The anti-trafficking/anti-slavery movement is growing, and Christians are on the frontlines of the action. Check out this article on some of the latest news, as well as how the Olympics, while drawing the world into its circles of sport also traps many others into the underside of sexual slavery.
Jesus said, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18-19 TNIV)
Fighting the modern day slave trade is central to the good news of Jesus Christ, worthy of our prayer, our advocacy, our hard work, and our money.
Knowledge a little shaky? Read this book
A gripping read, Batstone illuminates and energizes people around the fight
When we ignore our hearts, we often miss what is really going on. Not only inside of us, but around us.
Sometimes we value too little what really matters to us, what feels right, what we know to be true in the deepest sense. Often we tell ourselves “it’s the right thing to do” or “the right thing to say” but our hearts do not resonate. Our hearts are silent, or uneasy, or screaming to beat the band of our busy lives. But we don’t listen. And we don’t hear.
If more people listened to their hearts, would not the world be a more human place? Would we not experience more of God’s grace through others? Would we not be more attentive to the people around us who are hurting or lonely or in need of help? Would we not hear the voice of God assuring us of his faithful love and our Beloved identity?
But our hearts are not always right, you say. Absolutely true. In fact, the heart is often terribly wicked! But the heart is also the seat of our souls, the nexus of our being. And most importantly, it is the place where God loves to meet us, if we will be silent long enough to hear him. I’m not saying “obey every inclination of your heart” or “the heart is always right”; I’m saying “pay attention to your heart, because you may be missing something crucial.” We may become aware of something that is not sitting right with us–a relationship needing reconciliation, a person seeking love, a new passion being birthed within us. And we may hear something that disturbs us about us, that needs to be changed in us! When we pay attention to our hearts God often reveals a new area of healing he wants to bring, to us or others. But know this for sure–even in the midst of painful, surgical discipline, God will always be saying “I love you. I want what’s best for you. I want what’s best for my world.”
Our hearts constitute the core of who we are, bringing together our loves, our intellect, our hurts and our fears. Jesus meets us there, and lovingly works into us his way, his truth, his life.
But in order for this to happen, we have to become silent enough to hear, still enough to pay attention.
Urbana 2009 is coming . . . and many of us are going!
At Urbana, the global mission of God is thrown open to the students of North America. For those with ears to hear, the call of God will utterly change their lives. That’s why we are excited to invite others–even to compel them–to give up their Christmas holidays and join thousands of students as they gather to know more of God’s heart and desire for his world.
Watch this video called “The Street Where They Live” to see how it’s happened for others.
What is Christian discipleship? Let me suggest a working definition.
Christian discipleship is actively following the resurrected Jesus, attempting by the Spirit’s power to obey his teaching, embrace his purpose, imitate his way, love his world, proclaim his kingdom and live his ongoing mission to reconcile all things to himself.
Discipleship is worked out through four integrated relationships
This discipleship is lived out in four integrated ways, each mutually related to and reinforcing each other:
1. Our relationship with the community of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus, as our human brother and as the Son of God, draws us in to the life of the Triune God, giving us full access to full relationship.
2. Our relationship with people. This ranges from our personal, intimate relationships with family and friends, neighbours and workmates, right on to our globalized neighbours in the worldwide community of Earth. Our discipleship is worked out in both local and global contexts.
3. Our relationship with the earth. I daresay this aspect of discipleship is often ignored, but how can we do so? The first mandate to humans from God is to care for his earth. Creation care is core to Christian discipleship. Our relationship with God and others, as well as our internal relationship, is profoundly influenced by how we (and how we do not) relate to the earth.
4. Our relationship within our own selves. How we are internally related within ourselves, which is dynamically interconnected with our relationship with God, others and earth, is a critical aspect of our discipleship as well. God desires us to be healed, to be whole, to experience his peace, to have an accurate understanding of ourselves as Beloved Children of God.
When he bares his teeth, winter meets its death,
And when he shakes his mane, we shall have spring again.
(from a prophetic rhyme in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe)
I’ve been working my way through a terrific book on Lewis called Planet Narnia by Michael Ward. In this ground breaking book, Michael unlocks the literary key which lay hidden within the seven Chronicles of Narnia for over fifty years. Lewis lovers were initially skeptical at this new finding, but Ward’s stunning analysis coupled with his deep love and knowledge of Lewis’ work has won most of them over.
I’ve also been following a terrific CS Lewis blog hosted by HarperOne (Micheal Ward, among many others, posts there).
Though I’ve not read all of Lewis’ books, these ones I’ve particularly loved.
- The Chronicles of Narnia
- The Space Trilogy
- Mere Christianity
- Till We Have Faces
- The Great Divorce
- The Screwtape Letters
- Surprised by Joy
- Of This and Other Worlds
- Miracles
- The Abolition of Man
If you haven’t read Lewis, you haven’t truly read.
Further to my post a few days ago on climate change, check out this interesting article on a call to action issued by a number of religious groups and hosted by the Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams.
When I consider your heavens . . . what are human beings that you care for them? (Psalm 19)
I think it was Francis Bacon who popularized the need to read fully from God’s two books–the written Word and the created world. There are many ways we can think of how we might do that (particularly how working science and working faith interplay) but one simple suggestion we all can enjoy is reading the Bible outdoors. During boy’s camp-outs or hikes with university students, we try to read aloud from the great Story–its songs, parables, visions, poems, and narratives. There is just something awe-inspiring about hearing the words of God’s Story echoing through God’s majestic creation; it brings a whole new level of understanding and appreciation for the great story we are all a part of–humans, animals, trees and grass. One of my favorite authors, Wendell Berry, captures this eloquently:
I don’t think it is enough appreciated how much an outdoor book the Bible is. It is a “hypaethral book,” such as Thoreau talked about–a book open to the sky. It is best read and understood outdoors, and the farther outdoors the better. Or that has been my experience of it. Passages that within walls seem improbable or incredible, outdoors seem merely natural. That is because outdoors we are confronted everywhere with wonders; we see that the miraculous is not extraordinary, but the common mode of existence. It is our daily bread. Whoever really has considered the lilies of the field or the birds of the air, and pondered the improbability of their existence in this warm world within the cold and empty stellar distances, will hardly balk at the turning of water into wine–which was, after all, a very small miracle. We forget the greater and still continuing miracle by which water (with soil and sunlight) is turned into grapes. (Wendell Berry from “Christianity and the Survival of Creation” in Sex, Economy, Freedom, and Community, 103)
You will benefit from reading any Scripture outdoors, but these texts are a terrific place to start:
- The Psalms (particularly 104, 121, 1, 8, 19, 23, 24)
- Job 38-41
- Isaiah 55, 65:17-25
- Genesis 1-2
- Matthew 6:25-34
- Colossians 1:15-20
And this just in . . . there’s even a waterproof Bible for those who want to really get into this!
During a retreat in Calgary, we were challenged by Dave Toycen of World Vision and Graham Saul of the Climate Action Network to consider the morality (or immorality) of our response to the crisis of climate change, particularly as it effects the most vulnerable in our world (the poor, animal species and children). In the whole climate change response, many evangelicals have remained silent and skeptical. As I asked myself why, a series of questions rose in my mind.
Why do we evangelicals often seem intent on denying climate change? What is the source of our resistance? Why do we prefer to hear pseudo-scientific conspiracy theorists instead of heeding bona fide scientific consensus? Why do we disregard working scientists in the field and listen instead to buddies at the gym or friends at work? Why do we seem deaf to our calling to care for God’s earth and all its inhabitants? Why do we repeat the popular yet misinformed opinion that the scientific community is divided on the subject of climate change when, in fact, it is not?
Is it because we are selfish? Is it because we are scared? Are we simply uninformed? Do we reject the information because we know that accepting the conclusions of the scientific world (that human-induced climate change is real, urgent and must be addressed) would demand significant changes in the way we live? Is it because we are not convinced that earth care is central to Christian discipleship? Have we have stopped reading our Bibles? Is it because our theology of God and creation is inadequate? Is it because our pastors and leaders do not care and never teach about it? Is it because we are too comfortable in our affluence? Are we simply too busy to notice? Is it because we are too isolated from the devastating effects climate change is reeking on the poorest people of the world? Is it because we think the world is going to burn up soon anyway? Is it because we simply don’t care, don’t think, don’t love?
What is it?
When will we respond?
What will it take to convince us?
What has to happen for us to take this seriously?
Thankfully, that’s not the whole story. Many Christians are taking creation care and climate change seriously. Here are some of them.
Do we love God’s world? Do we love creation? Do we love our neighbour? These are important questions. At the conclusion of the evening on “Climate Change as a Moral Issue”, Mishka Lysack read a couple quotes from Wendell Berry, concluding with this one from his essay Life is a Miracle.
We know enough of our own history by now to be aware that people exploit what they have merely concluded to be of value, but they defend what they love. (Wendell Berry, Life is a Miracle)
Once again, it must start with love. Caring for God’s world, and thus addressing climate change, must come from a centre, a community, a soul that loves God and God’s world.
Last night we watched Gran Torino with a friend. We loved it. I found myself comparing Gran Torino to The Visitor for it’s fundamental insight that we are ultimately transformed in relation to the Other. Each man in the film is lost in the world, mourning for a life that’s gone, achingly longing for meaning in a seemingly purposeless world. Clint Eastwood’s character Walt Kowalski is far more embittered than Richard Jenkin’s character Walt Vale, who is simply numb and withdrawn. Both men find their redemption in a growing, sometimes hilarious, sometimes painful, relationship with people of another culture. Both are drawn into friendship, then a place of advocacy as they come to understand who these people are and the struggles they have. Both are won over through hospitality–one as he gives it, the other as he receives it.
In these two movies we see something core to the good news of Jesus–that people are transformed through relationships with others that they would previously have ignored (Walter Vale) or despised (Walt Kowalski). As they are drawn into friendship, they begin to see the others as real humans with life and love and unique stories and struggles; as they are loved and asked to love in return, their hearts are changed.
