Marginal Christianity

The Real Issues of Faith Posted on 4.30.2012 From William Stringfellow's book Free in Obedience : [T]he people and the things which an ordinary Christian comes into contact from day to day are the primary and most profound issues of his faith and practice...For me, the day to day issues are like these: --a young, unmarried, pregnant girl--who says she is afraid to confide in either her parents or her minister--comes to see me to find out how her unborn child can be adopted. --a convict writes to ask if a job might be found for him so that he can be paroled from prison. --a college student, unable to find summer work, borrows twenty dollars. --a woman, who has found another man, wants a divorce from her alcoholic husband. --a Negro is arrested because he protested discrimination in the city. --a seminarian is discouraged and disillusioned about the churches and thinks he cannot and should not be ordained. --an addict want to get out of the city to try ag...

Acts 8:26-40 26  An angel from the Lord spoke to Philip, “At noon, take the road that leads from Jerusalem to Gaza.” (This is a desert road.) 27  So he did. Meanwhile, an Ethiopian man was on his way home from Jerusalem, where he had come to worship. He was a eunuch and an official responsible for the entire treasury of Candace. (Candace is the title given to the Ethiopian queen.) 28  He was reading the prophet Isaiah while sitting in his carriage. 29  The Spirit told Philip, “Approach this carriage and stay with it.” 30  Running up to the carriage, Philip heard the man reading the prophet Isaiah. He asked, “Do you really understand what you are reading?” 31  The man replied, “Without someone to guide me, how could I?” Then he invited Philip to climb up and sit with him. 32  This was the passage of scripture he was reading: Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter      and like a lamb before its shearer is si...

Al Stewart, Scottish folk balladeer, is one of my all-time favorite musicians.   I’ve been listening to his song “Electric Los Angeles Sunset” (off his album “Zero She Flies,” 1969) recently.   And it has struck me that in Stewart’s description of this scene, presumably symbolic for him of the Los Angeles of that time, we have an “Anti-Eucharist” (surely unintended) which artfully and powerfully captures the tragic urban ethos of own time and the sacrifices necessary to sustain it.     Shots split the night, a bullet lodged in his brain He must have died instantly, he felt no pain A crowd quickly gathered to the feast of the gun Waiting for the ambulance and cops to come Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm Sirens wail in the concrete Hm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm mmm Electric Los Angeles sunset, the sunset, the sunset, oh-o-oh           The imagery here is fascinating.    The “feast of the gun” is what suggest...

          All kinds of “preaching” takes place from pulpits everywhere.   But do we know what we are doing when we preach?           Are we “teaching the Bible”?             Are we “saving souls”?           Are we “imparting life skills”?           Are we “preaching the right way/ethical way to live”?           Are we “proclaiming justice and peacemaking”?           These (and doubtless other things as well) are what happens in various traditions and from different theological perspectives all around the world.   But is this preaching?           I don’t for a moment doubt that in all...