Mark Moore on Pacifism

Pacifism is not a spineless resignation—it is a deliberate methodology which calls attention to the injustices of this world. Pacifism is not quiet or nice—it is deliberately aggressive ideologically while refusing any right to retaliation; it deliberately provokes response (often violent) to force the "enemy" to put all his cards on the table for the watching world to witness.

If you have not seen the video of police at the Republican National Convention last week brutally attack a peaceful protester as she is visibly attempting to surrender to arrest then you might not have the context to understand why a principled, reasoned explanation of Christian pacifism is so necessary.

Please visit Mark Moore's Post to read the entire context of the quote above.

Lent:: Palm Sunday Politics

One of the most intriguing stories in the Bible is the sheer mystery of the Passion Week. In a period of 5 days Jesus goes from a celebrated entrance to a despised death. As our churches celebrate Palm Sunday, we are forced to reckon with the realities that take us from Sunday to Thursday.
As Jesus rode into Jerusalem the crowd crowned him with adoration. By Friday morning, he would be paraded through these same streets with detestation.

I am leading the Bible Class with our teens this morning. Our focus is what happened in those 4 days? How did Jesus' political message change a people's entire view of his Kingdom? Why was His Kingdom so terrifying to the powers that be that he had to die?

We are looking at the power of earth's kingdom compared to the power of the Kingdom of God. Rather than detail this thought for you in text, I invite you to read through my class outline, and come to your own conclusions.

The Non-Violence of Christ

I was asked to teach the teens at church last night. I wanted to honor the memory of Martin Luther King Jr, by looking at Christ and Non-Violence. I based stole most of the material for the class from William Willimon and a sermon series by Rob Bell (who I think stole from Willimon). I also got some other reference material from various web sources. I did not Bibliography since it was for a teen class.

What I love about Christ is he exposes the foolishness of violence and pacifism. He demonstrates the very essence of the message of redemption in providing a structure to claim one's dignity in conflict. In the cross Christ showed amazing strength and yet was nonviolent.

I challenged the kids to understand that Jesus' strength was in his commitment to redemption of the human condition.

You can view my class notes here