{"id":8,"date":"2008-07-26T07:32:09","date_gmt":"2008-07-26T07:32:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2008\/07\/whos-going-to-win.html"},"modified":"2008-07-26T07:32:09","modified_gmt":"2008-07-26T07:32:09","slug":"whos-going-to-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2008\/07\/whos-going-to-win.html","title":{"rendered":"Who’s Going to Win?"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of my mentors once told me that the measure of a religion in a pluralistic society is the breadth and depth of benefits it brings to its non-adherents. <\/p>\n

It’s a fascinating thought that has kept sparking new thoughts in my mind for many years.<\/p>\n

I suppose the converse of the axiom would be something like this: in a pluralistic society, the disfavor felt toward a religion is proportional to the harm it brings its nonadherents.<\/p>\n

As a Christian, I think of Jesus’ parable about the kingdom of God: it is like a mustard seed that grows into a sizable bush in which the birds of the air can nest. Although some have a rather sinister interpretation of the parable, my hunch is that Jesus is referring to Psalm 84, where the psalmist, no doubt inspired by sparrows and swallows nesting in the house of worship, finds the image fitting to his own soul finding rest in God’s presence.<\/p>\n

Jesus is saying, I believe, that the reality he is conveying in word in deed – he called it the kingdom of God, but we might call it the love economy of God or the sacred ecosystem of God or the dance or song of God or the dream of God coming true – that reality brings vital and joyful benefits to its nonadherents.<\/p>\n

Sadly, I too often see in my own religion tendencies towards self-protection and domination that bring fear, not hope, to nonadherents. And my guess is that others could see similar tendencies in their own faith communities.<\/p>\n

In this election year, I suspect that many people will be thinking about personal interest only: what benefits will this or that candidate bring me and my family?<\/i> Others will think exclusively about the interests of their own interest group – their ethnic, social, partisan, national, or religious in-group: what’s in it for us?<\/i><\/p>\n

But my hope is that more and more of us, especially those inspired by faith, will be thinking about which candidate brings the most wins, the most benefits, the least harm, to everyone. One of Jesus’ early followers said it like this: “Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus.”<\/p>\n

This otherliness – to borrow a phrase from my friends at offthemap.com<\/a> – reflects an expansion of primal selfishness to ethical neighborliness, and then from neighborliness to something even more radical … compassion and love to the non-neighbor – the other, the stranger, even the enemy. <\/p>\n

For people inclined to follow this way of thinking, additional election season questions would be raised beyond the usual “What’s in it for me or us?” Those questions, I believe, are tremendously important for people of radical faith.<\/p>\n

(brianmclaren.net<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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McLaren is an author, speaker, pastor, and networker among innovative Christian leaders, thinkers, and activists. He is a frequent guest on television, radio, and news media programs. He has appeared on many broadcasts including Larry King Live, Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, and Nightline. His work has also been covered in Time (where he was listed as one of American's 25 most influential evangelicals), Christianity Today, Christian Century, the Washington Post, and many other print media. Born in 1956, he graduated from University of Maryland with degrees in English (BA, summa cum laude, 1978, and MA, in 1981). His academic interests included Medieval drama, Romantic poets, modern philosophical literature, and the novels of Dr. Walker Percy. In 2004, he was awarded a Doctor of Divinity Degree (honoris causa) from Carey Theological Seminary in Vancouver, BC, Canada. From 1978 to 1986, McLaren taught college English, and in 1982, he helped form Cedar Ridge Community Church, an innovative, nondenominational church in the Baltimore-Washington region (crcc.org). He left higher education in 1986 to serve as the church's founding pastor and served in that capacity until 2006. During that time, Cedar Ridge earned a reputation as a leader among emerging missional congregations. Brian has been active in networking and mentoring church planters and pastors since the mid 1980's, and has assisted in the development of several new churches. He is a popular conference speaker and a frequent guest lecturer at seminaries and denominational gatherings,nationally and internationally. His public speaking covers a broad range of topics including postmodern thought and culture, Biblical studies, evangelism, leadership, global mission, spiritual formation, worship, pastoral survival and burnout, inter-religious dialogue, ecology, and social justice. McLaren's first book, The Church on the Other Side: Doing Ministry in the Postmodern Matrix, (Zondervan, 1998, rev. ed. 2000) has been recognized as a primary portal into the current conversation about postmodern ministry. His second book, Finding Faith (Zondervan, 1999), is a contemporary apologetic, written for thoughtful seekers and skeptics. His third book, A New Kind of Christian (Jossey-Bass\/Leadership Network, 2001) further explores issues of Christian faith and postmodernity, and won Christianity Today's \"Award of Merit\" in 2002. His fourth, More Ready Than You Realize: Evangelism as Dance in the Postmodern Matrix (2002) presents a refreshing approach to spiritual friendship. A is for Abductive (coauthored with Dr. Leonard Sweet, Zondervan, 2002) and Adventures in Missing the Point (coauthored with Dr. Anthony Campolo, Emergent\/YS, 2003) explore theological reform in a postmodern context, and a sequel to A New Kind of Christian, entitled The Story We Find Ourselves In (Jossey-Bass, 2003), seeks to tell the Biblical story in a new context. He is one of five co-authors of Church in the Emerging Culture (Emergent\/YS, 2003). His 2004 release, \"A Generous Orthodoxy\" (Emergent\/YS\/Zondervan), is a personal confession and has been called a \"manifesto\" of the emerging church conversation. The conclusion to the A New Kind of Christian trilogy was released in 2005, entitled \"The Last Word and the Word After That\" (Jossey-Bass). \"The Secret Message of Jesus\" (W, April 2006), explores the theme of the kingdom of God in the teachings of Jesus. \"This book was written for a broad audience,\" he explains, \"from the spiritual-but-not-religious to Christian pastors and leaders. Everything I've written to this point has been a preparation for this book.\" He serves as a board chair for Sojourners\/Call to Renewal (sojo.net), and is a founding member of Red Letter Christians, a group of communicators seeking to broaden and deepen the dialogue about faith and public life. He is also a board member for \"Orientacion Cristiana,\" and formerly served on the boards of International Teams (www.iteams.org) in Chicago, Mars Hill Graduate School in Seattle (mhgs.edu), and Off The Map (off-the-map.org). He has taught or lectured at several seminaries in the U.S. and abroad. Brian is married to Grace, and they have four young adult children. He has traveled extensively in Europe, Latin America, and Africa, and his personal interests include ecology, fishing, hiking, music, art, and literature.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/bmclaren"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/152"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}