Jesus As President, Politics for Ordinary Radicals, Part One conversation

Notes for Sunday's conversation at 9:30 am, the first of four weeks of discussion, in light of the political campaign year, from the book Jesus as President by new onastics Shane Claiborne and Chris Haws.

Jesus As President: Politics For Ordinary Radicals, by Claiborne and Haws

Oct. 7: Introduction and Section One

1.     Why Jesus as President Is A Contradiction; why Jesus wouldn’t and couldn’t be President, no more than he would or could have been Caeser

2.     What do we mean by politics? Use the word to mean Civics, Citizen, Civil Engagement with Others In and For The World…being committed citizens to country party community but not giving them ultimate allegiance so able to challenge and question while following.

3.     Are we ordinary radicals? They are people who do extraordinary things on a daily basis in ordinary life, away from positions of great wealth and power and influence, living life tapping into the “root” (the meaning of radical) of God’s dream and values for the world, and by doing so are seen as living very different kinds of lives.

4.     Our definition of Church, may be very different from others definitions and mission of church: “the body of people who make the God of Jesus visible in the world (for better or for worse).”

5.     Can we distinquish between (US) American and what is Christian? The irony of having In God We Trust on our national currency.

6.     God is continually forming a new kind of people to bring light to the world: Genesis, Exodus, Exile, the role of the prophets in Israel

7.     Temptations in the bible and in our world today: to be like God, to possess all things, the most alluring, beautiful, even peace, freedom, justice can be an idol that leads us to kill. Temptation to power. Cain and Abel. The Tower of Babel.

8.     Abram and Sarah and small helpless band of wanderers seeking new land come right after the Babel episode, a sign of how a people is to be. Even in their/our dysfunction.

9.     The tension of King or No King for Israel; of Temple or Tabernacle for Israel. Competing voices and visions in the Hebrew Scriptures. Over and over kings oppressed; overturned; for every King there is a Prophet. Some supported by people, some voices in the wilderness; “their vocation is to interrupt the status quo.”  They were “always doing wild things—stunts, pranks, miracles—that exposed and unveiled truth.” The story of Rizpah (2 Samuel 21). Desmond Tutu: The oppressed are freed from being oppressed and the oppressors are freed from being oppressors” and this is when God heals the land.

10.                         Yahweh continues to be careful to choose the weakest, most unlikely characters to be the heroes of the liberation story. We were taught as children to sing songs of Noah and Abraham and little David and Goliath but not about debt cancellation, land reforms, food distribution and slave amnesty, about taking care of resident aliens and widows and orphans. About taking just enough for your need, not your greed.