A 21st Century Prophet?
The prophetic voice of Shane Claiborne always challenges the gravitational forces of complacency in my life (by the way, I doubt he’d refer to himself as a prophet). I love what he has to say and I hate what he has to say, the latter a result of me knowing how often I tend to be a hearer of Jesus’ words rather than a doer of his words. I was reminded of this today when I came across Shane’s op-ed piece from the November 18 issue of Esquire magazine titled “What if Jesus Meant All that stuff.” Here’s my favorite paragraph:
In fact, the entire story of Jesus is about a God who did not just want to stay “out there” but who moves into the neighborhood, a neighborhood where folks said, “Nothing good could come.” It is this Jesus who was accused of being a glutton and drunkard and rabble-rouser for hanging out with all of society’s rejects, and who died on the imperial cross of Rome reserved for bandits and failed messiahs. This is why the triumph over the cross was a triumph over everything ugly we do to ourselves and to others. It is the final promise that love wins.
Jan Paulsen
Ryan Bell and I were having a discussion last week with some friends about whether or not the General Conference President of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, Jan Paulsen, is a former student of Jürgen Moltmann. We’d heard rumors that Paulsen attended Universität Tübingen in Germany where Motlmann was a professor for many years.
We now have confirmation. Yes! Yesterday Ryan sent me an article he found by Paulsen, titled “Christ’s Healing in a Changing World”, where the president writes:
Quite simply, we cannot express our faith—our desire to imitate Christ—in seclusion; our values and our beliefs find their true meaning only within the context of human relationships. In the words of my former teacher Jürgen Moltmann, “Likeness to God cannot be lived in isolation. It can be lived only in human community” (J. Moltmann, God in Creation, p. 222). [italics mine]
You can read the entire article Adventist World. It’s worth the read.
The release party for Samir Selmanovic’s new book It’s Really All About God: Reflections of a Muslim, Atheist, Jewish, Christian took place last night in New York City. Samir served as a pastor with me here at CrossWalk until he returned to New York with his family in 2007 to launch Faith House Manhattan.
As Jürgen Moltmann says, “Theology begins in Testimony.” That’s definitely true with Samir. The theology born from his story will challenge many of us to rethink how we view religion in the world. If you want to learn more about Samir and his book check out the It’s Really All About God blog. Congratulations Samir! I wish you much success.
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