online book group on faith and politics

Bob Carlton at The Corner is inviting bloggers to dialogue in an online book group around God’s Politics : Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It. Bob’s hoping to launch this on Monday April 4, with the chapter-by-chapter discussions starting the week of April 11. They’d have a central coordinating blog, but the majority of “action” would rotate through your individual blogs, with bloggers cross commenting [and trackbacking].

It’s an aggressive reading schedule, and my plates too full to participate myself, but I love the idea of being able to talk about religion and politics in a civil manner. I got the green light for me and you to spread the word on the blogosphere.

Bob’s disclaimer: this book group is not connected in any fashion to Jim Wallis, HarperSanFrancisco (publisher of the book,) or Sojourners - the reign of God does need another fawning fan club for a book or magazine, nor does the Internet need any more rock star hero worshipping (except for Babylon 5, of course). Instead, this discussion would use the book as a starting point to foster discussion around how faith, politics and culture intersect, particularly in the amped-up world of partisan steroids we seem to find ourselves in. There are countless folks in pews, pulpits and on the street who are eager to transcend the red/blue or right/left polarities that have tended to hold our country captive, reducing us to stereotypes and prejudices in false “debate”. In some small, geeky way, this book group would try to prayerfully and lovingly dive into the muck and be a guide on the side for others who yearn to learn how to challenge the Left, the Right, government, and our religious communities to work for change in America and the world through a renewed sense of “prophetic politics.”

To participate, please email Bob at bobcarlton@speakeasy.net, with the following info:

(1) if you need a copy of the book (with your mailing address)
(2) which of the chapters below you’d like to post a discussion at your blog

Tentative Schedule:

Week of April 4
Introduction : why can’t we talk about religion and politics?

Week of April 11
Chapter 1 Take back the faith 3 April 11
Chapter 2 A lack of vision 20 April 13
Chapter 3 Is there a politics of God? 31 April 15

Week of April 18
Chapter 4 Protest is good; alternatives are better 43 April 18
Chapter 5 How should your faith influence your politics? 56 April 20
Chapter 6 Prophetic politics 72 April 22

Week of April 25
Chapter 7 Be not afraid 87 April 25
Chapter 8 Not a just war 108 April 27
Chapter 9 Dangerous religion 137 April 29

Week of May 2
Chapter 10 Blessed are the peacemakers 159 May 2
Chapter 11 Against impossible odds 172 May 4
Chapter 12 Micah’s vision for national and global security 187 May 6

Week of May 9
Chapter 13 The poor you will always have with you? 209 May 9
Chapter 14 Poor people are trapped - in the debate about poverty 221 May 11
Chapter 15 Isaiah’s platform 241 May 13

Week of May 16
Chapter 16 Amos and Enron 259 May 16
Chapter 17 The tipping point 270 May 18
Chapter 18 A consistent ethic of life 297 May 20

Week of May 23
Chapter 19 Truth telling about race 307 May 23
Chapter 20 The ties that bond 321 May 25
Chapter 21 The critical choice 343 May 27

Week of May 30
Epilogue : we are the ones we’ve been waiting for 373

Please spread the word, participate, and let’s open up a place to dialogue about faith and diverse political opinions.

March 31, 2005 | Filed Under internet | Comments 

forced slow down south

The title is a Wheel of Fortune’s ‘before & after’ phrase. Hung out with Dave Travis today. (Dave wrote a great book with Bill Easum titled Beyond the Box: Innovative Churches That Work. There’s your plug, Dave.) Great conversations about what’s happening in churches around the country; it’s a little hobby of mine to talk about churches like trading cards.
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March 29, 2005 | Filed Under journal | Comments 

all day long

Stranded at Terminal A of Reagan National airport all day today, because they cancelled my 6:30am flight to Atlanta. Yes, that meant I got up at 4:30am so that I could save a few dollars and metro’d in. The o-dark-thirty started with a foreboding misty drizzle, and it’s stay dreary for hours.
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March 28, 2005 | Filed Under journal | Comments 

All Churches Should Be Multiracial

While I’ve been a proponent for multiracial churches for years at this website and during my time in the pastoral profession, it’s not the same as getting a cover story in Christianity Today. Or having a book published (granted, excellently researched, from a sociological perspective). Their current web strategy is to post select articles online for a limited period of time, after the print edition has rolled out. I happen to have a print edition of the magazine at hand (and I would scan it into PDF format for you to see, but I don’t want to create ill will.)

So, in a few weeks, stay tuned for the following, in the April 2005 edition of Christianity Today Magazine: All Churches Should Be Multiracial: The biblical case. An Excerpt from United by Faith by Curtiss Paul DeYoung, Michael O. Emerson, George Yancey, and Karen Chai Kim. And, Harder than Anyone Can Imagine: Four working pastors - Latino, Asian, black, and white - respond to the bracing thesis of United by Faith. The pastoral voices are Noel Castellanos (Latino Leadership Foundation), Bill Hybels (Willow Creek), Soong-Chan Rah (Cambridge Community Fellowship Church), and Frank Reid (Bethel AME Church). Also sidebar, Big Dream in Little Rock: what multiracial church looks like in the town formerly infamous for segregation, featuring Mosaic Church, led by Mark & Linda DeYmaz.

Some compelling excerpts:

  • If we define a racially mixed congreatin as one in which no one racial group is 80 percent or more of the congregation, just 7.5 percent of the more than 300,000 religious congregations in the United States are racially mixed. For Christian congregations, which form more than 90 percent of congregations in the United States, the share that is racially mixed drops to 5.5 percent. Of this small percentage, approximately half of the congregations are mixed only temporarily, during the time they are in transition from one group to another. [that is, less than 3% of Christian congregations are racially mixed 80% pro rata]
  • Soong-Chan Rah: If we were to hear of any other institution in the United States that had those kinds of statistics, we would be outraged. If less than 6 percent of universities or government institutions were integrated, we would say there is something seriously wrong.
  • Bill Hybels: A true biblically functioning community must include being multiethnic. My heart beats so fast for that vision today.

[updated 3/31/05] CT cover story posted online, and sidebars too. Also see October 2000 CT article, Color-Blinded: Why 11 o’clock Sunday morning is still a mostly segregated hour. An excerpt from Divided by Faith. By Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith.

March 24, 2005 | Filed Under internet | Comments 

from the great white north

Our Christian body recently mourned the untimely death of noted theologian Stanley Grenz last week, and his memorial service has been honorably placed online courtesy of Mars Hill Graduate School: In Celebration & Thanksgiving for Dr. Stanley James Grenz (in streaming Windows media format).

And see the legacy that Stan left there, in the form of a new M.Div. program. Brian McLaren talked about the program: WindowsMedia Hi-Fi | Low-Fi or RealMedia Hi-Fi | Low-Fi

Also found: Regent Bookstore (of Regent College in Vancouver) featured the following talk by Eugene Peterson, about the writing of The Message (7 parts in MP3 format):

Excerpted from the full CD, titled No More God Talk, a weekend with Eugene Peterson.

March 22, 2005 | Filed Under internet | Comments 

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