Preaching Peace

"Play!"

Speaking Peace - "Play!"

I've been pretty overwhelmed by the task of putting onto "paper" (okay, so it's pixels on a screen, get over it!) a series of reflections on communication that "speaks peace" while at the same time encouraging you to do the same. I've been a teacher for a long time and I have a way of doing things. Mostly I impart information, and then help folks figure out how to apply that to their behaviors or beliefs. (Which will ultimately change their behavior. I think there's a theme here!)

In my old framework I would have begun by outlining for you all the reasons you might want to change the way you speak to each other. In doing that I would hopefully prick your consciences in such a way that you would feel sufficient sorrow to draw you to the Cross, and thence to a place of hunger that I might then try to fill with a new "communication paradigm." In my homiletics training we called that "law/Gospel" preaching. It worked pretty well for me for a long time, but it doesn't work for me any more.

I have struggled for a long time with impatience. "Law/Gospel" preaching/teaching (because it really is repentance and rebirth I'm after here) serves the purposes of my impatience pretty well. It provokes a response pretty quickly. Either you repent when I keep poking at your sore spots, or you leave. Either way, I know where I stand with you before too awfully long and I don't "waste time" on folks who aren't "receptive" to my message. I had a pretty good Gospel image to support that approach. In Matthew we hear Jesus tell His disciples, "And whoever will not receive you nor hear your words, when you depart from that house or city, shake off the dust from your feet." In my impatience, I rewrote that statement a little. What I heard was, "If at first (or at least pretty soon thereafter!) they don't receive you or your words..." But it doesn't say that at all. It just says that I should when it's time to leave, shake the dust from my feet as a testimony. Trouble is, God's not in as much of a hurry as I am.

Law/Gospel preaching/teaching helps me sort out in short order the ones who'll receive me and my words, when I'm feeling impatient. But I have found that it closes as many doors as it opens. Maybe more. So in my struggle with impatience the Father kept giving me another Scripture to swallow. Because of my own bitterness, this scroll tasted sweet at first, but kept turning bitter in my belly. (Rev. 10:9) And that bitterness kept bringing me back to Him for healing until one day I could receive the Word without the indigestion. "The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance." (2 Peter 3:9, NKJV)

"Law/Gospel" just won't get it any more.

In the way that Jesus did and said only what He saw the Father doing and saying, I would like to "speak peace" (Psalms 85:8) too, and "law/Gospel" doesn't do that. It isn't my place to make your pain intolerable so that you'll want to live differently. I have a feeling that your own lives can make you quite miserable enough, especially if I "speak peace" into your life so that you can't sustain the lie that your painful existence really is as good as it can get.

But how do I do that? Where do I start?

"Play!"

That was my word from the Father as I struggled to find a first thing to put first. Just, "Play!"

As I've prayed into that, meditated on that, listened to that, I've come to understand something. My first task is to write from a place of safety and victory. I am not to write as though the fate of the world or even one person rested on the success of my efforts. I wonder how many opportunities to share the Gospel I've poisoned by taking myself too seriously?

"Play!"

So I encourage you, as you examine your own manner of speaking and reflect on what the Father is really speaking to you, to play. I suspect that even if we play there will still be times of frustration and probably tears. After all, I never got good at a game without being bad it first. I remember hours in front of the garage practicing free throws, not wanting to leave until I'd hit 20 or 30 in a row, and the wild frustration that came when I missed on number 28. And we've all seen the tears of athletes whose teams have fallen short of their goal. It's still a game (for the amateurs, at least) but there's still room for grief. But when we play the tears really do depart with the morning.

So, "Play."

It'll keep us all from getting tired of ourselves and each other as we seek to tell this mountain of speech habits to be uprooted and cast itself into the sea, and we'll all have more opportunity to "speak peace" to each other along the way.

In Him,

Jeff

Speaking Peace - A place to Begin

Dear Friends,

A few months ago I set about to put together a pet project of mine called Speaking Peace. I wrote an introduction and I even preached that introduction one Sunday, and then the whole thing ground to a halt. I couldn't write anything that seemed right, so I put it away for another day.

I hope that today is that day, because I'm trying again.

I know a lot about non-violent communication. I've studied it. I've studied the origins of language and I understand on an intellectual level the way that language is rooted in violence. I've taught all this to a lot of people in a lot of different settings and folks have found the techniques helpful and often revealing. Still, I couldn't write a book full of techniques and explanations. Something stopped me.  Someone stopped me.

I guess the world doesn't need another book of "how-to" on communication.  Heaven knows there are enough of them already, and all I've done so far is rework the work of others and add some of my own insights and some Scriptural  and mimetic-theory foundations. I don't want to write another guide that says basically, "Don't do it this way, do it this way instead." I know how resistant people are when they are exposed to the violence of their language. Our patterns of speech are so deeply ingrained and so unconscious that we absolutely hate trying to change them. People walk on eggshells as they try to find new pathways for communicating with each other and it gets pretty old pretty fast.

Some of that can't be avoided, I suppose. I know that my own way of speaking is deeply colored by my sin. When I dare to pay attention to the way I put words together I am frequently convicted of sin and drawn to a place of repentance. (As I write I'm wearing out the backspace key just correcting myself as I go along here!) I guess that's why I don't pay attention all the time. I can't stand it. Still, I try to pay attention in important moments and at some other times so that I can slowly form new habits and hopefully change the way I speak when I'm not paying attention.

But I am not going to write about what not to say. I hope that I'll be able to lay bare some of the truths of our language, but only so that you'll discover a desire in yourself for something else.

And I'll try to avoid writing about what to say or how to say things. I may give some examples, but not for imitation's sake. Instead, I would like to create a new way of approaching communication that says something like this, "We tend to speak what we hear, to speak like the one or One we're listening to. If we don't like the results we're getting with the way we're speaking now, the solution isn't to change our words, but change our ears. When I'm speaking violently, who am I really hearing in that moment? Whose voice echoes in my ears? What or who can I listen to instead?"

I shared some of these thoughts with my good friend Sue recently, and God gave her this Scripture to help me. “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks." (Luke 6:45 ESV) I think that we can learn to let our speech be an indicator without making it a project. Instead, I want to make my heart the project, believing that as I allow my Father to Speak Peace to me, I will also discover that I'm doing the same into the lives of those around me.

This is such a backwards approach though, that I hardly know where to start. I do hope that you'll all be patient with me as I share my process in the weekly emails I'm going to try to resume writing. I hope also that you'll raise questions and objections to keep me honest and accountable as I work all this out.

In Him,

A Time to Break Silence

"I am as deeply concerned about our troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that when we are submitting them to  . . .is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy.  We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved."

Martin Luther King  spoke passionately to the suffering of soldiers in combat and returning war veterans in a way that challenges and informs us today. Exactly one year before his assassination, he gave an address at Riverside Church in New York to a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned, that included the passages above.   Alternately referred to as "A Time to Break Silence," "Beyond Vietnam," or "When Silence is Betrayal," the content is no less riveting than "I Have a Dream" but is rarely quoted on the King holiday.

Revisiting it now, I am struck by its contemporary relevance.  At Riverside, King talked of soldiers from poor backgrounds serving and dying in extraordinarily high proportions relative to the larger population, of black young men told that they were fighting to insure freedoms that--truth be told-- they did not fully enjoy at home.  Dr. King railed against this "cruel manipulation,"  adding that it was an equally "cruel irony"  that Americans could watch TV images of black and white soldiers  killing and dying together "for a nation that has been unable to seat them together in the same schools."  Their lives were being sucked into what he called a "demonic destructive suction tube" that swallowed people, skills, resources, and futures.

It seems to me that for some years now we have been witnessing the cynical, cruel manipulation of brave soldiers and veterans in order to prolong the spiritually bankrupt "war on terror."  During the Bush Administration, support of  war based upon lies was demanded as a way of being "loyal to the troops."  The cruel irony is that it was the commander-in-chief's lying disloyalty, and our complicity, that created the predicament.  Suggesting that more soldiers needed to die, kill, and be traumatized in order to be faithful to them has been what Dr. King would call "brutal solidarity." The new administration has employed the language of change  but invested in much the same substance.  The"demonic destructive suction tube" continues to swallow futures, sacrificed to a perverse prosperity. 

Amid all of the tortured justifications for the compounding of violence in Afghanistan, Iraq, at "black sites," and at home, the truth of what has been done to our sons and daughters has been revealed publicly in the epidemic proportions of PTSD, depression, brain injury, suicide; inadequate services and repeated official denial of the scope of suffering; the  horror of continued multiple deployments.  It's all there to be heard, seen, and felt.

In New York, Martin insisted that America unilaterally repent of our violence.  He demanded that we admit where we had been wrong,  and be willing to take specific, concrete steps to initiate healing and create a context where new life might take shape. His insistence that we stop bombing immediately, declare a unilateral ceasefire, curtail military buildups in Southeast Asia, and humanize everyone involved, was met with shock and anger.  After all, he was demanding in the name of God that all our cycles of destruction be interfered with and broken. 

Were he with us today, King would publicly name the cynical manipulation of soldiers for the domestic violence that it is. He would magnify their humanity. He would insist that  repentance be honestly undertaken in the trauma care, healing, and amends that are public offered and committed to, regardless of the costs in money, energy, and acknowledged shame.   Deployments would stop immediately.  This effort would not join the war effort; it would replace it in priority.  The future would have to take a radically different shape.

Dr. King would demand of today's "clergy and laity concerned" that we no longer tolerate soldiers and veterans bearing the weight of our collective sins. We would need to repent the silence of our betrayal.This would be a "revolution of values" we would embody. Real, vulnerable solidarity in place of the "brutal" version.  Local faith communities would study the elements/ stages of the healing journey; commit spiritual, communal, and personal resources to accompaniment and the addressing of spiritual needs for veterans and their families; open ourselves to personal transformation. Our sacrificial theologies would be  blessed casualties.

 We would do well to hear the prophet speaking to us on this Monday in January. His "texts' can be studied and translated for the present era. Even today, Martin's spirit offers us fresh inspiration, leading us to new experiences of the beloved community.

Scott Hutchinson

Christ the King

I think it's especially difficult for those of us who live in "Western" democracies to appreciate what it means to celebrate the feast we call "Christ the King." After all, a lot of blood has been spilled by our fathers and grandfathers and their grandfathers and for generations uncounted to make sure than none of us ever has to bend her knee or his knee to a king ever again.

We have accepted the notion that democracy (certainly the most humane form of government we have come up with in the realm of what Paul would call "the flesh") has the potential to generate the Kingdom, or Utopia as we might call it if we aren't allowed to use God language. Despite disappointment on top of disappointment and an irrefutable slide toward cultural collapse we cling to the idea that we can fix things, because every human king we've ever known has let us down.

I'm deeply indebted to my friends the "Giradians" for introducing me the work of Rene Girard, a system also known as "mimetic theory." In my favorite book by Rene (Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World) he speaks of the origins of monarchy, kingship in human culture. It explains a lot about the way we put folks who wind up on our pedestals.

You see, back in the day when appeasing the gods meant sacrificing a human being every so often, the one selected as the sacrificial victim often enjoyed considerable privileges in the period (as long as I year, I think I remember) leading up to his death. He had great power in the village and extraordinary prerogatives. He was "King for a Day" as it were. But the king's job is always to be the sacrificial victim. Until one day, some intended victim managed to use his influence to deflect the death meant for him onto some other poor slob in the village, and "Voila!" Monarchy! The cultural peace is preserved through the shedding of blood, but there is now a monarch to relieve us of the unpleasant (if unconscious) task of selecting a victim. A new cultural institution is born.

But somewhere deep, we remember that the king's job is really to die for us, and so we crucify most of the folks we choose as our leaders at some point.

Now, here's the thing.

I think we were right to see the king as one whose job it is to die for us.  The only mistake we made was asking a human to fill in for the King of Kings, and this human's blood just didn't quite do the job. I think we made "kings" out of our sacrificial victims because the King of Kings has been our victim since the foundation of the world. So of course, it's not a really good idea to let folks make you a king in this world because we aren't very good at remembering that the dying has already been done for us by a King (or High Priest) whose blood, shed once, has atoned for all of us for all time and given us everlasting peace.

But it's precisely because Jesus is the "lamb slain from the foundation of the world" that He is worthy to be King of Kings.  There is no contradiction here between kingship and sacrifice, they are inseparable.

Western culture has spent centuries now trying to approximate the kingdom without the King.  We have determined from our readings of Scripture and our own bent faculty of reason what such a kingdom should look like and we've tried to create the effect without the cause.

We can't make the world better. No matter which end of the political spectrum you sit on it's hard to imagine that we can fix things by doing more of what we've already done. In twelve step programs that kind of thinking is labeled "insanity."

Want the kingdom?

Make Jesus your King.  Not your example. Not your friend (at least, not ONLY your friend). Not your teacher or healer. Your King. When I am surrendered to His Kingship (which isn't nearly as much of the time as I wish it were) I live in the kingdom, and His reign is that much closer to being a reality for everyone. Your surrender to His reign doesn't just change your life (though it does that, and wonderfully) it opens doors for others to do the same.

Worship Him. Magnify Him. Adore Him. Glorify Him.  Make Him King and the kingdom you want will follow.

Van Jones

  As we view the latest cultural uproars, Van Jones is one person to watch.  He is an Obama administration official specializing in environmentally friendly jobs.  Nicknamed the "Green Czar," Jones can be viewed on youtube and other media.  Listen to his live speeches for yourself.
  Here is a link to what he says about Columbine and violence in males.  Apparently this clip is one of the reasons some want him to resign.  I hope he keeps his post, for he gets and speaks about violence in a way worthy of a Girardian, and not enough heard in public discourse.  Michael Hardin could have written his speech.  (Did you, Michael?)  Watch this clip for a breath of fresh air.  What you think about what he says?

http://www.breitbart.tv/van-jones-only-suburbal-white-kids-shoot-up-schools/

(suburbal - not my error here - just the avenue)

A voice from your Saturday,

mary mckinney
  dekalb, illinois

Shout It Out

Just a thought here - I've been hearing a lot about people shouting. Folks have been yelling at "town hall" forums and shouting at each other and at politicians. Pundits on television seem to shout a lot. It brings to mind some age old truths that somehow seem to have been misplaced in the popular culture mindset.

One truth is that if one's argument is based on the level of volume with which one espouses it, then it would seem that the level of volume is commensurate with the weakness of the argument. Wisdom cries out in the streets, but at a whisper. Truth does not require volume.

One of my favourite movies is Bad Day at Black Rock. The line I remember from that film, apart from when Ernest Borgnine tells Spencer Tracy, "I'm going to kick your lung out," is when Spencer Tracy tells one of the other characters, "Sir, you are not only mistaken, but you are mistaken at the top of your voice."

It doesn't matter how loud you shout it, you're still wrong.

I sat on a park bench with my brother the other day. We don't always see eye to eye on the issues, but we agree on many things. One of those being that if you are going to stand for something, then don't use cheap rhetoric in doing it. Think about your argument. And the more you think, the less apt you are to shout. And the less likely you are to shout, the more likely people will listen. They may not agree, but by listening, they are less likely to attack.

And that is what it's all about. Fewer people attacking each other. What a world that would be.

Take Care - John Mann

Complaints

  In sermon preparation for 8/2, I'm fascinated with the Israelite's complaining.  Comes up again and again and appears to have been a factor contributing to the elongated journey of forty years.  Yuh think??!
  Just what IS complaining?  Could it be the shadow side of vision?  Where there is no vision, the people complain (to paraphrase)?  Where I've lost my vision and hope for that vision, do I complain?  My vision might be personal, for a family member, or for the church, the nation, or some other person or entity.
  What about those "visions" for others?  I'm thinking of the youth pastor who came to a church where folks complained about the length of his hair.  Their former youth pastor had been a more formal sort, often seen in a grey suit.  He also had a crew cut, hair standing straight up and oh, so neat.  When the elders complained about the new youth pastor's hair and casual attire, and to their credit, to his face, they asked a question.  "When are you going to stop looking like a shaggy mop with a funky handle?"  HIs response was, "So you'd rather me look like a grey toothbrush?"  The elders had a vision for their new youth pastor, predictably the vision embodied by the one they liked.  It is easy to have a vision for others, and when it isn't shared for whatever reason, vision transitions to complaint.
    Complaining, at least mine, becomes an enjoyable exercise, delicious in a way, and then where am I? 
  What say you regarding the complaining you hear, and the complaining you do, or these thoughts I proffer?

Mary on the prairie ~

Narrative, narrative, narrative

  It started in Chicago, on the magnificent mile as they call it, that area of the city with a couple of buildings that survived the Chicago fire.  Lookingglass theatre makes its home in one of the buildings.  The Raven Foundation (do visit this wonderful group @ ravenfoundation.org) invited us to join them for Mary Zimmerman's adaption of the stories in ARABIAN NIGHTS.  At the heart it's funny, scary, foreign, with actors jumping, brandishing knives, carrying baskets, making love and more.  And it is about the power of narrative to heal, to transform, to be a tipping binary for violence.
  Two weeks later the feast was Barbara Brown Taylor.  Hearing her is something like being a lover of cars who gets to drive the Lambhorgini.  She poke of Kathryn Harrison's book, While They Slept, the story of a family's murder at the hands of their eighteen year old son.  He and his sister had been victims of violent abuse throughout their lives.  The sister's escape over the years had been Harlequin novels.  Here she had found a different world.  Here she learned how more normal people lived, what manners entail, what love might look like.  She found solace in the narratives, a small corner where her soul might survive, enough that the trajectory of her own narrative took her other than to prison.  I want to read the book.
  This morning I crawled with our brother Philip into the chariot and heard E2's question (my nickname for the Ethiopian Eunuch).  He had been reading THE narrative.  This refers to whom?  He had managed to find some verses to mirror the narrative of his own journey.  How old was he when he became.   .   .   ?  Was he a willing participant, or unwilling?  What did he gain in this "exchange?"  What did he lose?  Searching he found a narrative in which his life experience is not only mirrored, but honored.
  Ah, our stories, these narratives in our library, our Biblia.  There's one for you, for me, today in that vast library.  Rumi says "Take down a musical instrument."  Do that, and more, take down a book, THE BOOK, OUR LIBRARY.

         Rejoicing w/ E2, and rejoicing in THE narratives,

                  Mary on the Prairie
                        DeKalb, Illinois

And a little MORE humor

  Well, sort of.  Preaching Peace, while a global ministry, does have an address.  It's Lancaster, Pennsylvania, folks.  We love you, Michael and Lorri.  And now, news of the morning tells us that this fair city is becoming the most closely watched small city in the U.S.  Seems the work has been outsourced to the private sector, the company securing private citizens to monitor the good folks of Lancaster.  This front page news from the L.A. Times comes to you courtesy of the Drudge Report.
  This may be amusing, but then, Michael and others have mentioned that such things may become commonplace as we move into the future.  Michael, I imagine, is smiling as he reads this.  What do others of us think?

Mary on the Prairie
DeKalb, Illinois
  not currently under surveillance
      .   .   .   for now  (-:

A Little Humor

This is titled The Worst Sermon Ever.  As readers of this blog know I am tackling the doctrine of the inspiration of Scripture.  Some folks think it is passe to do so, but here is a hilarious reason why I do what I do.  Hard to believe it is real.    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47cHJR_IABw

Michael

Archaic Religion, Archaic Politics

Back in Genesis, after Cain kills Abel God marks him so others will not kill him and escalate the cycle of violence.  If someone kills Cain it will end up with a seven fold vengeance.  A scant few verses later Lamech boasts that his death will bring reprisals seventy fold thus indicating that the cycle of retributive vengeance has really gotten out of hand.

Today North Korea said it will initiate a retaliation that makes Cain and Lamech look like a couple of school yard bulllies; it has promised to "get back" at the US a hundred or a thousand fold.  Seven or Seventy has now become 100 or 1,000 fold retribution.

Lately I am astonished by naive liberalism which postulates that we are evolving as a species, we are getting better and better.  Yet our political responses, our military actions far surpass anything the biblical tradition ever imagined when it came to reciprocal violence.  I am certain that the CIA is working on regime change in North Korea, after all that is their job.  But I am afraid that it will be for naught; what we need as a species is not just a political makeover, but a true, real and lasting change of heart, a change of anthropological vision, a change away from violence toward forgiveness.  Politics is all about just retribution, but that is an oxymoron, all retribution is unjust because my retribution is justice, yours is just plain evil.

No wonder Rene Girard has become so pessimistic about our chances of survival as a species.  His new book on Clausewitz, coming out later this year from Univ. of Michigan Press will be a depressing read for many I am certain.  Yet is it pessimism or realism to say that we have not really evolved and in crucial ways have actually devolved, at least emtionally and spiritually, as a species.  Time will tell...until then maybe we should start practicing getting under our desks again like we did the 1960's...

Michael

Forgetting

My blog writing has been sparse of late. In mulling over why this might be I can’t say that I’ve reached any sure conclusions. Perhaps it has something to do with the volume of words that are inflating the information highway. I hearken back to one of my core philosophies, captured in the words of the Chinese philosopher Lao Tse -

“The purpose of a fish trap is to catch fish and when the fish are caught, the trap is forgotten. The purpose of a rabbit snare is to catch rabbits.  When the rabbits are caught, the snare is forgotten.  The purpose of the word is to convey ideas.  When the ideas are grasped, the words are forgotten.  Where can I find a man who has forgotten words?  He is the one I would like to talk to.”

Of all the words we hear, speak or read, which ones do we remember?

One of the tasks to which I devote myself is conducting funerals. On average I conduct 50 funerals a year. Each one is a remembrance and celebration of a particular life. Each one involves telling a person’s life story, whether that life spanned one breath or a hundred years. Each funeral involves a conversation with someone in order to learn the story.

I record bits and pieces of the conversation, much like a reporter, by writing things down in a notebook while we speak. Sometimes the room where the conversation takes place is full people all speaking over each other. Sometimes there is just one other person there. Sometimes the atmosphere is palpable, as if emotions become physical realities. Sometimes the stories people tell have no basis in rhyme or reason, but a certain truth emerges. I’ve heard stories that have no explanation other than that there is a reality beyond that which we can see and touch and feel for ourselves.

I’ve had a few experiences lately where people have responded to something I’ve written by offering personal attacks. Some weeks ago I wrote about how I challenged what I perceived as racism in the title of a magazine article. The author responded with denial and indignation. Even from people who one would think of as allies in a given cause, I’ve received rather snarky ripostes.

It’s okay to disagree with someone. The challenge of disagreement is to be civilized about it. There may be opinions that I strongly challenge, but that does not grant me the right to challenge the worth of the person who holds those opinions.

The information highway seems to be stripping away the sense of the need for civility in debate. I am happy to trade opinions, but I will not engage in a dialogue of rudeness. Someone writing a letter which they sign off, “Have Fun in Hell,” does not encourage a desire to try to understand where they are coming from.

I once belonged to a civic betterment organization that I eventually quit. When asked why, the only reason that seemed honest was, “It reminded me too much of everything I disliked about high school.” In some respects it seems that the world hasn’t moved far on from there.

So for now, it’s back to the stories, the parables of Jesus, the proverbs and psalms. Back to the words that will help me forget so many words. Oh, you’ll keep hearing from me on this site. It’s a good outlet and relatively safe.

Take Care – John Mann

 

 

Book of Peace Book of Power Conference

Whew!  Lorri and I arrived home Thursday absolutely exhausted but quite content with the BoP BoP conference this past week in Philly.  The presentations were all first rate, Tony Campolo gave a one hour sermon that I wished could have gone on for another hour!  I plan on putting his video on the Preaching Peace site as soon as I can edit it.  Walter Wink was also in good form taking us through his talk on Nonviolence for the Violent, exegeting and role playing texts from the Sermon on the Mount.

The other presentations from the event will be put online hopefully by the end of the weekend.

Thanks to all who shared with us.

Next week I am off to Ohio to do a men's retreat on mimetic theory and then at the end of the month back to Ohio to present the Philly paper at a Mennonite conference.  In July and August I plan on editing several of the seminars we filmed so we can have a new set of DVD's available and will be working on finishing up The Jesus Driven Life book.  Thanks for all your support. 

Michael

One Would Think

During the last few weeks I’ve been off my blog. As the saying goes, “There is a time to speak and a time to remain silent.” These days I’ve been in a time of listening and reflecting on experience.

Theology is indeed important. I once served a church where there was an active disdain for any ethos of theological reflection. The spirit at work in that community was one of hands on action. People did a lot of things in expression of their faith. Mission trips, work camps, paint-a-thons and serving meals at charity outlets were but some of their duties.

But when it came time to think, well who needs to think about doing? We already know what we should do. The need is to get busy with it, not sit and around and talk about it.

But there are times when wrestling with the nuances of theology is as important as wrestling with the soup tureens. Is torture a legitimate tool of interrogation? Many Christians seem to think so. Many Christians think otherwise. Many Christians think not. When we think about important things, the process has the potential to lead to important actions. So yes, theological reflection is very important. Thinking is a step in doing.

Otherwise, when we meet crisis we are easily drawn toward to the path of least resistance, expediency and the ends justify the means. Sometimes one needs to resist the flow of popular opinion in order to get at the truth of the matter at hand. That’s not always a pleasant prospect, nor does it always lead to happy outcomes. But truth, unlike beauty is not always in the eye of the beholder. Sometimes truth just is.

The challenge is getting to it, recognizing it, accepting it and then living it. And then, reflecting on it, keeping it sharp and fresh and relevant; which means doing the same for ourselves. One would think that that sort of process would be a vital part of what being church was all about.

Tell us what you think.

Take Care – John Mann

Christians and Torture

Read this new piece from CNN on Christians and Torture:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/05/22/torture.christian/index.html

I am so struck by the fact that Evangelicals are in the forefront of those who who justify torture.  I cannot help but point out that the view that God was toruturing Jesus on the cross (the penal satisfaction theory of the atonement) lies behind such a justification. 

I point out that theology matters.  Some who wonder why we take such pains to mince theological hairs can begin to see that we live our theology; if we believe in torture we can only justify it from our theological tradition.

Won't you tihnk about the ministry of Preaching Peace and perhaps make a gift to it's ongoing work?

Michael