Faces of Jesus

Christians have been making images of Jesus since lthe early centuries of the church. At the rejesus site you can look, think and chat with others about pictures of the face of Christ – some of them centuries old, some of them from today.

Article by Mclaren - Hotel Rwanda

Brian Mclaren has a great article about the movie, Hotel Rwanda, where in it he says...

I can't think of a more worthwhile experience for Christian leaders than to watch Hotel Rwanda and then ask themselves questions like these:

Which film would Jesus most want us to see, and why?

Why did so many churches urge people to see Gibson's film, and why did so few (if any?) promote Terry George's film? What do our answers to that question say about us?

What were the practical outcomes of millions of people seeing Gibson's film? And what outcomes might occur if equal numbers saw Hotel Rwanda as an act of Christian faithfulness?

In what sense could Hotel Rwanda actually be entitled The Passion of the Christ?

What do we make of the fact that a high percentage of Rwandans who participated in the 1994 genocides were churchgoers?

What do we make of the fact that a high percentage of the Americans who ignored the 1994 genocides (then and now) were and are churchgoers?

What kind of repentance does each film evoke in Christians in the West? Why might the kind of repentance evoked by Hotel Rwanda be especially needed during these important days in history?

A Touch of Folly

Since the day that Jesus first appeared on the scene, we have developed vast theological systems, organized worldwide churches, filled libraries with brilliant Christological scholarship, engaged in earthshaking controversies and embarked on crusades, reforms, and renewals. Yet there are still precious few of us with sufficient folly to make the mad exchange of everything for Christ; only a remnant with the confidence to risk everything on the gospel of grace; only a miniority who stagger about with the delirious joy of the man who found the buried treasure.
It was cynicism, pessimism, and despair that shadowed the ministry of Jesus and, as the old French proverb goes, - "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

Pathos as Passion

The following is quoted from Kenda Creasy Dean's book, Practicing Passion:
Ancient Hebrew society viewed pathos as a personal quality of divine love, embodied by the community of faith and not only by individuals. The Jews described Yahweh in very personal terms, using images such as friend and lover; the Hebrew word for love (ahav) means to be filled with desire and delight and passion for the one we love, to long for the presence of the beloved. OT scholar Walter Brueggemann claim that this caused Jews to prize Torah, the story of God's longing, over the more restrained wisdom literature, allowing biblical tradition to defy Western philosophical trends by consistently favoring "the impossibilities of passion" over the more disciplined perspective of reason. Education in ancient Israel, notes Brueggemann, was "education in passion"-- nurture into a distinct, passionate community that knew itself to be at odds with the distinct, passionate community that knew itself to be at odds with the dominant culture.... Education in passion led to particular practices in the public life of the people of Israel that directed community life toward the God of pathos.
I admire Tom for his passion that he is beginning to have about creating an alternative community. In his mind, he see's this alternative community as a people who value the Earth. What are some other values that this alternative community should have? Do we have a story that these values flow out of? Is it possible to live out the Jesus narrative? Can we "rescript" ourselves/our values?