I’m excited to announce the debut of the new Justice and Compassion blog, sponsored by Off The Map. I will be co-hosting the blog with my friend Benjamin Ady. I hope you will join us for a conversation about how to create a more just, compassionate and peaceful world.
As part of a series on discipleship, my Sunday School teacher recently shared with us a beautiful ancient Jewish blessing. He explained that in the 1st century, there were many prominent rabbis and each rabbi would have disciples. It was a great honor to be invited by a rabbi to become his disciple, but becoming a disciple did not simply mean to become a student of the rabbi’s teachings. It meant actually following the rabbi from place to place, becoming like him, emulating his actions and attitudes, developing his character. It was common to say to someone who had become a disciple: “May you always be covered in the dust of your rabbi.”
I have thought a lot about this concept as I have been seeking to understand what it truly means to be a disciple of Jesus. I was raised in a Christian setting where all the questions had easy, direct answers and faith equaled certainty and superiority. It was a world of doctrinal statements and eschatological charts and clearly defined roles. It was a boundary-focused faith that made it very clear who was in and who was out. Following Christ was defined largely by maintaining and protecting those boundaries.
“If to be feelingly alive to the sufferings of my fellow creatures is to be a fanatic, I am one of the most incurable fanatics ever permitted to be at large.”
- William Wilberforce, 1759- 1833, the British abolitionist and subject of the upcoming movie Amazing Grace
“Remember that you belong to God and God does not belong to you.”
- Rev. Larry Pickens, Christian Churches Together
I was very encouraged today to read about the birth of a new organization called Christian Churches Together in the USA. Here is their description of their membership and mission:
Christian Churches Together in the USA (CCT) is a new forum growing out of a deeply felt need to broaden and expand fellowship, unity, and witness among the diverse expressions of Christian faith today. CCT is inclusive of the diversity of Christian families in the United States — Evangelical, Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Pentecostals, historic Protestant, Racial and Ethnic churches.
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“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out he hates all the same people you do.”
- Anne Lamott
Maximilian from Numidia, a Christian, appeared before an African proconsul named Dion for induction into the army. Maximilian refused induction, however, stating simply, “I am not allowed to be a soldier, for I am a Christian.” Dion replied sharply, “Get into the service, or it will cost you your life.” Maximilian replied, “I do this age no war-service, but I do ‘war-service’ for my God.” No amount of threatening could budge him from his simple confession, “I am a Christian and I cannot do evil. . . .I shall not perish, but when I have forsaken this world, my soul shall live, with Christ my Lord. … I cannot fight, if I die; I am not a soldier of this world, but a soldier of God.”
I highly recommend this profound and beautiful piece by Diana Butler Bass on the passing of Anna Nicole Smith.
I hope it isn’t entirely frivolous to take note of the untimely death of Anna Nicole Smith – although I suspect some God’s Politics readers might think it odd for a Christian blogger to pay respect to the passing of a former Playboy centerfold and tabloid celebrity.
On most days, it probably would not have occurred to me to think about Anna Nicole’s death theologically. However, as it happened, yesterday was not “most days” in the Bass household.
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“Their property held them in chains . . . chains which shackled their courage and choked their faith and hampered their judgment and throttled their souls. They think of themselves as owners, whereas it is they rather who are owned: enslaved as they are to their own property, they are not the masters of their money but its slaves.” - Cyprian, 300 A.D.
“The bread in your cupboard belongs to the hungry man; the coat hanging in your closet belongs to the man who needs it; the shoes rotting in your closet belong to the man who has no shoes; the money which you put into the bank belongs to the poor. You do wrong to everyone you could help but fail to help.” - Basil of Caesarea, 330-370 A.D.
“You are not making a gift of your possession to the poor person. You are handing over to him what is his.” – Ambrose of Milan, 340-397 A.D.
“Not to enable the poor to share in our goods is to steal from them and deprive them of life. The goods we possess are not ours but theirs.” - John Chrysostom, 347-407 AD
“I have need to be on fire. I have icebergs to melt.”
- The great abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, 1805-1879
