Category: faith

Re: Amazing Grace

More perspectives on Amazing Grave at RelevantMagazine.com:

John Newton laments his past as a slave trader, and throughout the film he becomes emotional at the thought of that past as he struggles with visions of past victims. However, it is evident by the film’s end that he finds peace in the forgiveness he has received from the only source that matters to him. “Although my memory’s fading,” he tells Wilberforce, “I remember two things very clearly: I’m a great sinner, and Christ is a great Savior.”

Another writer asks:

While I was at a Wilberforce conference last month, a speaker made these two great objects personal by posing this question: “What would you be willing to commit 20 years of your life to doing?” After all, that’s what Wilberforce did. He dedicated 20 years in single-minded pursuit of the abolishment of the slave trade. In fact, if we’re to be completely accurate, it cost him 47 years, since an additional 27 were required to eradicate African slavery from every British colony completely. He received news of this final victory just three short days before his death.

What would you give 20 years of your life to?

Dealing with humans

Matt Conner writes for Relevant Magazine about a lesson he was taught in the grocery check out line about relationships and dealings with humans.

I mentioned the self-checkout lines, asking when they planned on getting them fixed and that I missed them, as if they were some ex-girlfriend who had left me recently. The guy in front of me shrugged and turned and simply said, “I prefer to deal with humans.”
We all have a trade or vocation. I am a pastor. My currency is relationships. My clientele is humanity. Business is good, so to speak, when I am highly involved with the lives of the people around me. And it was the unkempt, lazy-eyed man in front of me who is better at my job than I am.

E-mail and text messaging are my preferred means of communication. They’re fast, they’re easy and they’re on my time schedule – not anyone else’s. But lately I’ve heard some backlash about text messaging from friends. They get annoyed by prayer requests sent over an electronic cell phone. I don’t think it’s the prayer request themselves – it’s the medium they’re conveyed. They’d rather me or someone else pick up the phone and share them. Why text messages differ from e-mails I’m not sure. But either way I still think there’s a desire to deal with humans than a cell phone, computer or other machine.
We (I) must work harder at building those relationships. We’ve got to get down and get our hands dirty in relationships. Stop and answer a phone call. Stop and visit a friend.
While our society has never been more connected we’ve also never been more disconnected on a personal level.

Faith makes everyone a mystery

From Peter Manseau at NPR:

This, I think, is why the supposed discovery of Jesus’ tomb has received so much attention. Like the long-ago occupants of bone boxes dug up in Jerusalem, the spiritual lives of those all around us are known only through glimpses and guesses.
Faith makes everyone a mystery, and stories about faith can sometimes remind us how little we know — not just about God, or religion, but each other.

Listen to the full piece

Amazing Grace review

Amazing Grace Promo

Another blogger at The Beatitudes Society gave a review of the movie Amazing Grace this week.

Check it out and be sure and check out the movie before its out of theaters.

Update: Purchase the DVD from Amazon.

‘Green Faith’

My buddy Chad Crawford over at The Beatitudes Society asks if ‘Green Faith’ will take a role in the 2008 election.
Sen. Hillary Clinton gave a speech yesterday in Selma, Alabama and one current struggle she named is climate change, which she described as “tinkering with God’s creation.”
Interesting.
Are candidates realizing the importance of both religion and environmentalism and trying to combine the two? Are more “religious folk” taking notice and concern over environmental issues?