All posts by Rod White

Fridays for the Future #2 – Running into the commissioner

October 8, 2021ClimateBoard of Public Utilities, commissioner, Council on the Green Economy, Diane Solomon, Joseph Fiordaliso, Patrick Murphy, Public Utilities CommissionRod White

Do you know who sits on your state’s Public Utilities Commission? (Here’s PA). I still don’t know much about mine, but I have at least figured out they have quite a bit to say about whether my state will take any useful, expedient climate action.

Here is this week’s climate action story.

I decided it would be a service to find out what every elected official is doing about climate change (not just what they are saying). I might write every one of them or call them to find out. Maybe I will visit! In order to do that, I needed to find out who they are. There is so much government I am sure you do not know all the people who are leading the action or lack of action on climate change right now.

I began making a doc which I will eventually share with you (and maybe work on with you!) that lists all the officials, links to their sites and gives a blurb about what climate action they have taken or intend to take. I used the zip codes of each of Circle of Hope’s meeting places, which probably covers where you live if you are local. If you aren’t, this doc making would be a fun project for you and your elementary school kids, right? It is their future burning right now, after all.

I brought up Governor Murphy’s info in New Jersey and noticed he had appointed members to the New Jersey Council on the Green Economy in 2021. I have to admit, I was rather unaware of the vast unelected government that either runs things or not. My elected officials are supposed to be leading them, but I have to wonder. This particular Council falls under the Office of Climate Action and the Green Economy. That’s a new office in the Governor’s Office (not housed in one of the 16 NJ departments). The council is tasked with streamlining climate initiatives currently being pursued by various state agencies and leading New Jersey’s collaboration with federal agencies on climate issues. God bless you.

If you want to talk to someone about climate action in New Jersey, the members of the Council might be a good place to start

Jane Cohen is the Executive Director of the new office under which the Council falls. She used to be at Murphy’s right hand as an advisor on climate change. Shawn Latourette is the acting commissioner of the NJ EPA; he’s on it too. Then there is my man, Joseph Fiordaliso, president of the Board of Public Utilities. He has been a Commissioner since 2006 (Remember Governor Codey, who nominated him? Neither do I). Here is his 2021 report to the NJ Assembly. As you can see, I got fascinated by the board of Public Utilities. They make a difference.

The NJ Board of Public Utilities is made up of five commissioners. Here are their bios. Commissioner Diane Solomon is one of them. She used to be Commissioner of the South Jersey Transportation authority and is married to one of the New Jersey Supreme Court justices. She, in particular, caused me to imagine the parties these folks go to, during which they are approached by other powerful people to do these powerful jobs.

It took me hours to get a small feel for the government of New Jersey. It is big, and Joseph and Diane have a lot to say about whether Governor Murphy’s initiatives result in much action and how fast we can see something happen. I wrote to the assistants of these two commissioners . One did not have info listed but a Facebook group did! Here is what I asked: “What is the most important thing the BPU and you personally are doing in the effort to keep warming at 1.5 degrees or less?” We’ll see what they reply.

Turning

October 26, 2020PoetryRod White

Paul ran away up the forest road
until our voices echoed into the fall
demanding he stop.
Nana labored down the way,
irresistibly tempted to run with his youth.

When Lulu picked up a bright red leaf,
she held it up for inspection,
insisting we stop —
our time suspended in glory,
in gratuitous art, strewn on the Temple floor.

I wanted to climb the fallen trees
to honor how they once stretched to the sky
then came to a stop:
their roots upended in crisp air;
the hole awaiting snow coming to fill the wound.

We thought we might make a root ball home,
roofing the pit to keep out the looming darkness.
But we had to stop
and motor back through the leaf storm
to warm climbs of normality as the world turned.

Adaptation is idolatry. Greed is the idol.

August 24, 2015A life in the Spiritadaptation, Air B&B, Bill Maher, Etsy, greed, Olsen Twins, prophecy, Task Rabbit, UberRod White

Bill Maher says we worship greed. If he ends up being the nation’s prophet, then Jesus-followers need to step up their game. Maher is “one way” the wrong way in so many ways, and belligerently godless as far as I know — but when it comes to greed he is telling the truth. So what is wrong with most of us Christians? — not to mention everyone else! The Bible says:

Be sure of this, that no…one who is greedy (that is, an idolater), has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. (Ephesians 5:5)

Most of the believers I know, would never say that, at least out loud. But Maher did — and colorfully. In a recent commentary he named Greed as an idol.

He starts off with the Olsen twins (an easy target) and the lawsuit brought against them by their unpaid interns — for the privilege of a small chance that rubbing up against the rich will pay off, people will work for free these days. In the case of most Americans, we work for the leavings of the one percent because we believe the spirit that tells us, “That’s the way it is,” or “It’s your only chance” or “It will give you what you want.” The prophet Isaiah asks:

Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy? (Isaiah 55:2)

Maher goes on to say that people should be in the streets protesting, in the unions organizing or at least in the voting booth choosing. But they are not. Instead, they have adapted. They are like the people the prophet Isaiah mocks:

“Come,” they say, “let us get wine; let us fill ourselves with strong drink. And tomorrow will be like today, great beyond measure.” (Isaiah 56:12)

Continue reading Adaptation is idolatry. Greed is the idol. →

Brigid Day — celebrating great women of faith

February 1, 2015The MissionBrigid, faith, mission, womenRod White

February 1 is always a great day to celebrate great women of faith. Thank God for Brigid and for you!

Here are some pieces from the past that celebrate Brigid of Ireland and women like her of today.

2009 — Today Is Saint Brigid’s Day

2014 — Nineteen Flame-tending Women to Start

Advent is a wonderful truckload of “foolishness”

December 1, 2014Doing Theology, Film/TVAdvent, fool, Fox News, jester, Jon Stewart, MummersRod White

Maybe Advent should culminate with a Mummers Parade. Maybe we should reorient the whole season to focus on how crazy it all is and stop cleaning things up. Prophets having visions, John the Baptist in animal skins, Jesus in a manger, foreigners with gifts, baby slaughter, angels, Holy Family displacement and immigration — it is much wilder than a family dinner with grandma and all that exquisitely pretty music, don’t you think?

Fools

Last night I began with convincing people that the prophets of the Old Testament could be considered “fools” — the kind Paul recommends to us when he says: “It seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like those condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to human beings. We are fools for Christ” (1 Corinthians 4:9-10).

Historians dispute some of this, but Shakespeare popularized the idea that part of a king’s entourage in Europe’s included a fool, or a jester (who said things in jest). He could say things in jest because he was a fool. Sometimes the fool had an actual disability, a natural fool. And sometimes he was a licensed fool, a person who had license to say things back to the king or queen that others could not say. For instance, when the French king Philippe VI experienced a great defeat at sea in 1340 his “fool” told him the English sailors “don’t even have the guts to jump into the water like our brave French.” We preserved the memory of these people in our deck of cards (and Batman movies) with the joker.

Foolishness

We also preserve the function of putting all the foolishness on someone or letting all the foolishness out in some way so we don’t have to bear it ourselves. For instance, Philadelphia provides the world with the best Mummers Parade ever. The following video will tell you all about it in the first 5-10 minutes. The government tried to eradicate the racism from the Mummers Parade in the 60’s, with some success. They keep trying to eradicate its spirit with super fancy costumes, but the comic brigades preserve the weirdness and the commentary. It is good foolery.

The best preservation of “the fool” is left to the comedians. I think the best of them is Jon Stewart. He has become the conscience of the ruling class — he is certainly among the one-percent, himself. Fox News is the 50’s; Jon Stewart is the 60’s; the rest of us are amused. But there is the function, however turned into media fodder to feed the subscribers and ignored, that manages to let the truth be told. Here is Stewart, for instance, on Ferguson — mostly talking back to his rival talking heads, but telling truths like only he can.

Many have pointed out that Jesus is the ultimate jester. His whole work is a riddle the rulers cannot solve, unless, of course, they bend their knee to their Ruler. So Paul recommends that we all follow Jesus and learn to appreciate being a conundrum — at least making people wonder what is going on because of what we say and do. If the rulers and the general populace they dominate don’t object to our foolishness, we may not be following Jesus at all! So let’s keep protesting the commodification of our holiday, affirm the fools that keep sticking it to the man, and focus Advent where it belongs: as a celebration of the upside-down kingdom coming and planting itself as our right-side up redemption.

An old story: loving our neighbor on Tenth St.

October 6, 2014The Missionenemy, love, sound ordinance, Tenth and Locust Court of Common PleasRod White

When we first got started as Circle of Hope at Tenth and Locust I was determined to stay under the radar of the Philadelphia authorities until we were established. I did not expect them to understand us, much less love us, and I have been generally right about them.

The authorities

So I was pretty horrified when I showed up late for a concert one night and about six police cars were flashing outside our door! So much for staying under the radar. I think it got too hot in the mosh pit so they opened up all the windows and welcomed the neighbors to enjoy the music. One of the higher up, white-shirt policemen was about ready to go upstairs so I asked him what was going on.

He said, “Who are you?”

I said, “I’m the pastor and this is our church.”

He took a brief look at the building and at me and said, “Like hell you’re a pastor.”

I had to take him upstairs to my office and show him my array of Bibles to convince him that we were, indeed, some distant version of the species called church.

The neighbor

What I did not know then was that we had an irascible neighbor who knew this police officer in the white shirt from way back when they were kids in Kensington. The old man had lived for many years on the third floor next door to an empty space. Our beloved realtor talked a client into renting this empty space to us. We had punk concerts that, admittedly, made about a thousand times more noise than the neighbor had ever experienced. He did not like worship either. It vibrated the paintings on his wall.

Our neighbor called the police every Sunday. I got in the habit of waiting for the officers on the stairs. I invited them to join us.

We finally discovered somehow that we had this enemy next door with nothing to do but torment us. What we did not know then was that his health was deteriorating and he was often alone in his apartment feeling lonely, sick and scared.

The court

We ended up prosecuted in the Court of Common Pleas and convicted by an aggressive assistant D.A. who told the judge she needed to “put the hammer down” on the church or we would never comply. We had a potential fine of $5000 for future infractions of the sound ordinance. We built a sound barrier wall. The city’s sound people came out with their equipment during worship to measure whether the wall solved the problem. They said it did. To be honest, the testers told me they thought our whole situation was dumb. You could sneeze loudly and violate the sound ordinance — besides, it was designed for convertibles with loud radios on South St., not churches. I’m not sure we could have failed with these guys running the test, but we passed.

Back to the neighbor

It has been so long ago now, that someone may have to fill in the details. I remember not long after sitting in court I was sitting in the neighbor’s living room hearing about his back condition and his military service. Then I climbed out his kitchen window onto his roof to fix a drainage problem.

I remember telling people it was rare to get a bonafide enemy to love. People started to take him food periodically and others made a better relationship than I did. I never heard about him pouring hot water out of his window onto people on the sidewalk again. He never poured glue in our locks again. We started missing the weirdness of having the police show up for worship.

Last week during the PM Gwen did a fine job of personalizing the gospel to a man who was a bit drunk and letting his anger get the best of him during talk back. Some elementary kids squeezed in closer to their mothers when he shouted threatening things. Maybe we won’t see a couple of the newcomers again. But someone came up to me afterwards and said, “It was just like the old days!” I hope they meant that we had a good chance to love our enemies, not just talk about how we ought to.

They’ll Pathologize and Medicate the Noncompliance They Surveil

September 9, 2013Doing TheologyBruce E. Levine, corporatocracy, DSM, Michael Nutter, noncompliance, NSA, resistance, Ronald ReaganRod White

What might happen to you if you resist?

What if you said, “Taking on a load of debt in order to participate in normal economic life is foolish! I won’t do it and neither should anyone else!”? What if you said, “Creating an artificial disaster in inner city schools and then blaming it on the unions or the parents instead of the leaders who made the value judgments is wrong! I won’t stand for it, neither should anyone else!”? What might happen?

A lot might happen, and you are probably well-trained to fear it, by now. Here are two more techniques the powers-that-be are using to erode our desire and capacity to resist. You might want to note them.

For one thing, they might outlaw, pychopathologize or medicate your noncompliance.

Ronald Reagan believed that under the Constitution the President has the inherent authority, as the commander in chief, to direct a military intelligence agency (such as the NSA) to intercept enemy communications during wartime or when necessary to protect the national security. The authoritarian snowball got rolling and got even larger when it proceeded into the snowdrift of Bush’s perpetual war on terror and Obama’s threat of a

drone to follow the surveillance trail.

At the same time Americans elected the increasingly authoritarian Reagan, an increasingly authoritarian American Psychiatric Association added to their diagnostic bible (then the DSM-III) some newly-described mental disorders for children and teenagers. The “disorders” focused on disorder, such as the increasingly popular “oppositional defiant disorder” (ODD). The official symptoms of ODD include “often actively defies or refuses to comply with adult requests or rules,” “often argues with adults,” and “often deliberately does things to annoy other people.”

Had he lived in our era, Jesus probably would be medicated in a secret prison rather than publicly crucified. As one of His followers, you should consider what it means that our Bible says things like:

“Rather, we have renounced secret and shameful ways; we do not use deception, nor do we distort the word of God. On the contrary, by setting forth the truth plainly we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:2-4).

Talk about oppositional and defiant! It is at least annoying to denounce the “god of this age” and it is probably against some homeland security regulation to suggest that a citizen should “renounce secret and shameful ways!”

The general population believes in the DSM, even though they’ve never seen one. Science is god and Big Pharma builds suburban temples like Merck just north of Philly to develop devotees to their vision of wholeness. Drug company revenues climbed more than $200 billion between 1995 and 2010. For every dollar spent on research $19 goes toward promotion and marketing. Heavily tranquilizing antipsychotic drugs (e.g. Zyprexa and Risperdal) are now the highest grossing class of medication in the United States ($16 billion in 2010). A major reason for this explosion in sales, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2010, is that many children receiving antipsychotic drugs have nonpsychotic diagnoses such as ODD or some other “disruptive disorder” (this especially true of Medicaid-covered pediatric patients).

The government has created an omnipresence that must be obeyed. The medical establishment has backed it up with diagnoses and a vision of normality. Pharmaceutical companies produce the meds to make children compliant. Christians might like to specialize, like Paul, in saying things that begin with, “On the contrary…”

For another thing, they might drown you in the surveillance of your noncompliance

Everyone thinks surveillance is normal now. We can even spell it. The neighbors along Broad St. are talking about how the police want them to coordinate the cameras on their businesses so no one will be out of sight for very long, if ever. Here’s Mayor Nutter trying to appear “on top of” the matter (see what he says about cameras at about the 3-minute mark).

The fear of being surveilled makes a population easier to control. The National Security Agency (NSA) has received publicity for monitoring American citizen’s email and phone conversations, but we’re over that. Employer surveillance has become increasingly common in the United States and people accept it. It is small wonder that young

Americans have become increasingly acquiescent to corporatocracy surveillance because, beginning at a young age, surveillance is routine in their lives. Parents routinely check websites for their kid’s latest test grades and completed assignments, and just like employers, they monitor their children’s computers and Facebook pages. Some parents use GPS to track the kids’ whereabouts, and other parents have video cameras in their homes. These days it is not unusual to find that young people lack the confidence to pull off a party when their parents are out of town! How much confidence could they have to pull off a resistance movement below the radar of the authorities?

The Christians are in the same condition. You’d think they were still waiting for Jesus to rise from the dead. Before they met him alive after his crucifixion, the first disciples were locked in a room for fear the authorities would find them:

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” (John 20:19).

I think many of the Christians I know are afraid of being psychopathologized just like the rest of the population and are definitely afraid of what the powers that be know about them. They are locked up for fear of the leaders, or just afraid of the unseen forces they sense all around them that are determined to keep them quiet and compliant. But the risen Jesus can still get in the room, despite the authorities and the fear they engender:

Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:21).

From what we know of the first disciples, they received the Spirit even though they were afraid and doubtful. Will the young disciples of today do the same? I keep wondering if the next generation, in general, is already lost to their subjugation. Is resistance dead? I hope that is not true of the Christians, at least. If someone calls us crazy or criminal for following Jesus, that is a good thing. Let them see all they need to see. May we be found by every camera doing what Jesus would do.

Further voices and my previous posts:

Again, thanks to Bruce E. Levine published in alternet.org

Sojourn at the Movies

November 26, 2012A life in the Spirit, Film/TVAnna Karenina, film, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Llanerch Diner, Silver Linings PlaybookRod White

The U.S. embassy in Germany has a nice page on film. On it, they say, “Moving pictures were not an American invention; however, they have nonetheless been the preeminent American contribution to world entertainment.” Do you think that movies are what Americans do best? They are also good at drone warfare, but let’s stay thankful.

I am thankful for the stimulation the movies gave me over the holiday. Gwen and I often see one of the big movies when the distributors begin their winter releases. This time we decided to do it big and we saw four! Each one had some inspiration to offer in one way or another. If you can go to the movies as “play” they can be good for you. When a very young child is first playing with their parents, he or she is learning to discern between imagination and actuality, what is in my mind and what is in an other’s. When we go to the movies, an author, director and crew are telling an artful story. Experiencing the story, imagining what is behind it, and discerning what it all means is a rich experience of mental activity. Of course, if one just experiences the violence, language, sex, and noise in the film, it might be better to skip the sensory oppression. If one just consumes movies and does not relate to them, I’d avoid them.

The movies I saw each had something to say that is very relevant to where I live and to what is happening around me in the quickly-changing social landscape of the United States! It was like going on retreat! Let me tell you about them in the order experienced.

The Life of Pi

I went to see The Life of Pi when Wreck it Ralph was not an option. I was glad I did. I’ve been thinking about it ever since, as Ang Lee no doubt hoped I would. It is a stunningly beautiful film I would watch again without the sound on. I wish I had a more extravagant word than stunning to describe how beautiful. It also has a lot to say — layers and layers to say. But the main thing I took away was about the power of story in the face of the facts. It is a nice piece of rebellion against the rationalists who dominate so much of what is proper and legal in the United States. We all want to love, feel, and forgive, but we are forced to fight over facts, policies and definitions. One’s identity is more than the definition, one’s life is more than what happens.

Lincoln

Lincoln was a revelation in so many ways. I am not a big critic of movies, generally, since I want to relate to them, not critique them. But I know a better one from a worse one, I think. I have to say that I don’t think there is anything wrong with Spielberg’s loving portrayal of St. Abraham. And Tommy Lee Jones as Thaddeus Stevens! One of my friends ran to Amazon immediately to find out about this unknown abolitionist from PA. Some critic said Sally Field was miscast as Lincoln’s troubled wife – poppycock. What I took away was all about leadership. Lincoln had his eye on “true north” and got there in whatever way he could. He seems to have been a master of doing the best with what was available. He learned while others were just defending themselves. And the 13^th Amendment is a good thing. Democracy won’t save us, but let’s celebrate when the righteous last long enough in it to get something good accomplished.

Anna Karenina

I like costume dramas and set direction, so I was looking forward to Anna Karenina. I was not disappointed by the art (although sometimes the artifice was distractingly artificial). “All the world’s a stage” and much of the movie is set on the literal set of an old theater. And Kiera Knightly wears some amazing stuff, when she is clothed. But they just told the story of Anna’s affair without much of the backstory Tolstoy was really talking about! It put me to sleep, literally (but then, so did the book, I admit). It reminded me of some experiences I have had when I am listening to someone and I am quite bored with what they are saying. Most of the time I need to pinch myself and get engaged because they aren’t really doing any inner work. I might need to pinch whatever they are doing so they can wake up. Lord knows that many people I know are totally led around by their lust and unprocessed obsessions, miserable and making other feel the same.

Silver Linings Playbook

I did not really want to go see Silver Linings Playbook. I’d only heard about it from Gwen. Once again, I find out how trustworthy Gwen is! If you love Philly and the people of Philly, this is worth the price of admission. I did not realize it was a great reflection of our fair city. A main scene happens in the Wanamaker building ballroom where I attended a Habitat fundraiser earlier in the year! But what I loved even more, with all my psychotherapy studies this year, was seeing troubled people doing good work and feeling better, plus troubled families managing not to be messed up by the system too much and finding their way home. Even the police are not too bad in this movie! What I took away was some encouragement to go with my best inspiration and let my positive attempts bear fruit. Good things can happen.

My sojourn in the movies turned out to be a good pre-Advent retreat. The incarnation is a great story. Teaching about it and leading through it requires being inventive in the face of an era of change in which people seem to be light on meaning and not so happy with that. I want to hold on to the surprising hope that does not disappoint. We are built for joy and Jesus is the continual spark that allows it to flame.

I think we should not get the drift, at least in a bad way

July 16, 2012Building communitycovenant, peacemaking, Rachel Maddow, radical, Ronald ReaganRod White

The “state” has sucked up the majority of everyone’s allegiance and made the church a private, leisure time matter. That makes our public covenant-making with the people of God a radical, countercultural act. We still think Jesus is Lord and he personally leads a kingdom. On vacation I read a stimulating book that stoked the fires of my covenant convictions. I’ll get to that in a minute. But here’s the gist: I got excited about how it made me think about a piece of our “about making a covenant” teaching that has just become more radical since we started teaching it.

The covenant is a life, not a concept

It should be an obvious teaching — elementary Christianity. In my estimation, it is stating the obvious to teach that a Jesus follower will not be one in name only but will, by nature, demonstrate their covenant with Jesus and His people with some basic activity. In the case of Circle of Hope:

they will obviously be part of our weekly meeting when the community shows herself to the world in worship and truth-telling (1 Cor. 14);
they will obviously be part of a cell where we share our gifts face to face, are given basic care, and share in basic faith dialogue (Acts 20:20);
they will obviously be part of some expression of our mission as part of one of our many teams or, if they are blessed, through their occupation (1 Cor. 2:4);
and they will obviously share their money in our common fund (Acts 2:44).

In our teaching about what it means to make a covenant with real people in real time, we note that we all have resources of spiritual gifts, time, care, and money. We actively put these resources into practice as a part of the body. All this seems like basic Christianity to me. But I think it has become radical. Circle of Hope is a community of activists in a lowest-common-denominator Church and world.

Are most American Christians followers in name only?

I’m coming to the conclusion that American Christians love nominalism; they like being Christians in name only. They are having a tough time right now because the culture changed on them and the nation is less inclined to protect their “freedom” to sit in their Christianity, having it unmolested by any need to exercise it. When Circle of Hope got started, we flourished by picking up a lot of the radicals who could not find a place in a nominalized Church, and a lot of new believers who never found Jesus from knowing inactive Christians. We are still going against the grain. But our capacity is going to be tested in postChristian America. Circle of Hope has also had some freedom to sit. Now we might have to mean what we teach.

The drift away from consensus building

That brings me to my book. I have been reading Rachel Maddow’s Drift. It documents how the presidents have slowly become the sole deciders of when the U.S. goes to war, without the approval of Congress and certainly without the input of us citizens. The book shows how the privatization of what used to be soldiering and the expansion of secret operations has led to perpetual war that is off the radar of the nation. The leaders make sure we aren’t disturbed by war. Maddow is generous enough to say that this was caused by “drift,” not decision, starting with Ronald Reagan and added to by every president since.

I could not help but think that in the same era the BIC leaders have drifted the same direction (and I think that includes a lot of us pastors). They also do more in secret and ask the constituency to trust their advertising. We are not disturbed by our body life. It seems that the BIC started going this direction when people misapplied John Maxwell’s leadership training. I don’t think Maxwell meant to install the “my way or the highway” style that characterizes congressional debate these days. But it got installed. I think the leaders drifted out of what they considered ineffectual consensus-building and into “over-anointed” leadership.

The radicality of covenant

I’m thinking about that drift in relation to maintaining ourselves as a group of activists. What I am working on is that Circle of Hope is growing up in an era where radicals are less likely to float to the top of a placid sea of nominalism and collect as a new, cool church. The sea of the nation and the Church is too stirred up, and the people who lead the nation and church have drifted into an authoritarian style that keeps people from handling too much reality. We might need to really choose to live by faith. We might have to be thoroughly disturbed. Honestly, I am delighted with that challenge. Good trees need to bear good fruit (Matt. 7).

The Jesus way honors us all as crucial “members of the body.” Our way of life as Circle of Hope demands that we act on the reality of our life in Christ – at least that is what we teach. We are going against the grain when we insist that we all make a difference, not just the leaders, in a world where Occupy sputters into distrust and ineffectiveness, and we don’t take to the streets when the president fights secret, debt-exploding wars that no one is required to pay for while the bankers run us into the ground economically with impunity. It is good to go against the flow if the flow is going down the spiritual drain.

When the thirty-or-so people showed up to consider making a covenant with us the other night, they were exploring something that has become even more radical than when we imagined it. Imagine! – people who would consider coming right out in the public, as it is now, and pledging their allegiance to Jesus and his people in a way that is not just in their secret thoughts but in their hands and feet and relationships, in a way that impacts their loves and their finances. That’s not a surprising thing in the Bible, perhaps, but it seems rather rare these days.

Development

Rod White on following Jesus into wholeness

All posts by Rod White

Fridays for the Future #2 – Running into the commissioner

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Top Ten Posts for 2020

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Turning

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Adaptation is idolatry. Greed is the idol.

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Brigid Day — celebrating great women of faith

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