Can We Join Hands to Rock the World in 2008?

I had planned to run with the pack and write a feature on the top 10 faith stories of 2007. Believe me, as a newspaper reporter I’ve filled many an inch of newsprint with these year-end remembrances. Filling the “news hole” while employees enjoy the holidays with family may be the main purpose of the year-in-review genre.

But as I compiled my list for 2007 it hit me we should be looking forward and not back. Two trends I saw in 2007 convinced me of that. The first is the continuing rise of the emerging church; the second is the softening of the evangelical movement. “By God,” I thought, “we could have a convergence be in the works!”

Much has been written about the “emerging” movement, but mainly looking from the outside in. Many Christians I know in mainline churches would fit nicely into the category without ever having heard the words “emerging church.” So here’s my take on the emerging movement derived not from the writings of religious academics or major publications, but from the pews and meeting rooms of local churches:

Emerging Christians are action oriented. We see scripture, and Jesus himself in a historical context as someone affecting change in the here and now. We want to do the same. Scripture therefore is not an ancient document to be studied and revered, but a record of action on God’s behalf that can be used in our current context as a guide for our own actions.

Emerging Christians are spiritual, even mystical. We don’t believe in the separation of heaven and earth. We believe God’s Spirit is a real and present force in the world that can be felt in a tangible way. We know that those who followed Jesus sensed this presence in him, observing that he spoke with authority not seen in other religious leaders. Some reach this spiritual consciousness through deep prayer that is more like meditation than the word prayers familiar to traditional Christians. Others reach spiritual heights through intense action in the way a marathon runner reaches a “runner’s high.” As a pathway to a higher spiritual plane, scripture is seen as metaphorical and not subject to easy intellectual dissection. Notice how Jesus used word pictures we call parables, and not academic statements, to describe the “kingdom of heaven.”

Finally, emerging Christians seek political progress. We believe God meant it when creation was described as “good.” We understand that God intended fairness, compassion and justice for all people of the earth. Emerging Christians recognize that Jesus stood up against abusive elites, including the Romans, in defense of the poor, the disabled and other oppressed people. We believe we must do the same in our own culture. We don’t see life on earth as a “vale of tears” to be endured as we wait for our reward in heaven. We will never restore Eden, but we can make this place more like God intended -- or die trying as Jesus did.

Emerging Christians are evangelical by nature, that is we believe in spreading the good news that Christ brought to earth. The traditional church as we’ve known it over the past two or three hundred years has a fairly formulaic definition of the good news: believe in Jesus Christ as the Son of God and gain the reward of eternal life. But now the more conservative Evangelical church is starting to see beyond this simple recipe. Mission work is no longer focused only on “winning souls” for Christ but on relieving suffering. And when new thinkers in the Evangelical community championed an environmental “green movement,” traditionalists were unable to defeat them.

There’s much work to be done and divisions that defy compromise, but it seems clear to me that emerging Christians and traditional Evangelicals have these two things in common: an intense love for Jesus and an overwhelming dedication to the Christian life. Could 2008 be the year we begin setting aside our differences? If we did, we could really rock this world.

Bhutto's Murder Calls Us to Stand Up for Peace

Benizer Bhutto’s murder is being viewed by some in this country as proof we must stand even more violently against extremists who would do such things. Nothing could be further from the truth. When we line up with Mao Tse-Tung in his belief that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun,” we become the comrade of murderers and not their enemy.

Since this political murder has occurred on the Asian subcontinent it’s appropriate to recall the words of Mahatma Gandhi: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” The contrast in the words of Mao and Gandhi present a choice. Which path will we follow as Americans? As Christians? Sure, a few in the American church have spoken from the pulpit against death and destruction as foreign policy. But where is the committed call for active resistance? Who but followers of the Prince of Peace have the organization, the voice and the standing in the court of public opinion to make such a call?

Ms. Bhutto now takes her place in a long line of murdered prophets who put serving God’s wish for the world above their own personal safety. The list stretches back into history and includes Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. As with the others, she knew she would die for her beliefs and didn’t shrink away. We wonder why so many view the church today as an impotent shell; we need look no further than the streets of Baghdad and Pakistan.

Of course, it will be politically safer for American preachers to rail against Ms. Bhutto’s murder. No well-heeled parishioner is likely to huff off over that one. But if death is acceptable for us as a tool of regime change, then it’s acceptable for them. You are what you do, baby. Any other claim is pure sophistry.

Many called on Jesus to lead a military rebellion against the brutal Roman occupation. If ever violence could be justified as a path, this was the time. But Jesus made a conscious decision for another path. He knew that to take up the sword would fundamentally alter him and his mission. He had come to embody God’s peaceful wish for the world and knew he couldn’t have it both ways. So he sacrificed himself to serve God and to “be the change” he wanted to see in the world.

Haifa Zangana is an Iraqi political activist and a former prisoner of Saddam Hussein. In her book City of Widows she describes how the American invasion and the prior sanctions have decimated her country. According to Ms. Zangana, the best numbers from sources within Iraq -- sources ignored by the western press -- count over one million war-related fatalities in Iraq since the invasion in 2003, most of them men. In Baghdad alone, she says, there are 300,000 war widows. But events in Pakistan prove that those who believe in enforcing their truth with bullets and bombs don’t really care about the gender of their victims.