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Posts Tagged ‘Faith and Politics’
 Only God would open up an opportunity for a Catholic from San Francisco to speak prophetically to the Prime Minister of Australia, at the Anglican Centre in Rome, on behalf of Cambodians about to lose their land in Phnom Penh. …
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Tags: Australia, australian embassy, cambodians, Catholic, Christian, Community, deacon, dietrich bonhoeffer, Faith and Politics, Families, government, Homeless, Indigenous, indigenous people, justice, Kevin Rudd, land, marginalized, Media, oppression, phnom penh, Poor, power, Prayer, prime minister of australia, Prophetic, Relocation, social justice
Watching Barack Obama’s victory speech and reflecting upon the significance of his election as the next president of the United States left me profoundly moved.
In his gracious concession speech, even Sen. John McCain acknowledged that this was a historic moment,…
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Tags: Abortion, African Americans, Barack Obama, Black, church of the resurrection, civil unions, complexity, compromise, Conservative, Conservatives, Democrat, Election, Faith and Politics, Faith-based Initiatives, Jesus, John McCain, Liberal, Liberals, Methodist, methodist church, paradox, president-elect, progressive, Race, racial, Welfare, White
In the black Baptist church where I worship every Sunday, it’s no surprise that Republicans don’t own the evangelical vote. But I cut my teeth on faith and politics as a white Southern Baptist growing up in the heyday of…
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Tags: 2008 Election, Black, Black Church, Election, Evangelicals, Faith and Politics, Martin Luther King, Segregation, swing vote, Vote, Voting, White
 Two of the mantras that my evangelicalism has taught me over the years are these:
1. Be True to Scripture
2. Avoid Politics
The heart for God’s Word is not all that surprising, given the “Sola [...]
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The most direct self-referential command Jesus has given to those who would call themselves by his name is, “Follow me.” That means that even before praising Jesus, we must follow him on his path of love. It is that path that led him to teach, to heal, to save, to sacrifice. Yet his path did not stop there. It also led him to fulfill the prophet’s mandate to call to account the shepherds of his people who seemed to care more for power and wealth than for the welfare of the sheep they were [...]
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Somebody came up to me in Denver and said, “At the Democratic Convention of 2008, faith is cool!” That is indeed a big change from recent years. As I have been saying at the many “faith forums” in Denver, faith must have a different and better role than it has had in politics these last few decades.
And I have been encouraged by the more “prophetic” role that faith has played here, deeper than the partisan use of faith in recent memory. At one of those faith panels, Rev. Otis Moss [...]
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I’m voting in this election, not with naivete but with sincere enthusiasm. Not with any messianic hopes, but with a deep sense of moral responsibility as a shareholder or steward of the richest, most dominant, and most well-armed nation in the world. I had another long talk with a friend a couple weeks back who, on religious grounds, is passionately against voting. He had read my earlier posts on the [...]
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Evangelical women and minorities, it seems, exist on the muted margins of political discourse in America. If a justice revival is to sweep over America once more, from the suburban megachurch to the urban storefront church, then Christians must pursue a vision of the common good for all — and not the common good of a few.
The public narratives of the media often chronicle the broadening social concerns of white [...]
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I am now in Denver for the Democratic National Convention, and I will be in the Twin Cities next week for the Republican National Convention. I am speaking at both about the moral issues the faith community believes are important — among them poverty, the environment and climate change, a consistent ethic of life, strong families, pandemic diseases, human trafficking, war, and peace. The Democrats are, for the first time, having “faith forums” to discuss those issues, and I will be moderating [...]
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Tags: 2008 Election, Conservatives, Elections, Faith and Politics, Liberals, Pew, Pew Forum, Pew poll, Pew survey, Political Engagement, Politics, Religious Right, Voting
One of the stories I first heard on my recent visit to Australia was about what helped swing the vote last November to Kevin Rudd, the new Labor prime minister. I read some new political data by veteran pollster and researcher John Black, who is respected across Australia’s political spectrum. Black reported that the pivotal swing vote to Labor this time was among evangelicals and Pentecostals, especially in [...]
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I like winning, but I’ve done a lot of losing in my life, especially when it comes to voting. I’ve got a pretty good track record of picking losers.
But recent history tells us that picking winners in presidential elections has its own dangers.
What happens if the presidential candidate you prefer wins this fall?
As a Christian and citizen, you owe the winning candidate — whoever he is (we’ve only got “he’s” left this time around) — the gift of what my friend Jim [...]
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Last weekend in Australia, I had the opportunity to have a four-hour dinner conversation with Kevin Rudd, the new prime minister. I have written about Kevin as a new-style Labor political leader who talks openly about his faith in a secular country.
I asked him about the “apology” he made to the [...]
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Last weekend in Australia, I had the opportunity to have a four-hour dinner conversation with Kevin Rudd, the new prime minister. I have written about Kevin as a new-style Labor political leader who talks openly about his faith in a secular country.
I asked him about the “apology” he made to the [...]
Continue reading this entry »
As we pass the half-way point of our Jesus for President tour, we remember Jesus’ admonition that we be “as wise as serpents and as innocent as doves.” There is a lot of momentum around our little campaign of political misfits – from some of the mainstream media and from the dozen cities where we’ve had thousands of folks come together to plot goodness. And with the [...]
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 Soccer moms, NASCAR dads, and now holy hipsters have been touted by political pundits and the mainstream media as the group du jour that political candidates must court in order to win the coveted presidential prize. Using select books and blogs, they conclude that these missional millennials have abandoned the political party of their parents and will be casting their ballots for Obama [...]
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Tags: 2008 Election, Barack Obama, Chris Haw, Democrats, Diana Butler Bass, Elections, Faith and Politics, Jesus for President, Millennials, Partisan politics, Phyllis Tickle, Republicans, Shane Claiborne
In 2000 I was part of a small group of religious leaders invited to Austin, Texas, to discuss a new White House faith-based initiative with George W. Bush before he came to Washington, D.C., as president. I was an early supporter of the initiative because I believed that partnerships between the faith community and government in alleviating poverty were both necessary and appropriate within the framework of the Constitution. For two years I was in regular conversation with the White House [...]
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In 2000 I was part of a small group of religious leaders invited to Austin, Texas, to discuss a new White House faith-based initiative with George W. Bush before he came to Washington, D.C., as president. I was an early supporter of the initiative because I believed that partnerships between the faith community and government in alleviating poverty were both necessary and appropriate within the framework of the Constitution. For two years I was in regular conversation with the White House [...]
Continue reading this entry »
In 2000 I was part of a small group of religious leaders invited to Austin, Texas, to discuss a new White House faith-based initiative with George W. Bush before he came to Washington, D.C., as president. I was an early supporter of the initiative because I believed that partnerships between the faith community and government in alleviating poverty were both necessary and appropriate within the framework of the Constitution. For two years I was in regular conversation with the White House [...]
Continue reading this entry »
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