Thursday musings....

I've been reading a book recommended to us by Philip Zach of Remedy Drive. The title is "Irresistible Revolution". This book is challenging. I like to be challenged. The question is, am I willing to step up to the challenge?

The author considers himself an "ordinary radical" Christian. I like that. A person who follows Jesus Christ should seem quite radical to our culture of fierce independence & materialism. And yet being this kind of radical isn't just for the hyper spiritual, or the punk anarchists...it's for all of us...it should be ordinary.

The author and his friends and many communities throughout the country & world are choosing to live lives of interdependence & selfless sacrifice...living the gospel. It's a life that rejects dualism in the church...which separates spiritual from social & political issues.

I have to say that for years I've shied away from political & social issues, focusing on spiritual. In some ways because I felt the spiritual is what was real & what really mattered. In some ways because I felt the "christian" right had co-opted some narrow political & social issues as their own...and I didn't always agree with the outcomes. Better to stay out of the fray than to get "distracted" from what was really important. This book is definitely challenging that stance. Jesus says that "they shall know you by the love you have one for another". If I ignore the social ills that surround me, am I loving my brother & sister who are hungry, marginalized, homeless?

I'm not done yet, and the Lord's not done with me yet.