[amc] Re: Morally Basic Political Action
- From: Ruth Anne Abraham <abraham.rad@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: Micheal McEvoy <micheal.mcevoy@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 3 Feb 2009 10:53:35 -0600
What can be more "morally basic" than refraining to sexually exploit your
students when you occupy a teaching position in a seminary? Shame on you,
John Howard Yoder, and on our own Mennonite seminary, which looked aside
for years while this exploitation occurred! One of our sacred tasks as
Christians is to speak up for the powerless -- not to protect the powerful.
Ruth Anne Abraham
On Sat, Jan 31, 2009 at 1:03 PM, Micheal McEvoy <micheal.mcevoy@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:
> There seems to be times that others are thinking along the same lines as
> Iam. It may be the timing, or the Spirit.
> In any case, this was posted today.
> I was discussing this issue with several people over the last week.
>
> From the Inhabitatio Dei blog:
>
> Morally Basic Political Actionvia Inhabitatio Dei by Halden on 1/30/09
>
> One of the key polarities that manifests itself in political
> discussions today involves the most basic evils of our time that must
> be courageously struggled against. In other words, positions and
> allegiances get defined by where one stands on particular things like
> abortion, war, or poverty. Regardless of where one stands on these
> issues they tend to always be thought of as morally basic forms of
> political action. John Howard Yoder offers and important corrective to
> such trends:
>
> "The falleness of the world is not just the fallenness of individual
> sinners; the world as structure is gone awry. Those of us who seek to
> ?take charge? of events by challenging the Powers at their own game,
> trying to manipulate events in terms of their own inherent dynamics,
> may be selling out morally and practically at the very point where they
> claim to be taking responsibility. By agreeing to play by their rules
> we grant their idolatrous claim to be in charge of history in JHWH?s
> stead. Our refusal to play the game by the agreed rules may be more
> morally basic than our courageous wrestling with things as they are.
> Jesus defeated the powers by refusing to meet them on that terrain, at
> the cost of his life." (The Jewish-Christian Schism Revisited, 175)
>
> In other words, our most morally basic political activity is refusing
> to strive to seize control of events, to carve out our own territory as
> if we were lords or delegates of history. Put positively, the most
> morally basic political action is prayer?or more comprehensively,
> doxology.
>
> Micheal
>
> --
> Micheal McEvoy micheal.mcevoy@xxxxxxxxx
>
>
> "Christianity has been made so completely devoid of character that there
> is really nothing to persecute. The chief trouble with Christians,
> therefore, is that no one wants to kill them any more!"
> - Soren Kierkegaard
>
> -------
> Austin Mennonite Church, (512) 926-3121 www.mennochurch.org
> To unsubscribe: use subject "unsubscribe" sent to
> amc-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
>
>
>
Other related posts:
