{"id":129,"date":"2006-10-20T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-10-20T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/godspolitics\/2006\/10\/brian-mclaren-darfur-and-afric.html"},"modified":"2006-10-20T12:00:00","modified_gmt":"2006-10-20T12:00:00","slug":"brian-mclaren-darfur-and-afric","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/godspolitics\/2006\/10\/brian-mclaren-darfur-and-afric.html","title":{"rendered":"Brian McLaren: Darfur and Africa and American Evangelicals"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\"BrianLast year, a group of us put together something we called \u201cWorship in the Spirit of Justice.\u201d We planned five weeks of outdoor public worship in Washington, D.C., to bring attention to the suffering in Darfur. We believe that worship is closely connected with protest: when we praise God as the One who loves the poor, oppressed, and forgotten, we are implicitly protesting people and structures that oppress, exclude, and forget. Worship in this way radicalizes all of us. It forms us as people who join God in God\u2019s care for our world.<\/p>\n

\"Rally\"We chose five \u201cprophetic locations.\u201d The first week, we met at the Lincoln Memorial, recalling our history of racism and slavery \u2013 and realizing that, as the film Hotel Rwanda<\/em> said so painfully and powerfully, the way the rest of the world neglects the deaths of millions in Africa must be attributed in part at least to racism. In succeeding weeks, we met in front of the Capitol building, calling Congress to action; we gathered across from the National Press Club, urging the news media to keep Darfur on the front page until our nation used its influence more effectively for the dying in Darfur; we met across from the Sudan Embassy, where we prayed for that nation\u2019s rulers to change their ways; and finally, we met in front of the White House, where hundreds of us knelt in prayer for our nation\u2019s leaders to take action.<\/p>\n

Now, over a year later, a group of evangelical leaders<\/a> have spoken out on behalf of Darfur. In a sign that more and more evangelical leaders are unwilling to be held hostage to a single political party or a too-limited moral agenda, a wide array of leaders have come together saying that for us, Darfur will be a front-page issue, a true moral issue, and we won\u2019t forget the good our leaders do for Darfur \u2013 or fail to do \u2013 as we move forward.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important to remember (as a recent Time<\/i> magazine cover story and a recent CNN series made clear) that Darfur isn\u2019t the only scene of tragedy in Africa. The Congo continues to be a nightmare of violence and chaos. And while Africa gets a bit more of the attention it deserves, we can\u2019t forget the terrible suffering in Latin America (where I recently walked the streets of some of the worst slums in the world), in so many parts of Asia, and even in our own nation \u2013 whether we\u2019re speaking of the Katrina-stricken Gulf Coast or the urban and rural poor who are neighbors to all of us.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m encouraged to see more and more Christian leaders in the U.S. not only caring about these places, but also visiting them \u2013 not just to bring aid or \u201cdo mission,\u201d but equally important, perhaps more important, to listen and learn, to meet people, to build relationships so the poor become our neighbors, our friends indeed. (For example, consider the beautiful and historic work of Amahoro-africa.com<\/a> in bringing emerging Christian leaders from the U.S. together with their counterparts across East Africa.)<\/p>\n

On December 10, thousands of churches will join together to \u201cworship in the Spirit of justice.\u201d<\/a> Across our nation, they will praise God as the God of justice, the God who cares for the oppressed, the God who doesn\u2019t play favorites, the God to whom a starving and frightened Muslim child in the Sudan is as precious as a Christian child in an affluent U.S. Sunday school. They will pray for Darfur, for the leaders of Sudan, for racism and genocide to be exposed and rejected, for rescue and reconciliation to be pursued. They will pray for our President and Congress not to let politics so preoccupy them that they forget justice and compassion.<\/p>\n

I hope you\u2019ll invite your church to practice \u201cworship in the Spirit of justice\u201d on December 10, and I hope that kind of worship becomes habitual for more and more of us, week after week, day by day.<\/p>\n

+ Click here for Dec. 10 worship resources from Sojourners\/Call to Renewal<\/a><\/p>\n

Brian McLaren<\/a> is the author of Secret Message of Jesus<\/i><\/a>, and board chair for Sojourners\/Call to Renewal<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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