A New Reformation
As Jim Wallis wrote recently A great deal is at stake in this battle for the heart and soul of faith in America and for the nation's future itself. We will not allow faith to be put into the service of one political agenda.
This is a call for the rest of the churches to wake up. This is a call for people of faith everywhere to stand up and let their faith be heard.
This is not a call to be just concerned, or just a little worried, or even just alarmed. This is a call for clear speech and courageous action. This is a call to take back our faith, and in the words of the prophet Micah, "to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with our God."
Inherent in Wallis's and our own rhetoric needs to be an understanding that Christian comportment remain consistent with those particular ideals upon which Jesus' life and words are based. Wallis also stated that We must not demonize or vilify those who are our opponents. We must claim that those who disagree with our judgments are still real people of faith. We must not fight the way they do, but fight we must.
We ought never to forget that in advocating for how we believe Jesus meant for us to lead lives modeled after Him, that those with whom we disagree are advocating for the same thing and the difference is in doctrine and form.
Which brings us to this new on-going Reformation-in-Progress and the nature of the reforming seems to be a matter of perspective.
On the one hand, traditional Christian conservatism is experiencing - from a minority element within - a push for more radical political and social applications of what appears to be a somewhat redefined theology that hearkens more to the autocratic punitive-God-sense of the Old Testament. This minority, despite it's insistence that it is the voice of conservative Christianity, is not that voice and does not represent the majority.
That minority seems opposed to the God-of-compassion that most of us grew up understanding as Jesus' most powerful social impact on the Israel of His time. In combination with the theology around Atonement and Redemption, Jesus offered a practical means for letter-of-the-law human beings to transition into a compassionate and forgiving society, liberated - at least spiritually- from the either/or governance of God as managed by Jewish leadership and either/or
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