29
October
2006
I am a faithful reader of my newspapers’ Business sections, and I also try to keep my eye on Business Week, Fortune, The Wall Street Journal and all such vehicles written for folks in the know about money. I like the brisk no-nonsense style of business reporting but I also want to stay abreast of what constitutes the deep structure of our society–its ethical grammar, so to speak–which is all about getting and spending and the anxieties attendant thereunto. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: Director's Cut, Happening in the World
27
October
2006
I’m a fairly ecologically responsible person, I think. I recycle, for lack of a better word, religiously (my office mates will attest to this!). I live in a very small house (by American standards), don’t eat meat, buy organic food, and I didn’t start driving a car until a little over a year ago, which should count for something. Much to my disappointment, though, when I took the online “ecological footprint quiz,” I found that, if everyone lived like me, our problems would be far from solved. In fact, if everyone lived like me, we would need 3 additional planets to provide enough resources for all of us.
Actually, I am doing very slightly better than the average American, but that’s not really the issue. We don’t have 3 extra planets lying around just now, and the reason we’ve managed to scrape along with just one to this point is that the vast majority of the world doesn’t live like me — in fact, a large proportion of the world’s people live in poverty. This touches on the complicated connection between environmental sustainability and economic justice. Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: Happening in the World, Off She Goes
26
October
2006
After watching An Inconvenient Truth, most of us felt as though we needed to something immediately to make our voices heard. Laurie David, one of the movie’s producers, created a way for us to do just that — an online registry for people to say, collectively, we will not have this, and to demand that our elected leaders take action to create policies which will stop the ongoing emissions of greenhouse gases. Shamefully, our nation, which leads the world in the production of greenhouse gases, remains one of only two industrialized nations which has not signed the Kyoto Protocol, thus undermining the most basic efforts to begin to address the problem.
Each one of us alone might not be able to do much to influence public policy…but what if there were a million of us?
The Virtual March has already the half million mark. If you haven’t signed on already, click here to go ahead, and take the first step in making our government aware of our seriousness about taking responsibility for global warming!
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Posted: Happening in the World
24
October
2006
Through a variety of experiences: conferences I’ve attended, sermons I’ve heard, discussions I’ve had or meetings in which I’ve participated, one theme seems to have woven itself through each conversation– “What does it mean to say we believe in and worship a loving God?”
Sunday afternoon, a group of Southern California activists gathered in Studio City for a half-day conference: “Passion to Serve/Power to Transform.” During the opening session, four people from four different faith traditions shared with the conference attendees how their faith informs their commitment to seeking justice in a broken world.
What struck me Sunday afternoon was the intense love that all four individuals have for the poor, the oppressed, the “least of these” around the world. Each emphasized that their deep faith, their understanding of a loving God, and their responsibility to live as faithful followers of their religious tradition, motivates and empowers them to seek systemic societal change (justice rather than charity) in an effort to alleviate the oppression experienced by so many of God’s children. Wow! Communicating LOVE above all to the oppressed in our society!!!
It made me wonder why it is in my denomination, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), that so many are still fighting over whether or not to love (and thus allow ordination of) gay and lesbians into the ministry of Jesus Christ. And in Orange County, ten Presbyterian Churches are leading the fight to maintain this unloving prohibition. I have read and re- read the Gospels, which provide a detailed overview of the life and ministry of Christ, yet I find nowhere in any of those four books where Jesus says a word about gays and lesbians. My denomination continues year after year to fight over what it means for ministers to be “pure” and to live by ordination “essentials” established in our Book of Order (written by fallible humans, mind you). Ironically, the PCUSA seems rarely to fight over how we all as “ministers” (Christ’s disciples) should integrate into our lives Christ’s mandate to “love our neighbors as ourselves.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: Orange County
9
October
2006
What does it mean to be a progressive Christian? The adjective is an obscure description of how a growing number of Christians are choosing to identify. Personally, I have not yet fully embraced the word. Whenever I write an email to a friend I use the long-winded description of “I am a progressive-prophetic-emergent-radical-liberal-Christian activist-Jesus follower.” Who can argue with that? Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: Happening in the World
6
October
2006
This past week I gave a talk in Orange County titled “They Took Away My Jesus.” I told my audience at Chapman University that one of the more curious developments in “Christian” America is how little attention is paid to the Jesus who the gospels say had compassion for the suffering multitudes–the Jesus who ministered to the sick, associated with the outcasts, brought good news to the poor, and challenged unjust power at every turn. I said that people who want to consider themselves disciples of this Jesus today might want to pay a bit more attention to the substance of his life and ministry: to the redemptive life and not just to the redemptive death.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: Director's Cut, Happening in the World
5
October
2006
After meeting, reviewing, and duly considering the ballot initiatives set before the voters in the upcoming California election, the Board of Directors of Progressive Christians Uniting recommends the following positions for the November 7th ballot initiatives.
- Proposition 83: Punishment, residence restrictions, and monitoring of sex offenders: No.
- Proposition 85: Waiting period and parental notification before termination of a minor’s pregancy. No.
- Proposition 86: Funding for hospital emergency services, through an increased tax on cigarrettes: Yes.
- Proposition 87: Funding for alternative energy research and incentives, through a severance tax on California oil: Yes.
- Proposition 89: Public financing of political campaigns, through a corporate tax increase: Yes.
- Proposition 90: Restrict government’s ability to acquire, use, and regulate private property: No.
Posted: Happening in the World
4
October
2006
If you’ve ever wondered how old you’d have to be to understand global warming, I have an answer for you: sixth grade. That’s my guess at the age of the girls who attended our first screening of An Inconvenient Truth this past Sunday, at Holy Faith Church in Inglewood. One of the best experiences I can imagine having was sharing the energy and intense focus of these children of Nigerian immigrants, who gasped as they saw the graphs of temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide go up on the screen, and whispered “oh, no!” when Al Gore explained, “This is what it will look like when our children are my age.” Read the rest of this entry »
Posted: Off She Goes
