Monday, December 15, 2008 - 01:41:24 | Santa
One of the most ludicrous things I've seen this year. The infamous Westboro Baptist Church... yes, the guys/gals who demonstrate at US soldiers' funerals and suggest that God killed the soldier because of homosexuality... have done it again. They've entered the silly fray over what "messages" get posted in the Capitol Building in Olympia... they've entered it by submitting a sign that suggest that "...Santa will take you to hell..." Here's the Seattle PI's blog post on the subject.
Absolutely ridiculous. | | posted by Wayne Purdom | Comment (3) |
Tuesday, December 09, 2008 - 07:10:12 | Radical Thoughts Regarding The Church (the whole thing), Part I
Merry Early Christmas!
So I’m posting the first part of a three-part blog about the Church. It will mostly contain quotes from a book that I’m reading entitled Resident Aliens (click here to be linked to Amazon and check it out for yourself), but will also include some personal thoughts. My purpose here is to stretch our thinking as it relates WHO WE ARE, as THE CHURCH, in the world at large.
So, as I post, I will intentionally leave a little tension at the end. Perhaps a question that needs to be answered, a controversial topic presented with no position taken, or a personal thought that contains some tobasco sauce on it. Although I do not wish to offend, I do wish to provide some tension... as tension sometimes creates the only atmosphere in which we seriously think through things for ourselves. Here’s Part I:
“Whenever Christians think that we can support our ethic by simply pressuring congress to pass laws or to spend tax money, we fail to do justice to the radically communal quality of Christian ethics. In fact, much of what passes for Christian social concern today, of the left or of the right, is the social concern of a church that seems to have despaired of being the church. Unable through our preaching, baptism, and witness to form a visible community of faith, we content ourselves with ersatz Christian ethical activity – lobbying congress to support progressive strategies, asking the culture at large to be a little less racist, al little less promiscuous, a little less violent. Falwell’s moral majority is little different from any mainline protestant church that opposes him. Both groups imply that one can practice Christian ethics without being in the Christian community. Both begin with the assumption that there is no way for the gospel to be present in our world without asking the world to support our convictions through its own social and political institutionalization. The result is the gospel transformed into a civil religion…” Resident Aliens, Hauerwas & Willimon.
Think this one through: What is the relationship between Christian ethics and Christian community? Can you have the former without the latter? | | posted by Wayne Purdom | Comment (2) |
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