Sherry Chandler

Brian McLaren, author of Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope had this to say recently at the TPM Café bookclub discussion:

…those of us who are Christians have too often lost the plot of the Bible and the life of Jesus.

…

It’s as if religious people, among whom I guess I would be counted, have got a boxful of puzzle pieces (the stories and verses of the Bible), but somebody switched lids on us so we’re trying to assemble them according to the wrong picture. As a result, we read the Bible and articulate our faith primarily as an answer to the question, “How do we get individual souls into heaven after we die?” Instead, I’ve become convinced that the primary question that lies behind the Biblical text, and the life of Jesus, is more like this: The world is in a mess because of human ignorance, greed, lust, pride, bigotry, injustice, and so on. What is God doing, and what can we do, in response?

…

So, working from the puzzle-lid they’ve been given, many religious folk, when they enter the public arena, predictably crusade about primarily personal sexual issues and tend to ignore systemic issues like institutional racism, economic injustice, militarism, and environmental plundering. And that infuriates – rightly, I would say – progressive people who see how important these social and systemic issues are. They resent – rightly, I would say – the implication that the religious people are “moral” and “values-oriented,” when really, the progressives are no less concerned about morality and values: it’s just that they’re tending to focus on more social and systemic dimensions of morality.

But if “religious people” have got off track a bit, according to McLaren, so have those who are secular:
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The Franfort Chapter of CodePink is sponsoring an Amnesty International Global Write-a-Thon tomorrow morning 9:30 - 11:30 at the Kentucky Coffeetree Café, 235 West Broadway.

The stories of people imprisoned around the world for their beliefs or writings will be available at an Amnesty International Write-a-Thon. The Write-a-Thon will be sponsored by the Frankfort chapter of CodePink: Women for Peace, which will provide materials and case studies for letter-writing. International stamps can be purchased there or brought to the event.

Participants will be able to buy coffee or pastries from the cafe as they write letters to authorities about prisoners of conscience or send cards to prisoners designated for a special card action each December.

The cases of people imprisoned for the peaceful expression of their beliefs are investigated by Amnesty International, which provides background information and addresses of government officials and embassies. Letters written in prisoners’ behalf have saved lives and often resulted in releases after world attention is focused on them, the organization says.

Very Early in the Morning

Indians and sailors
walk our street,

neither greatly improved
by drink.

The Indians stalk
like tall cats

passing our garden.
Good morning, I say.

They don’t look back.

              My children gawk.

— from A is for Anne: Mistress Hutchinson Disturbs the Commonwealth, A Narrative Poem by Penelope Scambly Schott (Turning Point, 2007). Reprinted by permission of the author.

["Very Early in the Morning" is one section of Schott's booklength poem about Anne Hutchinson. In this episode, she has just come to Massachusetts Bay Colony from England. More samples from the poem can be read here.]