Thursday, April 14, 2005

Lets get Jesus back

I may have a few more Eckhart posts floating around in the upper stories, but I thought I'd bring this article in the United Methodist Reporter to your attention. www.reporterinteractive.org/news/040605/cm040605.htm

The United Methodist Church has always had a strong voice in social justice and a liberal attitude towards doctrine. Its one of the main reason I'm where I'm at-enduring the ordination process. There are some voices in the Methodist Church, getting a tad shrill I'm afraid, who call for a return to "Scriptural Authority." This means, of course, tightening the understanding of scriptural authority (another post for another time-don't worry; I'll get there) and the role it plays in the doctrine and polity of the church. I won't go into our internecine issues here, but suffice it to say, like most mainstream Protestant churches, we have voices from all over the spectrum. I hope some of the more shrill voices take a listen to Bill Moyers and join the body politic to re-examine our priorities.
Here's a little taste of Mr. Moyers:

Over the past few years, as the poor got poorer, the health care crisis
worsened, wealth and media became more and more concentrated, and our political
system was bought out from under us, prophetic faith lost its voice. The
religious right drowned everyone else out.
And they hijacked Jesus. The very
Jesus who stood in Nazareth and proclaimed, "The Lord has anointed me to preach
the good news to the poor." The very Jesus who told 5,000 hungry people that all
of you will be fed, not just some of you. The very Jesus who challenged the
religious orthodoxy of the day by feeding the hungry on the Sabbath, who offered
kindness to the prostitute and hospitality to the outcast, who said the kingdom
of heaven belongs to little children, raised the status of women, and treated
even the tax collector like a child of God. The very Jesus who drove the money
changers from the temple. This Jesus has been hijacked and turned from a
champion of the disposed into a guardian of the privileged. Hijacked, he was
made over into a militarist, a hedonist, and a lobbyist ... sent prowling the
halls of Congress in Guccis, seeking tax breaks and loopholes for the powerful,
costly new weapon systems that don't work, and punitive public
policies.
Let's get Jesus back.

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