AZspot

But the disturbing consequence of making Christianity all about MY personal relationship with Jesus is that we eliminate our neighbor. Oh, we are taught to pray for our neighbor in order to strengthen our own faith. We are taught to fear the corrupting influence of our neighbor. And, above all, we are taught to condemn our neighbor. But we have inoculated ourselves from having a neighbor to love. If we are not to care about the plight of women, or the destruction of the environment, or the oppressed third world farmer because it would take away from our complete devotion to God, then the idea of loving our neighbor becomes a meaningless concept. That command then becomes so confusing that we have to start focusing on the “as yourselves” part of the verse instead – making sure that each of us loves ourselves enough to devote ourselves only to God. Julie Clawson ☀

The gospel, the good news, is about so much more than an economic transaction where I get a ticket to heaven in exchange for intellectually assenting to an idea about Jesus. The gospel is good news for the world. It is about God loving the world enough to send his son and establish his Kingdom. It is the gospel of Jesus, the new way of being that he preached. This good news isn’t just something we believe in or talk about, but something we are called to celebrate and embrace. If it is truly good news we will joyfully accept the challenge to follow in the disciplines of Christ – being his hands and feet working to heal all shattered relationships through his reconciling power. We live out the good news to the world. Julie Clawson ☀

I am Emergent and I don’t fit their stereotype. I am about the most un-hip person in the world. I might be white and youngish, but I am also physically handicapped and female. I am not one of the pretty people, I have no sense of style, I don’t listen to cool bands, my hair is a disaster, I am awkward, introverted, and a total bookworm. In most emerging communities I have participated in, I am generally one of the youngest people there. My friends are culturally, racially, generationally and theologically diverse and are (mostly) as uncool and imperfect misfits as myself (sorry guys, you know I love you, but it’s true). But we care about what God is doing in the world. We care about justice, we care about racial reconciliation, we care about making sure we listen to previously marginalized voices (and we continue to fight for them when they are not heard). Some of my friends have never heard of the term “emerging church” and some of us volunteer our time to help support this conversation through the network of Emergent Village. We have a lot to learn and a long way to go. I know that none of us desire to cling onto power for the sake of white western culture, but we also feel no need to utterly reject and condemn that entire culture. Healing and emergence in the church will never take place through the silencing of voices we don’t like or the caricaturing of those we don’t understand. There are wounds dealt to persons of color, to queers, and to women that the church universal must work to heal. But if we share the same dream of healing those wounds, why can’t we stop fighting amongst ourselves and figure out this emerging thing together? Julie Clawson ☀

…I am beginning to care less and less about being labeled a heretic. The term has nothing to do with truth (as much as they accuse us postmodern of abandoning truth). It has everything to do with toeing the line of a particular tradition. Call it what you will – “orthodoxy” “historic Christianity” “biblical Christianity” – all it is is the box that you feel comfortable in and pledge allegiance to. People who look, think, and act like you are in and everyone else is out. And while I fully acknowledge the need for community and tradition and admit I have allegiances, when that box becomes a shield to defend against ever learning anything new or entering a conversation in order to grow, then I have no use for the box. So while I love and appreciate (to varying degrees) The Apostles’ Creed, Augustine, Martin Luther, Calvin, Barth, and McLaren, I’m not going to exchange my faith in the living transforming God in order to cement myself in their camps. I may be a heretical Barthian or C.S. Lewisian, but since that really isn’t the point of my faith, I no longer really care. Julie Clawson ☀

Social media doesn’t destroy or hinder community, it builds it. As a fairly extreme introvert, I had far fewer friends before I started connecting through the internet. Now because of online connections and discussions, I am spending much more time with flesh and blood huggable people. Like any community or form of communication, the online world has its flaws – no one is disputing that. But I am tired of being told to fear something for dubious reasons. So [N.T.] Wright can call this age-old form of communication cultural masturbation if he wants, I’ll just send him a virtual pint on Facebook and have fun discussing his ideas with my friends – both on and off line. Because that’s real community. Julie Clawson ☀

I really can’t stand sermons or liturgy. I don’t want someone telling me what I should think without giving me the chance to engage. Nor do I like feeling like I have to engage in the right rituals of the system in order to do church right. I get how those things work for people with other preferences and learning styles, but they aren’t for me. I need to engage, be a part of a discussion, to push back when presented with ideas, to be able to connect what happens in church to life, and history, and music, and politics, and movies, and parenting…. I don’t want to feel like I have to fill in the right bubble or spit out some pretty sounding bs in order to be a part of church. I’ve been there, done that, and it felt false. I was good at it, just as I was good as standardized tests, but it didn’t spiritually form me. So I get uneasy with the recent popularity of discussions upholding the traditional forms of church and the sermon as the only right way to do church. Those are hollow to me and represent a detachment from meaningful faith. Julie Clawson ☀

The true practice of justice thus moves away from retribution (punishment) and toward restoration. We restore broken relationships, we restore families torn asunder, and we even restore damaged land so that life may survive and flourish. To live justly in our own lives means living so that this restoration can happen. Justice, understood as exclusively in terms of punishment, involves tearing people down, but justice, understood as righteousness and restoration, results in helping people rebuild — both perpetrators and victims. Julie Clawson ☀

When the cross becomes our shield and sword instead of a symbol of hope, our faith becomes about struggle with the Other instead of love of the Other. Instead of acknowledging that through Christ’s suffering, all can be reconciled, we desire to forcibly make others think as we do. But conversion through coercion is not a reflection of hope and love, but of fear. If we cannot let the other be who they are and encounter the cross on their own terms, then we have forsaken the cross in favor of empire (be that a political or ideological empire). I fully agree that we need to return to the real cross, but I also do wonder what the future would look like apart from this need to use the cross to justify our disrespectful and inhumane treatment of others. A cross that embraced the suffering of others and helped them develop hope from that suffering instead of causing that very suffering is a vastly different sort of cross; and a church that shunned the cross of empire in favor of Jesus himself would be a very different church. Julie Clawson ☀

I, along with the rest of the nation have watched in horror this past week as the details of the Jaycee Dugard captivity emerge. Very little angers me as much as hearing about the sexual assault of children. While I generally favor justice that restores criminals, cases like this almost make me want to support the death penalty or at least slow, painful castration for rapists. I can hardly imagine the damage done to Jaycee and the years of healing she and her family now face. That said, I am a bit disturbed as to why this case has captured the media’s (and my) attention and outrage. It is of course horrific, but it is hardly unique. Thousands of girls around the world face similar terrors every day. Children are kidnapped off the streets in Africa, drugged on trains in India, or sold by uncles in Cambodia and end up as captive sex slaves in brothels around the world - including in the USA. At the Not for Sale site you can read the story of Srey Neang - a young girl sold to a Karaoke bar owner who repeatedly raped her and forced her to service up to ten men a day. Once when the police raided the club, this 15 year old’s “rescuers” charged her with prostitution and but her in jail until her owner bought her back. At the Polaris Project site one can hear the story of Katya, a 20-year-old Ukrainian girl who thought she had landed a waitressing job in America. But instead she found herself in captivity in Detroit forced to work in a strip club and locked into a tiny apartment with other women. Fear of getting caught as an illegal immigrant and imprisoned as a prostitute bought their silence. Julie Clawson ☀

Food, Inc. also explores why for the average working class family in America, buying healthy food isn’t an option. It is far cheaper to buy the cheeseburger from the drive-thru dollar menu than it is to buy fruit or vegetables. That is because everything in that cheeseburger comes from corn which our government subsidizes so much that farmers can sell it below the cost of production. So the poor American eats the extremely unhealthy food because it is cheaper. But the rising epidemic of type 2 diabetes shows the hidden cost of that value meal. The poor in our country - those with no health or job insurance - are getting sick at alarming rates due to the unhealthy cheap food they eat. This is injustice of the highest extreme - but it’s all part of our industrial food system. It’s a complicated system that gives us unhealthy, unsustainable food that disrespects the earth, animals, and people all in the name of making the greatest profit for a handful of corporations. This is the story of the food we eat every day. Julie Clawson ☀

…this unfounded trust in conventional medicine assumes that who we are can be reduced to biomedical issues. If we get sick then we are given some (patented) chemical to fight that sickness. The more we get sick, the more chemicals they sell. Who we are as whole people gets ignored. Pursuing lifestyles that help us be healthy, whole people messes with that system. We are trained to simply want to pop a pill to biomedically remove a problem, and that alternative remedies, preventative measures, or even concerns about those pills are scoffed at. If it doesn’t support the conventional system, it is alternative, and therefore wacky “crazy talk.” But the stories are more than obvious that people who take care of themselves - care for their body and “soul” - are happier and generally healthier. There is something to the power of positive thinking - be that if the form of prayer, or meditation, or whatever. There is something to watching what we eat, exercising regularly, detoxing ourselves, and feeling good about who we are that helps us truly live our best life. We are not just organisms waiting to get sick so that the sickness can be banished by the pill the priest dispenses at her holy alter. Life is a lot messier, organic, and holistic than that. And I think that’s what Oprah is on to. Sure, I say question her suggestions, look into how they really affect people. But I have a hard time accepting a critique that dismisses her holistic lifestyle tips simply because they do not walk lockstep with conventional medicine. I use conventional medicine, and I actually know very little about so-called “alternative medicine,” but I question the supremacy of conventional medicine and it’s cult-like following in our society. It is a fantastic tool that I am grateful for, but I don’t buy the propaganda that it holds all the answers. So I appreciate the voices that propose alternatives and remind us that we are more than cells to be experimented upon. Julie Clawson ☀

It intrigues me that Christians simply being who they are could so impact an economic system to the point that suppliers for animals to sacrifice to idols almost died out. It took the Empire persecuting and torturing Christians in order to restore that way of life and for the economic system to revert to the way things had been. I can’t help but notice how the situation is reversed for Christians today. Instead of subverting the unjust economic systems of empire, we have married it to our faith. For many it is our Christian duty to uphold the economic system of our government. In fact those who question the system, or even question small parts of that system, are labeled as unpatriotic and (therefore) unchristian. It is those who stand with the poor and the oppressed, who choose not to give their money to false gods and unjust entities, that face ridicule for their faith these days. I wonder what it would take for Christians these days to have such a significant economic impact on a part of our culture that it starts freaking the government out. What if we all choose not to buy products made by slave labor? What if we choose not to invest in companies that provide brothel visits with trafficked children as incentives for businessmen? What if we only bought clothing or food for which workers were paid a living wage? Would we maybe then be known for being something other than the lapdogs of Empire? Julie Clawson ☀

Let me say upfront that I think there are serious issues with the churches who do pay a minister to be the “professional Christian.” He is the one with all the answers, he is seen as more holy than others, he is the one that does all the work of (or makes all the decisions for) the church. A system is created that separates the paid leadership from the rest of the believers. In fact in some churches this separation is codified and the necessity of not allowing the laity to access the Pastor ever is stressed. A cult of personality usually forms around these guys and the future success of the church rests on the continued success of him. This is not church. This is a business or more accurately a circus. Sure some good things might come out of these churches, but they should be classified as “Christian organizations” instead of churches imho. Unfortunately the way most churches are these days, they could not exist without someone in that roll. In order to alter the perception that there is a paid guy to be the professional Christian, the entire structure of church would have to change. So even having this conversation without rethinking church structure is impossible. Julie Clawson ☀