Exile from Mainstream

Josh Marshall really knows the way to a boy's heart. Talking Points Media have a post up from Brian McLaren talking about his new book Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope.

The post itself isn't really life-changing, but the fact that TPM gave him the chance to promote it is encouraging news. What I sometimes forget is that the real world has no idea what Evangelicals are really like. And if the past year has taught me anything, it is that the information they do receive about us/them is not very encouraging. See: "Jesus Camp," anything James Dobson related, the Creation Museum, and President Bush. Basically, we are only known for doing bad and crazy stuff. The good stuff just doesn't penetrate. The parts of me that have stopped identifying as Evangelical really don't care that much. If they want to ruin their reputation then that's there prerogative. However, there is a part of me that will always identify with being an Evangelical. I can't walk away from that any more than I could walk away from W.N.L., or my Michael W. Smith tapes, or "true love waits." So in a roundabout way this really is important to me. Donald Miller has stated that the church needs to stop trying to do a P.R. campaign for Jesus. That's true. Love speaks for itself. But having the church shown as a destructive force isn't good either.

To have a rational, sane Evangelical preacher with rational, sane thoughts on the world is refreshing, healthy, and helpful. Even more so when that person is given a national platform. Talking Points Media is extremely influential right now and deservedly so, they do important work. Serious people take this place, well, seriously. With this post people who have heard about "Jesus Camp," but don't actually know any normal Evangelical Christians, now have some exposure to someone who both loves Jesus and speaks in a really humble way. Great, huh?

I am, by the way, really looking forward to reading this book. Especially since Just Coffee is the OFFICIAL coffee of his book tour. Seriously).

New York City for the win.

From the Times:

Recalling a movement that challenged United States policy in Central America in the 1980s, several religious congregations in New York and other cities will announce a campaign Wednesday to provide sanctuary to illegal immigrants who face deportation.

As of Tuesday, the organizers of what is being called the New Sanctuary Movement said that five churches in New York City had already offered assistance to two families — one from China and one from Haiti — and would provide them with shelter if the federal government moved to enforce the deportation orders filed against them.

“We’re launching now because we’re fed up with detentions, deportations and raids,” said the Rev. Dr. Donna Schaper, the senior minister of Judson Memorial Church in Greenwich Village. “We felt it was not morally possible to remain silent.”

Evangelical + Progressive + Radical + Loving = Sexiness

If you've ever thought: I'm way too conservative to be a "liberal," but there's no way I'm a Republican.

It's really dumb that the same people who get so worked up over abortion don't seem to have a problem with the death penalty at all. Those both seem like pretty bad ideas.

I want something different for my life. I want my life to be like the book of Acts, not like The Real World.

Women make really great leaders.

Drinking, smoking, and swearing seem like really silly reasons to send someone to hell.

Secular progressives really don't get me. Christian conservatives? I think they get me even less. Neither of them speak for me.

I really want to live faithfully, but sometimes it seems like the system is stacked against me. What does it mean to love people when I buy shoes? Go to my job? Decide where to live?

I like my sketchers, but I LOVE my Prada backpack.*

I wish that there were more singers/preachers/authors/prophets/leaders like Bart Campolo/Shane Claiborne/Rob Bell/Anne Lammott/Donald Miller/Derek Webb.

It's not my revolution if I can't dance to it.

Sex is so much more important than my friends make it out to be.

Fighting gay/lesbian/bi/trans/queer people just doesn't feel like love.

It's so great how many amazing people I know who love Jesus, love people, and are changing the world because of it.

If you've ever thought any of those things, then I have a confession to make: So have I. Cool, huh?

And apparently so have a whole bunch of other people. Read this article. It's long, but it's very very important.

Did you read the article? Because that was the whole purpose of this post. Seriously.Read it.

Something Bryce posted got me thinking about the problem that we as thoughtful/progressive/evangelical/radical/beautiful/sexual/intellectual/artistic followers of Jesus have. Well, it's several problems really, but mostly it's an image problem. People just do not understand how many of us there really are, what we believe in, or what we are trying to accomplish.

Secular progressives, perhaps rightfully so, get freaked out and run the first time they hear the word Jesus. Ditto for religious folks of a different faith. Kudos to AlterNet for posting this. Secular progressives complimenting suburban Christians can only be called miraculous. If you say evangelical to any one of my secular friends from Pomona, you would get a negative response. Or they wouldn't know what you meant. That's not a good sign.

"Traditional" evangelicals/Christians think that we're a bunch of tree-hugging hippies who have cast our lot in with the devil and his kin. To be fair, some of us are tree loving hippies. Sorry Erik, you'll just have to live with it. The positions that some of us hold (Bart Campolo: Gay marriage is good, Donald Miller: post-modern thought is good, Jim Wallis: Jesus cares about the environment) are so foreign to people like Dobson and Ralph Reed that we may as well not be Christians. When pressed, they might agree that we aren't.

And finally, "we" isn't really a we. This article makes it seem like there is an "us," but there really isn't. It's a BIG tent. Reading Relevant does not mean that you read Sojourners. Liking Donald Miller does not mean that you think American global capitalism has serious problems. Going to a church with women in leadership does not mean that you think that gay marriage is ok. On the whole, I think that all of that is good. Clearly it's important to have beliefs. But it's also important not to exclude people for holding well thought out, faithful positions, that aren't your own. Jesus probably loves them too. But that puts us in a classic progressive bind. How do you make people who have a lot in common feel like they are connected, powerful, and influential (which they are) without resorting to essentialist tendencies (ex: you must believe x,y, and z or you just aren't with us)? Last year Bart Campolo said, more or less, that he doesn't believe in a God who sends people to hell. If evangelicals could excommunicate, he would no longer be welcome to communion. In some places he probably isn't. So obviously we have some issues. But we have a lot more promise. More and more churches across the country are being transformed in ways that are very, very good. I am having more and more conversations with people who are involved in completely amazing grassroots action, willing the kingdom into being by the sheer force of their love. But I don't think any of us has really realized yet how many people are having these conversations. Am I excited? You bet I am.

Are you in?

Thanks to Zach Exley for writing this. I've been thinking it for years.
Thanks to Zach Lind for posting this link over at Finding Rhythm. P.S.- Zach is the drummer for Jimmy Eat World. You're right, he IS the man.
Thanks to all of you for being revolutionaries in a whole bunch of ways. The world is changing.

(In the photo: Tony Campolo gets his preach on)
*Ok, I haven't thought that. But I do love Ten Things I Hate About You.

I Must Read This Book.

Oh yes, this looks really good.

Salon has just posted a short excerpt from a new memoir called Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion, by author Sara Miles.

It is, from the description given, a memoir about Miles' unexpected conversion to Christianity, her view of the church as she came stumbled in from the outside, and the unexpected paths she found herself walking as she adjusted to a life of faith.

It sounds like a really great book, a camp onion of sorts to the great faith tapestries woven by fellow Bay area resident Anne Lamott.

It's not surprising to me that my favorite works of faith, whether they be music, literature, art, social action...whatever really, are often made by people who are, or who think of themselves as being, outsiders.

Derek Webb, C.S. Lewis, Dustin Kensrue, Oscar Romero, Anne Lamott, and Martin Luther King all come to mind immediately, although the list could just keep going, couldn't it.

It's refreshing to get a look at Jesus (and at his bride) from someone who loves him, but is unfamiliar with the strange ways of his people. At the same time, it is also refreshing that a treatment of Christianity done by a metropolitan progressive could be so nuanced and based out of love.

I'm excited to get my hands on this. Anyone else?

Link to the excerpt: http://www.salon.com/mwt/feature/2007/02/17/take_this_bread/index.html
(sorry, links are still inconsistent for me at best. Can't figure this one out)