Category: take action

politics, social justice and ways you can make a difference in the world around you.

Church culture and hip-hop

Jeff Johnson from BET gave a great speech on the church and the hip-hop sub-culture.

“To often urban ministry is nothing more than suburban ministry in black face – where we have these huge suburban churches that have created these huge sophisticated curriculums that are opposed to dealing with the nuances of what people are dealing with in the urban communities. They just slap an Asian person or a black person or somebody that looks broke on the cover of the book with some graffiti in the background and then everything is all good. But the reality is – hip-hop is nothing more than a language. And if the people of God would be able to affectively utilize that language they would be able to speak to a nation of young people that think Christians are punks.”

Fact checking Bush’s speech on Iraq

From NPR:

This week, President Bush and members of Congress have been focused on the war in Iraq and how well it is — or is not — succeeding. Both sides have made a lot of sometimes competing claims about the situation there. On Thursday night, it was President Bush’s turn, as he addressed the nation from the Oval Office. NPR has this analysis of some of the president’s assertions.

Read the analysis and listen to the story.
Think they were one sided? Think the missed something vital? Let me know.

May God bless you

From Craig Groeschel:

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain in to joy.

And may God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world, so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

God bless me and your church.

Had to share this one

President Bush and the Pope are fishing in the middle of a lake in Rome. Suddenly a gush of wind blows the Pope’s hat into the water. President Bush quickly jumps up, steps out of the boat and walks on to the water to retrieve the Pope’s hat. The next day the newspapers and TV commentators report – ‘Bush can’t swim!’

energy independence in America

“None of us would write a check to Osama bin Laden, slip it in a Hallmark card and send it off to him. But that’s what we’re doing every time we pull into a gas station. We’re paying for both sides in the war on terror – our side with our tax dollars, the terrorists’ side with our gas dollars.” – Mike Huckabee

Visit the Huckabee campaign site

What issues will be most important to you in 2008?

Thompson turns down Huckabee’s invitation

From the Fred Thompson campaign: “We have the greatest respect for Gov. Huckabee and respect his desire to elevate the discourse in this campaign. But there are nine people running for the GOP nomination and an arbitrary pairing of just two of them does a disservice to the voters. We will push hard for Lincoln-Douglas style debates once we get into the General Election, when there are only two candidates running.”

Chicken.