Sojourners

Recently I have been getting newsletters from a Christian group/magazine called Sojourners.
In the past 15 months, I have moved away from the evangelical culture, and usually I tend to delete stuff sent by them right away. But these guys seem to be really cool. You know, really seem to have gotten the point. Not just blabbing and fingerpointing and being self-righteous to the point of me wanting to vomit. But Sojourners doesn't focus on "changing", proselytising, "discipling" people like evangelicals do... making them in their image, you know (note: not God's), which has always ticked me off. "If you want to be a good Christian, you have to become like me." Not that they ever say it out loud, but they damn well mean it.

Sojourners focuses on social change and politics (mind you, not in a Christian Coalition way). They actually question the Bush administration, which is a refreshing change from the usual "Dubya is a man of God" baloney.

And hell (no pun intended), it thrills me to listen to Philip Yancey suggesting that Ghandi was truly someone imitating Jesus, suggesting that, by Christian ideology, he is in heaven... especially after hearing so often from some evangelical nazis that he is burning in hell, because he never professed Christianity. Hell, do you have to phrase everything to make it real?

Kinda funny... you know, fundies are so against magic and stuff (and so ridiculously afraid of it, too), that they condemn Harry Potter as a henchman of Satan, as leading kids into occultism and witchcraft, and they act like if you don't verbalise the prayer of conversion and hand over your life to the baby Jesus like you sign a contract, you will go to hell because you haven't professed faith.
So wouldn't you say that the official conversion prayer (Dear God/Jesus, I realise I am a sinner...) isn't like some magic spell without which your life is considered to be doomed? Since when do words have the final... word?

Anyways, just me ranting again.

On Sojourners, I found this email by a guy called Greg Bilbrey from Robinson, Illinois, who made a statement about the whole affair of the last election and the Religious Right, and I hollered "Amen!" when I read that:

"The poisonous reaction I've seen is even more evidence that the pursuit of political power by the evangelical church has done untold harm to the gospel."

No wonder people hate Christians. Bush, Falwell and Robertson aren't exactly the best advertising God has these days.