Dear Brothers and Sisters in the Spirit,
The recent rancor in our political system has left me longing for a better system, for a way to be more engaged in supporting a constructive process of dialogue rather than just throwing my hands up in anxiety and anger.
So Steve and I have been at Camp Mechuwana this week in Maine with former Congressman Bob Edgar and current President of Common Cause, a political organization founded by Republicans in the 1970 working to hold power accountable.
Our homework assignments each night included Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr’s speech at Riverside Church in New York, April 4, 1967, to lay and clergy concerned about war, explaining the Christian reasoning for standing up for peace. In “Beyond Vietnam–A Time to Break Silence”, King warns against the “Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them” – it is not just.
Here is the true meaning and value of compassion and nonviolence: when it helps us to see the enemy’s point of view, to hear his questions, to know his assessment of ourselves. For from his view we may indeed see the basic weakness of our own condition, and if we are mature, we may learn and grow and profit from the wisdom of the brothers who are called the opposition.
We also read evangelical pastor Jim Wallis’ work, The Soul of Politics: A Practical and Prophetic Vision for Change.
Deep in the American soul exists the conviction that politics and morality are integrally related. But why do our efforts to connect them always feel like mixing oil and water? Today, many doubt that politics can be moral anymore. But others are already intuiting the need for a new kind of politics based on a renewed moral perspective. We need a politics that offer us something we haven’t had in a long time: a vision of transformation. A new sense of direction will require a moral compass we can trust. . . . Dare we seek the conversion of politics itself? What many today are trying to find is the soul of politics.
Finally we read from Bob Edgar’s book Middle Church: Reclaiming the Moral Values of the Faithful Majority from the Religious Right whose purpose is to
awaken the conscience of average, ordinary, common folks within the United States to do above-average, extraordinary, and uncommon things to insure a future for our fragile planet. I am attempting to give people hope that we still have time to change our attitudes and retool our thinking, to restore and recover what our founders had in mind when they shaped our Constitution and Bill of Rights. . . . The faithful majority must have the courage to confront their government when it makes bad decisions and have enough confidence in their own judgement not to believe unquestioningly the “expert” political leaders [or I would add media commentators], who most Americans assume know more than they do. My goal is to challenge them to read deeply their entire religious texts, to discover God’s prophetic call to all of humanity, and to work collaboratively and be faithful stewards of our limited resources.
Bob encouraged us to vote with conscience but also to be engaged in the process between elections. He has been arrested five times for civil disobedience, most recently a couple weeks ago during a pray-in for a more just resolution to the national debt discussion at the rotunda. He reminded us that Jesus was active in civil disobedience – Jesus wanted powers to be responsive to people and he was willing to break the law (in those days it was “churchy” law). This Sunday, the lectionary Old Testament lesson (Exodus 1) is one of my favorites and it’s an act of civil disobedience by those with little power but who risk standing up for the helpless and the foreigner.
Shalom,
Pastor Kelly
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