Relevant Magazine has posted a fun little article I wrote about Jesus, the wedding at Cana, and calling. "Calling at Cana" is the title, appropriately enough. It's short, but good I think. So go give it a look.
And by the way, some dude is at the top of the article looking all hip and ponderous like. Not me. Definitely not me.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Ultimate Allegiances
Ethicsdaily has a provocative article on comments made by Melissa Snarr, an ethicist at Vanderbilt Divinity School. Snarr says that American Christians have lost their ultimate allegiance to the person and work of Jesus and have instead replaced it with false allegiances.
Her argument crystallizes around the issue of immigration. She says that Christians have lost what earlier Christian generations knew to be true - that we are all pilgrims in a strange land (to borrow the tag line from a certain blog I really enjoy a lot).
I found her comments very interesting coming on the heals of a talk I gave last night at UVM's Intervarsity Fellowship. I spoke about the Christian witness and race and made the point that racism is really about ultimate allegiances. It is about fidelity to blood (or color or hair type or whatever else race is supposed to be) superceding all other fidelities. The biblical word for this is idolatry.
During the question and answer period one person in the group asked why it was that those who grew up in Sunday School (I didn't) never talked about this stuff. I don't know what exactly I said but I should have said it is because the church has been so thoroughly corrupted by Constantianism that the early witness of the church superceding all class, racial, and ethnic identities has been altogether lost.
This saddens me deeply because I believe that the Gospel that Christians have to proclaim is the one power in this world that can bring an end to the war and hostility and mutual-exclusion of the nations. In the resurrection of Jesus Christ the dividing wall of hostility has been put to shame and a new humanity has been born. All adjectives (black, white, American, Iraqi, Mexican, Texan, Vermonter) have been put back into their rightful place - as secondary to our most primal identity which is not an adjective, but a noun - children of God.
Her argument crystallizes around the issue of immigration. She says that Christians have lost what earlier Christian generations knew to be true - that we are all pilgrims in a strange land (to borrow the tag line from a certain blog I really enjoy a lot).
I found her comments very interesting coming on the heals of a talk I gave last night at UVM's Intervarsity Fellowship. I spoke about the Christian witness and race and made the point that racism is really about ultimate allegiances. It is about fidelity to blood (or color or hair type or whatever else race is supposed to be) superceding all other fidelities. The biblical word for this is idolatry.
During the question and answer period one person in the group asked why it was that those who grew up in Sunday School (I didn't) never talked about this stuff. I don't know what exactly I said but I should have said it is because the church has been so thoroughly corrupted by Constantianism that the early witness of the church superceding all class, racial, and ethnic identities has been altogether lost.
This saddens me deeply because I believe that the Gospel that Christians have to proclaim is the one power in this world that can bring an end to the war and hostility and mutual-exclusion of the nations. In the resurrection of Jesus Christ the dividing wall of hostility has been put to shame and a new humanity has been born. All adjectives (black, white, American, Iraqi, Mexican, Texan, Vermonter) have been put back into their rightful place - as secondary to our most primal identity which is not an adjective, but a noun - children of God.
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