Marginal Christianity

1. People who are lost at first deny they’re lost. They’re confident that they do know where they are, they just can’t find any familiar signs. Everything’s okay, they still know where they’re going, the maps are still correct. But gradually, confronted with strange and unfamiliar sights, anxiety seeps in. They speed up their activities, urgently wanting to verify that they’re not lost. Those lost on a mountain walk faster or go in circles; those lost in a failing project work faster, longer, harder, and go in circles. 2. At this point, doubt and uncertainty creep in. People become angry and impatient, pushing aside any information that doesn’t confirm their map. They become desperate to find the smallest scrap of information that proves they know where they are. They reject all other information; they treat as enemy the very information that would help them get unlost, pushing it and its messengers aside. 3. When this strategy fails, people reach the point when they can no longer...

Howard Thurman: Slow Church and Social Liberation August 23, 2013 By Christopher Smith Leave a Comment This comes from an interview with Dr. Walter Fluker, director and editor of the Howard Thurman Papers Project at Morehouse College, that ran on the Religion and Ethics Newsweekly website. [ Read the full interview ... ] This passage also echoes a point that Andy Crouch made about the Civil Rights movement in my interview with him about his forthcoming book: PLAYING GOD: Redeeming the Gift of Power . (HT: Ric Hudgens for pointing me to this… ) Q: Why do you think [Howard Thurman] has been so overlooked or bypassed by many in our society? WF: Our society is fast-paced. Thurman is very slow. And he thinks life is slow. In fact, he thinks change is slow. This is an incredibly hard lesson to learn, especially for people who have been historically oppressed. Thurman’s solution is not a solution that says we can change things overnight. In fact, he says ...