what we're known for

It seems these days that at least in the public realm, Christians are often known more for their opposition to people, ideas and causes than for the love they show to others. And it just doesn't fit, does it...

How have we moved so far from the loving community seen in the book of Acts?

What can you and I do to make a difference?

[on giving money to people]

In my line of work (homelessness), the one thing you hear all the time is ”Don’t give people money”. It is a truism. It is universal.

I sometimes ignore it.

(Read the rest of the story in Hugh Hollowell's article on Giving money to homeless people)

Depending on where you live and work, you may or may not regularly meet people on the street who ask you for money. What do you do? What could you do differently? How should you respond?

Here are a small collection of articles to help you think more about this matter and about the men and women who cross paths with you.

---

The first four articles (and the one above) are by Hugh Hollowell, who ministers with the poor in Raleigh, North Carolina. I like his perspective on things and often share updates on Facebook from his blog or the Love Wins blog:

1.      Q and R: Panhandlers vs Homeless People

2.
"I recently pulled out of a parking lot and there was a line of panhandlers at the stop light. Is it OK to give them money?" In this short article, Hugh addresses this question including Jesus' instruction to 'give to everyone who asks.'
Panhandlers - do I give or not?

3.     How not to be taken advantage of by panhandlers

4.      This post is not about giving money to panhandlers

5.      A related article by Jon M. Sweeney:
Can You Spare the Bread? Should You?

6.      Hear it in their own words:
http://invisiblepeople.tv/blog/

sparrows

[waited all his life]

It was a nice sunny day in Rapid City when the Indians took the platform in the riverside park near the convention center. Fully dressed in their regalia, or modified forms of it, were Lakota, Cherokee, Dine, Kiowa, Paiute, Mohawk, Apache and many other Indian people proclaiming that Jesus Christ is good news sent from Great Spirit for Indian people - and believing in Him is not a "white man's thing."

The old traditional looking Lakota elder with sunglasses and a cowboy hat approached my buckaroo elder brother and ask what was going on? My brother explained that these are Indians who believe they can serve Jesus Christ and be fully culturally Native American. The old man didn't say a word at first - but there was much about his silence that caused my brother to pay attention. Just when my brother noticed the tears collecting around the bottom edge of the elder's sunglasses, the man spoke a very simple phrase with heartfelt emotion and full conviction…he simply said this: "I've waited all my life for this day."

From Eagles Wings Ministry

Can you serve Jesus and be fully culturally Asian? Black? European? Aboriginal?

Do we recognize how our culture influences our perception of Jesus? And how for those of us who are white, white privilege means that we usually do not recognize how our culture influences us?

a god like us

The idea of looking for a god who looks like us will raise red flags for some christians. It smacks of that saying: "God created us in his image and we returned the favour."

However, there are times when the dominant view of God is too far from an individual's culture and context. At a service this past summer, two Aboriginal women talked about "finding a God who looks like them." They weren't looking to make a convenient god who does what they want and doesn't interfere with how they want to live their lives. They were looking for a God who was not the great white european god.

What do you think?

How has the God you believe in been filtered and painted by your culture or the dominant culture around you?

[Ask a transgender Christian]

Christian blogger and author Rachel Held Evans has a series of posts called "Ask a...". In this series she invites questions for the interviewees from her readers in advance, and then posts the answers a few days later.

I found the recent Ask a transgender Christian particularly valuable, as I know very little about this and also because Lisa (pictured at right) talks about the role that other Christians and churches played in her journey. I was particularly pleased to hear her mention her involvement in a small church in Vancouver "where the motto is “everyone is welcome…and we mean it.” And they do." The embrace they offer is quite remarkable and regrettably rare.

In introducing Lisa, Rachel writes:

Lisa was born in Colombia, grew up in California and moved to Vancouver, BC in the early 1970s to start a successful career as a graphic designer and photographer. After living for 25 years as a devoted husband and father, Lisa was diagnosed with gender dysphoria. She says this diagnosis was both a blessing and a curse. Though it offered an explanation for her years of struggle, confusion, and guilt, it did not offer any simple solutions. It would take another ten years before she could come to terms with the diagnosis. Lisa has written her autobiography, Transparently: Behind the Scenes of a Good Life, which is available on Amazon. She has given sensitivity workshops at Gay Christian Network, companies, high schools, and churches and hopes to do more in the future.

Lisa responded to your questions with thoughtfulness and honesty. I hope you learn as much as I did.

Click here to read this interview.

Other interviews in the series include:
Ask an Atheist
Ask a Feminist
Ask a Funeral Director
Ask a Humanitarian
Ask a Gay Christian
Ask a Muslim
Ask a Nun
and many more.

colour-blind society

The cartoon takes the literal meaning of "colour" and therefore allows the speaker to like a society with black people and white people, but not (for example) red people and green people.

In the real world, colour-blindness is generally meant to indicate that a person is blind to the race of others. This is sometimes presented as a positive, but can actually be a problem. As Derald W. Sue from the Teachers College at Columbia University writes,

I have come to realize that color blindness uses "whiteness" as the default key and mimics the norms of fairness, justice, and equity by "whiting" out differences and perpetuating the belief in sameness and equality. The denial of power imbalance, unearned privilege, and racial discrimination is couched in the rhetoric of equal treatment and equal opportunity. The pretense of not seeing color is motivated by self deception. To be colorblind not only denies the central importance of racial differences in the psychological experience of minorities (racism and discrimination), but also allows the White person to deny how his or her whiteness intrudes upon the person of color.

Read the rest of this short article online:
The Color Blind Society: Whiteness as the Default Standard

sandwich sunday

[man in black]

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black
Why you never see bright colors on my back
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone
Well, there's a reason for the things that I have on

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down
Livin' in the hopeless, hungry side of town
I wear it for the prisoner who is long paid for his crime
But is there because he's a victim of the times

I wear the black for those who've never read
Or listened to the words that Jesus said
About the road to happiness through love and charity
Why, you'd think He's talking straight to you and me

Well, we're doin' mighty fine, I do suppose
In our streak of lightnin' cars and fancy clothes
But just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back
Up front there ought to be a Man In Black

I wear it for the sick and lonely old
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold
I wear the black in mournin' for the lives that could have been
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men

And I wear it for the thousands who have died
Believin' that the Lord was on their side
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died
Believin' that we all were on their side

Well, there's things that never will be right I know
And things need changin' everywhere you go
But 'til we start to make a move to make a few things right
You'll never see me wear a suit of white

Ah, I'd love to wear a rainbow every day
And tell the world that everything's okay
But I'll try to carry off a little darkness on my back
Till things are brighter, I'm the Man In Black



"Man in Black" by Johnny Cash (from Man in Black album, 1971)
Lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC

jesus dispenser

Dispensationalism. Here's a layperson's impression of it, based on years of attending churches some of which had dispensationalist leanings. In brief, the idea is that history (particularly history during the time of the Bible) is divided into dispensations. For example, the Old Testament is a different dispensation than the time that Jesus walked on the earth which is a different dispensation from today. Related to this is the idea that some things were only meant for certain dispensations. For example, Jesus did miracles, but they are not for our dispensation so we should not expect any today.

This cartoon takes dispensationalism one step further, with the idea that as we are not in the same dispensation as Jesus, we can dispense with whatever he said.

exchanged truth for a lie

Much easier to pick and choose whom we love and whom we hate, than to follow Jesus' way of loving. Yet don't we all desperately need to be loved, just as we are?

What prevents us from giving this gift to one another?

[like cool spring rain over the hot, parched wilderness]

An excerpt from Donald Spoto's The Hidden Jesus: A New Life, "contrasting the message of John the Baptist—a message of repentance and imminent judgement—with the message of Jesus, a message of "good news" and forgiveness" (Beck):

What was the reason for this urgent and positive action [in Jesus's ministry], so different from the tone of the Baptist's message and typical Jewish reasoning? The answer was clear from what Jesus began to say and to do almost immediately. He not only taught, he healed; he not only preached, he blessed, consoled and transformed lives. Not only was there good news for the poor, but for everyone. He was "a friend of tax collectors and sinners," and of the sick and possessed, the smug and the sedate, the demented and the lonely, the impolite and the unattractive--everyone who was unacceptable and every kind of outcast came within the reach of his saving embrace.

It was no longer a matter of people repenting of their oppression of the poor, receiving a baptism of water as a sign of that repentance and a desire for a newness of heart. Now—in everything that Jesus was saying and doing—God's mercy was washing over the world for everyone, like the sweep of a cool spring rain over the hot, parched wilderness.

As seen on Richard Beck's blog.

heavenly homonyms

Straight people. People in dire straits. People in straitjackets. People in Armani jackets.

Is there really that much difference between us?

Does the bouncer at heaven's gate let some in and keep others out? On what basis?

be careful little mouth (what you say)

Oops. This unfortunate ending could have been avoided by loving one's neighbour, don'tcha think?

[our lady of lourdes]

How's this for a welcome!

Here's the full text from the bulletin at Our Lady of Lourdes Catholic Parish in Daytona Beach, Florida:

We extend a special welcome to those who are single, married, divorced, gay, filthy rich, dirt poor, yo no habla Ingles. We extend a special welcome to those who are crying new-borns, skinny as a rail or could afford to lose a few pounds.
 
We welcome you if you can sing like Andrea Bocelli or like our pastor who can’t carry a note in a bucket. You’re welcome here if you’re “just browsing,” just woke up or just got out of jail. We don’t care if you’re more Catholic than the Pope, or haven’t been in church since little Joey’s Baptism.
 
We extend a special welcome to those who are over 60 but not grown up yet, and to teenagers who are growing up too fast. We welcome soccer moms, NASCAR dads, starving artists, tree-huggers, latte-sippers, vegetarians, junk-food eaters. We welcome those who are in recovery or still addicted. We welcome you if you’re having problems or you’re down in the dumps or if you don’t like “organized religion,” we’ve been there too.
 
If you blew all your offering money at the dog track, you’re welcome here. We offer a special welcome to those who think the earth is flat, work too hard, don’t work, can’t spell, or because grandma is in town and wanted to go to church.
 
We welcome those who are inked, pierced or both. We offer a special welcome to those who could use a prayer right now, had religion shoved down your throat as a kid or got lost in traffic and wound up here by mistake. We welcome tourists, seekers and doubters, bleeding hearts … and you!

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