Some Interesting stuff

A few things I've found interesting in the last couple of days:

From Catalyst, "There Are No 'Better' People":

Reconciliation is at the heart of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Trumpism is ignorant of the heart of Christianity, even as it waves the flag to garner votes. The left is allergic to Christianity, as one would be if one were convinced it is not only poison, but the source of all other poisons. René Breuel is right. The problem is not just that our gospel is discredited by its association with all these isms. The gospel is God’s repair to our ruin of the world. We must respond with seriousness to the charge that the gospel is simply ruining it further. We are in a similar position then to Paul, who is convinced God is remaking the world into the creation God wants through the church. Only think of his churches! Little, bedraggled, occasionally persecuted communities scattered across the Mediterranean with few resources. Think of their misbehavior! Not just petty church peccadilloes like gossip and lust (though those are bad enough), but a man sleeping with his father’s wife, believers in the one true God playing footsie with idols, theft and lying and violence—God has wiped out whole civilizations for less. Are these the people through whom God is renewing the cosmos?

Um, yes. There are no “better” people available. The only good one is Jesus Christ, the poor Jew raised from the dead who is God’s own Son, and King, and self, all over again. God’s determination to have the creation God wants will not be thwarted by our pension for using even Christian faith as a cudgel against our enemies. God takes that cudgel from our hands and remakes it into a cross, on which God dies for us. And for our worst enemies.

Read the whole; it's well-worth your time.

The Nation asks, "Has Capitalism Become Our Religion?" You know the answer, don't you?

o be honest, I’m not sure that economics even is a science, however “dismal,” as Thomas Carlyle once dubbed it. Indeed, I think that John Ruskin was closer to the mark in Unto This Last (1862) when he compared what was then called “political economy” to “alchemy, astrology, [and] witchcraft.” As a Christian, I reject the two assumptions found in conventional economics: scarcity (to the contrary, God has created a world of abundance) and rational, self-seeking, utility-maximizing humanism (a competitive conception of human nature that I believe traduces our creation in the image and likeness of God). I think that one of the most important intellectual missions of our time is the construction of an economics with very different assumptions about the nature of humanity and the world.

Wade Burleson reflects on pride in "Pride Stains Us All and Is Erased By a Painful Fall":

Humility by deferring to others is the mark of genuine Christianity.

We don't expect non-Christians to defer to others. Pride puts self first. Humility puts others first. People by nature are proud. God's grace breaks the proud and makes them humble. Those who desire membership at Emmanuel must show evidence of a willingness to put others first for humility is the key trait of Christianity.

Emmanuel has some well-dressed adulterers, addicts, and abusers who also attend our corporate worship services too. We welcome them all. Many of them cover their selfish actions and have never been humbled. But every now and then one of them lands on the front page of the local newspaper. The scandalized in Enid are welcome at Emmanuel. We let them know that we accept them where they are, but we also know God's grace will never leave them where they currently are. It's God's business to take them to that place where they haven't yet arrived.

God gives His grace to humble the proud. And he uses His people to convey that grace which humbles.

We have homosexual couples and lesbian couples who attend Emmanuel just like we have well-dressed adulterers and sexually immoral heterosexuals who attend Emmanuel. We can't change anybody.

...

It's not within our capabilities to make a person not proud of behaviors that the Bible calls wicked, selfish, or ungodly.

That's God's business.

We just love people where they are and pray for the grace that humbles. People may get angry that Christians who believe the Bible refuse to celebrate with pride those behaviors the Bible calls immoral.

Read the whole to see how radical humility mixed with love can be.

And Randall Rauser takes a fresh look at Looney Tunes:

Today, the Disney classic Song of the South is recognized as racist and has been rightly consigned to the cultural hinterland. Increasingly, Looney Tunes are facing a similar exile, first for the ubiquitous violence and gun violence, in particular. I would argue that the sexual violence and aggression of the Pepe cartoons has earned them a similar ignominious fate. While I used to roll my eyes at the critics of these old cartoons as the pc police, I now realize that the critics are right: Pepe Le Pew stinks.

I hadn't watched a cartoon in years, and sometime in the last year I sat down to watch one. I was appalled at the violence. I couldn't even enjoy the humor because of the violence and also the cruelty. And I used to love cartoons.