Mainstream Christianity in America has failed. It looks nothing like Jesus.

From Sojourners-

For the last few years Christians have been singing worship songs that include lyrics like “ keep my eyes above the waves, when oceans rise …” and yet have rejected refugees who’ve seen loved ones die beneath waves, who themselves have literally struggled to keep from drowning in oceans. Those American Christians — particularly white evangelicals — continue to sing the words: “Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders …” but fail to realize the shameful irony that they’re largely responsible for refusing shelter and opportunity to some of the world’s most helpless and oppressed people.

This represents a predominant theme of Westernized Christendom: proclaiming Christian rhetoric while actively — or passively — practicing the opposite in reality.

Because while the gospels instruct followers of Christ to help the poor, oppressed, maligned, mistreated, sick, and those most in need of help, Christians in America have largely supported measures that have rejected refugees, refused aid to immigrants, cut social services to the poor, diminished help for the sick, fueled xenophobia, reinforced misogyny, ignored racism, stoked hatred, reinforced corruption, and largely increased inequality, prejudice, and fear.

More here-

https://sojo.net/articles/american-christianity-has-failed

The new alarmism: How some Christians are stoking fear rather than hope

From The Washington Post-

When did Christians start stealing scripts from home security commercials?

We’re all familiar with the canned tropes of the alarm system advertisement: the female resident alone in a darkened house; the ominous threat lurking outside with a crowbar; the horror-flick music rising to a crescendo as the intruder approaches the door—but then repelled by the sight of the ADT sign in the window. Whew! Crisis averted. Cue bright sunshine and smiles and a three-course breakfast with the whole family around the table. Secure.

The home security industry trades on a combination of fear and idylls. In fact, they depend on swelling the idyllic in order to heighten the fear. The more you have to lose, the more you feel the threat.

A spate of recent books from Christian leaders and intellectuals seem to have stolen this script, swelling the jeremiad shelf. We might describe this as “the new alarmism.”

More here-

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2017/03/10/the-new-alarmism-how-some-christians-are-stoking-fear-rather-than-hope/?tid=ss_tw-bottom&utm_term=.d8bd192f2fc3

God, Reason, and Our Civilizational Crisis

From Public Discourse-

The way that a culture understands the nature of God shapes its conception of man, reason, and society. Though this presents enormous challenges for the Islamic world, it also has significant implications for the sustainability of Western civilization.

In 1992, the political scientist Samuel Huntington ignited a debate among scholars of politics and international affairs when he proposed that civilizational differences would be an increased source of conflict in a post-Cold War world. Widely seen as a competitor to the “end of history” thesis proposed by Francis Fukuyama, Huntington’s argument was developed in the pages of Foreign Affairs before being expounded in book form in 1996. It acquired more traction—and criticism—in the wake of 9/11 and Islamic jihadism’s subsequent expansion across the globe.

More here-

http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/03/14516/

Mind the Gap

From Foreign Policy-

Talk of a global "clash of civilizations," first propounded by Samuel P. Huntington in the early 1990s, has been criticized and debated for many years -- and like the current vogue for the walking dead, the "clash" thesis refuses to lie down. In his article ("The Convergence of Civilizations," January/February 2013), Charles Kenny takes aim at this thesis, arguing, quite rightly, that the West is not on an inevitable collision course with the Muslim world.

At the same time, however, it is unclear that "shared values are converging across countries," as Kenny argues. The convergence thesis rests on the premise that repeated exposure to the ideas and images transmitted by Hollywood during the heyday of movies, CNN International during the 1980s, and YouTube and Twitter today will gradually undermine indigenous values and local norms. Consequently, many deeply conservative cultures fear that opening the floodgates to Western media will erode faith in religion, respect for marriage and the family, and deference toward traditional sources of authority. This argument, however, exaggerates the impact of, and access to, globalized mass communications and social media in many of the world's poorer countries.

Evidence from the World Values Survey now covers almost 90 percent of the world's population, and the data allow analysis of trends in public opinion since the early 1980s. The results reveal the stubborn persistence of substantial contrasts in values among rich and poor societies around the globe.

Religiosity, for example, persists most strongly among poor populations vulnerable to physical and other harms. At the same time, secularization and the concomitant eroding of religious practices, values, and beliefs have occurred most clearly among wealthy, secure demographics in post-industrial societies. Thus a large -- and sometimes growing -- values gap driven by socioeconomic conditions persists between religious and secular societies irrespective of Western communications.

Similarly, the residents of affluent countries have become far more liberal over time on a wide range of social values and matters of sexual morality, exemplified by issues such as tolerance of homosexuality and support for gay rights, attitudes toward marriage and divorce, and ideas about the appropriate role of the different sexes. In high-income countries, the prevailing norms concerning gender and sexual orientation are changing much more rapidly than in low-income countries, with the result that a growing gap is opening between these societies. As illustrated by the deepening schism in the Episcopal Church over the role of female religious leaders, poorer countries often sharply reject this liberalization as Western decadence.

More here-

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/03/04/mind_the_gap

Religion for Everyone

From The Wall Street Journal (several weeks ago)

One of the losses that modern society feels most keenly is the loss of a sense of community. We tend to imagine that there once existed a degree of neighborliness that has been replaced by ruthless anonymity, by the pursuit of contact with one another primarily for individualistic ends: for financial gain, social advancement or romantic love.

In attempting to understand what has eroded our sense of community, historians have assigned an important role to the privatization of religious belief that occurred in Europe and the U.S. in the 19th century. They have suggested that we began to disregard our neighbors at around the same time that we ceased to honor our gods as a community.

his raises two questions: How did religion once enhance the spirit of community? More practically, can secular society ever recover that spirit without returning to the theological principles that were entwined with it? I, for one, believe that it is possible to reclaim our sense of community—and that we can do so, moreover, without having to build upon a religious foundation.

Insofar as modern society ever promises us access to a community, it is one centered on the worship of professional success. We sense that we are brushing up against its gates when the first question we are asked at a party is "What do you do?," our answer to which will determine whether we are warmly welcomed or conclusively abandoned.

More here-

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204883304577221603720817864.html