This is a really interesting blog where Zack Exely, a long time leftist/activist, documents what he describes as an insurgent mass movement among fundamentalist Christians to move away from the Jimmy Swaggart style christianity towards a “gospel of the God of the oppressed.” From revolutioninjesusland- Right after the 2004 elections, a cynical map made the rounds of lefty inboxes everywhere that separated “Jesusland” from the “United States of Canada” (in later versions, “The United States of Liberty and Education” and other self-righteous riffs). Part of the reason we started this project to gather counterstereotypical stories of leaders in the “Heartland” was to help undo that cynicism toward the American people not only among progressives, but also the whole political-media elite, both left and right. Nowhere is that needed more than when it comes to perceptions of Christians, who just happen to make up something like 90% of the population. .... Revolutionary Christians comprise the fastest growing and most surprising of American social movements right now. From mega churches to tiny country churches, evangelical Christians (as opposed to mainline or liberal Chrsitians) are rediscovering the “gospel of the God of the oppressed.” In the millions, white suburban evangelicals are stepping outside of their comfort zones to get “into relationship” with the poor, the oppressed, the homeless, prisoners — the people whom Jesus said, Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me….Whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me. —Matthew 25 They build houses for and teach job skills to homeless people, they create tutoring programs for kids in failing schools, they pay health care bills and rent for people living on poverty wages—and there’s even a movement afoot among these people to move their young families out of wealthy suburbs and into forsaken inner city neighborhoods, putting the kids into broken and violent public school and the whole nine yards. http://revolutioninjesusland.com/index.php/2007/09/page/2/
This guy is not the sharpest tool in the shed. I would not exactly call this a revolution but more of an adaptation. Its not small-town america anymore. Its all about religion adapting to progression. At the turn of the 20th century, the same thing happened. Anyways, good luck to them changing the world. They will quickly find out what the government learned a long time ago; people don't want to be helped, they want free handouts.
Jesusland is Austin? "They build houses for and teach job skills to homeless people, they create tutoring programs for kids in failing schools, they pay health care bills and rent for people living on poverty wages—and there’s even a movement afoot among these people to move their young families out of wealthy suburbs and into forsaken inner city neighborhoods, putting the kids into broken and violent public school and the whole nine yards." unfortunately, not everyone will agree that these are all good things. even the vatican looked down on liberation theology in the 80's thank god for the Romeros of the world.
I don't think anyone really cares what you would call it. People in the movement describe themselves as 'revolutionary", "radical", and "insurgent". As for the rest of your muddled cynicism, the descriptor "tool" definitely came to mind.
I would argue this is what the church began as. See Acts. I would argue this is exactly what the church should be. I have seen this change, as well. I'm encouraged by it. But I see it even happening in SOME mainline churches as well. i'm part of a very small new church on the west side. with very few of us, we've started a mentoring/tutoring problem in apartments that the rest of our community has labelled as "troubled and crime-ridden." we've funded and coached kids soccer and baseball teams...kids who wouldn't get a chance to play otherwise. we've started a grocery shuttle...running people from apartments to grocery store who don't have a transportation otherwise. all in a church of about 30 regular attenders. not saying that to brag or something...but to support the point of the article.
Max, you should check out the blog. Exely's latest posts are about the Catalyst Conference. An excerpt- One of the other five main speakers to address the full stadium today was Francis Chan. Francis told his story: He had become a wildly successful mega-church preacher with an exploding church. But he felt something was off. Something made him walk away from it all. He told his church he was leaving and might never come back. He prayed and studied the Bible for three months months and came to the conclusion that he and his church had fallen off of Jesus’ path—the path of giving to and serving the poor. The church was about to embark on a multi-million dollar building project (that’s what mega-churches do). They canceled the project and decided to just hold chuch outside. They had massively outgrown their old church. He said their plan now is to give away 50% of what they bring in. From the Cornerstone church website, here’s why they’re holding church outside instead of building a fancy new sanctuary: The idea of building an outdoor amphitheater rather than an auditorium sprung from a desire to save millions of dollars. It came from a belief that God would rather we spend that money in other ways. It comes from a thought that God would receive more glory from seeing His children sacrifice for others- namely, those around the world who lack basic necessities. The idea then evolved into developing the property into more of a park-like setting that could be enjoyed by the community throughout the week. In this way, we would be giving to our community as well as to the needy around the world. http://revolutioninjesusland.com/index.php/2007/10/04/church-or-food/
When I feed the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist. Dom Helder Camara, Archbishop of Recife, Brazil
I have been reading it...thanks sooo much for posting this!!! I love the Astros, but this is the stuff that gets me the most pumped up. I thought of my church EXACTLY when I read that!!! We put on a free children's theater piece that's incredibly well-done and very funny each Sunday morning called KidzPlanet. The humor is directed at the adults but it's so goofy, the kids love it. It teaches a virtue each month...and people who would never step foot in a church because they'd be too uncomfortable there come weekly. It's a great service to the community, I believe. So we rent theater space. We're in a local community theater. I promise you, there would be TONS AND TONS of resistance to the idea that we should be spending our money on a building. There is an ethos that we resist the notion that church is a place....church is a people. Here's my church's blog: http://thefom.blogspot.com/ I contribute to it pretty regularly...it would be interesting to see if someone could pick out one of my blogs from reading me here! This is one that touches on that point you made exactly, though: Monday, September 04, 2006 Sink the Cruise Ship - Countdown Day 4 "If FOM becomes a cruise ship rather than a life boat, let's all conspire to sink her." My greatest fear for Fellowship of Memorial is that we begin to exist for our own comfort and pleasure, like narcissistic passengers on a luxury liner. God forbid that we spend our days grazing on a vast buffet of delectable food while refugees on precarious rafts float starving at the base of our steep cruise ship hull. If FOM becomes a luxury liner, we'll conspire to sink her and hope some of those refugees can float to safety on the debris. This weekend was an indication that we're in the lifeboat business. Several FOMers organized a Burger and Melon bash at Nottingham Park and gave away about 100 hamburgers. There were no big FOM signs at this event. Just free food, lots of conversation and invitations to take the next step in community with one another. Many of the people we met there have physical, emotional and spiritual needs. Some are feeling isolated and persecuted, having moved last year from New Orleans and getting much of the blame for a new wave of crime in the community. There were lots of kids whose parents are mostly absent, just looking for an adult to encourage them and demonstrate a genuine interest in their lives. Some of the adults are desperate for help, without jobs and without hope. Other adults seem to have their physical needs fully met, but their lives are lonely and empty. We don't have the answers to all their problems, but we genuinely believe that God wants to bring them hope through Jesus. We'll be available to love people in our community, try to meet their needs and walk with them through their challenges. That's who we are at FOM. We have lifeboats. -------------- Pray for individuals in our church, that we would grow in our love for people outside of faith in God
Very cool Max. I just noticed that your sig links to the $8 hot dog video. Chris Seay (who I guess is the guy who made the video) spoke at the Catalyst conference and Exely links to the video in the blog.
Seay is a friend of mine from college. His church is incredible. He's also a HUGE Rockets/Astros fan! We used to proclaim the awesomeness of the Rockets championships teams surrounded by freaks from Dallas in Waco. We also played a fair amount of NBA Jams together! Here's another project he's involved in that you might be interested in: http://www.adventconspiracy.org/
I apologize. I did come off a bit harsh. While I agree there is a change, I did not completely agree with the blog. It came off to me as a "look at what we're doing". I have more skepticism as oppose to cynicism. I have a strong desire to help people (despite my cynical personality at times), but I still stick to my guns that most people don't want to be helped. I have tried to help people who say they want to be helped, but in the end, they revert back to what they say they don't want to be. I've gotten very discouraged in seeing 1% or 2% results in adults, and even in those circumstances, these people have already came up with a game plan to help themselves. I am of course speaking of people who are capable of helping themselves, as opposed to permanently handicapped individuals. This is why I love working with children. The results are leaps and bounds beyond adults. Children truly need the help. As I said earlier, its more of an adaptation. 50+ years ago, very few people relied on the government. If your house burnt down or you were struggling, your neighbors or church pitched in to help. In the information age, we have become more introvert as a society and have become more selfish and less sacrificing as a whole. I believe towards the end of the century, the church did not know how to deal with the change. Instead of adapting, many religious people chose to reject change on all levels, whether good or bad. This of course, has given religion a bad name. While I love this new change, we have to be cautious about the implementation. I believe influencing kids to be self sacrificing will yield exponential results
We need to teach kids to be self-sacrificing and reach out to the parents who are struggling. If you reach out to 20 people and only 1 truly changes it was worth it -- if you reach out to 100 that will be 5 truly changed lives. I work every other weekend at a crisis shelter that provides respite for the children from the poorest of families --- some parents are taking advantage -- some are really trying. We don't allways try to figure out which is which -- just love the kids who are brought to us and try to help the parents. If the parents are truly taking advantage of us -- so what -- we are at least showing the kids some unconditional love for a few days.
These are some of the best things that I have read in a long time concerning Christians. it is so encouraging to see Jesus in Christianity for a change. reading the bible and doing what it says- revolutionary Madmax- thank you for sharing your church's life here and all who take a towel and wash feet, blessings
This guy did it for a year and wrote a book about it. 'The Year of Living Biblically' by A.J. Jacobs An agnostic gives life by the book a try. By Gordon Marino, Special to The Times October 8, 2007 In his immortal "Pensées," Blaise Pascal formulates his famous Wager Argument, reasoning that faith in God is a good bet because the possible benefits of belief are infinite and the potential losses, namely, some of the pleasantries of life, are finite. He counsels that anyone convinced by the argument should simply start to use the holy water, pray and, in general, make the movements of faith. In time and by the grace of God, true religious interiority would follow. "The Year of Living Biblically" is a diary of a year spent trying to abide by the laws of the Bible, both Old and New Testament. A secular Jew and professed agnostic, A.J. Jacobs could stand as a test case of Pascalian religious psychology. After all, the senior writer at Esquire has no religious conviction and yet carefully patterns his actions on the Good Book. But there may be one telling difference between the author and the addressee of the Wager Argument. Whereas Pascal was speaking to the earnest individual on the fence between devotion to God and mammon, the endearingly honest Jacobs confesses that he took up the biblical life because he was looking for a follow-up to his "The Know-It-All," a book about his experience of reading the Encyclopedia Britannica from A to Z. There are, of course, preliminary questions that need to be addressed before the 38-year-old can take up his staff and head into the New York subway system. If you are going to take the Bible as your Baedeker, you need to decide to what degree are you going to take it literally. "I will try to find the original intent of the Biblical rule or teaching and follow that to the letter," Jacobs resolves. "If the passage is unquestionably figurative . . . then I won't obey it literally. But if there's any doubt . . . I will err on the side of the literal." After multiple readings, Jacobs calculates that from Genesis through Revelation, the Bible articulates some 800 rules. Leviticus 19:19 commands, "Nor shall there come upon you a garment of cloth made of two kinds." Deuteronomy 22:11 elaborates: One must not wear clothing that mixes both wool and linen. Jacobs looks up a local fiber tester by the name of Berkowitz. Mr. Berkowtiz puts Jacobs' garments under the microscope and out goes a good deal of the author's wardrobe. As Jacobs observes, the Bible seems an odd pastiche of seemingly trivial rules and supreme moral guidelines. So far as our Moses from Esquire is concerned, fretting about mixed fibers seems to be on the trivial side of the ledger. Berkowitz, who will return for frequent prayer sessions with Jacobs, wisely counsels, "This is the law that God gave us. We have to trust him." As Jacobs interprets his new friend, it may be even more important to follow the inexplicable rules "because it shows you're committed." Jacobs' wife, Julia, and their son Jasper play a prominent part in this project. A doting father, Jacobs attempts to act on the advice, "He who spares the rod hates his son" (Proverbs 13:24). When Jasper misbehaves, his dad ends up using a Nerf bat instead of a rod or paddle. "When a woman has discharge of blood . . . she shall be in her impurity for seven days, and whoever touches her will be unclean until the evening" (Leviticus 15:19). Being a bit germophobic, Jacobs can at least relate to this precept; although his wife finds his adherence to it insulting. When it is that time of the month, Jacobs' revenge-seeking helpmate makes a point of sitting on -- and so polluting -- virtually every chair in their apartment. There are many such moments of comic relief in this engagingly written chronicle, but this is also a tale of Jacobs' attempt to avoid transgressions that you do not need a Bible to recognize as sins. Within a couple of months, Jacobs comes to understand that a biblical life is all about remembering yourself. To that end, he tapes a list of his most common breaches to the bathroom mirror: lying, vanity, gossip, coveting, anger. Oddly enough, Jacobs does not attach himself to a synagogue or church. Like Martin Luther, he opts for a relationship with Scripture that is unmediated by any institution. The spiritual loner does, however, make a field trip to Israel, where he visits with the one person of faith in his family, the black sheep and cultish Uncle Gil. There are trips to see snake-handling Pentecostals and Jerry Falwell's mega-church, and there is no condescension and a good deal of tenderness in some of these encounters. After long talks with creation-scientists, Jacobs regrets an article that Esquire published on them, "Greetings From Idiot America." "I'd wager," he concludes, "there's no difference in the average IQ of creationists and evolutionists." Prayer is, of course, an important part of the program. There are some who would argue that it is no use praying to God when you do not believe in God, or worse yet, have nothing approaching a yearning for God. Throughout the book, Jacobs prays many times a day. Though he has his epiphanies and mystical moments, he is never converted from his agnostic state. As a graduate student, my mentor, the late Philip Rieff, once responded to my writing ambitions by remarking, "Everyone is an author in search of a topic." In other words, most writers are not pushed along by any pressing questions but rather from the need to be heard. Pre-convinced that Jacobs' effort was of the I-need-to-write-something ilk, I came to this memoir prepared to despise it as both a kind of sacrilege and an expression of unadulterated ambition. But within a few pages, the sneer left my face. While there are goofy sections that seem clearly intended to entertain, "The Year of Living Biblically" is a gracefully written book with a heart. In a world that tends to medicalize every peccadillo, Jacobs' straightforward and systematic efforts at biblically guided, moral self-purification are often surprisingly edifying. Gordon Marino is professor of philosophy and director of the Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College in Minnesota.
i heard that story on npr yesterday - the funniest part was when he was talking about stoning adulterers. he carried little pebbles in his pocket (the bible doesnt specify the size of the stones) and when someone told him they had committed adultery he took the pebbles out, but the person grabbed them and threw them back at him so he took one and threw it - he got two for one in that he stoned the adulterer and the whole "eye for and eye" thing. "I've done everything the Bible says - even the stuff that contradicts the other stuff!" - stupid flanders
So he's into getting stoned too? I am getting more and more interested. j/k Nice story. Enough people are asking questions, and I love it. Am seeing more and more signs of it also.
I like that article, but if he really followed the Bible, wouldn't he realize that a lot of the rules and laws from the old testament were replaced by the new covenant with Jesus?
it's not putting the bible into practice that makes christianity it is the spiritual life of christ in the christian that makes christianity christians don't do, they are it's like a vine and a branch, can the branch produce any other fruit than what is found in the vine?
But as Rich Mullins summarized "Faith without works is a song you can't sing. It's about as useless as a screen door on a submarine."
