“Falling in love with each other across class lines” at the megachurch? 2 October, 2007
Posted by Zack in Catalyst conference, Georgia.1 comment so far
We’re going to the Catalyst Conference in Atlanta tomorrow through Friday. This conference is sort of the Christian equivalent of the Yearly Kos or Take Back America—except it’s much more focused on young people.
About ten thousand people are attending. From all that I’ve read and heard, this annual conference, of mostly suburban white church leaders, has traditionally been pretty conservative.
But this year’s speakers look to be pretty focused on poverty & justice issues. Will this conference be one more sign that the a true Great Awakening is underway? Check back all this week to find out.
And Shane Claiborne is speaking. This is a guy with a best-selling book out that challenges Christians: “Hey — didn’t Jesus tell us to give up everything to serve the poor?” In Irresistible Revolution he wrote,
Redistribution is not a prescription for community. Redistribution is a description of what happens when people fall in love with each other across class lines.
And he’s preaching that gospel this week to 10,000 suburban church leaders. This is a great example of why I can’t help but get so excited about this movement. Show me where, in the mainstream progressive movement, someone as radical as Shane is given an audience. At Tack Back America or Yearly Kos, someone with his message would be practically booed off the stage as a throw back to communism—wouldn’t they? It’s like all of politics has been turned upside down and inside out.
I’m not saying this conference is going to be a hotbed of radicalism—I’m just saying: How interesting is it that the radical movement within Christianity is being given a major presence this very mainstream/conservative conference? Visit the (very cool) Catalyst website. Or just read these selections below from the “On-Mission” pre-conference lab track:
ON-MISSION: Our culture is being confronted with serious social issues, but what is the church’s role in this new age? How does the mission of the church intersect with these needs? Hear compelling stories of leaders making a difference for the common good, and participate in a forum to learn how to respond to the pressing issues facing the church today.
The Cost of Consumerism
Chris Seay
Pastor, Ecclesia- Houston
Editor, The Voice Project
www.ecclesiahouston.orgChris Seay is a leader in the emerging church discussion, church planter, author, and third generation Baptist pastor. Currently, Chris is the president of Ecclesia Bible Society where he is orchestrating a scripture project that seeks to retell the biblical narrative with the literary beauty of great poetry and story as well as historical truth. As Pastor of Ecclesia Houston, Chris leads a unique congregation that is living out the gospel faithfully in an urban environment. He is also the author of seven books including The Gospel According to Tony Soprano, The Gospel Reloaded, and The Last Eyewitness.
Redefining Racial Reconciliation
Brenda Salter McNeil
Author and Church Leadership Expert
www.saltermcneil.comRev. Dr. Brenda Salter McNeil is a thought-leader who has over 20 years of experience in the field of racial and ethnic reconciliation. She is also a dynamic and prophetic speaker who ministers at conferences, on college campuses and in churches around the world. Her life mission is to “inspire every mind and ignite every heart.” Dr. McNeil earned her Bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University, a Masters of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary, and a Doctorate of Ministry from Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary. She served for many years on the staff of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship as the Regional Coordinator of Multiethnic Training.
In 1995, Brenda founded Overflow Ministries, Inc., a faith based organization devoted to the ministry of racial and ethnic reconciliation. She continues this work through Salter McNeil & Associates, LLC, a racial & ethnic reconciliation training, consulting, and leadership-development firm based in Chicago, Illinois. Dr. McNeil is also the coauthor of the book The Heart of Racial Justice: How Soul Change Leads to Social Change.
Poverty and Human Suffering
Chris Heuertz
International Executive Director, Word Made Flesh
www.wordmadeflesh.orgChris Heuertz knew that his life needed to count for the poor after spending several months in Calcutta with Mother Teresa in 1993. After this life changing experience, he moved quickly and deliberately so that his life would be marked by service to the poorest of the poor and to Jesus. Since 1992, Chris and his wife Phileena have traveled through nearly 60 countries working with the poorest of the poor, gypsies, children with AIDS, prostituted women and girls, recovering drug addicts, street children, unreached people and refugees.
Currently, Chris is the International Director of Word Made Flesh, a community called and committed to serving Jesus among the poorest of the poor.
Chris and Phileena reside in Omaha, Nebraska, serving in an administrative capacity in addition to teaching, writing, speaking and pasturing/pastoring the Word Made Flesh community.
Modern Day Slavery
David Batstone
Founding Editor of Business 2.0 Magazine
Author, Not for Sale
www.davidbatstone.comIt is a rare set of skills that enable David Batstone to be active as a business leader, professor, journalist and social entrepreneur. Batstone leads the Not For Sale anti-human trafficking campaign that is connecting business leaders and celebrities to raise awareness on this issue. David served for six years as Executive Editor of Sojourners magazine, and was also a founding editor of Business 2.0 magazine and a contributor to the New York Times, Wired, the Chicago Tribune, Spin and the San Francisco Chronicle. He is the recipient of two national journalist awards and named the National Endowment for the Humanities Chair at the University of San Francisco for his work in technology and ethics. Gifted as an entrepreneur, Batstone plays an executive role in a niche investment bank operating internationally in the entertainment and technology industries. During the 1980s, he founded and directed a non-governmental agency dedicated to economic development and human rights in Latin America.
Do you know your foundations? 1 October, 2007
Posted by Zack in Georgia.1 comment so far
Christian hippster magazine Relevant does not have a secular progressive equivalent. If The American Prospect merged with The Source that might be it. Or imagine if MoveOn launched a print magazine for 20- and 30-somethings that covered politics in a fresh new way but also reviewed CDs by progressive bands, interviewed artists and even dropped in some poetry here and there. (Maybe MoveOn should do that!)
Relevant Media publishes books and music too and has a clothing line. This budding media empire was founded by Cameron Strang, who is the son of Christian media mogul Stephen Strang. When Cameron started out, in his early twenties, he knew he’d need the freedom to appeal to his generation on its own terms. Therefore, he refused to accept any financial support from his father.
If you jump to the conclusion that Relevant succeeds by dumbing down Christianity for the MTV generation, you’re missing something amazing. It’s just the opposite. Relevant—just like so much of the Christian movement—succeeds by feeding an audience hungry for depth and substance, two things mainstream culture mostly denies us.
Check out the current front page of the Relevant store (image below), for one example of this. The “Foundations of the Faith” series, pictured there, is six classic theological texts from ancient times, the Reformation and the Great Awakenings—from thinkers such as Saint Augustine, Blaise Pascal and John Wesley. (See the complete list and Relevant’s descriptions of the books below.)
Stop for a second and try to imagine a left-wing equivalent of this. Imagine if our new American Prospect/The Source hybrid set out to print a “Foundations of Progressivism” series for young people made up of classical, enlightenment and modern works representing the intellectual foundation of modern progressivism. First of all, can you imagine anyone buying them? But here’s an even more revealing question: What works would be included? Having thrown out the intellectual socialist tradition baby with the bath water of Soviet Communism, what are we left with? The left has thousands of recently published books that holler about the corruption of the current system, but can you point me to any books that propose a fundamental framework for a solution? That leaves us with enlightenment works. But taken alone, without the socialist thinkers who came afterwards, those enlightenment thinkers are founders of the current world that we have, not a world we want.
Here’s another interesting thing for progressives to consider: each of the books in the Foundation of the Faith series goes beyond abstract philosophical ideas to teach practicalities of how Christians can better live and work with others. Practical life teachings saturate the evangelical world. When I first started going to church, I was surprised to learn the Bible has a position on gossip (against it); or instructions on how to approach a community member about destructive behavior (first privately, next with another respected community member, then finally with the backing of the whole community). Such simple things! But I can think of a dozen left wing organizations I’ve worked in that would have been been saved by that kind of simple common sense.
If you look at virtually any bestselling Christian book these days, it’s a mix of practical life help and challenging philosophy and history. But on the left, we seem to be working from the assumption that no one’s interested in intellectual challenge anymore. And we also seem to be working under the assumption that it’s not the place of a movement to offer life advice to individuals—if people want to gossip, it’s their business.
The third item featured on the Relevant store (right after the cool “Suds T”) is Rob Bell‘s NOOMA videos. These are high production-value short films that teach building-block concepts of Christianity to the un-churched as well as challenge core assumptions of life-long Christians. (The NOOMA site has samples to watch online.) Wouldn’t it be great if Paul Krugman or Robert Reich made a cool video series in collaboration with some great filmmakers that taught people about the problems with today’s economics?
The Christian movement has a massive media infrastructure with an unbelievably deep well of talent. The people driving that infrastructure have a refreshingly high opinion of their audience. Finally, the movement is living out an intellectual tradition that—for all of its difficulties—is coherent, powerful, beautiful and meaningful. The combination of those three factors is behind much of the the Christian movement’s current success. There’s a lot to learn here for the left.
Here is the promo text from the Relevant store about the Foundations of Faith series as a whole and each of the six volumes. (I added the wikipedia and google books links.)
About Foundation of the Faith Series
In centuries past, influential Christian thinkers—radical, visionary pioneers of the faith—have penned literature that continues to influence Christians today. The Foundations of Faith series unearths these works for a new audience of twentysomethings hungry for revolutionary material that speaks to their lives. Rediscover the cornerstones of the Christian faith with these classic works.
Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ
(Read it on Google books)
A profoundly influential masterpiece from 15th-century mystic Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ still resonates today. Deeply honest, spiritually challenging and often uncomfortably blunt, it calls believers away from materialism and self-absorption and toward a full-on commitment to the core of the Christian faith: living like Jesus. No wonder it’s considered to be history’s most-read Christian text apart from the Bible.
John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection
(Read it at UMC.org)
A foundational text from one of the greatest theologians, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection is quintessential John Wesley. Emphasizing the “perfect love” that springs from holiness, it laid the groundwork for the personal, transforming spirituality of contemporary Christianity. Wesley’s 18th-century teachings kicked off one of the most successful movements in the history of Protestantism. His thoughts inspired thousands back then, and they’re no less significant today.
G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy
(Read it at Project Gutenberg)
Perhaps the best-known and most-loved book from the prolific, celebrated G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy is the spiritual autobiography of an agnostic intellectual who finally came to terms with the Christian faith. Earthy, joyful and deceptively simple, it’s as fresh and applicable today as when it was written a century ago.
Blaise Pascal, Foundations of the Christian Religion
(Read it on Google books)
You can’t argue the pedigree of a 17th-century philosopher whose contributions in science and mathematics still influence the way we live and think today. Blaise Pascal was a genius by any definition. Moreover, he was a genius who experienced an intense, near-mystical conversion to Christianity and began applying his intellect to theology. A selection from Pensées, Pascal’s masterwork, Foundations of the Christian Religion is more than a defense of the faith. It’s some of the finest literature in the Western canon.
Saint Augustine, Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love
Sexual deviant. Renowned convert. Philosophical heavyweight. Few figures in Christian history have been as influential—and intriguing—as Augustine of Hippo. The fourth-century North African bishop famously converted to the priesthood from a self-proclaimed life of decadence. From that point onward, grace permeated the life of this theological giant, and his passion for God bleeds into every page of his Handbook on Faith, Hope, and Love.
Charles Spurgeon, Selections from the Spurgeon Sermon Archive
In 1856, at the age of 22, Charles Haddon Spurgeon was addressing 10,000 people every Sunday at London ‘s New Park Street Chapel. A preaching prodigy who was criticized by the elite and beloved by the working class, he delivered thousands of sermons during his career. You’ll find a few of his best collected within these pages. All are passionate. All are hopeful. All are singularly focused on the piercing Gospel message of salvation through grace.
