mbjones

Good answer to the outright lies of McCain’s campaign. To think that Karl Rove even called McCain out on this is crazy.

Zondervan just sent me a review copy of The Blue Parakeet by Scot McKnight. I’m looking forward to reading it and will be reviewing it shortly…

“…The church must recover its prophetic voice, but it cannot be merely negative. If the church is going to call people away from idolatry and remind them of their primary allegiance to Christ, then it will have to do more than to rail against the illusions of freedom enforced by coercion. The church will have to tell a more persuasive story of liberation than that told by the Empire. It will have to tell a more difficult and complex story of liberation through obedience to God’s will, not to the human will. It will have to tell a story of the conquest of violence not by inflicting more violence, but by absorbing it. And it will have to tell this story of liberation not just in words, but in witness…”

And Your Right to Vote! Thanks to the GOP in Michigan and Ohio…

I’m thinking of a doing a series on politics and the Bible because I get asked lots of questions about my political stances. I think it might be helpful to have a resource to point people to when they ask me (particularly the more conservative of my friends that think it crazy that I would even consider voting anything BUT republican). And so, I’ll kick things off by rehashing an old article that sets the stage: Political Language in the New Testament.

In that particular post, I mention some of the “Gospel” language that comes directly from the imperial language. Here are some examples (if you aren’t interested in clicking the link):

Gospel:

• Imperial definition: an important pronouncement such as the birth of an heir or a battle won

• Gospel definition: the good news that Jesus came proclaiming (Repent! The Kingdom of God is at hand!)

Basilea:

• Imperial: The empire of Caesar

• Gospel: The kingdom of God (YHWH at the head)

Son of God:

• Imperial: Caesar’s popular title

• Gospel: Jesus’ title

Ekklesia:

• Imperial: Town meeting or public assembly where citizenship was bestowed, political concerns discussed, elders appointed, Caesar was worshipped

• Gospel: The name for the Church

Parousia:

• Imperial: The return of Caesar to a town

• Gospel: The second coming of Christ

Savior:

• Imperial: Specific title of Caesar Augustus who “healed the chaos of Rome and brought it into a new golden age”

• Gospel: Simply put, Jesus

Growing up — I was never told about any of these connections but none the less they are there, clearly visible in the New Testament. Our political words are different than those of the Roman empire so its honestly easy not to see the connection. And honestly — it is understandable to see no direct correlation between Jesus and politics because of the culture we live in. Religion is just another consumed good — individualized and privatized. It doesn’t seem to penetrate all of life as it did in New Testament times. And so, the assumption would go, his language speaks to only private matters of the heart and doesn’t encompass all that we are. But thank God this isn’t the case — the message of Jesus and the Kingdom of GOD does speak to all of life (including the political). By co-opting this language in the gospels, Jesus sets Himself against Caesar and the empire; the kingdom of GOD becomes a visible, viable alternative to the empire power structure. To use one example from above, whereas Rome hails a parousia event as the blessing of Caesar’s return to a town, Jesus turns this on its head by instilling a wild hope in an ultimate coming of Christ that establishes His reign for good (answered at least in part by His impartation of the Holy Spirit).

By taking these political words and radically re-defining them, Jesus very much says something about politics, if we care to listen. The answer to the question posed by this post is most definitely “Yes!” Naturally following this (and what I plan on exploring) is how it informs our own politics as Christians.

September 24th is National Braai Day in South Africa! Archbishop Desmond Tutu approves and so do I. Honestly the best pork I’ve ever had was the braai at the Masi Spur.

In this article, Frank Schaeffer (Francis’ son) dialogues with an incredibly troublesome piece of the current administration ideology (that the republican candidates would carry on). Specifically, this piece of Palin’s acceptance speech:

“Terrorists still plot to inflict catastrophic harm on America … he’s [Obama] worried that someone won’t read them their rights.”

Fascism in the making, where “ideology and rabid nationalism [are] above the law”.

No thank you. Either we are a country exemplifying freedom or we aren’t. If things don’t change, we increasingly won’t be.

Here’s a link to a handy graph depicting the tax cuts of both major campaigns.