Peace Witness: Part Two

Doug King, the Web Weaver for Witherspoon Society posted a nice summary of his experience at the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq over the weekend. He also includes some other reports including the sermon I preached on Sunday. Here are a few pics from our trip.

(Counter-clockwise: Betsy, me, Kathe, Aubrie, Nancy, Nance getting fortified)

Practicing the "Hassle Line" (Is non-violence supposed to be this fun?)

On the way to the National Cathedral

Everyone has a smile and a button!

You can order one for yourself from the Mennonite Church (USA)

Be warned! You may become what you wear!

Nearly 3,000 worshipped here on Friday Night.

Nancy and Aubrie on the 3.4 mile march from the Cathedral down Massachussetts Avenue to the White House. About 2,000 people joined in the march.


There were a lot of people!


I like this cartoon special effect.
The Washington Monument and the White House is in the distance.

More pics later! Don't forget the peace vigil tonight at 7 p.m.!

Peace Witness

Here is a pic I took of the National Cathedral on Friday. I told the story of our trip to D.C. in my sermon today. The sermon will be on-line in a day or two. I will take excerpts from it and share some pictures with the story.



At this point I want to remind folks about the various peace vigils that will be happening in and around the tricities area this weekend.

Here are some pics in yesterday's Johnson City Press regarding the peace demonstration on Roan and Mountcastle.

We will have a peace vigil at First Pres. Monday night. Join us or attend one of the others in the area. ConcernedTNCitizens and DemocracyNowtricities has information about other peace vigils.

This is part of the sermon I preached this morning:

"What profit is there for the person who gains the world but gives up her soul?" --Jesus

I have been against this war in Iraq since its inception. I have been against it not because of my political beliefs. I have been against it not because of my knowledge of strategy or of foreign affairs. I have little knowledge in those matters. I have been against this particular war because it goes against the basic principles of Jesus and the just war tradition as outlined by Augustine. I have been against this war because I believe that America has sacrificed its soul for fear.

In response to grief of the terrorist attack in September 2001 and in response to fear, the United States attacked a sovereign nation before it attacked us. All the reasons given for the invasion--weapons of mass destruction, the evil of Saddam Hussein, and the terrorist attacks of September 11th--were all rationales, and feeble ones at that. Simply put, the United States acted as an aggressor. We started a war when there were other options.

We have been in it now longer than the United States was in World War II and nearly as long as the War Between the States. We need to change course, not because popular opinion is changing, not because of deaths to our soldiers and the Iraqi people, not because we are bogged down in a situation we cannot win, not because we spend over two hundred million dollars a day to fund it, not for any of those reasons alone or even collectively. We need to change course because the path we have taken is immoral and once we justify immorality, we lose our conscience and our soul. No amount of strategy can change that.

Whatever answer there is to ending this war will not be based primarily on strategy. Strategy follows principle. It is principle to which we as Americans need to remember and to remind ourselves and our leaders.

It is principle for which we need to stand and for which we need to speak and act. It is the principle of which Jesus and Paul both spoke. Do not resist evil with evil. Do not become what you hate. I am a believer that it is never too late for repentance. Repentance is recognizing wrong and changing direction. When we embrace our principles and speak for them. When we act from our center, then we can worry about strategy and politics and all the rest.

The Iraq War: Immoral, Illegal, and Unjust

Jordan Schmidt, of Leesburg, Va., an anti-war protester, holds a candlelight vigil with others outside the White House in Washington, Friday, March 16, 2007. An estimated 3,000 protesters march from the National Cathedral to the White House to protest the military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson) (Lawrence Jackson - AP)

We just returned from Washington D.C. from the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq. I will put up some of my own pics in the next couple of days. It began with non-violent direct action training followed by a service at the National Cathedral. Estimated attendance was 2,825 at the powerful worship service. Volunteers estimated about 2/3 marched down Massachusetts Avenue to the White House. About 200 or so decided on a planned arrest to raise awareness. It was cold, rainy, and snowy. I think they had planned on about 5,000 but the weather turned many away. Yet, I was amazed and impressed with the number of people who marched despite the conditions.

Here is an Associated Press Video

Jim Wallis of Sojourners told the truth. This is from CNN:

"This war, from a Christian point of view, is morally wrong -- and was from the beginning," the Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners/Call to Renewal, one of the event's sponsors, said toward the end of the service to cheers and applause. "This war is ... an offense against God." (link)

Presbyterians were well represented. Former moderators, Rick Ufford-Chase and Susan Andrews participated in the service. You can read about PCUSA positions from the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program and the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship. Of course, many different denominations were represented.

Rev. Raphael G. Warnock gave a rousing witness. This is from ABC :

In his speech, the Rev. Raphael G. Warnock, senior pastor at Atlanta's Ebenezer Baptist Church, lashed out at Congress for being "too morally inept to intervene" to stop the war, but even more harshly against President Bush.

"Mr. Bush, my Christian brother, we do need a surge in troops. We need a surge in the nonviolent army of the Lord," he said. "We need a surge in conscience and a surge in activism and a surge in truth-telling." (link)

Anti-war protesters hold a candlelight vigil outside the White House in Washington, Friday, March 16, 2007. An estimated 3,000 protesters marched from the National Cathedral to the White House to protest the military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)


From CBS
John Pattison, 29, said he and his wife flew in from Portland, Oregon, to attend his first anti-war rally. He said his opposition to the war had developed over time. "Quite literally on the night that shock and awe commenced, my friend and I toasted the military might of the United States," Pattison said. "We were quite proud and thought we were doing the right thing." He said the way the war had progressed and U.S. foreign policy since then had forced him to question his beliefs. "A lot of the rhetoric that we hear coming from Christians has been dominated by the religious right and has been strong advocacy for the war," Pattison said. "That's just not the way I read my Gospel." (link)

From MSNBC:

Activists from the Mennonite group the Psalters pray before taking part in an anti-war procession from the National Cathedral to the White House 16 March 2007 in Washington, DC. Members of Christian Peace Witness for Iraq along with other activists staged a rally outside the White House to call for an end to the occupation of Iraq and bringing the troops home. The protest is one of several to take place over the next few days to mark the fourth anniversary of the start of the war in Iraq. AFP PHOTO/Nicholas KAMM (Photo credit should read NICHOLAS KAMM/AFP/Getty Images)



Here is a pic from Al Jazeera



Christian activists took part in an anti-war procession late on Friday in Washington DC [AFP]

On Saturday there was a march on the Pentagon, in which we did not participate.

Jim Wallis said what I thought was the most important thing to say. He reminded us that beyond politics this war was and is immoral, unjust, and illegal. It has failed certainly to meet the ethic of Jesus of Nazareth and it fails the just-war criteria set out by Augustine.

I personally have been against this war from its inception. Perhaps now persons of conscience will continue to speak up and speak out and demand an end to this occupation.

Christian Peace Witness Today

We are in Alexandria, ready to cross the river into D.C. to participate in the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq. Six of us from First Pres., Elizabethton are here. We are going to get on the D.C. Metro, "The Peace Train" and to into the city in a few minutes. We will be taking the non-violent action training today from 1:30-3:30.

Worship at the National Cathedral tonight at 7 p.m. followed by a candlelight witness to the White House.

Don't forget all the peace events locally including our peace vigil Sunday at the church at 7 p.m. Check DemocracyNowTricities and ConcernedTNCitizens for other events.

Keep the Peace,
john

Two-Body Resurrection

I am attempting to make my way through The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave edited by Robert M. Price and Jeffrey Jay Lowder. It is a pretty heady work. It includes contributions by a variety of scholars in order to deal with questions regarding the historicity of the resurrection. One particular article I mention today is by Richard C. Carrier, "The Spiritual Body of Christ." I like it when authors put their theses statements in the first couple of paragraphs. Here is Carrier's:

Christianity probably began, and was taken up and preached by Paul the Apostle, with a different idea of the resurrection than is claimed today. The evidence suggests the first Christians, at least up to and including Paul, thought Christ's "soul" was taken up to heaven and clothed in a new body, after leaving his old body in the grave forever. The subsequent story, that Jesus actually walked out of the grave with the same body that went into it, leaving an empty tomb to astonish all, was probably a legend that developed over the course of the first century, beginning with a metaphorical "empty tomb" in the Gospel of Mark, most likely written after Paul's death. By the end of the first century the Christian faction that would win total power three centuries later, and thus alone preserve its writings for posterity, had come to believe in the literal truth of the ensuing legend, fogetting or repudiating the original doctrine of Paul.

If this theory of events is correct, then the Christian religion did not begin with an empty tomb or physical encounters with the risen Christ. Rather, it began with visions, dreams, and interpretations of scripture and, possibly, things Jesus was believed to have said, which all converged to inspire a belief that Christ's being had ascended to heaven and been granted, in advance of everyone, that new glorious body of the promised resurrection. There could not have been any physical evidence to back up this cliam, which is why none is ever mentioned by Paul or indeed in any of the epistles. It had to be taken on faith. At most, one could be persuaded to believe it through an analysis of scripture, and the sworn testimony of men like Paul who claimed to have encountered the risen Jesus in a spiritual epiphany. This makes the most sense of the fact that these two things are the only evidence Paul ever appeals to in persuading his fellow Christians to remain in the fold. It also makes more sense of the exact language Paul employs, and of certian peculiarities in the Gospel tradition itself.

So I have two points to prove: first, that the original Christian belief probably involved a two-body doctrine of the resurrection, where the identity of Jesus was believed to have left one body to enter another; and second, that the subsequent Gospel accounts, polemically emphasizing a physical raising of a flesh-and-blood corpse, probably represent a legendary development from that original belief.

Carrier goes on (for over 100 pages!) to demonstrate his thesis. The reason I bring him up is that one could still believe in the resurrection of Jesus (without resorting to metaphor) and be comfortable with his first body in the grave (say the Talpiot Tomb for instance). Here is Paul from I Corinthians 15:35-50:

But someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’ Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body. Not all flesh is alike, but there is one flesh for human beings, another for animals, another for birds, and another for fish. There are both heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is one thing, and that of the earthly is another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; indeed, star differs from star in glory.

So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, ‘The first man, Adam, became a living being’; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.

What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.

I am not necessarily defending the two-body doctrine. I think Paul means something far more important when he speaks about Resurrection than corpses rising or life after death. I think he is speaking about a new way of living and being, not least of which is a whole new order of participating in the justice and compassion of God. I will address this on Easter Sunday. Sea Raven has a couple of nice posts about this as well here and here.

Go Vols!

I took this photo today of my colleague's sign board. Harvest Baptist is just down the street from us.

It is March Madness and everyone in East Tennessee is a Vols fan (or at least is a Vols fan in public).

The Tennessee Volunteers are fifth in the South bracket. They'll be going all the way to heaven.



Deadline is tomorrow at noon to play Hoops Bracket Challenge.

April DeConick has finished her book on the Gospel of Judas and has emerged from the tomb she tells us on her blog. Now, she is ready to take on the Talpiot Tomb issue. She put a good post about it today, with the suggestion that scholars take this on at some sort of formal discussion.

Pray for Peace

Tuesday, March 20th, 2007, is the fourth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. On March 19th the eve of the anniversary of war, there will be prayer vigils held to bring in the dawn of peace. ConcernedTNCitizens and DemocracyNowTri-cities have locations of events. There will be vigils in Johnson City, Kingsport, Jonesborough, Bristol, Abingdon, VA, and Emory, VA. We will hold a vigil in Elizabethton as well at our church.

Seven church members and myself leave tomorrow morning for Washington D.C. to participate in the Christian Peace Witness for Iraq. Please keep us and all of the participants in your thoughts.

If Peace Should Die
by Terry Wilbur

Cry death and doom and let the maidens wail
When men of power turn a deafened ear
As howling dogs imperil all the land
And still they never see the danger near

Cry woe and mourn for peace that shall not be
Make haste to bring the virgins to the dust
For men forsake the truth and practice war
And all around they feed upon their lust

Cry misery and pain, the time is done
For peace has had her time, or so they say
The prophets in their robes of black do mourn
And still we pray and hope for peace come morn

Sing joy, for from the earth a seedling springs
We bow our hearts and listen for the sound
Can it be so that from so small a thing
That peace could grow and blossom all around?

Hosanna! Raise the cry throughout the land
Yes, sing the praise of peace and death of war
For men shall live once more in harmony
And hate and darkness dwell on earth no more

Terry E. Wilbur is a poet living in Dallas, Texas, married with three grown children and a cat named Caesar.

Esoterics in the Attic

One of our church members, John Nash, is the author of two books,


The Quest for the Soul












and The Soul and Its Destiny.


He is about ready to go to print with a history of Christianity. I will let you know when it is released. John is also the editor of an on-line magazine, The Esoteric Quarterly. Here is the description from its webpage:



The Esoteric Quarterly is an online journal published by the School for Esoteric Studies. It provides a medium for the dissemination of high-quality articles on esoteric philosophy and its applications to individual and group service and to the expansion of human consciousness.



If you are an author with this type of interest, you can submit an article. Here are the guidelines:

The Esoteric Quarterly solicits high-quality articles on esoteric philosophy and its applications to individual or group service and to the expansion of human consciousness. Topics may relate to either the eastern or western esoteric tradition. Examples of the eastern tradition are the works of Alice Bailey, Helena Roerich, Sri Aurobindo, the Dalai Lama, and Geoffrey Hodson. Representative of the western tradition are the works of Rosicrucian and Qabalistic writers. Topics that integrate different traditions are particularly encouraged.

I was notified of the latest issue today which you can see here. You can read a fine article by John Nash, Esoteric Healing in the Orthodox, Roman, and Anglican Churches.

I was thinking about the esoteric traditions as I was reading the latest posts by April DeConick on Gnosticism. She writes:

There were ancient Gnostics - folks that self-defined as Gnostics (seekers after the direct experience of God v. intellectual understanding of him). These people formed lodges or conventicles or study circles where they studied, prayed, and held initiation rituals. They were interested in esoterica - the hidden meaning of the scriptures, and learning the mysteries of the Kingdom, which included experiential journeys into the upper Aeons. These people sometimes continued to attend apostolic churches or synagogues. Sometimes they choose not to, and defined themselves apart from the churches and synagogues. (Read More)

I am pleased that Prof. DeConick is helping people understand those whom the majority (when they gained power) lumped together as one group as heretics. The history of early Christian origins can help us understand the diversity of our heritage. This great esoteric tradition continues in many valuable forms today within the church. I find my esoteric members incredibly bright, caring, and important contributors to our communities. The orthodox of old were less charitable. I hope we have learned our lessons.

How Important is the Afterlife to Your Faith?

I have noticed a change in funeral and memorial services. Many people request of me that they don't want a funeral but a celebration of life service for their loved ones. When they say funeral they usually mean some kind of sermon that speaks about heaven and hell that you often find in the Bible Belt. Instead they want to acknowledge the life of the person and celebrate that. I notice in this trend that people seem less concerned about the fate of their soul/consciousness after death and more concerned with life itself--this life. Personally, I find this to be a healthy trend.

Yet Christianity has often focused on the afterlife as being its central concern, particularly avoiding hell and getting into heaven. Many people in the church and without have left that notion behind as a relic of a superstitious past. So what is Christianity without a focus on the afterlife? What does Resurrection symbolize if it is not interwoven with the afterlife?

I addressed this issue in one of my early posts, Choose Your Afterlife. I spoke about it again in Sunday's sermon, "Imagine There's No Heaven" in my series "Beliefs Worth Letting Go in Order to Grow." Here is a snippet on Hell:

Hell is the easiest one for me to let go. With the exception of using it as a swear word or as a symbol for suffering, cruelty, and despair, I have dispensed with it. The idea that God would send people to hell doesn’t make sense to me at all. It is a cruel doctrine. The idea that god, as biblical scholar Robert Price put it, who is a cranky theology professor and gives out big rosy “F’s” to those who don’t have their beliefs correct and sends them down the chute to eternal fire--is weird.

However, not everyone is ready for that. If a belief in hell is the only thing that keeps you from dealing drugs or killing your neighbor, then by all means, keep believing it. If you haven’t developed a moral compass on your own nor dealt with your own anxieties, then simply ceasing believing in hell may not be the best thing for you. That is true with all beliefs. If we do not come to terms with the feelings underneath them, then we will simply substitute one belief for another.

But what about Heaven?

Heaven is a bit more complicated. As a minister I know that many people find comfort in the idea that they will see their loved ones again or that they are in heaven and at peace. The idea that heaven is a better place when this life seems unbearable can be a great comfort. If that belief works for you, then keep it.

That sounds perhaps too pragmatic, but I think what works is a good way to evaluate our beliefs. If believing that when we die, there is a better place enables us to get up in the morning, breathe more deeply, enjoy this life better, then by all means believe it. I would add that if there is a heaven, then it is for everyone, including those people we don’t like too much.

As far as other beliefs regarding the afterlife, such as reincarnation, or transport to a parallel universe and so forth, I am agnostic. I am not against it, I just don’t know. How can I? Again, I am pragmatic. If it works, then believe it. We might, even so, ask why it is important for us. What fear or dissatisfaction does a belief in an afterlife address? We might ask ourselves, do I really need this belief? Again, if you are not ready to address the underlying feelings, be careful about discarding beliefs. They serve a purpose even when we are not conscious of the purpose.

I think the great Apostle Paul needs to be challenged.

My concern with beliefs about an afterlife is that they can (not necessarily so, but they can) lead one to devalue this life. This is my problem with the Apostle Paul when he writes: If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.”

Paul, as I read him, did not have a great value for this life. He advised people not to get married because the end was coming. He wrote some wonderful things. But not everything is a keeper. His was an interim ethic. This life is not good, it is coming to an end, so live this one in preparation for the next one.

I don’t see things that way anymore. I think that this life is a good life and we should pay attention and enjoy it. Not only that, but we should work to make this life better for others too. We should live as if Earth is our home, because it is. Not only is it our home, but it is the home for all of life as we know it. It is the home for our future generations. I do not devalue life or Earth. It is a good place to be. Selling it short for some belief in an afterlife is irresponsible.

What to do with stories in the Bible regarding the kingdom of God or of heaven or of the New Jerusalem? Are they about our own personal survival? I think not.

I retain the symbol of heaven, not as afterlife, but as quality of life. Heaven for me is Presence. Presence of mind, presence of love, presence of God. Heaven within is what John Shelby Spong calls the courage to live fully and to love wastefully.

Why is it that human beings invented the concepts of afterlife at all? I can think of two reasons at least.

Joseph Campbell, the great mythologist, said that the first conscious thought was, “I am.” It was a euphoric thought. I am! I exist! Joy! But the second conscious thought followed closely, “Someday I will not exist.” I am leads to I am not. The thought, “I am not” creates anxiety. I am and I want to be I am forever. I am not is the end of I am.

Enter religion in all of its forms. Maybe there is a way to beat the I am not. Perhaps even though this life ends, I somehow continue. That is one explanation for an afterlife.

Another explanation has to do with the injustice and unfairness of this life. The great wisdom literature of the Hebrew scriptures, wonderful writings such as Ecclesiastes and Job address the problem of injustice. Why do the good suffer and the wicked prosper? The first painful rule we learn is that life is rarely fair. And that is not satisfactory. If justice is unattainable in this life, then perhaps in the next life all of us will get our just desserts. Notions of karma in the eastern traditions and heaven and hell in the western traditions developed in response to the injustice in this life. Systems of belief and practice developed as a way for us to secure a better standing in the next life.

Heaven and Hell in Islam, Christianity and its derivatives represent ultimate and eternal justice, reward for the good and punishment for the wicked. Two things at least are at work in this business of the afterlife, anxiety for our end, and the dissatisfaction with injustice.

Humanity may be on the verge of growing up and growing out of these beliefs. We don't need heaven, hell, and various theories of afterlife to deal with anxiety and injustice. We need, I believe to fully give ourselves to this life--all of it--to enjoy it and to do good that others may enjoy it and so that future generations may enjoy it as well.

The Most Important Question

I grew up in church. I remember on many occasions being told that the most important question in life is, "If you were to die today, are you sure you will go to heaven?" It is a question many folks where I live think is the most important question. The question leads eventually to adopting the theory of substitutionary atonement, reciting the sinner's prayer and so forth.

I no longer think that this the most important question. I had doubts that it was terribly important even as a child. Nevertheless, church and peer pressure, my own sense of eight-year-old guilt and a desire to please led me to pray the sinner's prayer, receive Jesus into my heart, get baptized, and become a tract carrying ambassador for "the most important question." Today, this question doesn't even make my long list. I think it is a silly question and a distracting question from the far more critical questions of life.

What are the most important questions for us as individuals, as the church, and as a human race? Do you have a list? A question near the top for me these days is this one, "What am I (or are you) doing so that there will be a livable environment for our children and grandchildren?"

I think that this is one of the most if not the most important questions that the church should be asking itself. It is a religious, spiritual, moral, and ethical question. What on Earth are we doing for Earth?

On the front page of Sunday's Johnson City Press (and I am sure it is in your newspaper as well) is an article entitled, "New Climate Report Warns of Drought, Starvation, Disease," by AP science writer, Seth Borenstein. The article begins:

WASHINGTON — The harmful effects of global warming on daily life are already showing up, and within a couple of decades hundreds of millions of people won’t have enough water, top scientists will say next month at a meeting in Belgium.
At the same time, tens of millions of others will be flooded out of their homes each year as the Earth reels from rising temperatures and sea levels, according to portions of a draft of an international scientific report obtained by The Associated Press.
Tropical diseases like malaria will spread. By 2050, polar bears will mostly be found in zoos, their habitats gone. Pests like fire ants will thrive.
For a time, food will be plentiful because of the longer growing season in northern regions. But by 2080, hundreds of millions of people could face starvation, according to the report, which is still being revised.
The draft document by the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change focuses on global warming’s effects and is the second in a series of four being issued this year. Written and reviewed by more than 1,000 scientists from dozens of countries, it still must be edited by government officials.
But some scientists said the overall message is not likely to change when it’s issued in early April in Brussels, the same city where European Union leaders agreed this past week to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Their plan will be presented to President Bush and other world leaders at a summit in June.
The report offers some hope if nations slow and then reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, but it notes that what’s happening now isn’t encouraging.
“Changes in climate are now affecting physical and biological systems on every continent,” the report says, in marked contrast to a 2001 report by the same international group that said the effects of global warming were coming. But that report only mentioned scattered regional effects.
“Things are happening and happening faster than we expected,” said Patricia Romero Lankao of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., one of the many co-authors of the new report.
The draft document says scientists are highly confident that many current problems — change in species’ habits and habitats, more acidified oceans, loss of wetlands, bleaching of coral reefs, and increases in allergy-inducing pollen — can be blamed on global warming.
For example, the report says North America “has already experienced substantial ecosystem, social and cultural disruption from recent climate extremes,” such as hurricanes and wildfires.
But the present is nothing compared to the future.
Global warming soon will “affect everyone’s life ... it’s the poor sectors that will be most affected,” Romero Lankao said.
And co-author Terry Root of Stanford University said: “We truly are standing at the edge of mass extinction” of species. (Read More)

The answer to this question won't be solved by reciting the sinner's prayer. This is the work of our generation. Will our churches provide the spiritual inspiration, will, intelligence, energy, imagination, and love to wrestle with this? It remains to be seen, but if this article is true, we have no time to waste.

This is why I find most theology, church politics, and church programming a waste of time. The church deals with things that are not important. I don't say this to make judgments but to ask if you don't feel this way too. Isn't it time to get to work--to educate people--to get political--and to care?

One way as the church to respond is to raise awareness by greening your church. The National Council of Churches Eco-Justice Program has a Green Church page with suggestions such as having your congregation take an environmental audit. We are undergoing one at my congregation. We have no delusions that we are saving the world, but you have to start somewhere.

What are we doing to ensure our children's future? It is an important question for us. What is your most important question?