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Today, joy and work are
rarely used in the same sentence. But God really does intend for us to find
joy in our work. Is this possible? In JOY AT WORK: A Revolutionary
Approach to Fun on the Job, Dennis Bakke describes how he created the
most fun workplace in human history by eliminating the HR department, hourly
wages, and job descriptions - using principles established in Genesis. "A timely and
inspiring book that challenges us to rethink the purpose of business." -
President Bill Clinton Discover why everyone's
talking about the national bestseller JOY AT WORK at dennisbakke.com |
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"I have met Saddam
Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him. The
difference is Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns and to give him maps
the better to target those guns. I met him to try and bring about an end to
sanctions, suffering and war, and on the second of the two occasions, I met
him to try and persuade him to let Dr. Hans Blix and the United Nations
weapons inspectors back into the country...." - British Member of
Parliament George Galloway, testifying before a U.S. Senate committee
to refute charges of corruption in connection to the Iraq oil-for-food
program. Source: The Times (of London)
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Bush's
Calvin College surprise by Jim
Wallis
An extremely narrow and
aggressively partisan expression of right-wing Republican religion has
controlled the debate on faith and politics in the public square for years. But
that is no longer true. At packed book events
around the country these days, I often make an announcement that elicits a
tumultuous response: "The monologue of the Religious Right is finally
over, and a new dialogue has begun!" Smiles light up the faces of
thousands of people as they break out in thunderous applause. That new dialogue was
visible recently at Calvin College. Karl Rove, seeking a friendly venue for a
commencement speech in Michigan, approached Calvin and offered President Bush
as the speaker. The college, which had already invited Nicholas Wolterstorff
of Yale to deliver the speech, hastily disinvited him and welcomed the
president. But the White House apparently was not counting on the reaction of
students and faculty. Rove expected the evangelical Christian college in the
dependable "red" area of western Michigan to be a safe place. He
was wrong. The day the president was
to speak, an ad featuring a letter signed by one-third of Calvin's faculty
and staff ran in The Grand Rapids Press. Noting that "we seek
open and honest dialogue about the Christian faith and how it is best
expressed in the political sphere," the letter said that "we see
conflicts between our understanding of what Christians are called to do and
many of the policies of your administration." The letter asserted that
administration policies have "launched an unjust and unjustified war in
Iraq," "taken actions that favor the wealthy of our society and
burden the poor, " "harmed creation and have not promoted long-term
stewardship of our natural environment," and "fostered intolerance
and divisiveness and has often failed to listen to those with whom it
disagrees." It concluded: "Our passion for these matters arises out
of the Christian faith that we share with you. We ask you, Mr. President, to
re-examine your policies in light of our God-given duty to pursue justice
with mercy...." One faculty member told a reporter, "We are not
Lynchburg. We are not right wing; we're not left wing. We think our faith
trumps political ideology." On commencement day,
according to news reports, about a quarter of the 900 graduates wore
"God is not a Republican or a Democrat" buttons pinned to their
gowns. The events at Calvin,
along with the growing crowds at our events around the country, are visible
signs that the Religious Right does not speak for all Christians, even all
evangelical Christians. What I hear, from one end of this country to the
other, is how tired we are of ideological religion and how hungry we are for
prophetic faith. The students and faculty at Calvin College are the most
recent sign of that hunger. For a different kind of
commencement address, listen to Jim Wallis' message to graduates of John
Carroll University: + Listen to the streaming audio
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A Gathering of
Spirits: Sojourners Benefit Concert with Carrie Newcomer, hosted by Brian McLaren, will
feature a special message from Jim Wallis. Join us for an evening of
music and dialogue that will help sustain Sojourners' vision and programs for
the coming year! The concert will be Friday, June 3, at 7:30 p.m. at Cedar
Ridge Community Church, located in the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. A
reception with Brian, Jim, and Carrie begins at 9:30 p.m. For more information or
to buy tickets, go to http://www.sojo.net/concert or call (800) 714-7474, ext. 235. |
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Leave my
child alone!
Join Sojourners and our
partner organization, Working Assets, in urging Congress to change this
invasive clause, and in taking our own kids off military recruitment lists. Working Assets has
also provided an opportunity to take your own kids off of military
recruitment lists, and to help spread the word by hosting house parties on
June 1. Check out http://www.leavemychildalone.org for more information. |
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More than 500 readers
have signed up to host God's Politics meet-ups in their local
communities. In response to this demand, Sojourners has produced a free study
guide to enable you to use the book as a movement-building tool. The monologue
of the Religious Right is over, and a new national dialogue has begun - start
your own study group today! |
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God-talk
in the GOP by David
Domke and Kevin Coe
For some time now there
has been a heated debate regarding whether Bush is different from other
presidents in his religious rhetoric. Here's the answer: He is. What sets
Bush apart is how much he talks about God and what he says when he does so. In his inaugural and
State of the Union addresses earlier this year, Bush referenced God 11 times.
This came on the heels of 24 invocations of God in his first-term inaugural
and State of the Union addresses. No other president since Franklin Roosevelt
took office in 1933 has mentioned God so often in these high-state settings. The closest to Bush's
average of 5.8 references per each of these addresses is Ronald Reagan, who
averaged 5.3 in his comparable speeches. No one else is close. Jimmy Carter,
considered as pious as they come among U.S. presidents, only had two God
mentions in four addresses. Other also-rans in total God-talk were wartime
presidents Franklin Roosevelt at 1.8 and Lyndon Johnson at 1.5 references per
inaugural and State of the Union address. Bush also talks about God
differently than have most other modern presidents. Presidents since
Roosevelt have commonly spoken as petitioners of God, seeking blessing,
favor, and guidance. This president positions himself as a prophet, issuing
declarations of divine desires for the nation and world. Among modern
presidents, only Reagan has spoken in a similar manner - and he did so far
less frequently than has Bush. |
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The
promise and the promised land by Dewey
Beegle The remarkable fact about
Romans 9's repeated reference to the promises to Abraham is that the concept
of the promised land is ignored completely. In reinterpreting the promises,
Paul focuses on the primary factors of faith, salvation, and blessing. While
he did not make an explicit statement rejecting the idea of the promised
land, it certainly is strongly implied that this phase of the promise became
obsolete under the new covenant. The same can be said for
the author of the letter to the Hebrews. He contends that the risen Jesus,
serving as high priest in the Most Holy Place in heaven, has made human
priests and animal sacrifices unnecessary for the atonement of sins:
"Jesus has been given priestly work which is superior to theirs, just as
the covenant which he arranged between God and his people is a better one
because it is based on promises of better things. If there had been nothing
wrong with the first covenant, there would have been no need for a second
one" (Hebrews 8:6-7). After quoting Jeremiah 31:31-34 as the promise of
a new covenant, the author of Hebrews comments, "By speaking of a new
covenant, God has made the first one old; and anything that becomes old and
worn out will soon disappear" (8:13). The Jewish Christians addressed by
Hebrews look forward to a new city, to the heavenly Jerusalem. Nowhere in the
whole book does the author mention the promise of land as a valid aspect of
the new covenant. This is equally true for the apostle Peter and for the book
of Revelation. Thus it is clear from a
biblical point of view that the promise of land made to the early Hebrews and
Israelites served its purpose in the past. The qualification
"forever" was understood to mean "until the end of the age of
the first covenant." The church fathers accepted this view and therefore
they showed little interest in the prophecies about the land. Yet a large segment of
conservative Christianity contends today that the modern state of Israel is
the fulfillment of the Old Testament promises. While claiming to be
"Bible-believing" Christians, they ignore completely the New
Testament rejection of the promised land as a legitimate aspect of new
covenant. |
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and world. $25 hardcover. To order call (313) 624-9784. Dove Booksellers,
13904 Michigan Avenue, Dearborn, Michigan, 48126. http://www.dovebook.com |
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John
Bolton and the Right's Clintonesque wink at personal sin by Sandra
Dufield Listening to John
Bolton's supporters shift the focus to his experience and brilliance while
ignoring his misconduct, I'm reminded of many Democrats' winks at Bill
Clinton's personal transgressions and their attempts to keep attention
focused on his intellect and leadership. While we would all hope
our best could render our wrongdoing benign, sometimes specific personal
offenses are such elephants in the living room that no amount of spin or
denial can push them out of view. With a vote to confirm Bolton's nomination
as U.N. ambassador looming, Republicans feel assured they have the right guy
for the job, confident he passes every test that counts. However, they
overlook relational and behavioral aspects of the biblical values that so
many of them claim to affirm. If Republicans are
confused about the characteristics a U.N. ambassador should have, they can go
right to the book many claim to hold so dear. There they will find that a
good leader should "be above reproach...temperate, sensible,
respectable...not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome..." (1 Timothy 3).
The very passages that
warn of societal dysfunction associated with sexual sin and thievery also
warn against "all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and
slander..." (Ephesians 4:17-32). Supporters dismiss
Bolton's propensity to abuse as occasional unprofessionalism and
overzealousness. In their drive to place an uncompromising heavy hand in the
United Nations who will "put U.S. interests first," they're willing
to not only jeopardize American's integrity, honor, and reputation in the
world, they're willing to conveniently pick and choose which moral precepts
they will acknowledge and which ones they will not. |
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As we
forgive our debtors The G8 has said that,
when it meets this July, it will finally offer desperately needed debt
cancellation to some of the world's poorest nations. But while the U.K. has
been a leader in the push for 100% cancellation, there are serious concerns
about the current British proposal, which would only cover countries' debt
payments for 10 years (leaving 70% of the debt in place). + Read more about it in a concise briefing
from the World Development Movement [PDF] + Take action with Sojourners to
push the U.S. government to get 100% debt cancellation |
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Readers
write
Clara Blair writes from
Arlington, Texas: In response to your
e-mail, I sent a letter to the editor of the Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram.
A friend e-mailed me this evening to let me know that my letter was published
today. Thank you for your encouragement and inspiration. Keep up the good
work. Some honor The government plans to double prescription
drug co-payments, charge a new $250 health care enrollment fee for 2.2
million veterans, cut $351 million from veterans' nursing homes and $4
million from medical and prosthetic research. That's how the Bush administration honors our
troops on Memorial Day. More than a million soldiers have served in
Iraq and Afghanistan since 9-11. A third of them have served more than once,
according to the Pentagon. When they come home, they'll find a power
structure long on talk about patriotism and honor but shamefully short on
benefits for those who earned them. The Department of Veterans Affairs is
overloaded and underfunded. Even as we send more and more soldiers to war,
we're becoming less attentive to their needs. We all want to support our
troops. But what does that really mean in terms of policy and programs? Why
is anyone surprised at the decline in enlistments? This Memorial Day, whether we support this
war or not, let's ask our legislators to focus on policies and programs that
take care of our nation's troops and veterans. ---------- With our easy online tool, it's not too late
for you to write your own letter to the editor this Memorial Day. Even those
of us who advocate nonviolence must recognize the humanity of those who, for
many reasons, made the hard choice to join the armed forces. As we protest a
war and an occupation that has claimed as many as 100,000 Iraqi civilians'
lives, we must have compassion for the suffering experienced on all sides. + Call for justice for veterans with a letter to the editor ---------- David Weingartner writes from Dayton, Ohio: The real reason fewer than 40% of soldiers in
the Iraq war seek treatment for PTSD is not so much the "stigma
associated with the diagnosis," but rather our cultural preoccupation
with off-the-chart male machismo ["What does it mean to support the troops?" SojoMail 5/18/2005]. Were
we (as a society) truly more Christ-like, this would not be an issue, nor
would we be involved in our present military occupation of Iraq. I would dare
to say that, perhaps, 9-11 would have never happened. ---------- Sarah Diligenti-Pickup writes from Bethesda,
Maryland: Thanks for the excellent review of the movie Crash
["Going to pieces," SojoMail 5/18/2005]. I personally
thought it was the most overwhelming film I have seen in a long time, even
more than Hotel Rwanda. As my 15-year-old son said on the way out of
the cinema, "It is too bad it has been released now, because it will be
forgotten by the time they nominate movies for the next Oscars." ---------- Sherri Lyon writes from North Owasso,
Oklahoma: Doug Koopman writes in the 5/18/05 Boomerang that Sojourners needs to be more "thorough and balanced" by
pointing out outrages committed by the progressive religious leaders just as
Sojourners points out the ones committed by the conversatives. I must call
him on that. The problem isn't that Sojourners isn't pointing out outrages by
the Left, the problem is that nowhere but Sojourners are the outrages
of the Right being reported. The mainstream media is sure not doing it and
none of the other Christian media that I have access to is either. Why is Mr.
Koopman not insisting that every one of those outlets be more "thorough
and balanced?" If Mr. Koopman would demand accountability from the
others like he's trying to ask of Sojourners, then maybe Sojourners would no
longer have to shout to be heard. Thanks and keep up the good work! ---------- Tim Orrell writes from Woodstock, Virginia: I am grateful to Meghan Murphy for putting into words the struggle I have been having with
Sojourners lately. In my life as an advocate, I have learned that to truly be
a force for change one must understand your opponent's argument, be able to
summarize their points, then help them see your point of view with great
passion and compassion. A useful debate need not become sarcastic or
vitriolic. I would suppose the thinking readers of SojoMail and supporters of
Sojourners are generally independent-minded folks who are not persuaded by
sardonic attacks from either side. Thank you, Ms. Murphy, for helping me with
this insight. ---------- Boomerang is an open forum for all kinds of
views that do not necessarily represent those of Sojourners. Want to make
your voice heard? Include your name, hometown, and state/province/country in
a concise e-mail to: boomerang@sojo.net. We reserve the right to edit for
length and clarity. ---------- CORRECTION: In last week's "Quote of the
Week," we incorrectly listed Andijan, where forces of the U.S.-backed
government massacred hundreds of civilians, as the capital of Uzbekistan. The
capital of Uzbekistan is Tashkent. |
