively comfortable in what they’ve rejected and what they’ve embraced from their charismatic past–they’ve chucked the bad and embraced the good)
I’d put myself at 5.7.
for further reading . . .
- None Found
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Watch out for that Wilberforce fellow, he’ll ensnare you into thinking that Christian political activism is an important part of our witness to the world.
dlw
Wilberforce is over-hyped…but I don’t disrespect what he has done. Any time someone within the Christendom system has used that system to achieve rights for the marginalized, I see it as generally positive. But it reinforces the impotence of the church and the over-reliance on the State…and does all other sorts of damage. I think the exemplar for Christian social action is someone like Martin Luther King Jr, rather than Wilberforce.
I don’t see how that reinforces the impotence of the church.
It’s one of those hands vs feet sort of thing. The feet are not less foundational because the hands are capable of doing somethings better.
MLKjr was just as political, imho, with the biggest diff being that he wasn’t a professional politician. He was supporting the rise of labor unions or the change in the political balance of power towards the end of his life.
I think Wilberforce had to be a professional politician to get voice in Britain during his time. It is because of ongoing political reforms in favor of democracy that an outsider can wield more influence.
dlw
I wonder if there could have been an MLKjr if there had not been a Wilberforce/Tolstoy/Gandhi?
I think we don’t appreciate enough just how important Wilberforce and the movement to abolish slavery in Great Britain was for later developments that influenced MLKjr. As such, I have serious problems with pointing to him and not professional politicians like Wilberforce as embodying how Xtns shd relate to the state.
We need a more Generous Orthopraxy in Church-State relations than the Hauerwasians tend to admit.
dlw
You’re probably right about Willberforce helping pave the way for MLK. I don’t see Wilberforce’s actions as entirely misguided or bad or futile at all. I’m simply saying that there is a better way…not that his way was entirely a waste.
I have to admit; I like the term “Generous Orthopraxy”…that’d be an interesting title for an article or book.
I’m cool with critiquing Wilberforce.
Maybe we shd edit a book on “Generous Orthopraxy” for Xtn political involvement together?
dlw
dlw…how would a book like that work when I am not very generous in my orthopraxy (from your vantage point)? What would be the unifying theme/focus?
you know, I think we may be both too poor and too unknown to edit the book anyways, but I think it would be like Eddy and Beilby’s book on atonement, with a range of views on Church-State relations(focusing on specific topics) and interactions between writers.
I think that if it was done in a pdf file, we could cut costs and offer it for free, but ask for donations…
As for your relative lack of generosity from my pov, which I suppose could be turned around to me as well, I guess that would be a sticking point that might prevent the project from getting off the ground. I think it is likely inevitable that the view of the state as playing a subsidiary role in the advancement of the kingship of God would come out ahead, as it combines, IMHO, the best aspects of the anabaptist/anarchist and liberal/activist models.
dlw