Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Mark your calendar: JUSTICE REVIVAL coming to Dallas!


Dallas area churches and church leaders are collaborating to bring a "JUSTICE REVIVAL" to Dallas, Texas!

Mark the dates on your calendar: November 10-12, 2009 at Market Hall.

The preacher for this 3-day meeting will be Sojourners founder, Rev. Jim Wallis.

As he outlined in his latest book, The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith & Politics in a Post-Religious Right America (order thru CDM below to the right), Wallis makes a direct connection between religious, faith revival and all of the great movements for justice and social change.

Historically it has been the case that whenever people come to faith, communities change for the better--slaves find freedom, voting rights are spread, public policy is better informed, economic justice arrives and the ways of heaven are realized on earth.

There is no real revival without accompanying societal change.

Unless what is preached is, in fact, "good news to the poor," our message and our plans are all wrong.

Plan now to join us for this revival of faith and community action!

If you are interested in being involved in the planning of the event, send your email address to me at ljames@CentralDallasMinistries.org.

Enjoy a peek inside the Justice Revival that took place in Columbus, Ohio in 2007 right here.

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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jim Wallis = the Pat Robertson of the left!

Reverend??? I think not.

Anonymous said...

Possibly, I am wrong, but I betcha that you haven't read anything Jim Wallis has writen. Maybe you haven't heard him speak. The comparison you make and the attitude that you display here is not very productive. What is your point?

BTW--Nice quote from Rush, Chris.

Anonymous said...

Well, you are wrong. I have (unfortunately) read Wallis.

And there is no doubt -- he is to leftist Christians what Pat Robertson is to right-wing Christians.

The truth hurts, dude.

Anonymous said...

In what way does that truth hurt? His message is so different from the Robertson's--calling down the judgment of an Atlantic storm on the nation. Give me a break! I say again, what is your point? What would you have said about William Wilberforce, Charles Finney or Martin Luther King, Jr.?

Anonymous said...

If you don't think Wallis is on the extreme left, please look at the marquee posted by LJ. It contains the classic elements of the liberation theology movement - "Wallis makes a direct connection between religious, faith revival and all of the great movements for justice and social change".

Social change, justice and religion - an earmark/ icon of the far left liberation theology political movement that camouflages itself in religion for the masses and guides its followers on a social and political agenda. Politics cloaked within a religious belief system eventually causes the abandonment of the religious underpinning and the political agenda is the residue.

Larry James said...

Anon 6:18, let me begin by saying you obviously don't know Jim Wallis or the depth of his personal faith and devotion. Your paradigm is all wrong, and this is why you can't see the reality about Wallis. Using your measure, one could say the same thing about the "far right." I advise that you purchase a copy of the new Peace and Justice Bible that highlights the over 2,100 texts in the Bible that deal with the very matters and values that find so objectionable.

Anonymous said...

Anon, what part of "go sell all your possessions and give to the poor" is not incredibly political? What part of "it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick" did you miss? Christianity is not about some middle class lifestyle of being content and biding your time until the "sweet by and by". You clearly have no understanding of liberation theology or it's scriptural foundation in the radical message of Jesus. To ignore Jesus' call to justice is to ignore a significant portion of scripture.

Anonymous said...

Anon 6:28 is apparently of the Jesus-is-a-white-middle-class-American-whose-biggest-concern-is-your-own-adherence-to-the-ten-commandments mindset. Anything that disturbs that narrow worldview is a threat to be distorted and condemned. So don't really expect to make any headway in challenging his (?) mindset.

Anonymous said...

Anon 6:18:

The flip side of the coin: Those on the religious right think all religion is about personal morality. They turn Christianity into a personal code of ethics, which includes conservative political mantras like pull-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps. Pretty soon they have completely lost sight of all the clear Biblicial witness concerning how disciples are to chnage the world when it comes to things like fighting poverty and all they are left with is anti-abortion and anti-gay-marriage conservative politics.

Losing sight of a genuine, whole faith is not a one way street when it comes to conservative vs. liberal Christianity.

Anonymous said...

There is no distinction between justice and righteousness. In the sermon on the mount we see that sin (i.e., anger) is the same as injustice (i.e., murder). The Hebrew word for justice is also the word for righteousness (tsedahqah).

The first step in acheiving social impact, or adhering to the ten commandments, is the individual human heart being impacted with God's salvation. Without a heart change, we get good ideas like giving 0.7% of GNP. But starting with God's salvation of the human heart, we see a greedy tax collector happily giving 50% of his personal wealth to the poor on top of returning 4 times what he stole.

Make no mistake, Jesus' 2nd coming will be the establishment of the political order of heaven on earth. Conservative (mostly at odds with His justice) and liberal (mostly at odds with His righteousness) are both in their own ways at odds with this. Justice and righteousness are the foundation of His government and the only way to aspire to either one is by grace through faith in Him and Him alone.