From Tim Keel's blog, who got it from J.R. Briggs' blog: Broken Stained Glass...

Forgive us O Lord: A Prayer for American Politics

Forgive us O Lord, for being divisive rather than working to build unity.

Forgive us O Lord, for striving to be right more than striving to be kind.

Forgive us O Lord, when we desire to be understood more than to understand.

Forgive us O Lord, for placing our hope in a person, a system, a government --- rather than in you alone.

Forgive us O Lord, for complaining about politics rather than thanking you for our freedom.

Forgive us O Lord, when we use our mouths --- and our email forwards --- to tear down "the other."

Forgive us O Lord, for spending more time and energy thinking about the Empire than the kingdom.

Forgive us O Lord for speaking poorly and wishing ill will on another candidate.

Forgive us O Lord, when we are known more for following a party than for following the Risen Christ.

Forgive us O Lord, for claiming that God is only on "our side."

Forgive us O Lord, for claiming and proclaiming that one political party completely and accurately represents the politics of Jesus.

Forgive us O Lord, when we forget that the heart of the king is in your hands.

Forgive us O Lord, for being more excited to speak to others about our candidate than about our Savior.

Forgive us O Lord, when we think this prayer is for someone else we know and not for ourselves.

Give us grace to treat others with dignity and respect, even in the midst of our differences.

Give us wisdom --- not just with what we say and do, but how we say them and do them --- so that we may not represent our political party, but that we may represent the one who has given us True Life.

Amen. ... more

As part of the Higher Calling Blogs network, I was asked to abide by the Ten Commandments of Talking Politics.  I really don't like getting into American politics on this blog as an attempt to get to the real political issues of the kingdom and how they affect our daily lives in a holistic way---that we may live quiet and peaceful lives serving our true King.  There are legitimate and necessary reasons for Christians to talk shop when it comes to the American political scene and the media behemoth behing it, so I encourage you all to follow the Ten Commandments of Talking Politics.

1. Do not worship political theories or parties. (You shall have no other gods before me.)
2. Do not worship political figures or images. (You shall not make for yourself an idol.)
3. God is not divinely endorsing your political opinion. (You shall not make wrongful use of the name of your God.)
4. Do not use God to prop up your politics. (Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.)
5. Honor your father and mother. (Honor your father and mother.) ... more

Liturgy is "the public work," which means that there has to be some political side to the church, or otherwise we are being isolationists.

Leadership Journal has a Church & Politics Quiz.  You take two separate quizzes then merge your scores together on a graph.  You can see mine below, I am a Quiet Critic who leans towards the role of Prophet:

The New York Times ran an article "For Iraqi Christians, Money Bought Survival" that brings to light the lesser known ways of Christians during the most violent times of the Iraq war: they were persecuted by a special tax Muslims have traditionally placed on Jews and Christians.

"The tax was called a jizya — and that is the name with which the insurgents chose to cloak extortion, Mafia-style, from Christians.

"Officials say the demands could be hundreds of dollars a month per male member of a household. In many cases, Christian families drained their life savings and went into debt to make the payments. Insurgents also raised money by kidnapping priests. The ransoms, often paid by the congregations, typically ran as high as $150,000, several priests and lay Christians said.

"In a paradox, this city, long the seat of Iraqi Christianity, also became known as the last urban stronghold of Sunni insurgents. Another, more painful, paradox is that many of Iraq’s remaining 700,000 Christians paid to save their lives, knowing full well that the money would be used for bombs and other weapons to kill others."

One of the reasons the Chaldean Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho was killed is that after the violence decreased in Iraq, he refused to keep on paying.  In an act of bravery, Bishop Rahho opened his cell phone while he was tied up in the back of the getaway car, his kidnappers in the front, and called his congregation to tell them to never pay the ransom, that no more money should go to perpetuating more violence.

Let us pray for our Iraqi brothers and sisters in Christ, who's population has "fallen to roughly 700,000 today from a prewar estimate of 1.3 million, that they may give glory to God in all things. ... more

Chuck Colson wrote a very interesting piece on how Iraq is a very difficult place for Christians, yet no one has really stepped up to the plate to do anything about it.

Colson is wise enough to observe that without any direct intervention in the Christian minorities lives "a Christian community that survived invasions by the Persians, Muslims, Mongols and Ottomans, might not survive the American liberation of Iraq. They certainly will not survive our indifference."

Remember we are a kingdom, people!  Apathy or indifference is typical of any nation bent on its own interests before a religious minority, but it is not the characteristic of one body, which is Christ. ... more

Novus Lumen has up a live blog of his experience at the Jesus for President Book Tour stop in Minnesota. ... more

High prices and struggling are all in the eye of the beholder, and a matter of perception. Depending on where we live, who we talk to, where we get our media from, and how our local community intervenes in times of crises all factor into whether one thinks a headline like "High Priced Oil, a Struggling Economy, and Spirituality" is actually worth anything.

Regrettably, times are getting to the point where those across the economic spectrum are seeing the future crumble before their eyes, whether bankers at the Royal Bank of Scotland, a deeply respected financial periodical warning of a new Great Depression, or the pastor who ministers to truckers, prostitutes, and the destitute (HT: Crunchy Con and NYT).

A dim outlook on the future usually causes a yearning best expressed in the thoughts such as, "I'll fly away," "The world is not my home," and "This will all pass away." We can all to easily begin to declare the past done with, the present un-redeemable, and the future hopeless, so we create a fourth division of time, the eternal, and place all of our eggs into that basket. The future/eternal dichotomy often expressed in the already/not yet formula of eschatology expressed by George Eldon Ladd breaks down in the hopelessness and "doom and gloom" associated with economic depressions and a loss of material wealth. ... more

Christianity Today has a short Q&A with Frank Wolf, who recently helped to form the House of Representatives' Caucus on Religious Minorities in the Middle East.  Christianity is a minority in the Middle East, but that does not mean it is not well represented in the region, especially in major areas of conflict like Iraq and Lebanon.

As Christians, we need to be first concerned about our kingdom, the children of God who form the nation without borders: the kingdom of God.  When people like Wolf voice that there are "currently an estimated 1.5 million Iraqi refugees in Syria and another 600,000 in Jordan, a significant number of whom are Christians—and these figures are probably growing," it makes me wonder why so many Christians don't put the survival of the kingdom first.  As Wolf elaborates, "these refugees don't have food, housing, or health care. They can't work or get an education for their children," which means that the minority of a foothold the kingdom had in the Middle East has been ripped apart socially, educationally, religiously, and demographically by the war in Iraq.  And what's more, this does not include the devastation caused to the Marionite Christian population of Lebanon that is around 30% of the Lebanese citizenry.

Many Christian proponents for the wars in Iraq and Lebanon have been adamant that freedom and democracy are better for the church than persecution.  A case needs to be made that war is far worse for the communities of the Kingdom than persecution is.  One of the oldest sources of edification in the Church is the martyr's tale.  The Church grows by the blood of the martyrs.  When we are persecuted in the darkest of times the kingdom of God shines brighter.  War, on the other hand, is an arbiter of misplacement, pain, and fear.  It is far scarier than persecution, which is specifically directed at a religion, but instead is a persecution of our very humanity itself.  It is a consuming fire that destroys not just culture but the very ground beneath our feet.

We cannot continue to see how the kingdom of God is effected by the atrocities of war and continue to accept it as a trade-off for freedom and democracy.  Freedom only comes from God, and he has seen fit that in the last days freedom be not by democracy but by a King reigning over his kingdom.

May it be so. ... more

The final section of Jesus for President ties up all the loose ends that Claiborne and Haw have formed with their ideas and tries to flesh out some of the implications of living as ordinary radicals in a world (and a church) that don't like ordinary radicals too much.

The theme of the final section, titled "A Peculiar Party," is that we are to be set apart.  The chapters get very short in this section, as Claiborne and Haw touch on issues as diverse as Alternative Economics and Relational Tithe along side a very enlightening discussion of excommunication.

In a nutshell, this section is about putting social justice, pacifism, and a prophetic life into praxis.  If you are trying to figure out how to live a radical Christian life in our world, this is a great source to pull meaningful and practical ideas out of.

At this point I think it is best to consider the behind-the-scenes discussion that a figure like Claiborne brings to a book with his name on it.  Claiborne is often associated with two things: Emergent and New Monasticism. While the latter is fairly self explanatory (a new way to be monastics) the former presents some trickiness.  What does this book have to add to the Emergent conversation, and what does this mean about an Emergent outlook?  ... more

After I read the first five pages of part three of Jesus for President I looked over at my wife and told her the book had made me really pissed off.  I felt lied to, deceived, and manipulated.

Claiborne and Haw had not written much to persuade me. Barely anything at all, actually.  They had merely listed quotes from the church father's about Christian service in the military and the state.

As opposed to today, when the American church seems to glorify military and government service, many of the early church fathers, including many of the big ones (Tertullian, Origen, Justin, Justin Martyr).  The martyr story of Minucius Felix, how he refused to kill as a soldier because he had become a Christian, so he was executed on the spot, was particularly touching.

I went through a bit of a grieving period as I read the this third part, "When the Empire Got Baptized."  I grieved for myself and how I had willingly deceived myself into condoning and even celebrating acts of war and death.  I remembered how in middle school I had aspired to become a CIA sniper or a Navy fighter pilot.  Up until four years ago, I was an adamant celebrator of the "war on terror" and the killing of "the other."  I don't blame anyone, it was my fault for giving in.

That my blame does not fall on any one or any thing in particular points to how systemic this problem is. ... more