What am I doing?

Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream
-Amos 5:24



I just came from a John Perkins lecture.
Here is some of his cool stuff

He talked about Justice.

He speaks against the prosperity gospel that is dulling our churches.

(I want to be a missionary to the American church)

Some of the things he said:
(These are pretty close to direct quotes, but I can't write fast enough)


What we have have done to day is reduce 'tolerance' down to nothin'. 'Let's not have any convictions,' and we'll all get along.

The art of preachin' is to share the love of God in a way that people can hear sufficiently and make a conscious decision based on their own convictions and the Holy Spirit and not be condemned by the preacher

Preachin' is to present truth in a way that people can come with a conviction and make the kind of decision of what they want to do in life.

Prosperity Christianity is the kind that will allow injustice to flourish.

Capitalism has bought off the church's voice because we have made money our God.

He asked, What is Justice? and proceeded:

Justice is stewardship. Justice is a management issue. The earth belongs to God, and the fullness thereof. In-Justice deprives people from access to God's creation. In-Justice deprives people of their part in the stewardship.

With our greed, we're destroying the very earth that we are supposed to manage and protect?

Our dignity is affirmed by our creativity.

I'm prayin' that this generation will be the one to make the American Creed a reality: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident...'

Hold it,
I don't wanna go back to the religion of the founding fathers - I'd be a slave.

My mother died of a disease brought on by lack of nutrition. She died of starvation.


He defines Education:

The ability to understand what is goin' on around you and get some skills to manage the environment (like Gen 1:26-28)

Don't let the environment crash in on you. Subdue it. Take your knowledge and turn it into technology.

The issue today is your values.
Who controls your values?


Most creative thinkers come out of prison ... (lists great men who had been imprisoned)... because in prison, you don't have anything to lose. In prison, you can go for it.

We have to bring Christianity back to its authentic faith in society. A new, more creative congregation in our community. Churches by race is not biblical. Whenever you get a sense of heaven, you see all people and all races praising God together. We gotta create a new community.


(cites religion being used to mobilize small groups of people to bring about the death of another in recent history)
This is the kind of religion in our society. We gotta create a new society.


Paul suffered for religion rather than suffering with it. (Gal 2:20)

In the process of falling in love, you want to love this person who you think loves you - I want to love this God ... (end of Matthew 25) .. by reaching out for the broken in society.

We have taken the precious love of God and put it in the culture in a way that loses its power.

I want to preach a gospel stronger than my race, ..stronger than (other characteristics of himself and of society)...
...that will deal with people that are aching in the world and in society.

We have to be forever seeking after the truth and examine it.

I really like Tylenol - it's good medicine, but it don't cure cancer

it's like religion - we go around saying 'Your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth' and they don't do nothin.' It makes me curse ...




YES,

I thought. Finally, it's so good to hear someone saying these things again. I went to hang around by the book signing after his lecture to ask questions about what he thought could be concretely done, and what the most immediate and efficient ways to do it might be.

I wanted to flip through his books and see the same resounding call for Justice and Education and against the prosperity Gospel that he spoke of in his lecture. Especially since one of them was Let Justice Roll Down. The title is part of Amos 5:24 which became the 'theme verse' of my project in the refugee schools of Cairo last semester during our study of the book of Amos. I wanted to page through and hear all of our struggles and convictions of last summer looking back at me from the page.

Even better, it had a foreword by Shane Claiborne the guy from The Simple Way. I wanted to read more of the same.

And then I realized,
I knew enough to know what the answers to my questions would be. To find something to do and do it. If I'm not already doing that, how can I expect to be responsible for the answer to my question?

And if I knew the material so well, that I wanted to read it and be affirmed and encouraged by seeing it in his book,
then why was I wanting to ask a question? Why did I want to come hear him speak again?

I know the basic philosophy of The Simple Way. I've heard Shane speaking about it on some CD tracks. I knew what I was going to see.

Why did I want to see it again? Just to make myself feel good for already knowing it? Just to feel like it was somehow speaking a language I understood?

What am I doing? I'm not nearly enough out there on ground level being the change I wish to see in the world. How dare I surround myself with repeating ideas of justice without actually having a clearer idea and intention of what to DO with it?

sometimes,
I make me sick

and then I try to blame it on the world and on society.





And for all this typing on Justice,
what am I doing?