Last night, I watched this sermon by Shane Claiborne of the Simple Way, an intentional community in the “bad lands” of north Philadelphia. He shares his incredible story of how God has led him throughout his life to learn what it means to take Jesus’ words seriously and really follow him. He was born in east Tennessee and was raised as a Methodist. He went to a “get saved” meeting each year and got born again, again and again. Then he went to Eastern in Pennsylvania and found himself reading an article about homeless people who were being evicted from an abandoned Catholic church. He and 100 others got involved by moving into the church with the homeless and suffering with them while sharing the love of Messiah. I won’t give too much away, because it is a beautiful story. He also interned with Mother Theresa in Calcutta and has done some incredible things in Philadelphia since then.
Click here to listen to No Resolution - No Peaceas delivered by Lennox Abrigo, Apr 28th 2008, Atlanta Georgia. Commentary by John Obelenus
Lennox’s thesis is that personal relationships are destroyed by fear and immorality, and built up by peace and family. Society is based upon personal relationships, therefore it is necessary for the benefit of us all that our personal relationships are “working”.
He notes the accepting air of society around our initial human ungodly and sinful state. This only enhances people’s ability to sustain their injustice and replacement of moral values to the detriment of order and chaos.
Here is something very powerful that impressed itself upon me recently.
I found this prayer by Kaj Munk in the book The Irresistable Revolution by Shane Claiborne. Whether or not you agree with the contents or even think the book is a worthwhile read, I think everybody needs to see and/or hear this.
Kaj Munk was a Danish Lutheran pastor who was vehemently against both the regimes of Hitler and Mussolini and was eventually martyred during World War 2. This is a prayer or his.
I was reading through the book of Mark the other day, and I could not help but notice a pattern. Several times when Jesus talks about his crucifixion the surrounding context is about power.
Recently, in speaking with people, and endeavoring to share the gospel, I have noticed quite a few folks have brought up a similar opinion. The general view that they seem to believe can be summarized like this: “Religion causes division among people. In fact all wars are rooted in religion or religious differences. Therefore religion is not a good thing.” What these individuals seemed to really be saying, in essence, was “I’m not interested in religion, and in particular, I’m not interested in Jesus or the gospel.”
Apparently, this thinking is more pervasive than I used to realize. For many people, this can be either a roadblock to hearing the gospel, or an excuse not to believe. So much so, in fact, that it seems important to consider how to address this argument, in order to help people get beyond this apparent obstacle.