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We Are Called to Act
Recently, I had the pleasure of video interviewing 11 leaders in the Christian field about a wide range of current issues. We asked them questions like "Do you call yourself a Christian?" and "What does the term progressive Christianity mean to you?" and "What are the most important aspects of the teachings of Jesus to you?" I thoroughly enjoyed each interview and was moved by their intelligent, thoughtful, and passionate responses. When I asked them about how their beliefs affect they way they behave in this world and if they believe that being a follower of Jesus meant doing social justice work, one common response was - though Jesus did teach about going within and about stillness, the most important part of his teachings referred to how we behave toward others. One person said, "What is the point of life if it's just all about me? We have to be existing in this world in a way that decreases the suffering of human kind." What is amazing is that through selfless action we are positively transformed- our lives have more meaning, we are able to see god within all and to have made a positive difference with our time on earth.
There is hardly anything more rewarding then practicing acts of kindness, or when standing up for something we believe in, especially when we are able to see the positive affects of those actions. Jesus was first and foremost a social activist. He saw inequalities and injustices around him and he spoke out against them. He called us to give up our possessions, to share our bounty, and to love our enemies.
As we continue on in our series on Personal and World Transformation, we asked our contributors to ponder the idea of Social Justice. We would love to hear your thoughts as well! As you read through these excellent articles, please take a moment to add your comment!
~Deshna
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Point 6 from the 8 Point Study Guide by which we define progressive Christianity
Peace and Justice
Fred Plumer
Jesus was very clear in a variety of passages that if we want to experience this Realm of the Infinite Mystery or have a direct experience of the Divine Presence, we will need to reach out and take risks on behalf of those who suffer. “Pick up your cross if you want to follow me,” he was supposed to have said. So he talks about the Good Samaritan who risked his life to help the wounded Jew lying on the side of the road. He models with his own life a willingness to turn the tables in the Temple because of the unjust exchange rate the money changers were charging the poor Jews who had no perfect animal to sacrifice. He eventually showed us we should not even fear death when we are seeking justice for those who have no hope. And he went into Jerusalem to protest the injustices of the Roman and Priestly treatment of his people.
READ ON....
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Spiritual Defiance: Building a Beloved Community of Resistance
Robin Meyers
During his thirty-year career as a parish minister and professor, Robin Meyers has focused on renewing the church as an instrument of social change and personal transformation. In this provocative and passionate book, he explores the decline of the church as a community of believers and calls readers back to the church’s roots as a community of resistance. Shifting the conversation about church renewal away from theological purity and marketing strategies that embrace cultural norms, and toward “embodied noncompliance” with the dominant culture, Meyers urges a return to the revolutionary spirit that marked Jesus’s ministry.
Framing his discussion around three poems by twentieth-century Polish poet Anna Kamienska, Meyers casts the nature of faith as a force that stands against anything and everything that engenders death and indignity. He calls for active—sometimes even subversive—defiance of the ego’s temptations, of what he terms “the heresy of orthodoxy itself,” and of an uncritical acceptance of militarism and capitalism. Each chapter is a poignant and urgent invitation to recover the Jesus Movement as a Beloved Community of Resistance.
READ ON....
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What Shall We Overcome?
John Bennison
Racism, the Imbalance of Power, and the Response of the Prophetic Voice
In the last few years we have witnessed a resurgence of racial strife, as the recurrent curse of our American story. Names and phrases like Trayvon hoodies, Ferguson and “I can’t breathe” have become protest chants. Hands raised high overhead are no longer accompanied with shouts of “Hallelujah,” but rather, “Don’t shoot.”
Equipping law enforcement personnel with body cams is now recommended to record whatever transpires, after the fact. And all the while, political forces work to dismantle, disempower, disenfranchise and discourage voting rights in our democratic society. One citizen, one vote, one voice is a constitutional principle that seems challenged and tested, once again.
READ ON....
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Welcome Poster
ProgressiveChristianity.org
This is a 12 x 18 poster printed on card stock. Show that your congregation is a part of the growing progressive Christian community!
PURCHASE FOR $6 HERE
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Prophetic Hospitality and Social Justice
Rev. Bruce Epperly Ph. D.
We live in an increasingly polarizing time. In politics and church life, many people are on hair-trigger alert, ready to retaliate at the slightest provocation. Disagreements lead to division and governmental and congregational gridlock. Even proponents of diversity often launch attacks on those who hold more conservative positions on immigration, global climate change, and marriage equality. It is clear that our times call for prophetic action. We need to present imaginative alternatives to injustice, environmental destruction, and prejudice. But, in our quest for social and political justice, we need to find ways to nurture Shalom practices that include our opponents as well as those for whom we advocate. If we are to be true to our progressive and prophetic ideals, we need to treat the opposition with the same care that we treat the oppressed.
READ ON....
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Experiencing Transcendence from Below
Rev. Timothy Murphy
How can I not be part of the problem: I often ask myself this question. As a white, straight, cis-gendered, male, able-bodied, economically-advantaged, mainline Protestant, American citizen, there is not a lot in terms of classic diversity that I bring to the table. This can be a challenge when one is committed to God's preferential option for those experiencing oppression. What's my role in the divine commonwealth, other than to get out of the way? Is my presence with another an act of solidarity or of benevolent paternalism?
Often, unjustly advantaged persons like myself feel resentful or guilty when they hear about a sacred preferential option from the "underside." Neither response is particularly helpful. We all have to find where we fit into the story of God's people struggling for dignity, and sometimes that means that we find we have more in common with Pharaoh than with enslaved Hebrews. But there is a place in God's vision for Pharaoh, too: "Let my people go!"
READ ON....
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Haiti: A Case Study in Social In/Justice
Dr. Carl Krieg
How does one define social justice or social injustice in a situation such as this? There seems no question that the injustice side would include the slave trade itself, the impoverishment of a free nation by greedy boycott, crippling interest rates, and the invasion of a free state by an army basically doing the will of the foreign wealthy. Beyond that, the issue is more complicated. Given the difficulties of a poor nation absorbing refugees, a problem endemic in many parts of the world, the reaction of the Bahamas seems to be a balancing act of treating others justly while also treating one’s own citizens fairly. There are no simple answers. Defining social justice is no easy matter.
READ ON....
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Deeper Love
PCU-LA, a Partner Organization
Deeper Love is a web resource, updated regularly with input from its users, offering faith-based language for progressive political and social action. It provides activists, lay and clergy people, politicians, campaigners, and organizers with inspiring rhetoric to advance social change. Deeper Love is edited by Rev. Jim Burklo, Associate Dean of Religious Life, University of Southern California, with the Theological Reflection Committee of Progressive Christians Uniting.
Deeper Love is a project of Progressive Christians Uniting – pcu-la.org - a social justice activist organization based in Los Angeles, California. Our mission statement:
Progressive Christians Uniting engages people and communities to embody Jesus’ way of compassion and justice for our world.
READ ON....
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Dear Church — An open letter from a young adult who’s about to give up on you
Sarah Carson
Dear Church,
Look, I know you’ve gotten plenty of letters like this in the past ten – if not twenty or thirty – years. I know you’re used to hearing it by now – you’re irrelevant, you refuse to change, you just aren’t any fun.
But I never minded those things about you. In fact, I liked that you were counter-culture. I like that you stood up for what was right instead of what was popular.
That’s what I was looking for, after all. A community that would take a stand. People who were fed up with letting terrible things happen.
I stood up for you for years.
I invited my agnostic friends to come sing Christmas carols and to volunteer at the soup kitchen. They never came, but I kept encouraging them all the same.
I believed you’d show them your true colors. I believed you’d make them believe the way you had won me over with how you loved the poor and disenfranchised, with how you cut through the ideology with love for the hungry, the homeless, the lonely.
READ ON....
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Playing For Change is a movement created to inspire and connect the world through music.
As we made our way around the world we encountered love, hate, rich and poor, black and white, and many different religious groups and ideologies. It became very clear that as a human race we need to transcend from the darkness to the light and music is our weapon of the future. This song around the world features musicians who have seen and overcome conflict and hatred with love and perseverance. We dont need more trouble, what we need is love. The spirit of Bob Marley always lives on.
This is the fourth Song Around The World video released from the CD/DVD Playing For Change: Songs Around The World and the follow up to the classics “Stand By Me,” “One Love” and “Don’t Worry.” This unforgetable track was performed by musicians around the world adding their part to the song as it traveled the globe.
WATCH AND LEARN MORE HERE
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