Marginal Christianity

http://www.empireremixed.com/2014/04/03/worldvision-pragmatism/?tm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+empireremixed+%28Empire+Remixed%29 April 3, 2014 by  Andrew Stephens-Rennie A week has passed. The dust has settled.  Has it?  And everything’s back to the way it was. Leaving last week’s hiring practices debacle behind, what will come of World Vision’s children? Some of us have checked out of evangelicalism. Others have hardened our stance. Others have provided  new ways  forward, like these words from  Richard Beck : If “evangelicalism” isn’t a church, but a web of institutions, then does it make any sense to say one is “leaving evangelicalism”? If evangelicalism isn’t really a church then there is nothing, ecclesiastically, we can “walk away from.” To be sure, we can walk away from toxic institutions that identify as “evangelical,” but that’s not walking away from the church. In biblical lan...

http://www.reclaimingthemission.com/?p=4370 Posted on March 27, 2014 by David Fitch — No Comments ↓   Watching Christians fight over LGBTQ relations has become entertaining sport for much of North American media. Because the average N American thinks about sex as a form of self-expression, such fighting appears incoherent. When churches start exhibiting vitriol, and publicly withdrawing their support/care to lesbian or gay people (or worse starving children ), it appears absurdly contradictory. All this makes Christianity quite the spectacle for people watching from outside. It makes Christianity into an interesting parody , a joke for the Tonight Show, for people who otherwise find Christianity irrelevant. Painfully, we (Christians) have all been reminded of this dynamic with the World Vision fiasco of the last seven days. And yet we keep doing it. We cannot help ourselves. This is because Christians keep acting like we live in Christe...

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/zhoag/2014/03/27/world-vision-and-the-damage-done/?utm_content=bufferd2644&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer   March 27, 2014 By Zach Hoag 2 Comments What a whirlwind. First, World Vision announced a policy change that would allow married gay Christians to work for the organization, igniting the vast indignation of the conservative evangelical establishment. Then, just yesterday, less than 48 hours later, World Vision reversed their decision , issuing an apology (mainly to their conservative constituency). Several reports cite a nearly instantaneous loss of 2,000 child sponsorships when World Vision made the initial policy decision. That, along with the speed of this reversal, indicate that it was likely a matter of financial and organizational survival, not, as many conservative evangelicals are saying, a matter of conviction and repentance over theological sin. But the much larger issu...

http://www.worldmag.com/2014/03/world_vision_reportedly_reverses_decision Religion  |  Board member says the organization never meant to undermine the authority of Scripture By Jamie Dean Posted March 26, 2014, 03:40 p.m.               Less than 24 hours after international poverty ministry World Vision announced it would allow its American branch to hire employees in same-sex marriages, the Christian group is reportedly set to reverse its decision. Board member Stephen Hayner, president of Columbia Theological Seminary , replied to an email inquiry from WORLD this afternoon concerning the outcry from evangelicals over the original decision: “The Board of World Vision is just concluding a meeting and will be releasing a statement shortly reversing the decision that was made. It was never the intention of the Board to undermine our firm commitment to the authority of the Scriptu...