Speaking of faith

In a recent post on Waiting To Live, I mentioned a difference between faith and belief – belief being what we know, and faith being how we act on it.

In the case of the movie, “An Inconvenient Truth,” there are some times when knowing leads us to crisis. Are we going to react in faith by acting on what we know? Or are we going to pretend we didn’t hear it?

On the elections

Like Daryl, I tended to vote for change in the elections this week. I don’t honestly know what we accomplished. I’m not sure whether we’ll see change, or just retribution and a swinging of the pendulum. I have gotten so disillusioned with politics in recent years, that for a long time I will have difficulty finding the redemptive aspects that Jim Wallis and his crew are working to find.

We also had another kind of vote here in Virginia: the marriage amendment passed overwhelmingly. I don’t think anyone was surprised. We haven’t seen the end of this issue — It will become a national/federal issue before long. And then Virginia will be knee-deep in it once again.

In other states’ news, I had to laugh at the ad that Corker ran against Ford in the last days of the Tennessee election… and almost had to cry when I saw that it worked.

Other people’s ideas

As I just mentioned on a post on Daryl’s blog, sometimes I don’t have a lot to add to a conversation. In those times, I’m better off to just stay silent – and in the “real world,” I generally do. But for the sake of blogging, it gets boring when someone doesn’t post for, oh, two weeks straight.

While I did have a thought that wrapped up some of my recent thinking on faith, for the most part I’m fresh out of originality right now. I’m pouring most of my creativity these days into my ministry and my sermons (which are no longer published unless I get to write them down). So, instead of giving any original ideas out right now, I’m going to instead point you to a few places that have sparked my interest lately.

Explore some links. See what you think. I’m interested in your responses.

I am continually saddened by the goings-on in the Western Christian world. I am very sad and sorry for Ted Haggard, who reminds me of myself in some ways. The higher up we are in the world, the higher our pedestal, the greater must be our eventual fall. My heart and prayers are with Mr. Haggard right now as he comes to terms with a new kind of life – and applaud him for his eventual honesty and the mode of restoration he seeks.

By the way, I appreciated what Tony Campolo had to say about the matter.

I am also deeply saddened by the concept of brainwashing promoted by the camp leaders in the film “Jesus Camp,” but am even more saddened that some people (presumably Christians?) decided that the best way to deal with it is to vandalize and promote a kind of backwards warfare. What kind of message are we sending to those children?

Look in the next post for more…