Progress - CBB Moving!

Find new updates of CBB at www.christiansbehaving.wordpress.com
Thank you for your interest in this blog, and enjoy the new features including timed posting (which will mean more regular posts) and categorized postings!

Power Over vs. Power Under

Just read Randy Bohlender's blog - his commentary hits it on the head concerning the wave of uber-sensitive over-reaction to an often insensitive and arrogant church history. Randy is a prayer missionary now and has done a lot of servant-evangelism-type work in Cincinati and at the Burning Man pagan festival. I really like his perspectives.

Read on here.

Minimum Wage

Just got this from the Sojourner's listserv. The logic struck me kind of weird though, from the perspective of someone who once earned minimum wage after receiving a Bachelor's degree, read on...

"As a person of faith, I believe that people who work hard and play by the rules should not be living in poverty.I ask that you vote in favor of legislation to raise the minimum wage to at least $7.25 an hour, and to oppose any "poison pill" provisions that would weaken existing minimum wage eligibility, overtime protections, or other labor laws. A job should keep you out of poverty, not in it! A raise in the minimum wage rewards work, and will lift countless families out of poverty.Thank you for your time."

Uh... $7.25 / hour still sounds like poverty to me! It gets you about $14,500/year, vs. about $10,300/year.

While this is a very significant raise, you need to earn perhaps closer to the upper $20K range to be out of "poverty", but that doesn't mean you can ever hope to buy a home apart from Habitat or a subsidy program.

My point is that this raise of nearly 50% won't take anyone out of poverty, but the argument from the other side of the table is that it will handcuff employers from being able to hire more people, since people will cost at least 50% more money to hire.

I think it's a great thing to try to eliminate poverty but the Sojourner's haven't gone far enough! We should lobby for a $18/hr minimum wage if we are serious about ending poverty...

Dear N,
Call representative your today at (202) 224-3121...

Demand an increase in the minimum wage to at least $7.25/hour
Last month when more than 600 Christians passionate about social justice came to Washington to demand an increase in the minimum wage as part of A Covenant for a New America, we knew good things were starting to happen.

So far this year, 192 House members have asked for a vote to raise the minimum wage to $7.25, and just two weeks after the Covenant launch, 28 Republicans urged their leadership to hold a vote to increase the minimum wage this month. We and countless others have put on so much pressure to demand fair wages that later today, the House of Representatives is expected to vote on an increase to the minimum wage.

After you call, forward this message to 10 friends who share your values.The vote could happen in the next several hours, so time is of the essence!

The latest New York Times/CBS poll finds that more than 85 percent of respondents supported raising the minimum wage over the next two years to $7.25 an hour from $5.15 an hour...

Peace and Blessings,
The Sojourners/Call to Renewal Policy and Organizing Team

Another Sojourners Retort

Saw this letter to the editor from one Greg Turner. There may not be too much hope in his tone, but he puts the finger on the humanistic optimism that seems to characterize the rising Religious Left.

Anyone who thinks the middle east conflicts can be solved by talk doesn't understand the nature of the conflicting ideologies of fundamentalist Islam and orthodox Judeo-Christianity.

I will add in my opinion that moderate / compromized persons of both stripes can get along just peachy, since they have learned the "higher virtues" of tolerance/apathy. I'm not naive enough to think that fundamentalists of either stripe can solve their problems on paper. I wish it could be, but I'm not that naive.

Anyway, here is Greg's letter:

***
Greg Turner writes from Denver, Colorado:

Jim Rice toes the usual Sojourners line with his idealistic dream of praying for more understanding leadership in the Middle East war. Jim - do you not understand that the fundamentalist Shiite Muslims seek to destroy Christian culture? We can pray until Armageddon and these people are NOT going to change. Benjamin Netanyahu noted that Shiite fundamentalists do not want money nor territory, but the total destruction of the West. Israel is indeed surrounded by many who seek to destroy them, and are thus justified in doing whatever necessary to keep the enemies at bay.

I believe in the Sojourners view on many social issues regarding poverty, immigration, etc. But this endless turn-the-other-cheek stance regarding the proper response to military and terrorist threats is completely self-defeating. Read your Old Testament, Mr. Rice. There is much there to illustrate the proper way to deal with unrepentant enemies.

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Introducing Church-O-Rama

Church-O-Rama

A couple months ago I wrote:

I am detecting moderate "vision drift" for this blog. Originally intended as a place to discuss relating to persons outside the faith from a concilliatory viewpoint, recent discussions have centered around my mild angst with a certain magazine publisher.

The solution is to spawn other blogs with differing foci, thus enabling a self-indulgent ability to rant about things while doing it in the proper category. Look for more at some point in the future.

Viewer, that point in the future is NOW!


CHURCH-O-RAMA

the ChurchOrama blog is where I now impose all opinions and prognostications regarding current church issues based on some of my experiences. That means that CBB blog will be relatively free of that category. COR is the place to go for ministry-related opinions from yours truly.

Stay tuned for other potential future blogs...

Bono Fatigue

I caught this the other day:

http://www.bonofatigue.com

This site is really quite funny. I still don't believe it's not trumped up - the comments are just too much! Really put its finger on the Bono phenominon and its effect musically, politically, religiously, and socially.

Bono... I went to such a church that celebrated Bono during his G8 summit days, especially before this when he first went on a church tour to promote such admirable and needed causes as 3rd world debt forgiveness and helping the poor.

I have been thinking about posting about Bono for awhile and here it goes...

Pro-Bono

- God can indeed use unlikely people to say unexpected things
- Genuine social concern is godly, ever hear of the beatitudes?
- Rock stars usually are not concerned with social welfare
- God seems to enjoy using rock stars and others who are offensive to religious types
- It takes a rock star to make many materialistic Americans concerned about poverty
- The guy can write darn good rock & roll, much of it from an agreeable worldview

Anti-Bono

- God can indeed use unlikely donkeys to say unexpected things
- Suffers from acute potty-mouth during live performances
- You never get bad press when you talk about helping the poor
- Buys into a philosophy which equates societal disapproval of "alternative" sexual behavior with historical oppression based on poverty, race, and creed.
- Occasionally propogates such beliefs from cultural bully pulpit to an adoring media
- Who wouldn't want to have a rock star's influence and use it for the common good?
- Enjoys immunity from a sympathetic press corps while Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham & others are demonized due to a less politically correct message despite good works for the poor.
- Money given in sincerity can alas be hoarded, misspent, or used by corrupt groups for their own purposes or for objectionable agendas that "help" via abortion, etc...

My conclusion:

It is pretty obvious to me that many of my anti-Bono rationales are laced with various degrees of jealousy and perhaps religious pride (gasp!). He seems to have been granted free license by his circumstance and by the press, while more right-wing type figureheads are vilified.

For now, I'm going to pray for his potty-mouth and thank God that he's trying to help people. I am stoked that he is trying to make a difference other than writing songs glorifying lust, greed, and violence, and step back for awhile, wait, and see.

As for judgments concerning the character and motives of Bono, I'm officially neutral. How about you?

Vote Pro-Bono or Anti-Bono in comments.

Call to Renewal

I found an enjoyable page today off the recent Sojourners' Call to Renewal conference. Jim Wallis and his associates put together this conference on helping the poor and other things. What is impressive to me is that besides the usual left leaning speakers such as Obama, Clinton, etc, they also allowed right leaning senators to come also. This scores a point with me.


I'll go on record as stating my substantial reluctance to this particular group. Wallis' tv appearances have been conciliatory and even likable at times. Batstone is a different matter... I dislike most (unfortunately just about everything) of what I read of his.

I have no idea what sort of doctrinal statement the Sojourners have. I doubt they have one since many of their readers' comments seem to have no holistic understanding of scripture beyond the old testament prophets' writings. I can't explain how one can stand up for the poor while ignoring and perpetuating Margaret Sanger's systematic genocide of "undesired" racial groups via "family planning" and pregnancy termination. I cannot fathom how they could champion the rights of the poor without acknowledging those who don't own their own life, and then chide the rest of us on opposing various forms of infanticide as well as the issue of children doing best within a heterosexual family with a mother and a father. I want to believe the best for this group and their leaders and not be some sort of accuser, but it can be very difficult and you may think I crossed that line already.

Anyhow, 2 rather brave senators actually showed up and gave admirable speeches to the crowd, even drawing some applause. Kudos to senators Santorum & Brownback... that takes some bravery. Politics TV taped their 15 minute speeches and you may access them here. If you would prefer to listen to senators Clinton and Obama you can access them there as well.