You may have noticed that I took a vacation from blogging over the summer. That vacation is over this weekend with the resumption of the Sunday morning education program at the Cathedral. Dates to put in your calendar are
- Sunday, APRIL 7: KICKOFF SUNDAY - Join in the festivities of Kick-Off Sunday in the Great Hall and learn about the many ministries of Christ Church and ways to become involved
- Sunday, APRIL 14: ADULT EDUCATION PREVIEW in the Great Hall
- Sunday, APRIL 21: Exploring the Connections meets in the Bride's Room at 10:00 AM
And what will we be talking about this fall? Politics, of course! Hopefully, though, it will be politics with a difference. The book we'll read as a basis for our conversation is The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics by Jim Wallis (HarperOne, 2008).
Veterans of Exploring the Connections will remember that Wallis' God's Politics: Why The Right Gets It Wrong and The Left Doesn't Get It (2006) helped launch our group. Of course, it did a great deal more. In Wallis' own words:
God's Politics challenged America to "take back the faith" from the Religious Right. And we did—you did—as millions of Americans stood up and spoke for a different kind of faith. As I say to overflow crowds around the country, "The monologue of the Religious Right is over, and a new dialogue has now begun." And everybody cheers. In the churches, a combination of deeper compassion and better theology has moved many far beyond the partisan politics of the Religious Right. … The evangelical social agenda is now much broader and deeper, engaging issues such as poverty and economic justice, global warming, HIV/AIDS, sex trafficking, genocide in Darfur, and the ethics of the war in Iraq (The Great Awakening, pp, 4-5).
But what about the left? Are they/we "getting it"? Again, Wallis' own words:
Even more amazing, the Left—including the Democrats—is starting to get it. Progressive politics is remembering its own religious history and recovering the language of faith. Democrats are learning to connect issues with values, engaging the faith community, and running more candidates who have become emboldened to come out of the closet as believers (The Great Awakening, p. 5).
Taking both quotations together, do you find yourself in there somewhere?
Speaking for myself, I have reconnected with significant periods in my history. Wallis' book would have made perfect sense to that kid way back when who was steeped in the faith/political activism of Irish Methodism. At 12 years old, I knew the story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs who, in the 1830s, formed the Friendly Society of Agricultural Laborers - first labor union in English history. Seven members in all (five were Methodists), they were convicted of swearing an illegal oath to one another, and were sentenced to be transported to Australia in irons and to be imprisoned there for 7 years (read more of the story HERE). I learned of William Willberforce's relation with John Wesley long before Jim Wallis reminded me of it (The Great Awakening, p. 18). And very recently, some of us met and heard the Rev. Harold Good, the Irish Methodist minister who, with others, was instrumental in persauading the Irish Republican Army to decommission its arms in 2005. To crown it all, I say sincerely, that our Exploring the Connections group is the nearest thing to a Methodist Class Meeting that I have experienced in my nearly 50 years in the U.S.!
So, where are you in all of this? How do you put together aspects of your religious history with our fall curriculum? These are NOT rhetorical questions! Use the Comments at the bottom of this posting to share how you present discipleship perhaps fulfils early aspects of your own faith journey.
As we say from time to time - LET THE CONVERSATION BEGIN!
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