Country music DJ, songwriter said they should call the movement the “Red Letter Christians.” “I love all the red stuff.
Tony Campolo said “that’s it, we should be the red letter Christians.”
What really is going on? He was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. After 9/11, they fitgured they should invite some religious leaders. This is where he met Rick Warren. They had a session called “Should we despair of our disparities?”
Wallis brought up the subject of Biblical archeology. When they dig down in the ruins of Israel, they find periods of time where the houses are basically the same size. Show a relative equality between the people. During those periods, there are no prophets. When they dig down into other periods, where there are huge mansions and little shacks, that’s when the prophets rise up.
God hates inequality. He doesn’t mind prosperity if we share it. God’s economy is “there is enough, if we share it.” He believes that God is raising up voices in our time. The differences in Israel would pale in comparison to the inequality in our time. God is raising up a new generation. This is the only way he can explain Bono - a backslidden Catholic boy who is getting more religious every day.
God is raising up our voices. He doesn’t know why these changes are happening. We can’t control it - all we can do is join it.
They had a six-point plan for peace, but offered too late. War broke out anyway. Even though the state department and others liked it. His wife was going into labor, and he kept getting phone calls from British cabinent ministers about talking about the six point plan. His wife said “Stop the war, I’m not pushing yet.”
Habakkuk, Chapter 1. “2 How long, O LORD, must I call for help,
but you do not listen?
Or cry out to you, “Violence!”
but you do not save?
3 Why do you make me look at injustice?
Why do you tolerate wrong?
Destruction and violence are before me;
there is strife, and conflict abounds.
4 Therefore the law is paralyzed,
and justice never prevails.
The wicked hem in the righteous,
so that justice is perverted.”
He is practicing the politics of complaint. He’s a liberal.
“Then the LORD replied:
“Write down the revelation
and make it plain on tablets
so that a herald [b] may run with it.
3 For the revelation awaits an appointed time;
it speaks of the end
and will not prove false.
Though it linger, wait for it;
it [c] will certainly come and will not delay.”
It’s time to write the vision and make it plain, because the runners are the next generation. They’re ready to run. Lets write a vision that draws people from all sides of divisive spectrums.
Richard mentioned cynicism and hope. The folks who came here probably consider themselves activism. When he was going up, he was told the big choice was the difference between belief and secularism. But he believs the big choice is between hope and cynicism. He likes the cynics, because they are realistic. They see the world how it is, and they are against all the bad stuff. And for a while they may have tried to change it, but then they got disappointed.
After a while, they are alone, and then they feel vulnerable. They step back into cynicism. Surround themselves with a bit more security. They are still against all the bad stuff, but don’t think things could ever really change. Cynicism becomes a buffer against commitment. Hope isn’t a personality trait. Hope is a choice. A decision you make, because of a thing they call faith.
Hebrews: “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Hope is the most imporant thing we have to contribute to politics. Both sides in Washington take an issue, make us afraid of it, blame it on the other side, and take a poll to see who won. The election is just the last poll. It’s a politics of fear and blame.
People are hungry for a politics of solutions and a politics of hope. The media is even worse than the politicians. Did you know that every issue has just two sides? When they interview you before a show, they are just trying to see if the talking heads have conflict to make good television. Does youth violence have two sides? No, it has many sides. The dualism in the media prevents us from finding solutions.
A politics of solutions doesn’t work without a politics of hope.
The other choice we have to make - which he usually says to students - career versus vocation. Career is where we assemble our assets - what is said by the culture is important enough. Climb up the ladder. Vocation is where you discern your gift. What’s your gift? It’s what you lose track of time while you’re doing. What are you really good at? What’s your passion? What were you put on this earth to do? Where your gift meets the crushing needs of this world, that’s your vocation.
When Dr. King came back from getting nobel peace price, a reward of success, when he came back he went right to Washington to talk to Lyndon Johnson. King told Johnson we needed a voting rights act, since the civil rights act won’t be enforced. Johnson told him he had cashed in all of his chips and it would take 5-10 years. King said “we can’t wait, we need it now.” King went back to the South and organized a campaign in Selma, Alabama. The leaders of SCLC and SNCC marched to confront sheriff Jim Clark. John Lewis was beaten almost to death on “Bloody Sunday.” The whole nation was watching. The clergy poured into Alabama to march from Selma to Alabama. Within five months, we had a voting rights act. King changed the wind.
We have such a historical memory of religion changing things much more quickly than anyone could imagine. We can do this again.
We don’t just keep pulling bodies out of the river, we need to send someone upstream to see who’s throwing them in. We’re not lobbyist either. But we need to be wind-changers.
Lisa (missed last name): “Don’t you understand, we are the ones we have been waiting for.”
Do a few things:
- Take care of your faith. We lose that, and none of this happens.
- Take care of each other. We don’t want movement where win and lose dominates.
- Know that you are part of something that could make a real difference in this world. Know that you are not alone anymore.
Hope is believing in spite of the evidence and then watching the evidence change. “I believe that you are the ones we have been waiting for.”
