Barbara's Sharebook 

  • A positive, progressive Christian alternative
  • Reflecting the joy and justice message of Jesus
  • Aimed toward spiritual seekers and strugglers
  • For the purpose of amplifying the voice of Progressive Christianity.

Living Faith is a positive, progressive, Christian alternative that lifts up themes of nonviolence, compassion, co-operation, and community. Living Faith will educate the public in the liberal family values of Jesus, his commitment of economic justice for the poor, care of creation, compassion for the excluded, and resistance to empire. Living Faith will articulate a positive expression of a Wisdom Culture that promotes lifestyles of balance and reconciliation. Living Faith will invite others into a conversation about the values and vision of Jesus.

CALL TO ACTION ON 9/11; Please go to the above URL for the entire speech; or watch the video. BMT
"First they came for the terrorists but I wasn't a terrorist so I stayed silent and went about my business. Then they came for those suspected of terrorism, but I certainly wasn't a suspect so I stayed silent and went about my business. Then they came for those who defended those who were suspected of terrorism, but I wasn't defending such people so I stayed silent and went about my business. Then, one day, they came and began to "suspect" me, so I stayed very, very silent and went about my business.
And that is how I lost my soul."

You can feel it in the air: many of us are living in the fear that we are one "bad event" away from this administration seizing power over the people in such a way that we will find ourselves swept up in a nightmare of tyranny such as we've never seen before.

Others before us have also lived in such times. Others before us have also witnessed the tyranny of empire, the fear it unleashes, and the trance it imposes on its population. There is a story in the Gospel of Mark (this Sunday I'll be preaching about it) that has Jesus encountering a man in a graveyard, chained to the tombs and possessed by a powerful demon that has caused the man to become violent, insane, and out of control. The name of the demon is Legion, a military term that symbolizes the occupying army of Rome. In the story Jesus breaks through the silence, the denial, the trance and compels the demon to acknowledge its name. Once named, Jesus "exorcizes the demon", that is, he performs a direct public action that breaks through the denial and the trance while restoring the man to sanity and community.

We are gathered tonight because our nation has fallen into a trance: we've become possessed by a spirit that is causing us great harm. It is a spirit that causes great violence. It is a spirit that destroys community. It turns us against each other. It causes us to distrust each other. And it certainly causes us to question our sanity, our understanding of events and of basic human qualities like honesty, forthrightness, integrity, co-operation. This trance has caused us to lose our voice, we have become silent in the face of great evils. We have learned how to live in denial of the obvious. Indeed, we now know the answer to that old question, "how could good German citizens allow the Nazi Party to rise to power?" We need somehow to awaken from this trance, and find our voice. We need to break through the denial and compel the demon that possesses us to state forth its name, and having done that, then through direct public actions we can restore our citizenry to sanity and community. We need to awaken and reclaim our roots as a democracy.

That's the assumption of this call to meeting. We face a multitude, a whole legion of evils that are silencing us, chaining us to fears and denial, possessing us with a spirit contrary to our nature. You have probably come here because you have seen this possession and have become restless and frustrated in "casting it out" of the body politic. Some of you are here because you think electing Democrats in 2008 will bring a new birth of hope. Some of you are here because you think our governing system has fallen into disrepair and needs a few tweaks and adjustments. Some of you want to fix our broken elections, or stop the impending war in Iran, Syria and Lebanon. Some of you want to get to the bottom of the 9/11 contradictions, and some of you are worried sick about the house of cards that is our economy. Many of you are greatly concerned about the growing power of the executive and the military. Many of you worry about the corruption of our political process through Corporate money. The urgency of multiple crisis (legion) is certainly before our nation this evening. But tonight the focus is really on one part of the crisis: breaking the trance, breaking through the denial and finding our voice.

CONTINUED............