{"id":165,"date":"2009-02-19T00:51:37","date_gmt":"2009-02-19T00:51:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/2009\/02\/marginal-christianity.html"},"modified":"2009-02-19T00:51:37","modified_gmt":"2009-02-19T00:51:37","slug":"marginal-christianity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/02\/marginal-christianity.html","title":{"rendered":"Marginal Christianity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We as Christians need to be comfortable being marginal. &#160;This will require two things: &#160;Surrender and Choice.<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<div><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Surrender<\/span>: &#160;We are being marginalized in this country and we can be OK with that. &#160;We live in a pluralistic society that is actively moving us out of power. &#160;I don&#039;t think we should fight this, for power is not the goal of the kingdom-obsessed, love is. I like how King said it,&#160;<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"webkit-indent-blockquote\">\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jazztheologian.com\/.a\/6a00d8341c63c953ef011278fb807128a4-pi\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Martin-luther-king\" border=\"0\" class=\"at-xid-6a00d8341c63c953ef011278fb807128a4 selected \" src=\"https:\/\/www.jazztheologian.com\/.a\/6a00d8341c63c953ef011278fb807128a4-120pi\" \/><\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice and justice at it&#039;s best is love correcting everything that stands against love. (Martin Luther King Jr. August 16, 1967)<br \/><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><\/p>\n<div><span style=\"font-weight: bold\">Choice<\/span>: &#160;Jesus hangs out on the margins, he told us so in Mt. 25. &#160;There is an experience of Christ that can only be found when we choose to meet him on the margins and borders. &#160;King chose this life despite his middle class and educated life. &#160;Listen to this&#8230;<\/div>\n<p><\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"webkit-indent-blockquote\">\n<p><span style=\"font-style: italic\">I choose to identify with the&#160;underprivileged, I choose to identify with the poor. &#160;I choose to give my life to the hungry. &#160;I choose to give my life for those who have been left out of the sunlight of opportunity. &#160;(Martin Luther King Jr. August 16, 1966)<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We as Christians need to be comfortable being marginal. &#160;This will require two things: &#160;Surrender and Choice. Surrender: &#160;We are being marginalized in this country and we can be OK with that. &#160;We live in a pluralistic society that is actively moving us out of power. &#160;I don&#039;t think we should fight this, for power&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-seeking-the-peace-marginal-christianity"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Marginal Christianity - The Jazz Theologian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/02\/marginal-christianity.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Marginal Christianity - The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We as Christians need to be comfortable being marginal. &#160;This will require two things: &#160;Surrender and Choice. Surrender: &#160;We are being marginalized in this country and we can be OK with that. &#160;We live in a pluralistic society that is actively moving us out of power. &#160;I don&#039;t think we should fight this, for power&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/02\/marginal-christianity.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-02-19T00:51:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/www.jazztheologian.com\/.a\/6a00d8341c63c953ef011278fb807128a4-120pi\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Gelinas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Marginal Christianity - The Jazz Theologian","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/02\/marginal-christianity.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Marginal Christianity - The Jazz Theologian","og_description":"We as Christians need to be comfortable being marginal. &#160;This will require two things: &#160;Surrender and Choice. Surrender: &#160;We are being marginalized in this country and we can be OK with that. &#160;We live in a pluralistic society that is actively moving us out of power. &#160;I don&#039;t think we should fight this, for power&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/02\/marginal-christianity.html","og_site_name":"The Jazz Theologian","article_published_time":"2009-02-19T00:51:37+00:00","og_image":[{"url":"http:\/\/www.jazztheologian.com\/.a\/6a00d8341c63c953ef011278fb807128a4-120pi"}],"author":"Robert Gelinas","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/02\/marginal-christianity.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/02\/marginal-christianity.html","name":"Marginal Christianity - The Jazz Theologian","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/02\/marginal-christianity.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/02\/marginal-christianity.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"http:\/\/www.jazztheologian.com\/.a\/6a00d8341c63c953ef011278fb807128a4-120pi","datePublished":"2009-02-19T00:51:37+00:00","dateModified":"2009-02-19T00:51:37+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#\/schema\/person\/5e3ecb360405bd8603a61c7115194e01"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/02\/marginal-christianity.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/02\/marginal-christianity.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/02\/marginal-christianity.html#primaryimage","url":"http:\/\/www.jazztheologian.com\/.a\/6a00d8341c63c953ef011278fb807128a4-120pi","contentUrl":"http:\/\/www.jazztheologian.com\/.a\/6a00d8341c63c953ef011278fb807128a4-120pi"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2009\/02\/marginal-christianity.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Marginal Christianity"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/","name":"The Jazz Theologian","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Robert Gelinas on Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#\/schema\/person\/5e3ecb360405bd8603a61c7115194e01","name":"Robert Gelinas","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/fbe\/fbe4a8ffc24002390e969652fba5c72bx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/fbe\/fbe4a8ffc24002390e969652fba5c72bx96.jpg","caption":"Robert Gelinas"},"description":"\"For more information visit: Jazztheologian.com Robert Gelinas is Lead-Pastor (and resident Jazz Theologian) of Colorado Community Church\u00e2\u20ac\u201da multi-cultural, interdenominational community of 3000+ followers of Christ in the Denver area. Author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith (Zondervan) and the upcoming, Strange Fruit: The Cross as a Way of Life (2011). Founder of Project 127, a ministry dedicated to seeing the day when there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado's foster care system. Robert deeply desires to see the body of Christ mobilized to serve the least of these. The poor, the down and out, the disenfranchised and disabled, those deemed unimportant and the unborn. He believes that God loves all people yet he has a special heart for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized. A Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal and Urbanfaith.com. He acquired a B.A. in Bibilcal Studies from Colorado Christian University and a Master of Arts in World Christianity (Missiology) from Denver Seminary. Robert is married to the love of his life, Barbara, and they have six energetic children (3 boys &amp; 3 girls--one bio, five adopted--two from Ethiopia). Friend of God...Passionate about the Body of Christ...Lover of this thing called jazz! Please visit Jazztheologian.com for contact info., speaking schedule, videos, Facebook and Twitter.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/author\/rgelinas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}