A Hunger for a Positive Faith
Cross posted at Faithfully Liberal: A Hunger for a Positive Faith
I’m bewildered sometimes by the anger I see coming from so many sectors of American society. You find it on the left and on the right and maybe even in the middle. The polarization is seemingly at an all time high – I doubt its true, but it feels that way. I wonder how we might do things differently. How we might make a difference.
I’m at the halfway point in reading Eric Elnes’ Asphalt Jesus, and I’ve found reading the book to be spiritually moving event. The book, which tells the story of a group of progressive Christians led by progressive UCC the pastor from Scottsdale, AZ, offers a different take on what’s really happening. We discover along the way that while many churches and their leaders are closed to conversation there are whole sectors of the community that are hungry to hear of a new way of being human and even being Christian. This group CrossWalk America sought to bear testimony to the Phoenix Affirmations, which I won’t go into now. But there’s a quote from the book that is illustrative of a war forward. Eric comments on his encounter with a church group in Hereford, TX. They weren’t all on board with the Affirmations, but they were willing to have a conversation. And in the course of conversation a new openness was forged. He writes:
It may have been the asphalt that stuck to our shoes as we entered Hereford on Saturday, but we left on Monday with something else stuck to us that we would not be able to shake for the rest of the walk: an awareness that one of the great forces of change in our country will not come through the power of rhetoric or even through the power of “superior” beliefs but through people following Jesus crossing lines, and becoming friends. (Asphalt Jesus, Jossey Bass, 2007, p. 83).
Going this route toward change will take time, because it’s a gradualist approach. But in the long run it is likely to be more effective, and it will respond to a deep hunger for a positive faith and values.
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