Jan
18
flotsam & jetsam (1.18.10)
Posted by Jon Trainer at 4:21 pmFiled Under blogdom
The Gospel Coalition captures the essence of a Christian response to the events in Haiti in this paragraph from their founding documents…
God created both soul and body, and the resurrection of Jesus shows that he is going to redeem both the spiritual and the material. Therefore God is concerned not only for the salvation of souls but also for the relief of poverty, hunger, and injustice. The gospel opens our eyes to the fact that all our wealth (even wealth for which we worked hard) is ultimately an unmerited gift from God. Therefore the person who does not generously give away his or her wealth to others is not merely lacking in compassion, but is unjust. Christ wins our salvation through losing, achieves power through weakness and service, and comes to wealth through giving all away. Those who receive his salvation are not the strong and accomplished but those who admit they are weak and lost. We cannot look at the poor and the oppressed and callously call them to pull themselves out of their own difficulty. Jesus did not treat us that way. The gospel replaces superiority toward the poor with mercy and compassion. Christian churches must work for justice and peace in their neighborhoods through service even as they call individuals to conversion and the new birth. We must work for the eternal and common good and show our neighbors we love them sacrificially whether they believe as we do or not. Indifference to the poor and disadvantaged means there has not been a true grasp of our salvation by sheer grace (Theological Vision For Ministry, “The Doing of Justice and Mercy,” section V, part 5).
A mind-numbing series of photos from Haiti, plus a number of links to follow various related stories.
Hearing Pat Robertson the way most would versus studying Pat Robertson’s the way few will. My take: Robertson should have been way more saavy in this discussion, knowing the vultures are ready to feed. Better to have avoided the issue of why by a huge margin. We don’t need omniscience in the pulpit.
The end of Mwanza Maandiko? Say it ain’t so!
Looks like John Yoo has written a good read on the use/abuse? of presidential power.
An iPhone App with a great name to track earthquakes: “I Felt That.”
I downloaded Tweetdeck today and love it!