Cosmo-Christians

Really like this article from Skye Jethani at Our of Ur, so I'm going to just post the whole darn thing:

Cosmo-Christians
A new breed of believers is challenging the nature and scope of Christian engagement in the world.
by Skye Jethani

Last year during the presidential campaign, the Christian segment of the population once believed to be a monolithic voting block turned out to be more diverse than previously believed. The hold of the Religious Right, Christian Coalition, and other GOP-leaning groups over the evangelical brand started to loosen. What emerged was a new, generally younger, more urban, and less politically idealistic group of Christian voters. Michael Lindsay, author of Faith in the Halls of Power, refers to them as "Cosmopolitan Evangelicals." According to Lindsay, they:
• reject signifiers of "populist" Christianity, such as the Left Behind books and Thomas Kinkade paintings.
• are less involved in local churches, but highly involved with parachurch organizations.
• may not theologically agree with same-sex civil unions, but they don't see them as an assault on the culture.
• remain definitively pro-life.
• are more engaged with matters of local and global justice. AIDS, poverty, and human rights have been added to "traditional family values" in their set of concerns.
• recognize the legitimacy of environmental matters and view them through the theological lense of "creation stewardship."
The movement of a number of evangelical heavy-hitters like Rick Warren and Richard Cizik toward poverty and environmental issues is an indication that cosmopolitan Christians are gaining influence, as is the inability of Religious Right pillars like James Dobson and Pat Robertson to rally young people in high numbers.
Lindsay's definition, heavily slanted to political issues, is an interesting starting point, but I believe the characteristics of this new breed of evangelicals may be broader than he's articulated. Consider the definition of the word cosmopolitan:
To be free from local, provincial, or national ideas, prejudices, or attachments; at home all over the world.
In a real sense, the younger cosmopolitan Christians have grown up with a global awareness on a scale unprecedented in American history. They are more connected via technology to the realities of global injustice, mission, and economics. And unlike populist or provincial Christians who carry a "God and country" value into their cultural engagements, the cosmopolitan Christians are more likely to downplay the role of patriotism in their faith and see global concerns as paramount.
But there may also be a common theological thread among cosmopolitan Christians as well. There is a significant debate occurring within the church about whether social justice is central to or is simply an implication of the gospel. In other words, did Jesus' incarnation, life, death, and resurrection seek merely to redeem humans who then express their redemption through good works on the earth? Or, was healing of social injustices part of Jesus' redemptive mission?
Increasing numbers of Christians are coming to the belief that healing the world's injustice is part of God's kingdom mission. A gospel with a wider scope than men's souls, as articulated by N.T. Wright's reflections and Robert Webber's Christus Victor perspective, is providing a theological framework for cosmopolitan Christians to hang their values upon. And they are not without biblical basis. The Apostle Paul says in Colossians 1:19–20:
For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in Christ, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
The reconciliation and redemption of "all things" that are broken, fallen, and rebellious in the world give cosmopolitan Christians a strong rationale for engaging issues of justice, poverty, environmental stewardship, and culture, as well as evangelism.
So the newly branded "Cosmo Christians," as I like to call them, have at least two qualities that define both the nature and scope of their mission. First, they are cosmopolitan-Christians concerned with the world's pressing issues and injustices. Second, they are cosmic-Christians who see the scope of God's redemptive work in Christ as extending to "all things," and not simply the rescuing of people's souls from a world destined for destruction.

10 Ways to NOT love your neighbour

I've been thinking a lot about what Jesus means when he tells us we are meant to love our neighbours and why us church people seem to find that so hard. I've been thinking a lot about my neighbours, the people who live on my street and what it would mean for me to love them. Here are ten ways I know that I can show I don't love them:

1. Drive more than 20 minutes to church: If my spiritual community and my geographic community are only connected by highway it is almost certain they will rarely connect. Part of Christian love is desiring to merge those communities.
2. Move more than 3 times in a decade: Love requires familiarity, moving makes it nearly impossible.
3. Never ask for help or admit your struggles: Hiding our faults doesn't make us look more godly, it makes us look fake; fake isn't love.
4. Spend lots of time in your back yard: In the suburbs (where I live) backyards are where we go when we don't want to see people, front yards and driveways are where we might end up in a conversation.
5. Don’t borrow things: Being self-sufficient is ultimately wasteful and exclusive.
6. Invite them out, but only to church events: Treating the folks next door only as projects is offensive.
7. Stereotype them: Take a little time to find out some of the stereotypes people have of Christians, especially evangelicals and you'll understand why this is so harmful.
8. Pray for them without asking permission: This one is a bit sketchy I admit, but how much more loving is it to ask someone what they want from God rather than pursuing your own agenda.
9. Spend at least 4 evenings/week not at home: More nights at church events does not equate to more love for neighbours. When do you expect to know them if you're never around?
10. Have church friends over often: The corollary here is that you don't simultaneously have neighbours over. If our social lives are filled with people from church we give the impression (usually accurate) that we have no interest, need, or time for getting close to those who live next door.

I admit that by these standards I don't love my own neighbours very much...I'm committed to changing that this summer.