Cornel West from Democracy Matters

“I speak as a Christian- one whose commitment to democracy is very deep but whose Christian convictions are deeper. Democracy is not my faith. And American democracy is not my idol. To see the gospel of Jesus Christ bastardized by imperial Christians and pulverized by Constantinian believers and then exploited by nihilistic elites of the American empire makes my blood boil. To be a Christian- a follower of Jesus Christ- is to love wisdom, love justice, and love freedom. This is the radical love in Christian freedom and the radical freedom in Christian love that embraces socratic questioning, prophetic witness, and tragicomic hope.

If Christians do not exemplify this love and freedom, then we side with the nihilists of the Roman empire (cowardly elite Romans and subjugated Jews) who put Jesus to a humiliating death. Instead of receiving his love in freedom as a life-enhancing gift of grace, we end up believing in the idols of the empire that nailed him to the cross. I do not want to be numbered among those who sold their souls for a mess of pottage- who surrendered their democratic Christian identity for a comfortable place at the table of the American empire while, like Lazarus, the least of these cried out and I was too intoxicated with worldly power and might to hear, beckon, and heed their cries.

To be a Christian is to live dangerously, honestly, freely- to step in the name of love as if you may land on nothing, yet to keep on stepping because the something that sustains you no empire can give you and no empire can take away. This is the kind of vision and courage required to enable the renewal of prophetic, democratic Christian identity in the age of the American empire.”

Emphasis mine. Found here.

Another Cog In The Health Care Debate

This is why the health care reform debates must happen. It's ludicrous to think that the insurance companies can deny coverage to an infant because they are in the 99th percentile of height and weight. An infant. Who lives on breast milk alone. Talk about making it real to people.

Rocky Mountain Health Plans medical director Dr. Doug
Speedie explained that their decision was based on current industry
standards. " If health care reform occurs, underwriting will go away,"
he said, referring to the process that insurers go through when they
decide whether to accept or deny someone for coverage. "We do it
because everybody else in the industry does it."

What To Make of the Peace Prize?

Don’t get me wrong — I think it’s great for our nation that our president received the Noble Peace Prize. For one — I think it does signal a move in more peaceful directions beyond what the prior administration has done. And I think there is something to be said for the committee using this as a catalyst to spur the Obama administration in peaceful directions. But the question remains: is it really deserved? This article details 6 other (of the 200) nominees for this year’s Noble Peace Prize and frankly, after reading their stories, I find it hard to believe that it was deserved. Here are some short details:

Denis Mukwege: He’s a surgeon in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the province with 27000 reported rapes last year. *”Dr Mukwege is the man who has devoted his life to trying to repair the damage done to women often left for dead. He was, for a long time, the only gynecologist treating rape wounds in Congo.” He set up a special wing dedicated to those sexually abused and actively campaigns on their behalf.
Sima Samar: Sima obtained a medicine degree from Kabul University (the first Hazara woman) and has dedicated her life to fight for the rights of women and children in Afghanistan.
Ghazi bin Muhammad: A Jordanian prince and professor of the Islamic faith, he’s been an adamant proponent of interfaith dialogue. In a letter to the Pope
Greg Mortenson: Author of “Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Promote Peace…One School at a Time”, Mortenson works to build schools in areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan where education hasn’t been a priority. So far, they’ve built 84 schools providing education to many who wouldn’t have been able to receive it.
Piedad Cordoba: She was the favorite. “Her achievements are, however, indisputable. As head of Colombians For Peace, a group trying to put an end to the 45-year conflict between the government and Farc, Ms Córdoba was the government’s official mediator in the humanitarian exchange discussions of 2007, and she secured the release of 16 hostages. One former captive, Alan Jara, the former governor of Colombia’s Meta state, called her “an angel who could carry me to freedom”.”
Wei Jingsheng: He’s known as *”the father of Chinese democracy” and has tirelessly fought for that in China. He’s spent decades in jails (an 18 and a 14 year sentence) and in all has refused to be silent.

These are just 6 of the 200+ nominees besides President Obama. Their stories alone, I think, were more deserving. I’d tend to agree with those that say that by not picking one of them (or the other countless hope-filled stories) the Noble Committee looks like something of a joke. It might be different if we’d seen a lot of peace driven actions from our President specifically directed at the unpeace of our nation in recent years (perhaps more decisiveness in the peace process in Iraq and Afghanistan and some sort of commitment to not only decisively end our torture state but be up front and honest about past offenses, seeking to do something about them). My hope now is that the award really will be a spur towards peace in and through our nation.

A Thought For Our Day

I thought I might share a thought for the day that starts with a question. In Jesus, were you given a spirit of fear? Or were you given something entirely different — a Spirit of power? Of love? Of self-control? This is an extremely important question which should greatly shape how we walk out our days. I’m hoping the answer is obvious. If not — turn no further than Paul’s second letter to Timothy. The first chapter opens with an exhortation to Timothy to remember the gift that we possess in the Lord —

For God did not give us a Spirit of fear but of power and love and self-control.

2 Timothy 1:7

This begs me ask the followup question: Why do so many Jesus followers, fearing we are on the verge of the worst (either the end times specifically or national judgement due to the politics in Washington or some other imminent apocalypse) live like the former when we should be living like the latter? It’s disquieting hearing all of the talk that we as Christians should be readying ourselves for some sort of doom, or to head to the caves and across the borders in defeat or to buy up guns and such for the coming wars, whenever or whatever they might be. It seems to be rooted in an unholy fear — a fear that perhaps Christ’s death really wasn’t enough for us and the rest of the world, that perhaps our fate really wasn’t decided on Calvary as we might have supposed. Or at least that’s the impression we leave people with.

Where does this come from? I read the scriptures, spend time meditating on the person of Jesus and what He has accomplished and ushered in to this world and can’t find this fear or response in any of it. Were Jesus not in the picture, we might have something to fear but because Jesus is in the picture, the worst that evil can do is no match. Paul’s letter to Timothy says not 3 verses from his answer to the first question that Jesus has broken the power of death.

…He has broken the power of death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel!

2 Timothy 1:10

In John’s first letter it says that Jesus’ once and for all destroyed the works of the devil (that’s why He came into this world!). And again it shines through — in Jesus there isn’t anything anymore to fear. Honestly, I think some of the fear is wrapped up in how we individualistically view the cross. The reductionist tendency to see Jesus’ death as solely affecting the individual makes us miss the bigger picture — we are definitely a part of it but Christ’s death and subsequent resurrection brought victory decisively over all evil, once and for all. That should mean nothing to fear.

And it should flow from all of this, I hope, that rather then trying to escape when the going gets tough we should live in the realization that we are the tough (empowered by a Holy Spirit unlike anything in this world) and that we should get going, not away but into the thick of it, making Jesus’ kingdom known and available, here and now, for those who desperately need it. It saddens me to hear the Gospel cheapened into some sort of an escape plan when it, by it’s very nature, has the ability to radically change the world around us. I think it rather foolish of us to think that the time we live in is somehow so radically different from those times throughout history. Considering the Christian experience under pagan Roman rule is one early example of how easy we have it in light of what could be. And the kingdom of God exploded in that time period. Withdrawal, escape, rebellion, violence and other such ideas antithetical to living out the kingdom as its ambassadors wasn’t the modus operandi but living out the Word — Jesus and His life — was. It changed the world once; it’s foolish to think that it couldn’t again.

I started by mentioning that I wanted to share a thought for the day. Really this is a thought for our time and all time. It’s something to take with us wherever God takes us. It’s something to cling to. If the power of the Cross can transform our hellish lives into heavenly bodies then no matter how bad the world around might look we should walk in confidence knowing that the war is done and over and that one day, even if not today, the Kingdom will reign.