It's Impossible To Separate Our Contemporary Practice

When I Think Of Some Of The Great Renewals In The Church I Think Of Folks Like St. Francis And Clare Of Assisi Who, Through Their Lifestyle, Were Challenging The Patterns Of Materialism And Militarism And It Affected The Christianity Of Their Age.

Karl Barth Said It Well: "we Have To Read The Bible In One Hand... And The Newspaper In The Other." Our Faith Should Not Cause Us To Escape This World But To Engage It.

With The Early Christians You Couldn't Have God As Your Father Unless You Have The Church As Your Mother. This Isn't Accepting The Church As A Perfect Thing.

There Are Some  -  called 'death Fatigue'  -  people Who Just Grow So Tired Of Death, So They Don't Want To Keep Perpetuating Death And Creating More Victims And More Anger And More Pain. They Want To Heal From That, And I Think That's Exactly What God Wants To Do. And, Interestingly Enough, That's Part Of What God's Original Law Was Doing With The 'eye For An Eye' Thing. It Was Actually To Limit The Patterns Of Retaliation And Then To Begin To Heal From That.

The Early Christians Felt A Deep Collision With The Empire In Which They Lived, And With Politics As Usual. They Carelessly Crossed Party Lines And Built Subversive Friendships. And We Should Do That Too.