Matthew Clanahan; 24-year-old graduate student; Learning Support Specialist and adjunct English instructor at Three Rivers College; Bachelor's of Science in Mass Media/Radio with a minor in math from Southeast Missouri State University; Apple enthusiast; total geek; coffee connoisseur; multiple-instrument musician; drummer for Berlin Airlift; caffeine addict; grammar Nazi; Christ follower; ordinary radical
Interests: peace, love, equality, people, social justice, human rights, music, vinyl records, lyrics, quotes, art, poetry, films, books, technology, coffee, tea, demilitarization, sustainability, community, community development, community gardening, historic preservation, Jesus, theology
This Tumblelog will be the primary place [in addition to Facebook and Twitter] where I share media and web content that I find interesting. I will also share my thoughts on faith, hope, peace and love.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
In parts of the church there are groups that emphasize holiness and purity as the Christian way of life, and they draw their own sharp social boundaries between the righteous and sinners. It is a sad irony that these groups, many of which are seeking very earnestly to be faithful to Scripture, end up emphasizing those parts of Scripture that Jesus himself challenged and opposed. An interpretation of Scripture faithful to Jesus and the early Christian movement sees the Bible through the lens of compassion, not purity.
Marcus Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, p. 59
In short, there is something boundary shattering about the imitatio dei that stood at the center of Jesus’ message and activity: ‘Be compassionate as God is compassionate.’ Whereas purity divides and excludes, compassion unites and includes. For Jesus, compassion had a radical sociopolitical meaning. In his teaching and table fellowship, and in the shape of his movement, the purity system was subverted and an alternative social vision affirmed. The politics of purity was replaced by a politics of compassion.
Marcus Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, p. 58
It is striking that ‘Be compassionate as God is compassionate” so closely echoes ‘Be holy as God is holy,’ even as it makes a radical substitution. The close parallel suggests that Jesus deliberately replaced [his religious culture’s] core value of purity with compassion. Compassion, not holiness, is the dominant quality of God, and is therefore to be the ethos of the community that mirrors God.
Marcus Borg, Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, pp. 53-54
Compassion does not mean only ‘to care about.’ It means ‘to ache from the bowels’—to literally become nauseated with injustice and to get sick to our stomachs with suffering.
Shane Claiborne (via thesunisfalling)
(Source: papanelly)
If you approach the world with the apron of a servant, then you are allowed to go places that you can’t go if you approach it with the crown of a king.
Jon Foreman (via christypolek)
