Author Archives: Jarrod McKenna

voting for Jesus (today!)

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Jarrod McKenna

Jarrod McKenna’s Wednesday’s with Gandhi:

“Those who say religion has nothing to do with politics understand neither.” -Mohandas K. Gandhi

“God will judge you for what you did today!!!”

If phone text messages could yell, I think this one I received might have been screaming. It was clear, not just from this sentence but the whole message (which I will not repeat) that this brother or sister (Identity withheld under the “I’m not being a fantastic witness” protection program) wanted to ‘open up a can of correction’ on me. What provoked this responce? The day of the last election we had in Australia I sent the following message to friends on my mobile phone:

“G’day, was think that while many don’t care about today, maybe if we live today for “the least of these”,  the poor and the marginalised, today could be an act of worship. Grace and peace, Jarrod.”

While it sparked some amazing conversations with people who aren’t Christians, it really upset this one Christian. Another friend message back:

“So I guess you’re voting for [insert party]? :)”

I replied,

“Who’s talking about voting for a party? I’m just talking about daily following Jesus. :)”

Political options in Australia: Howard, Rudd or… Jesus?

Jesus as a political option

Both major parties in Australia are kissing more than babies in the hope of votes. In an interesting twist it looks like political parties are “finding religion”, in the faith that this move will find them votes.  As the political master minds are plotting how to capture the Christian imagination to win their vote at the next election, I wonder what would happen if the church had it’s imagination captured by the politics of a suffering servant that saves not through tickling ears, the way of the sword, scapegoating others or by enforcing what is ‘right’ on others. Rather who saves through the suffering love of a crucified God.  I wonder what would happen if we would let the Holy Spirit empowered the church to live the politics of the kingdom of heaven instead of in our own power seeking to be ‘a force for influence’ in running the violent kingdoms of this world?I’m not talking about retreating into a holy huddles and letting the world go to hell. While Ammon Hennacy words ring in my ears, “When choosing the lesser between two evils people often forget they still chose evil”, I must admit I’m a “lapsed-Christian-anarchist” and I do vote. But I don’t think voting is my primary form of ‘political engagement’.

My political engagement happens daily living as church in community, by housing those without a home, hanging out and making food for local kids without a meal, welcoming refugees to live in our home, visiting people in prison, growing food in the garden, getting to work on my skateboard and bus, teaching the practicalities of nonviolence. And other ways God lets our lives be a megaphone of amazing grace despite the fact we’re cracked vessels (or crackpots!) 

We are to be ‘in the world but not of the world’.   So what are we to be of?  We are to be of the way of Jesus. The way of the kingdom of God.  The politics of grace.  The politics of generosity. The politics a new age where it’s not the rich but the poor who are blessed. The politics of the ministry of reconciliation. The politics of the weightier matters of law. The politics of the trust of the birds of the air and the lilies of the field.  The politics of forgiveness.  The politics of peacemaking.  The politics of hungering and thirsting for the healing justice of God. The politics of sharing so ‘no one is in need’.  The politics of being a colony of heaven. The politics of seeking first God’s Reign (or kingdom) in all things.  For the early church, you could look at their life and see their politics, see who they were ‘voting for’ as their authority.  Thier words and lives spoke a different politics to the violent ruler Cesar being Lord (maybe the closest thing we have today is Prime Minister) but the crucified and risen Jesus.  Maybe the early Christians today wouldn’t say “Jesus is Lord”. Maybe they’d say, “The nonviolent Jesus of the Scriptures is Prime Minister. Come and join us in community where we can daily vote for him with our lives!”

  • For the early Christians politics wasn’t a personal decision alone in a polling both. It was a communal practice with your sisters and brothers as you together lived as church. The community of God’s grace-filled alternative to the ways of greed, lust, oppression, violence, fear and exploitation.

five people you meet in heaven the dvd download

And while many want to say Amen to the above the question comes ‘how’ do we do that. Politics classically isn’t about just who’s in ‘government’ but  how, (or the way) groups interact, organize and make decisions. (I think this is important to remember not just to keep democracy healthy but to keep church healthy! ) For the early Christians the only way you witnessed to Jesus being the Way is by living the Way (or ‘politics’) of Jesus.  By seeking the Spirit’s empowerment to live a Christ-like life, AS A COMMUNITY. To live lives that speak of God’s great clean up of creation that God has started uniquely in Jesus.

This is where I think Gandhi can be the greatest assistance to Christians today. In showing us that being obedient to Jesus is not only faithful, it’s effective in bringing real and lasting transformation.  For those that think our only options is retreating into holly huddles or alternatively those who seek to put in power a Christian version of the Ayatollah to kneecap everyone so that “every knee bows” (Calvin and others have tried it), Gandhi shows us, as Martin Luther King puts it, “Jesus gave us the means, Gandhi showed it was possible.”

Gandhi freed a nation from the biggest superpower of his day without a militia, without weapons, without running for parliament or holding a political position. How?  By the sheer force of his character that had become obedient to Jesus teachings in the Sermon on the Mount.  The politics of love are practical. Oddly enough I think Gandhi as a Hindu had a better understanding of the Christian paradigm for political engagement than most Christians seem to! The Christian paradigm is found at Calvary while trusting in resurrection power.  For it’s impossible to take up our cross and take up the ways of coercion at the same time.

Oh… for those who are interested I agree with the person who sent me the text, God will “judge [me] for what [I’ve] done”. And after reaching out and trying to hear where they’re coming from and offering to meet with them, pray with them and study the bible with them I told them I agreed:

“I too think God will judge me.  And in Matthews gospel, chapter 25 the criteria seems pretty clear. 🙂 ”

 

Blasphemy & Missional Solidarity

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Jarrod McKenna

Jarrod McKenna’s Wednesday’s with Gandhi:

“My experience tells me that the Kingdom of God is within us, and that we can realise it not by saying, “Lord, Lord,” but by doing God’s will and God’s work… Do you know that there are thousands of villages where people are starving and are on the brink of ruin? If we would listen to the voice of God, I assure you we would hear God say we are taking God’s name in vain if we do not think of the poor and help them.  If you cannot render the help that they need, it is no use talking of service of God and service of the poor. Try to identify yourself with the poor by actually helping them.”

–Mohandas Gandhi, (March 31, 1927) from “Mohandas Gandhi: Essential Writings” by John Dear, p. 81

 

I don’t think there would be many who would argue that as Christians we can affirm with Gandhi that “we are taking God’s name in vain if we do not think of the poor and help them.”

And while Radiohead’s fans are excited the bands been thinking creatively about questions of economics and how they distribute there next album, what does that look like in our lives as God’s people? (economics and justice that is, not so much our next album distribution) Does it look different from the bands PR exercise (not that I’m not stoked Radiohead are letting me decide what to pay for their next album!)

What does it look like to move from ‘church charity’ run by some sweet old ladies, to being ecclesia of missional solidarity?  (not to disrespect radical nannas everywhere doing awesome stuff!)

For you or your community what does ‘doing God’s will’ when it comes to ‘the least of these’ look like? What are you inspired by, that it might look like? What do you long for it to look like?

Our crew have really struggled with this stuff. I don’t mean struggle in the noble sense. I mean struggle in the sense of it being bloody hard! Nearly as hard as living with each other 🙂  And like much of our life as community, it’s left us with not much to show other than some colourful (and painful) stories and a burning desire for God, for healing, for justice, for the kingdom and an awareness of our own brokenness and sin. Should we all move overseas to the slums we have only visited with our expensive cameras? Should we all just join UNOH?  What does it mean to practice hospitality when you’re continually stolen from, physically threatened and taken advantage of?  When all you’re left with is their used needles, hardcore porn, broken promises, and debt. When you show up in court to support them but they dont. When you’re dumped with other people’s toddlers for days on end while they get high and you have to decided do you ring DCD and your only comfort is the lament of the Psalmist and your sisters and brothers prayers. Only to find out that our parts of the body of Christ are bagging you out without praying for you or seeking to correct or encourage you. Please don’t hear me writting these things out of bitterness. I write as a brother struggling with what “actually helping them” (as Gandhi put it) looks like (anybody else?).  Sometimes I come out of visiting in prison and just feel like crying for a day. Maybe these are the stories we need to tell too aswell as the times we come out feeling totally inspired.

Recently I was contacted by a pastor (of what most would consider a successful mainstream church), who had opened up his home to someone who had lived on the streets for years. This Pastor wanted to talk through the heart ache of seeing someone throw away the opportunities offered to him because he was stuck in cycles he couldn’t break out of. Maybe these stories are as important to share as the “success stories”? Maybe these are the stories that can ween us of the quick fixes and easy answers that we can so often hear to our worlds deepest problems. Maybe if we told these ones too we’d celebrate God’s transforming grace all the more! And real joy would truely be our strength.

Some of our crew were recently hanging out with a similar community to us in the States called ‘The Simple Way’. The Simple Way have a huge public influence through the success of Shane Claiborne’s wonderful book “The Irresistible Revolution” (which I highly recommend!!)  But we were joking if we were to write a book it would be “A how [not] to” (shout outs to Pete Rollins who I also highly recommend!!!!).  Maybe our book would be called ‘The Resistible Revolution’ or ‘The Very Resistible Revolution’. 🙂

So for those of us who believe James 2:15-16 is part of the inspired Scriptures what does this look like in a world where 3 billion of God’s children live on less than 2 dollars a day?

Who are a good example of an alternative?  Is Gandhi a good example?  Is St. Francis of Assisi? Is our Lord? (Seriously!) If we say they are (or if we say ‘Jesus is Lord’) what does that look like for us as the church practically?  Who are the communities or people who inspiring you to see Christ glorified in the churches response to  poverty and ‘affluenza’? What churches in your city have encouraged you in the journey by their witness?

Anybody else need to voice failed efforts 🙂 Prayerfully reading the quote from Gandhi, what does God stir in you?

Son of God?

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Jarrod McKenna

Jarrod McKenna’s Wednesday’s with Gandhi:

 

 

“Jesus expressed, as no other could, the spirit and the will of God. It is in this sense that I see him and recognise him as the Son of God.”

–Gandhi, (October 1941) from “Mohandas Gandhi: Essential Writings” by John Dear, p. 79

How does Gandhi’s understanding of ‘Son of God’ sit with you?

I don’t think Gandhi was talking about the “hypostatic union” of the Father and the Son. I don’t think Gandhi had in mind the fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon considering the two natures of the Son of God. Nor did Gandhi have the Sixth Ecumenical Council in Constantinople and it’s discussion of, not just the two natures, but the two wills of the Son of God.

But in fairness to Gandhi, nor does the average evangelical Christian. While I don’t want to take away from any of the important spiritual lessons that can be learnt from studying the “Councils”, I’d like to suggest it’d be fruitful to consider what another non-Christian probably meant by “Son of God” and what the Apostle Paul meant in context.

The Unnamed Soldier

We don’t know his name. And there is little recorded about him. What we do know: He was a solider who’s job declared “good news”. The Good News of the ‘Son of God’ bringing salvation and justice to the world because he is now Lord of the whole world and calls for our allegiance. I know what your thinking,

“Jarrod, I thought you said he wasn’t a Christian?”

He’s not.

CaesarThat’s the language used by the fastest growing religion in Jesus’ day, the Cult of Caesar. The ‘Cult of Caesar’ announced Caesar as Divine and provided the spirituality for the Empire’s invasion, colonisation, oppression and continual domination. This unnamed soldiers job was his spiritual act of worship, to oversee the brutal and public humiliation of those who would challenge the hegemonic control of the world by it’s true Lord and Son of God, Caesar, the Roman Emperor. The Empire did this through Caesar’s saving methods, means, politics, ethics and spirituality; VIOLENCE. In particular for this centurion, his job was overseeing the violence of crucifixion which made a spectacle of would be revolutionaries that would challenge Caesar as Divine Ruler of the world.

Yet, one Friday the politics, ethics, spirituality and allegiance of this centurion of the oppressive Empire did a radical life changing back-flip. As Mark Gospel records it chapter 15:37-39:

With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last.

The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.

And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, heard his cry and saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!”

“SON OF GOD?!” These words are not in the mouth of a Jew referring to the rich Jewish imagination associated with this term; the real King of Israel, the real liberating anointed leader (messiah). These words are instead in the mouth of someone who as a Roman Centurion knew the term “Son of God” to refer to his violent political leader, Caesar.

Yet, after maybe watching the death of thousands via crucifixion, something about the cry and the way this nonviolent messiah died, brought him to a conclusion that still threatens the heart of violent empires everywhere (including Burma this week). In this bloodied dying revolutionary he had seen and heard real power. Real leadership. Real sovereignty. Real divinity. The real ruler. The ‘Son of God’ that instead of ruling with violence would expose the “comic backfire” of violence and the structures which have institutionalised it’s reign, making a spectacle of it and triumphing over it “by the cross.” (Colossians 2:15)

Tom wrightAs N.T. Wright has said,

“A close comparison of the “good news” of the Caesar cult with Paul’s words shows that Romans is, among other things, a deliberate parody of the [violent] pagan message. Paul’s readers in Rome must have understood this, and he must have intended them to. Paul’s ideas do not derive from the Caesar cult, as some have suggested; they confront it.”

The Apostle Paul is not, as some liberal theologians have argued, (and sadder still, some evangelicals practice), lifting his ideas from the cult of Caesar worship in an act of political vasectomy to neutralise and hellenise a Judaism that would bow the knee to the Empire’s violent agenda. Instead the Apostle Paul is practicing the nonviolent ‘spiritual jujitsu’, (to nick Wink’s term), that Jesus taught to subvert the language Empire (and it’s spirituality of domination and violence) to expose and undermine it.

The early church, filled with the Holy Spirit, did just that and it often cost them there lives. Much like the unarmed actions of the Buddhist monks in Burma this week, the early church showed a fearlessness in the face of the rebellious principalities and powers. Yet unlike the monks and their brave actions (which I admire deeply) where not simply fueled by the desperation of the situation but by the resurrection of the Son of God; the dawning of God’s nonviolent dream for creation. Unquestionably they understood the cross to be what God has done for us, empowering us to “put away the sword” and to take up the cross as our way of defeating evil (as seen in the early churches refusal to fight wars for first three centuries of Christianity).

Tragically today we even have church leaders who accuse those who challenge the hijacking of Christianity in service the diabolical exploitation of God’s good earth and the poor as ‘twisting the Scriptures’. That accuse those who are calling the church to obey Jesus Christ and therefore love our enemies like he did, (through the way of costly love NOT the way of ‘smart bombs’ and preemptive strikes) of distorting Jesus for our own agenda.

I wonder if the challenge of a pagan solider at the cross of Jesus, the courageous unarmed Buddhist monks in Burma and the context of the Apostle Paul’s writing, will be enough for us to see how often we have made “Son of God” mean less than, (as Gandhiji put it), “Jesus expressed, as no other could, the spirit and the will of God”. More than that, I wonder if the Scriptures will be enough for Christians to believe like the early Church did that Jesus is not less than the Messiah, God incarnate, God revealed fully to be Love.

And calls us to live in ways that reflect such a love as revealed in Jesus.

here is one small way you can support the Burmese Protestors 

Plans for Sunday arvo?

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If people in Perth were looking for ways to make peace and praise practical this Sunday you’re welcome to join us Peace Tree crew for the Gulu Walk.

“Every morning and every night the children of Northern Uganda walk for their LIVES. We’re walking to tell their story.”

Not sure what that is? Please click here to view the video about what you can do for the “Invisible Children”.

Date – 23rd September 2007 (Sunday)

Time

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– 2.30pm with a 3pm start

Where – We are meeting at Beaufort Park in Bedford. It is on the corner of Beaufort St and Drummond St.

Walk – The walk will begin at Beaufort Park in Bedford, go along Beaufort St through Bedford, Inglewood, Mt Lawley, Northbridge and then back up to Mt lawley again. The walk will conclude at the ASeTTS building near the corner of Beaufort St and Brisbane St. There is a map of the walk with distance times located on our website.

Walk Length – the walk is approximately 7kms. Depending on your walking speed, the walk will take roughly 1.5 – 2 hours.

Cost – The event is FREE

Registation – Please register at guluwalkperth@gmail.com The number of attendees in the subject line of an email is fine..

Entertainment – At both the beginning and the end of the walk there will be various forms of entertainment. At 2.30pm we have Afrotonics, a drum and dance group, performing at Bedford Park. Speeches, photo displays and the screening of the film Invisible Children feature at the end of the walk at the ASSeTTs building.

Website – www.myspace.com/perthguluwalk (or the link to the page is in the ‘our friends’ section)

I’ll see ya there with my wheels 🙂

Imaginations fit for the larrikin Jesus

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Jarrod McKenna

Jarrod McKenna’s Wednesday’s with Gandhi:

Gandhiji

“Jesus was the most active resister know perhaps to history. His was nonviolence par excellence.”

-Gandhi -Vol.84, June 26, 1946

I too hold that Jesus is not less than, as Gandhi put it elsewhere, “the greatest practitioner of nonviolence in history.” And while we could whine and moan in long self righteous diatribes about the extent of the distortion of Christianity today that often merely provides a ‘spirituality’ to accompany the satanic destruction of God’s good creation and the oppression of the poorest of poor all in nice sanitised suburban packaging that has somehow separated the nonviolent ‘Way of Jesus’ from ‘Jesus being the Way’ making a mockery of the cross with it’s pro-power, pro-war, pro-greed stance, …that’s a little to easy 😉 and all gets a bit tiresome.

So instead like to suggest some Australians who might also seem odd at first when considering people to help us gain an imagination for one aspect of Jesus’ controversial and crucifixion inducing nonviolence that is often overlooked. His provocative, disarming, larrikin-like humour. I want to make the case that nonviolence, Jesus’ nonviolence that Gandhi considered “par excellence”, is what we were created for, as St. Irenaeus put it “The glory of God is a human fully alive” and to be fully alive is to be creative, fun and often funny! In considering this God given creativity to reflect the “disarm[ing of the] the powers and authorities, making a spectacle of them” APEC comes to mind and the actions of… The Chaser boys!

Chaser lads as Osama at APEC

For those that missed it here’s a link to the BBC’s coverage on youtube (click here) 

In all honesty sometimes I hear nonviolence, (or love, or justice) being talked about… and it’s so bloody boring!  Asked to think of creative ways to get back at our enemies our imaginations run wild yet invited to imagine blessing our enemies in transformative ways that speak truth to power and we often go blank.

We’ve been sold the lie that loving our enemies is just for saints or super humans not recovering sinners like me.  As if those words where abstract philosophies to be written about in big books that gather dust instead of those words being evocative of our experience of the God revealed in Jesus.  Nonviolence (or love, or justice, or beauty) sadly become words that no longer open us to what God wills the world to be ultimately, (that we have seen start in Jesus) but instead stagnant principles that don’t challenge the empires we are living through.

One of the most humbling shout-outs EPYC has received has come from that mega-phone of amazing grace, Shane Claiborne author of The Irresistible Revolution who said reflecting on his time in Iraq,

“One of the doctors I met in Iraq said (with tears in his eyes), ‘This violence is for people who have lost thier imagination.’ Jarrod McKenna and the good people of EPYC are prophets of imagination. They are on a mission to create new heroes and sheroes and to reclaim God’s dream for this world. And as they help young folks to learn not to hurt each other, hopefully the nations will take some lessons.” day of the outlaw download

I believe the Holy Spirit empowers us all to become prophets of imagination.  Prophets of Jesus’ creative  way out of the cycles of violence and retaliation. Then we’ll be able to resist the temptations to have our understandings of ‘nonviolence’ (or love, or justice) be made sanitised, safe, nice and all a bit Fat-Cat-Humphy-Bear-Barney’s-Worldish. 

Jesus’ nonviolence provocatively and prophetically turns over tables in the temple while much we often consider ‘nonviolence’ is cowardly concern for owns own innocence rather than confronting injustice. This is only compounded when our understanding of Jesus gets separated from the earthy and engaging Jesus of the New Testament. (evangelicals are not exempt from when they treat the Scriptures like a context free collection of memory verses!) I’m not sure if it’s been in the interest of keeping Jesus ‘holy’ that we’ve often lost his earthiness, playfulness, creativity, anger, edginess, and humour. We’ve taken an amazing human and in the interest of saying he’s also ‘fully God’ made him less than ‘fully human’ (which is as heretical as saying Jesus isn’t the full revelation of God). We’ve made Jesus a bit 2-D. A bit plastic toyish. A bit weird and other worldish. A bit not as human as us. Comic bookesk. A bit cardboard cut out. A bit hard to call ‘brother’. And ultimately a bit boring!

I think the opposite is true. I think the more we witnesses to the fully humaness of Jesus the more the sandal of the incarnation comes to light. I think the New Testament witnesses to a fully alive, larrikin Jesus. As N.T. Wright puts it “the humility of God and the nobility of humanity.” Or as St. Ephrem the Syrian put it in the fourth century contemplating the Christ who reveals God to be a love that does no harm,

“it is so right that humans should acknowledge your divinity,

It is so right for heavenly beings to worship your humanity.”

Let’s pray we’ll have the imagination to follow the larrikin Jesus, the miraculous Patch Adams of Palestine, in his way of disarming humour.  We’ll hear the call to be practical jokers of the peaceable kingdom that pull the pants down on our suicidal society bent on unsustainabllity and self destruction. We’ll walk the narrow road of the sacred silliness of love in a world of satanic serious which spends each fourteen times the amount of money we need to end absolute poverty around the world on weapons whose sole purpose is to take life.

May we come to see a messiah, God’s idea of a real king, riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, fulfils prophecy in such a surprising and disarming way that it makes an ass out of the Roman military war horses and the Jewish expectations of a violent messiah in an inspired and moving act of holy clowning that’s as ridiculous as the expected liberating leader arriving on a tricycle when everyone is expecting tanks. Maybe the Chasers boys can help give us eyes to see.

Jesus bigger than Christianity?

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Jarrod McKenna download election dvdrip ’s Wednesday’s with Gandhi:

“Because the life of Jesus has the significance and the transcendency to which I have alluded, I believe that he belongs not solely to Christianity, but to the entire world; to all races and people, it matters little under what flag, name or doctrine they may work, profess a faith, or worship a God inherited from ancestors.”

-Gandhi “The Modern Review: Oct. 1941”

(This might be the post our reformed friends drown me for 😉 )

I remember the first time I wrote in my journal in 2001, “Jesus are you bigger than Christianity?” At the time I was one of two white people within eight blocks living in East Nashville with Karl Meyer. Karl is an amazing man who became a Christian through Dorothy Day who started the Catholic Worker Movement. Karl had a photo of in his living room of him up front of the Civil Rights marches in Chicago shoulder to shoulder with two other organisers. On one shoulder Thich Nhat Hahn. On the other, Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. After writing “Jesus are you bigger than Christianity” in my journal I wasn’t sure if to worship or ask for forgiveness. (From memory I did a bit of both.)

I have a mate who had a life changing experience watching “South Park” when he saw Gandhi in hell with Hitler. (God can use anything I guess).

I know for many this might provoke questions of who’s going to heaven (or hell) and who’s not. But that’s not what was going on in my head and heart when I was was journaling while living in this poor neighbourhood where I heard guns shots. My questions weren’t coming out of an understanding of the gospel ‘as fire insurance for the afterlife’ nor ‘sin management’. Nor where they coming out of a liberal ‘social gospel’ that reduced the gospel to ideals and principles. Instead they were arising out of a burning desire in me for an alternative to the fundamentalism and the liberalism which is so often on offer.

I longed for a Christianity that was ‘evangelical’ in the sense of being ‘good news’ to our hurting world that had integrity when it came to the context of the early Christians and how they would have understood the gospel (instead of just arguments of the sixteenth century read back into Scripture). I became convinced that the gospel is about God’s will being done “on earth” as Jesus taught us to pray and that we don’t “go to glory” rather biblically glory is coming here and it has broken in through Jesus! (notice the direction of the New Jerusalem or the Son of Man… this however has not effected the sales of ‘left behind’).

Gandhi famously refused to become a Christian yet daily spent 2 hours meditating after reading the Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. (Anybody know any Christians who spent 2 hours meditating on Christ’s teachings today?) Repeatedly when asked for the inspiration of his nonviolent revolution in India he would not fail to mention Jesus and his teachings. Gandhi’s dedication to Jesus and practice of his teachings cannot be doubted, nor can his dedication to his Hinduism (albeit a Hinduism that looks like Jesus. So much so Gandhi was often accused of “Christianising” Hinduism and was finally shot by someone who believed he was corrupting Hinduism.)

I have a friend who, like Gandhi, makes many uncomfortable with his ability to live in liminal space between 2 ‘tribes’ which compete for him yet he feels, to be faithful, he has to be the bridge between. Like Tony Campolo he’s a sociologist, who never divorced his field from his faith. But more than a bridge, a better metaphor might be a prophet.

Dave AndrewsHe’s the kind thinker that would be interesting if he didn’t practice his ideas making him so dangerous. He the kind of guy who is an influence on many but quoted by few because of fears that they to might experience the ‘blessings of being cursed’ that are seen in his life because of the way he challenges the principalities and powers. He has a gentleness and humility that is intimidating to the shamsters who travel the speaking circuit enjoying the fanfare and praise while merely talking about what he quietly speaks with his life away from the cameras and applause. Like Gandhi he has been written off by many Christians. Not because of his witness, his life, like Gandhi’s, has become a modern day metaphor for Christ-likeness. But he has been written off for suggesting that maybe Gandhi isn’t burning in hell for not becoming a Christian (it wan’t South Park that convinced him).

Dave Andrews

What is more interesting is that he hasn’t compromised on the centrality of Christ, nor avoided the question, nor departed from Scripture. But like Paul he’s suggested that maybe the “circumcisions” of our day make a mockery of the gospel. That the gospel was never about fire insurance for the afterlife nor sin management but God’s desire to heal creation which has broken into reality in Christ. His name is Dave Andrews and his books are a gift to the church at this time in history and a valuable companion to anyone thinking missionaly.

Like Gandhi we all wont agree with everything Dave says (we’re still talking about where an ecclesia fits in the ‘open set’ in his book Christi-Anarchy). But like Gandhi to ignore his life and writings is to miss a rich opportunity for our own journey and how better to bring others on that journey with us toward a the Jesus bigger than the boxes we put him in and a Christianity that does Christ justice.

Brian McLaren’s new book

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Guest blogger in the backyard: Jarrod McKenna

Forge has said of Brian McLaren that he is “one of the most influential leaders in the Western Church” today. Brian McLaren has been amazingly supportive of my work and EPYC.

Today in the mail I received an opportunity to bless this brother back. His publisher has sent me his newest book “Everything Must Change: Jesus, Global Crises, and a Revolution of Hope” to review before it’s released later this year.

In the mean time here is a review of Brian’s last book a brilliant popularisation of some of the biggest theological influences on me (N.T. Wright, John H. Yoder, Walter Wink, Walter Brueggemann and my mentor and professor for biblical ethics Dr. Lee Camp) called “What Emerging out of the Emerging Church”.

Below is a short clip of Brian reading from his new book and Brian’s thoughts what Our Peace Tree Community and Empowering Peacemakers (aka EPYC):

Brian McLaren“In my travels around the world, I see a lot to inspire cynicism -including a lot of shabby religious stuff I’d rather not even give examples of. But I also meet people who inspire hope and courage in me -emerging young leaders who “get” Jesus’ message of the kingdom of God, and who are living it and giving it away. They see the integral nature of mission – that it brings together God and humanity, humanity and creation, grace and nature, contemplation and action, evangelism and social justice, faith and politics, the making of disciples and the making of peace. Jarrod McKenna and friends are beautiful examples of this new breed of emerging integral leaders. I thank God for them. May their tribe increase!” –Brian McLaren

link to video [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7mLbrVHHJc]

Gandhi and ‘prosperity gospel’

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Gandhi laughing

 Jarrod McKenna‘s Wednesday’s with Gandhi:

“It is my firm opinion that [the West] today represents not the spirit of God or Christianity but the spirit of Satan. And Satan’s successes are the greatest, when he appears with the

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name of God on his lips. [The West] today is only nominally Christian. In reality, it is worshipping Mammon. ‘It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle that for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Thus really spoke Jesus Christ. His so-called followers measure their moral progress by their material possessions.”

-Gandhi (Speeches & Writings of M. Gandhi: p.336, Feb. 14, 1916)

  • Would you agree with Gandhi that society at large worships Mammon (money)?

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  • Even more so today then in Gandhi’s time society seems possessed with a way of life that feeds on domination, silent oppression and exploits God’s good earth. Is this the spirit of God? Is this the spirit of Christianity? Is this as Gandhi says ‘the spirit of satan’?
  • Have you heard ‘It’s easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle that for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven’ taught about the dangers of Mammon? Have you heard it taught the dangers of a wrong attitude while you hoard? What do you think about how Gandhi uses the text?

time coverWhat about Gandhi’s comments about “His so-called followers measure their moral progress by their material possessions.” Gandhi’s comments where even before ‘prosperity gospel’ was popular. Is it more true now?

Going Deeper:

Consider spending sometime meditating on Luke 18: 18-29 simply asking God ‘how can I witness to your love in what I do with what you have given me’

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Guest blogger in the backyard: Jarrod McKenna ransom download

Rodney OlsonIn light of the APEC protest and the violence of the priority of profits over confronting global warming and poverty, here is the interview that Rodney Olson (pictured left) from Sonshine FM did when I became the youngest person to ever be awarded the Donald Groom Peace Fellowship for my work in forwarding nonviolent social change for (eco)justice with EPYC. (Almost makes me sound half respectable!)

click here

In Rodney’s words, “We covered a lot of ground and tried to lookat some of the big questions. We explored whether Christianity really promotes non-violence in all situations? If we believe that to be the case how do we the reconcile that with the religious right’s belief that George W. Bush is carrying out God’s will by taking his nation to war?”

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Guest blogger in the backyard: Jarrod McKenna

“What does APEC stand for?” asked one agitated protestor to the scantily-clad young women.

Neither could give her an answer.

“I think that was actually the most ridiculous thing I have seen in my life,” said a 14-year-old protestor, who was attending the rally with her mother.

“Trying to sell sex when we’re trying to get a point across,” the disappointed young girl said.

The Zoo girls arrived first, with five models in bikini tops and tiny shorts drawing the majority of the cameras away from the protest itself — much to the organisers’ dismay.

here’s the full article