USA: The Religious Right and the Liberal Christian Left

Posted on September 20, 2006 by Mark Porthouse

I really don’t get it!

This week, Jim Wallis of Sojourners, is discussing politics with an ex-leader of the ‘Religious Right’ Ralph Reed. Jim seems disappointed that Ralph seems to prioritise working against legal abortion and homosexual marriage. Ralph claims that the ‘Conservative Coalition’ et al don’t just focus on those two issues but work on many (which is the ground that Jim wants to claim).

What I don’t get is why they both want to impose their moral views on the USA. They both think that the US needs moral guidance from the top and that it needs to be legislated for. It’s as if they want to usher in a Holy Kingdom of America.

Whilst a great set of laws does seem to create a lovely society to live in, I can’t get my head round the idea that we, as Christians want to impose our morality on people who don’t want it. I mean, it’s not like it makes people better at the level of their relationship with God. It might seem, from a human point of view, that it is a good thing, but the only good thing is to have a relationship with God and to do his will – that is the only good in our world, everything else is a cheap imitation that doesn’t really bring life at all.

Jesus lived in a country that was occupied by foreign forces. Did he bother himself with that? No, he knew that freedom wasn’t in the laws of the land, but could only be found in a relationship with God. Did he try to control people by imposing laws? No, he came to make the law (and indeed laws) obsolete – to bring God into our hearts. He worked from the bottom up, not the top down. He aligned himself with the downtrodden. Even when he did get to talk to the most powerful men in Israel, he didn’t try to get them to alter their laws, he stood quietly, a testimony to the new Kingdom that he was ushering in, a Kingdom that stood in contrast to their kingdom.

Have a look in the ‘Government’ category of this blog for more on this topic.

Talent – Young People in Action

Posted on September 20, 2006 by Richard Passmore

Dave Wiles (FYT ) and Tim Evans (Worth Unlimited) are walking/hitching between, Bristol and Birmingham, and then heading north with only Â£10 in their pockets, collecting stories of hope from young people, once back they aim to release the stories to the media to counteract the predominance of negative coverage that young people seem to attract. They are in part lauching a new youth initative fund, that is to be raised by young people for young people. We are giving away Â£1000 to youth groups in Â£10 notes with the challenge to turn it into Â£100 by Christmas to fund the trust, if you want your youth group to get involved contact Nigel Pimlott. If you want to hear from Dave and Tim they are being interviewed tomorrow on Radio 5 Live (medium wave 693 and 909) between 10am and 10-30am
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Extract from the Project Outline

Talent Young People in Action

Introduction: Frontier Youth Trust (FYT) and Worth Unlimited are two organisations that work with and for young people on the margins of society. We have joined forces to create a trust fund that will be controlled by young people – for young people and which will enable them to act on their own concerns. We are tired of the negative stereotypes of young people and want to enable them to demonstrate that they are a positive force for change in society.

Creating the trust: In order to create the Young People in Action Trust fund we are giving away Â£1000 in Â£10 notes! We are offering 10 to any of the youth projects/groups that we link with and are asking them to take 3 months to turn this into as much as they can. As Christian organisations we see this as related to the parable of the talents (see Matthew 25:14) however we are quite happy about the double meaning in that we believe in young people and want to give them an opportunity to demonstrate their talent. We want to end the 3 months of talent multiplication by December 2006 as a symbolic gesture to celebrate Christmas. Just imagine if each group raises 100 with their 10 this would launch our youth led trust at the start of 2007 with Â£10,000! We also intend to continue fund raising to enable the trust to grow.

Young People in Action: We hope that the youth projects that FYT and Worth involve, in partnership with local youth workers, will catch the vision and show off their entrepreneurial skills. We will provide an ideas pack and guidelines for youth groups to use as they seek to invest their talents, but some of the ideas that have already emerged include:

Creating and selling hand made Christmas cards

Running a fare trade caf in a local hall

Selling hand made jewellery

A cake stall

Make over stall

Creating and selling a book of youth poetry

Organising a fashion show using charity shop clothes!

What we hope is that young people will invest their time and energy in some kind of action that will be fun and which will raise awareness of their potential as well as funds!

To launch the initiative the two directors of FYT and Worth Unlimited will be given Â£10 to go on the road for a week in order to collect 100 stories of hope about young people as a sponsored activity. During this time they will travel to Bristol, Cardiff, Birmingham, Liverpool and Glasgow with no resources or arrangements other than contact with several local youth work projects, radio stations and their Â£10! Tim and Dave see this as an alternative model for Christian leaders to promote their ideas a substitute for large scale Christian conferences! The book with the stories of hope will be on sale during October.

The best youth work event in the world (probably)

Posted on September 20, 2006 by Richard Passmore

The planning for the next Occasion is well underway. It is shaping up to be a truly excellent event again. If you are involved in youthwork anywhere from Gloucestershire down to Cornwall, or Dorest etc this is the event for you. The feedback last year was outstanding and this year with opportunities for young leaders, extra time volunteers, and full timers it has to be the place to be. The event truly does create a sense of Occasion last year the training was great and the lunch was memorable (taking everyone out to lunch for a great all you can eat Chinese). Follow the link to book a place BUT HURRY!
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