NorCalUrban

Rudy at Urban Onramps recently posted this link. What an amazing article on the Pope's call to a faith filled response to the conflict with Islam. It calls us back to a faith filled response to our current challenge. This article resonated with my feelings about the church. I believe that in our country the Church has been all to connected to a political worldview. Our strength lies with our ability to be the subversive underground Kingdom that is governed by a different set of values. When the Church is the Church, separate from the State, we have authority and the world is forced to notice. The article states: A self-described revolution in world affairs has begun in the heart of one man. He is the Italian journalist and author Magdi Cristiano Allam, whom Pope Benedict XVI baptized during the Easter Vigil at St Peter's. Allam's renunciation of Islam as a religion of violence and his embrace of Christianity denotes the point at which the so-called global "war on ter...

In the current edition of Rolling Stone Jane Fonda speaks about her conversion to Christianity Jane says: "Someone very hostile to me said, 'Are you saved?' I tap danced around that, but later asked a friend of mine who teaches a Bible study, 'What does that mean?' And she said, 'what it meant to me was taking the next step.' Well, that's all anybody has to say to me - I'm always ready to take the next step (laughs)! So I became a Christian. And I'm still a Christian, but I'm still on a journey to define what that means. I very much feel the presence of God, and that person is Jesus - I am utterly fascinated by this man. I feel what he preached was revolutionary, and it's totally what we need now. The most revolutionary statement anyone could make is 'Love thy neighbor as thyself.' Whew, man. If we could live what he taught, everything would change. But it ain't what goes by the name of Christianity right now.