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Add Your Signature and Pass it On!

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:20:38 +0100

Immediate Press Release 11/20/2009:

The Progressive Christian Alliance, an inter-denominational organization that seeks to follow the words and teachings of Jesus fully in loving God and loving neighbor, condemns the Manhattan Declaration made public today in Washington, D.C. by several signers of the affirmation.

The signers of the Manhattan Declaration announced that they will encourage civil disobedience towards a government that forces them to affirm abortions and gay marriage.

These statements appeared odd to us at the Progressive Christian Alliance due to the recent “Stupak Amendment” in the current Health Care Reform bill, which takes giant leaps backwards in the progress of a woman’s reproductive asdfghts and due to the fact that no congressman or woman has endorsed or pursued a bill to legalize same-sex marriages.

We also fully endorse civil disobedience when a government’s beliefs are incongruent with our faith as we are followers of Jesus and citizens of God’s kingdom before any other nation or state. Our issue is that our government has always truly been in contrast to the teachings and life example of our teacher, Jesus of Nazareth; why would these reactionary religious leaders choose these two issues to rally against while a plethora of injustices still continues to be waged against the most vulnerable in our society?

We at the Progressive Christian Alliance believe that the term “pro-life” means something completely different than spouting hate-speech at a woman entering an abortion clinic who feels that she has no other options due to the abandonment of the State and the callousness of religious leaders. We believe that pro-life means supporting life wherever possible – this includes standing against wars, police brutality, capital punishment, and caring for the life of another after they are born. One wonders exactly where the signers of this declaration were when the Iraq and Afghan wars broke out. Where were these signers when Wall Street received massive bailouts at the expense of the poor and impoverished in this nation? Where were the voices of these dedicated clergymen when men and women are continually assaulted or killed because of their sexual orientation?

Perhaps to these religious leaders these issues of war, death, poverty, injustice, and hatred pale in comparison to a woman’s reproductive rights and same-sex marriage – two issues that, by the way, Jesus never once mentioned in any gospel account.

The Progressive Christian Alliance urges the signers of the Manhattan Declaration to remove their names from such a narrow and ill-conceived document and join the greater conversation that attempts to follow Jesus in welcoming all to the table of grace – no exceptions.

Signed:

The Progressive Christian Alliance Leadership Council

Rev. Jarrod Cochran

Rev. Melissa McClellan

Rev. Roger McClellan

Rev. Terry McGuire

www.progressivechristianalliance.org

Health Care Reform IS A SHAM

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:44:06 +0100

So, we've finally passed a Health Care Reform Bill that will revolutionize the industry! Finally, all people will be able to afford healt care. We will no longer be the only industrialized nation to be without a not-for-profit single-payer health care plan. Not exactly.

The House Bill H.R. 3962, which passed last week, has done little to nothing to ease the burden of healh care costs nor to extend this basic human right of care to those who do not or cannot afford it.

This bill will do the same amount of good that . In short, (get ready for a shock), this government's leaders - both Republicans and Democrats - have failed the American people.

This bill which claims to be a reformation, has only caused tens of millions of uninsured people to become unwilling victims/customers of the same insurance companies that are currently bankrupting the average citizen. This bill is no different than the Credit Card Company Reform Bill that Congress passed last year: creating lengthy documents and piggybacking others' agendas to create a bill that does nothing to solve the problem.

To pass a bill without a single-payer, not-for-profit standard (or, Medicare for all), is to literally do nothing to correct the Health Care system in this country with runs contrary to the public's interests.

On his website, Congressman Dennis Kucinich, had this to say about the new bill:

"We have been led to believe that we must make our health care choices only within the current structure of a predatory, for-profit insurance system which makes money not providing health care."

This is the bill and reform the current administration backs. It is indeed sad to see that President Obama, like many politicians, is just a shadow of his former self: Presidential Nominee Obama. Where is the man who promised change? Where is the man who promised us he would do away with lobbyists (part of the health care problem) and other corrupt government practices? Where is the man who promised to give us a country we could be proud of?

Kucinich continues, "By incurring only a new requirement to cover pre-existing conditions, a weakened public option, and a few other important but limited concessions, the health insurance companies are getting quite a deal. The Center for American Progress’ blog, Think Progress, states “since the President signaled that he is backing away from the public option, health insurance stocks have been on the rise.

“...instead of working toward the elimination of for-profit insurance, H.R. 3962 would put the government in the role of accelerating the privatization of health care. In H.R. 3962, the government is requiring at least 21 million Americans to buy private health insurance from the very industry that causes costs to be so high, which will result in at least $70 billion in new annual revenue, much of which is coming from taxpayers. This inevitably will lead to even more costs, more subsidies, and higher profits for insurance companies – a bailout under a blue cross."

Kucinich is right on the mark when he calls this new bill nothing more than a "bailout" for insurance companies. Hasn't the government seen that the bailouts of businesses don't help the economy? Do they care?

I leave you with another comment from Rep. Dennis Kucinich:

"Recent rises in unemployment indicate a widening separation between the finance economy and the real economy. The finance economy considers the health of Wall Street, rising corporate profits, and banks’ hoarding of cash, much of it from taxpayers, as sign of an economic recovery. However in the real economy — in which most Americans live — the recession is not over. Rising unemployment, business failures, bankruptcies and foreclosures are still hammering Main Street."

We as followers of Jesus are called to care for all people - including the most vulnerable in our society. How can we, in good conscience, stand there, smiling and nodding when government once again hands "the least of these" a shit sandwich, telling them it's "the best meal we've ever come up with"? I'm not telling you to vote - I could never in good conscience tell you to do that. I am telling you to write, call, fax, stand at the steps of your Senator and Representative's home and demand something better, not just more of the same. We as Jesus-followers are pretty good at fishing the bodies out of the water; it's time we head upstream and find out what jackass is tossing them in.

War and Culture

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 15:24:16 +0100

Is it proof of the sad state of affairs that we are in when a fictional madman makes sense? I’m referring to Heath Ledger’s portrayal of DC Comics’ “The Joker” in the 2008 box office smash, “The Dark Knight.”

At one point in the movie, Ledger’s character attempts to recruit another into abandoning the ways of “society” and giving in to his most base desires and instincts:

“You know what I've noticed? Nobody panics when things go ‘according to plan.’ Even if the plan is horrifying! If, tomorrow, I tell the press that – like – a gang banger will get shot, or a truckload of soldiers will be blown up, nobody panics, because it's all ‘part of the plan.’”

Ledger’s Joker continues, stating that if something equally bad happens that isn’t a part of the “plan,” then everyone freaks out.

I believe we have bore witness to the truth in this statement these past two weeks with the tragic shooting at Fort Hood, Texas.

While I thought the eloquent speeches and the beautiful memorial was the very least our government could do for those who fight and die in and for their wars, I could not help but ponder why this type of grand memorial is not performed for every soldier who dies daily in the government’s two-front war in Afghanistan and Iraq. After all, more than 545 men and women who were assigned to Fort Hood have died in the last six years alone. But then I came to the conclusion that no one really bats an eye at this fact because it is all – as the Joker claims – “according to plan.”

Everyday I turn on the news to find that the American casualties of this war are no longer spoken of in a special report, but reduced to the “ticker” at the bottom of the screen.

The alleged gunman, Army Major Nidal Malik Hasan, has been painted as a terrorist connected to Al Queda. The media and our government would have you believe that it is solely terroristic Islam that’s to blame for this massacre. Whether the allegations of Major Hasan’s ties are true or not, the one thing that our news agencies and our government (go figure) have not picked up on is the fact that killing people will mentally mess you up. With every life that you take, a little piece of your own humanity dies with them. It is no wonder that an estimated 25% out of every 103,788 soldiers returning from duty will have a mental health diagnosis and over half of these patients will have two or more distinct mental conditions.[1]

If we need further proof of the connection, we need look no farther than Timothy McVeigh. Timothy McVeigh was a decorated Army veteran, earning the Bronze Star in the first Gulf War who would eventually bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City. McVeigh, who was trained in the Gulf War, wrote home to his family telling them that he felt like was turning into “an animal” “because day after day it gets easier to kill.” His letters blatantly call out the hypocrisy of the United States. In McVeigh’s letters to his friends and in his own diary, he writes:

“From this perspective, what occurred in Oklahoma City was no different than what Americans rain on the heads of others all the time, and subsequently, my mindset was and is one of clinical detachment. (The bombing of the Murrah building was not personal, no more than when Air Force, Army, Navy or Marine personnel bomb or launch cruise missiles against government installations and their personnel). I hope that this clarification amply addresses all questions.”[2]

“The administration has said that Iraq has no right to stockpile chemical or biological weapons (“weapons of mass destruction”) – mainly because they have used them in the past.

Well, if that’s the standard by which these matters are decided, then the U.S. is the nation that set the precedent. The U.S. has stockpiled these same weapons (and more) for over 40 years. The U.S. claims that this was done for deterrent purposes during the “Cold War” with the Soviet Union. Why, then is it invalid for Iraq to claim the same reason (deterrence) — with respect to Iraq’s (real) war with and the continued threat of, its neighbor Iran.

If Saddam is such a demon and people are calling for war crimes charges and trials against him and his nation, why do we not hear the same cry for blood directed at those responsible for even greater amounts of “mass destruction” — like those responsible and involved in dropping bombs on the cities mentioned above.

The truth is, the U.S. has set the standard when it comes to the stockpiling and use of weapons of mass destruction.”[3]

Shane Claiborne, author and activist, writes of McVeigh:

“No doubt his mind had been brutally deranged by being taught the way of war…so he bombed Oklahoma City in hopes that complacent Americans who numbly watch war from their TVs could see what “collateral damage” looks like and cry out against “collateral damage” everywhere. Instead, the same government that taught him to kill, kills him to show that killing is wrong. - Dear God, liberate us from the logic of redemptive violence.”[4]

As followers of Jesus we are taught that violence only brings forth more violence; the only way anyone can change anything is through unconditional love. Some - nay, many - might say that this logic can only get you killed and then you haven't won anything. Let us not forget our highest example of victory through unconditional love on the cross. Don't get me wrong; I'm not speaking of the creedal dogma of the church that rewrote history claiming that Jesus was preordained to die on a cross because we are horrible, evil, disgusting creatures. I'm speaking of Jesus - our teacher; our messiah - who willingly went to the cross because he believed in the God of love he taught. What's there to defend with violence when you realize that the God of love doesn't repsond on those terms?

Waiting for the Health Reform We Really Need

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 20:55:30 +0100

From our friends at Tikkun:

Waiting For The Health Reform We Really Need
Arnold S. Relman, M.D.
Professor Emeritus of Medicine and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Former Editor-in-Chief, New England Journal of Medicine
(Written for Tikkun Magazine)

There are two interrelated critical issues in health reform right now: how to extend and improve insurance coverage, and how to control the unsustainable rise in health care expenditures. Virtually all of the current legislative attention is focused on the first issue but, notwithstanding claims to the contrary, none of the proposals now on the table offers any credible solution for the control of rising costs. Without control of health cost inflation, the present system will not be viable much longer.

Expansion of coverage is of course a highly desirable goal, but it inevitably increases expenditures even beyond today's exorbitant levels. President Obama has repeatedly said he would veto any health proposal that is not "budget neutral" over the next decade. The legislation now under consideration claims to meet that requirement through savings promised by the insurance, drug and hospital industries and through reductions in Medicare expenditures (excessive payments to private insurers for Medicare Advantage plans would be a major target), possibly supplemented by taxes on employment-based health plans for high income employees. However, critics question whether these measures would fully pay for the almost one trillion dollars of new costs for covering most of the uninsured over the next decade.

But the estimate of the costs of expanded coverage does not include the cost of the constant inflationary rise in all medical expenditures, lately about 6 - 8 percent per year. This would increase total health spending by roughly another two trillion dollars over the next decade. Administration policy-makers speak hopefully of savings to be generated in the long term by switching to electronic records, using more preventive measures, and applying the information gained from studies of comparative effectiveness. But skeptics might call this "faith-based" savings, because there is no solid evidence to support such hopes. The sobering fact remains that something more must be done soon to slow medical inflation or the entire health system will inevitably slide into bankruptcy. And yet none of the legislation currently being considered addresses that problem. Adding more benefits to the system, and covering more people with public and private insurance, are certainly important, but even if those improvements were paid for, they would not slow down the numerous inflationary forces that make our medical care system unsustainable.

What are those inflationary forces? I believe the most important among them are the incentives in the payment and organization of medical care that cause physicians, hospitals and other medical care facilities to focus at least as much on income and profit as on meeting the needs of patients. I have discussed this subject in a recent book (A Second Opinion. Rescuing America's Health Care. Public Affairs, New York, 2007). The U.S., more than any other advanced country, has come to rely mainly on private markets to deliver medical care, and on fee-for-service to pay its physicians. The incentives in such a system reward and stimulate the delivery of more services. That is why medical expenditures in the U.S. are so much higher than in any other country, and are rising more rapidly. Our business-oriented system inevitably drives up expenditures because in medical care the balancing tensions between the suppliers and consumers of services that constrain costs in ordinary business markets do not exist. Physicians, who supply the services, control most of the decisions to use medical resources, and patients, who are the consumers of those resources, do not pay most of the costs.

The economic incentives in the medical market are attracting the great majority of physicians into specialty practice, and these incentives, combined with the continued introduction of new and more expensive technology, are a major factor in causing inflation of medical expenditures. Physicians and ambulatory care and diagnostic facilities, are largely paid on a piecework basis for each item of service provided. Hospitals also bill insurers according to the days of care and the services they provide, although payments for treatment of an illness may be aggregated. However, all providers compete for income and market share, often advertising and marketing for that purpose. They almost never compete on prices because public and private insurers, not patients, pay most of the costs. Competition in the current medical market therefore tends to drive up total costs because it results in greater use of services, while rarely lowering prices.
Control of medical expenditures is unlikely without a major reform of the payment and organization of medical care. Expanding and improving the medical insurance part of the health system will not solve the expenditures problem unless the perverse incentives in the delivery of care are also corrected. In fact, expansion of insurance benefits without this other reform would probably make matters even worse. A so-called "public option" will not solve this problem either, although its competition might force private insurers to reduce their premiums or increased benefits. But even if some sort of low-cost not-for-profit insurance plan were offered as an optional choice for the uninsured and those dissatisfied with their present coverage, the inflationary effects of fee-for-service payments and an entrepreneurial medical care system would still be operating. After all, Medicare is a low-overhead plan that costs its beneficiaries less than private plans, but the rate of inflation in its expenditures is nearly as rapid as the inflation in private medical insurance expenditures. The benefits of Medicare are just as threatened as those of the private insurance system because costs are rising rapidly in both the public and private sectors of health care.

Judging from the current debate in Washington, there is little evidence that lawmakers are aware of these facts or, if they are, that they have the stomach for resisting the powerful vested interests that stand in the way of major reform. That is why the Goldman Sachs prediction of a compromised legislative outcome is likely to be correct. At the end of this Congress we will probably end up in a position not unlike that facing the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Over three years ago it enacted legislation that greatly expanded insurance coverage, but from the outset it faced serious financial problems in funding the increased costs. A special state commission has recommended to the Massachusetts legislature that it consider ways to eliminate fee-for-service payment of physicians in favor of some type of system that would be based on organizations of physicians and hospitals that could accept global prepayments for comprehensive care. It remains to be seen whether and how these recommendations can be implemented, but it is telling that Massachusetts seems now to realize what our national lawmakers have not yet grasped: Sustainable universal, or near-universal, coverage requires more than fixing the insurance system. It needs major reform in the payment and organization of medical care as well.

In my book, and in a recent article in the New York Review of Books (July 2), I have proposed a system of medical reforms that would deal with the cost problems in both the insurance and medical care sectors of our health care system and would ensure good care for everyone. I recommend replacement of the current mix of public and private insurance plans with universal coverage for comprehensive care that would be funded by a progressive national health insurance tax. Medical care would be provided through community-based not-for-profit multi-specialty group practices, which would be staffed by salaried physicians. When medical insurance is no longer a for-profit business, when physicians no longer are paid on a fee-for-service basis, and when the entire health care delivery system is not-for-profit, economic incentives to over- or underserve the needs of patients can be eliminated by appropriate regulation and we can expect improved quality of care at lower costs. The total national expenditure on medical care can be controlled by the level of national funding, while decisions about the proper use of medical resources can be safely left where they belong, in the hands of physicians and their patients.

Carrying out such a transformation of the health care system would of course be a formidable task, probably achievable only in gradual steps. It would require a sea change in the current political climate. A large part of the public, supported by most business leaders who are outside the medical-industrial complex, and by an awakened medical profession, would have to be convinced that a major reform of this kind offers the only chance for an equitable but affordable medical care system of good quality. In a just-published commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine ("Doctors as the Key to Health Care Reform", NEJM, September 24, 2009) I explain how crucial change in the organization and payment of medical services is to achieving a sustainable health care system. The medical profession will have to be a willing and active partner in carrying out these reforms.

Lawmakers need votes and public support even more than the money from vested interests, so they probably would act if a majority of voters were to make its wishes clear and if the medical profession were part of this awakening. But before public opinion can be galvanized to demand a sweeping change of this kind we may, unfortunately, have to experience a disastrous financial collapse of the health care system, with widespread loss of benefits. An expansion of coverage without changing the medical care delivery system and controlling medical inflation, might very well hasten such a collapse.

Comment by Rabbi Michael Lerner: A different and shorter version of this article appeared today in the New England Journal of Medicine. We at Tikkun believe that Dr. Reiman's analysis is extremely important, because it helps people understand why the current plan to expand coverage by mandating coverage so that everyone has to buy an insurance policy, without creating a vigorous public option to lower costs, and without challenging the ability of health care profiteers to endlessly raise costs, will bankrupt the system and provide the insurance companies and other profiteers with the argument that "we tried government intervention in health care and all it succeeded in doing is to raise the costs for everyone an eventually lead to collapse." This is a perfect example of why the good is sometimes really IS the enemy of the best--because a "good" step forward in health care of the sort that is now being considered by the centrist Democrats could actually lead to a disastrous right-wing victory in the future that would lead to a further weakening of all social restraints on corporate profiteering at the expense of human needs--unless we get a health care reform that from the start challenges the profit motive and the Old Bottom Line thinking that the centrist Democrats are trying to accommodate in their various reform proposals. The New Bottom Line proposed by the Network of Spiritual Progressives and more fully developed in its Spiritual Covenant with America (www.spiritualprogressives.org) calls for a whole new approach to medicine that incorporates the "single-payer plan" and the elimination of profit-motive from health care proposed by Dr. Reiman as well as a call to include Western medicine but expand beyond it to emphasize other modalities with a more holistic approach. Some people argue, "Lets get what we can now, little reform by little reform, and then later we can deal with these larger issues." But Reiman's argument provides a reason to fear that there will be no such "later" because the reforms put in place now may prove so costly that people will feel they tried reform and it didn't work, so abandon the entire effort and go back to the unregulated marketplace in health care that will still "work" for the upper middle class and wealthy while leaving even greater numbers of middle income and poor people without any ability to access decent health care.

Take Back "War Powers"

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 10:44:29 +0100

from The Pen:

Not Even Obama Will Give Up The Illegal War Powers Seized By Bush
Unless Congress Makes Him Do It Even in appointing a special counsel last week to look into torture, Eric Holder essentially directed him to IGNORE whether a crime was committed in ordering torture in the first place. The only mandate lifelong Republican prosecutor John Durham has been given is about whether department personnel EXCEEDED the instructions they were given. The "just following orders defense" rejected at Nuremberg has been resurrected by our new Attorney General.

With Holder doing such a weak job of enforcing the law on his own, it
is all the more important to get Congress to reassert itself in all
these matters, in particular the abuse of war powers under which all
the torture happened in the first place. And HR 104, To establish a
national commission on presidential war powers and civil liberties,
appears to be a good step in this direction. We should not
preemptively exclude congressional commissions or investigations as a
route to real justice, for that is what Watergate was all about.
Congress must act NOW to constrain ALL future presidents, including
Obama, lest we end up with worse than Bush before we know it.

Presidential War Powers Action Page:
http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1001.php

How all those Nazi war criminals would have wished for a standard like that set by Eric Holder. Legal opinions no matter how corruptly or self-servingly drafted become get out of prison free cards. Never might that there were many valiant, patriotic people in the CIA and the FBI, the vast majority, who STRENUOUSLY objected to the adoption of torture as accepted U.S. policy. The fact is that NO member of any one of these agencies could have believed in good faith that the torture techniques condemned when used by every other totalitarian regime were suddenly squeaky clean in their hands.

That is what is so disingenuous about Holder's posture, a refusal to actually confront the real issue. Either we are a nation of laws or else we are not. And if the Justice Department was issuing opinions that were patently bogus in defense of torture, it is corruption in HIS OWN department that must be rooted out, and all involved in such outrages must be held fully responsible.

Instead, Holder's suggestion is essentially that a couple so-called "bad apples" should be scapegoated, just as the contractors directing the torture at Abu Grahib, under orders that came direct from the White House, were allowed to skate away, while the lowest level grunts were given 10 years of hard time. At this point, the best way
to pressure Holder to actually do his job is to pressure Congress to do theirs, and execute their own investigation into the abuse of war powers.

Presidential War Powers Action Page:
http://www.peaceteam.net/action/pnum1001.php

And yes, we will continue to hear lies about how splendidly well torture worked, even though it did not, to try to seduce the American people into endorsing the abominable. Cheney was all over the TV over the last couple months asserting that the recently released CIA report would absolve him, by showing how torture led to all kinds of great intelligence breakthroughs. There was nothing like that in there. Instead, there were detailed specific instructions on executing torture, adopted from and imitating the worst dictatorships in history, in clinical detail like something out of World War II
Nazi bureaucracy.

The Washington Post is in up to their hips with this disinformation campaign, running a story over the weekend with a headline suggesting that waterboarding and sleep deprivation were a boon to intelligence. And yet when you actually read it you find that WHILE Khalid Sheik Mohammed was being waterboarded 183 times he was giving false intelligence that was harmfully counterproductive. It is only AFTER the criminal mistreatment stopped, and much later, that he actually
started to cooperate.

So let us make no mistake, the people who did these things on our name were a handful of true sickos, getting in their own sadistic jollies to the disgrace of the good name of the United States of America. And not just those few who willingly went along with it without objection, those who authorized, justified it, and ordered it must also be held responsible, right back to the desk of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and his go along patsy, George Bush. If Holder is so anxious to relieve CIA employees of responsibility, let them testify against the real criminal kingpins in the White House, as the price of their immunity.

John Piper: Author...and God's Meterologist

Sat, 22 Aug 2009 13:46:40 +0100

We're introducing a new segment today called, "Are you Fucking Serious, John Piper?!"

Baptist minister and author extraordinare, John Piper, posted on his blog regarding a freak tornado in downtown Minneapolis that struck the steeple of a Lutheran church that was having a convention that day discussing the inclusion of openly gay clergy.

Piper, apparently a part-time meteorologist, deduced this tornado to be from none-other than Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, to warn those "wayward" souls at the Lutheran church that he does not want "homos" taking leadership roles in his Church.

Piper breaks down his logic into six points that take us on an adventure to nowhere. His points will be in quotes, with my rebuttals in italics. Here we go:

"Let me venture an interpretation of this Providence with some biblical warrant.

1. The unrepentant practice of homosexual behavior (like other sins) will exclude a person from the kingdom of God.

The unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” (1 Corinthians 6:9-10)" (italics Piper's)

First off, what does this have to do with a tornado? Second, Piper's misquoting Paul's First Letter to the Corinthian churches. The word that Piper's bible translation is using for the term "homosexuality" is the Greek word arsenokotai. The problem with this translation is that it, number one, is Ancient Greek slang; no biblical scholar can honestly attest to what it actually means. Two, the word "homosexuality" was not ever found in the bible until 1946 with the publication of the Revised New Testament. Finally, this word was actually translated as "masturbation" until the fourteenth century.

"2. The church has always embraced those who forsake sexual sin but who still struggle with homosexual desires, rejoicing with them that all our fallen, sinful, disordered lives (all of us, no exceptions) are forgiven if we turn to Christ in faith.

Such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God. (1 Cor. 6:11)"

You believe that you embrace homosexuals? Really? Is that why you wrote an blog claiming that Jesus created a tornado to teach those "gay-loving Lutherans" a lesson?

"3. Therefore, official church pronouncements that condone the very sins that keep people out of the kingdom of God, are evil. They dishonor God, contradict Scripture, and implicitly promote damnation where salvation is freely offered."

I agree wholly. Which is why I think you are in grave error in your interpretations of homosexuality and God's wrath.

"4. Jesus Christ controls the wind, including all tornados.

Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him? (Mark 4:41)"

So we can blame Jesus for the tsunami that devestated Thailand, hurricane Katrina, global warming, and the lack of rain in parts of impoverished Africa? Wait a minute, are you just picking and choosing verses, John? What about the verses that claim that God is not the author of evil (Job 34:10, Deuteronomy 32:4, 2 Chronicles 19:7, James 1:13, etc.)" and "God causes rain to fall on the righteous and unrighteous. (Matthew 5:45)"?

"5. When asked about a seemingly random calamity near Jerusalem where 18 people were killed, Jesus answered in general terms—an answer that would cover calamities in Minneapolis, Taiwan, or Baghdad. God’s message is repent, because none of us will otherwise escape God’s judgment.

Jesus: “Those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.” (Luke 13:4-5)"

Talk about taking verses out of context. But Piper has done that from the beginning of his post with 1 Corinthians; why should this be any different? Jesus, in these verses, was using the deaths of those who were killed in the Siloam tower collapse as an example that death is inevitable and happens all the time - sometimes when you least expect it - and you might miss out on living a life to the fullest in the kingdom of God if you hesitate.

"6. Conclusion: The tornado in Minneapolis was a gentle but firm warning to the [Lutheran church] and all of us: Turn from the approval of sin. Turn from the promotion of behaviors that lead to destruction. Reaffirm the great Lutheran heritage of allegiance to the truth and authority of Scripture. Turn back from distorting the grace of God into sensuality. Rejoice in the pardon of the cross of Christ and its power to transform left and right wing sinners."

Conclusion: Piper still lives theologically in the stone age where people believed that if their crops didn't grow, they must have angered the gods. As Piper invites us to turn towards his archaic biblical interpretations of things, I would invite him to turn towards these:

1. Turn from using the bible, God, and Jesus to promote and support your own bigotry and ignorance.
2. Turn from encouraging extremists like Fred Phelps and those that would assault others because of their sexuality, by misquoting and misinterpreting passages of scripture.
3. Turn back from distorting the grace of God into meaning "grace for only me and people who think like me."

Interview with Roger McClellan

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:39:24 +0100

Brett Buckner, staff writer for The Anniston Star, recently interviewed Roger McClellan on "raising children without religion." You can click here to find the published article.

"It's important for children to be grounded in faith because, while there will be self-doubt and the search for meaning, they will also be instilled with an awareness that they are part of a greater whole," explains Roger McClellan, co-pastor, along with is wife Melissa, of the Prince of Peace Progressive Christian Church in Anniston.

"I also believe it is very important for children, once exposed, to be given the freedom and even encouraged to explore so that they may make informed decisions for themselves regarding their own belief systems," says McClellan, who has two teenagers.

"Faith is not an arranged marriage. Children, as well as adults, should be allowed to decide for themselves," McClellan says.

"When it comes to faith, we often try to arrange for our children a relationship with our Creator under the parameters and conditions that we ourselves define," he says. "In seeking to define the terms of that relationship, we deprive our children of the great joy and intimacy that comes from discovering for themselves an expression of faith that leads to a lasting and passionate connection with the divine."

Happy Inter-dependence Day

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 00:30:34 +0100

from the Psalters

Severe Case of Missing the Point

Mon, 18 May 2009 17:25:41 +0100

So my brother and contributor to this blog, Ryan, has decided after much prayer and decision to pursue his dream of being a bartender. He feels that not only will this be a fun and exciting career, but also it is an almost untapped (no pun intended) ministry opportunity.

However, ever since he has made his decision known, he has received a rash of shit by family members, friends, and "good-minded Christians" who want to save him from his hell-bent ways.

The most standard line he gets (to his face) is: "I'm disappointed in you, but I still love you." In other words, "Everything about you is wrong, but I'm still required to love you." Utter nonsense.

"His father would be ashamed," one Christian "friend" has remarked, "he should join the military to get some discipline."

So let me get this straight...serving alcohol in a bar or restaraunt to adults - alcohol that Jesus had no problem with as his first miracle was turning water into wine and being called nothing less than a "bibber" by a few Pharisees - is evil but signing up to kill others in wars waged by empire - empire and violence are things that Jesus directly opposed - is good? WTF?!?

I'm trying to keep a cool head about this - especially for my brother who feels like he has once again been betrayed by the ones who are supposed to never betray you (blood-family and church-family), but I'm finding it increasingly difficult to be peaceable about this and simply be like James and John and ask Jesus to "send down the fire."

National Day of Prayer...

Sat, 09 May 2009 12:32:36 +0100

As the associate chaplain of a fire department in Metro-Atlanta, I am asked to baptize the government's attrocities through prayer. I often turn down the request, simply because they want me to be both an American Patriot and a Christian Minister. In my opinion, I cannot do both (and I refuse to be one of those). However, when I was asked to offer an invocation at the National Day of Prayer, I jumped at the chance. I was asked to submit my prayer to the city I was to pray before via e-mail so they could "proof-read" it. Shortly after I sent it in, I recieved a reply stating that they found someone else to pray. This was the prayer I sent in:

"Dear God,
We are gathered here today to offer prayers to you in a desperate attempt to give you lip service. We claim to follow you, yet there are millions homeless and without food across the globe and in our own backyard. We claim to love you, yet we hate other people made in your image simply because they look different than us or are labeled "the enemy." Many of our religious communities are complicit in an attack on your image in humanity by supporting torture. On this National Day of Prayer, we seek to confess and repent of this grave sin and build communities of faith that reject torture. We pray for the healing of our broken nation and commit ourselves to ensuring that America never tortures again. Amen."

If you would like to sign your name to this prayer/pledge, please follow this link.