Holy Redeemer Lutheran Church
1948 The Alameda
San Jose, CA 95126
San Jose, CA 95126
I was turning into the coffee shop parking lot when I noticed the person driving the car behind me. It was a BMW and the driver was a 20-something woman, engaged in a deep conversation on her cell phone. After we both parked, we wound up standing by each other in line. So I asked her, "Did you realize that it is against the law to talk on your cell phone while you are driving your car?"
Her response was rapid. "I drive a BMW. I am rich and young. And, I think that law is stupid, so I don't pay any attention to it!" After a moment (wondering how she was on other people disregarding laws that they thought were stupid) I said: "What if I thought that the law about shooting people who talked on their cell phones while driving their cars was stupid. Could I disregard it?"
"No," she said. "I don't understand," I replied. "You wouldn't," she said. "You're old."
So there you have it. Breaking some laws is okay, but not breaking others. And, the way that you know which one it is okay to break is to not be old.
I have been thinking about that a lot lately. I think she didn't understand what I was really saying because she was young.
And, I believe more than ever that both young and old had better find a way to understand all of it together, or we are going to be in even worse trouble that we are now.
Words and thoughts are not enough. Doing good involves all the things of daily life. "If your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink" (Romans 12: 20). In the same way that brothers and sisters stand by each other in times of need, bind up each other's wounds, ease each other's pain, love of the enemy should do good to the enemy. Where in the world is there greater need, where are deeper wounds and pain that those of our enemies? Where is doing good more necessary and more blessed than for our enemies?
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Progressive Christianity is a family of perspectives that vigorously rejects the "religious right" as a gross distortion of the Christian faith. Just as important, progressive Christianity criticizes and moves beyond the (other) conservatisms and the liberalisms of the immediate Christian past. In our time, it is new. This book presents one progressive Christian standpoint - introductory in character or ordinary people, not specialists.
In the end labels should not determine our judgments about any point of view, Christian or otherwise. "Conservative" and "liberal" are not inherently wrong standpoints. Isn't every person, including every Christian, in some respects "conserving" of the past and in others "liberated" from it? And surely every faithful Christian voice conveys "good news" and thus is in that sense "evangelical." The issue is not the label; it is the message. To the extent that this book preserves what, of the Christian tradition, should be retained and frees itself from what should be left behind, it might come to the reader as truly good news. And if so, it might also contribute to the kind of "progress" we desperately need today, in the Church, in the country, in the world.
"By its very nature Progressive Christianity resists having a systematic theology, but Del Brown has written the nearest thing to it. A man both of the church and the academy, he writes with a passion for clear thinking about what it means to be a pluralistic, compassionate, open-minded, justice-seeking Christian today."
This shocking and ultimately inspiring documentary chronicles the amazing journey of Emmanuel Jal from ruthless child soldier to an acclaimed international hip-hop artist delivering a message of peace. Kidnapped at seven years old and forced to fight in Sudan's brutal civil war, Jal tells this frightening yet redemptive tale in his own words, with his vibrant music providing the soundtrack. Using surprising archival footage of Jal's days in the rebel camp, his current world travels as a performer and activist and his emotional return home to Sudan after 15 years away, this film communicates both Jal's pain and his overriding hope for himself, his country and for Africa.