Skip to main content

Mustard Seed Faith

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 terror" becomes a divergence of two irreconcilable modes of life: the Western way of faith supported by reason, against the Muslim world of fatalism and submission.
Pope Benedict calls for a clear understanding of the conflict:
The West is not fighting individual criminals, as the left insists; it is not fighting a Soviet-style state, as the Iraqi disaster makes clear; nor is it fighting a political movement. It is fighting a religion, specifically a religion that arose in enraged reaction to the West. None of the political leaders of the West, and few of the West's opinion leaders, comprehends this. We are left with the anomaly that the only effective leader of the West is a man wholly averse to war, a pope who took his name from the Benedict who interceded for peace during World War I. Benedict XVI, alone among the leaders of the Christian world, challenges Islam as a religion, as he did in his September 2006 Regensburg address.
The article expounds on the Pope's thoughts:
One does not fight a religion with guns (at least not only with guns) but with love, although sometimes it is sadly necessary to love one's enemies only after they are dead. The Church has lacked both the will to evangelize Muslims as well as the missionaries to undertake the task. Benedict XVI, the former Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, has thought about the conversion of the Muslims for years, as I reported just before his election in 2005 (The crescent and the conclave, Asia Times Online, April 19, 2005). Where will the Pope find the sandals on the ground in this new religious war? From the ranks of the Muslims themselves, evidently. Magdi Allam is just one convert, but he has a big voice. If the Church fights for the safety of converts, they will emerge from the nooks and crannies of Muslim communities in Europe.
Read the article here.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

YWAMers Praised for Faith and Leadership

The Denver Post reports on the memorial service at the Denver YWAM base: "We're going to celebrate a life, we're not accentuating a death," said Faith Bible Chapel pastor George Morrison, in opening a memorial service today for two people killed at a missionary training school in Arvada . The service is called "A Celebration of Life for Tiffany and Philip." Philip Crouse and Tiffany Johnson died Sunday when a gunman opened fire at the school's dormitory. Youth With a Mission director Peter Warren said today both Crouse and Johnson embodied the spirit of the group. First the service focused on Crouse . "Phil gave his life to Jesus Christ and was never the same again," said Zach, a friend of Johnson's who met him years ago at a youth ministry in Alaska. At the time, Crouse was tough and wouldn't let people get close to him. "Over the years, Phil became a humble, teachable, sweet guy" who was able to reach kids with rough e
Post a Comment
Read more

Non Profit Payday Loans?

Here's a recent New York Times article sent to me from Katie at NCHM on payday lending. I know that the NCUD / CTCU-EPA partnership is going to have to create the right program addressing the needs for short term lending for low income families. We don't have the answers yet, but it's definitely on our radar. APPLETON, Wis. — This city of 70,000 has five McDonald’s franchises, three Pizza Huts, four Starbucks shops — and 19 payday loan stores, brightly lighted storefronts with names like EZ Money and Check Into Cash that offer two-week loans without credit checks. Peggy Truckey, 53, knows the allure. Last year she owed nearly $1,300 to four of those stores, and was paying about $600 a month in finance fees alone. “I thought I was going to have to take a second job just to pay off the interest,” Ms. Truckey said. Then she heard about a new nonprofit program operated out of a Goodwill thrift store, one of several hundred lower-cost payday loan products that are now bein
7 comments
Read more

Samuel Liotti TV Interview about Obama's Nomination

Check this out this link! Samuel, his best friend Malik and other students at East Palo Alto Academy were interviewed on TV  where they were asked about their views on Obama.  The students has some interesting and revealing comments. With all the politics, it may be easy for some to overlook the significance and importance of the first truly viable African-American candidate for president. Obama's nomination to especially many young people in our community speaks volumes about who they are and what they can become. This is an exciting and important time in our history.  Please join me in praying for both our candidates, but especially Obama. I've felt impressed that I should pray specifically for his safety during the next months.  Follow the link and check out the interview! What about you? How significant do you feel is Obama's nomination?
4 comments
Read more