Speaking of Faith

Unfortunately I am not one who has much time to listen to podcasts. My husband does, however, which gives me the opportunity of having a buffer pick out the best ones for me. So far our favorite regular podcasts are NPR's All Songs Considered and This American Life. I've listened to some of Mars Hill Bible Church's podcasts which are always good too. My most recent favorite, however, is American Public Media's Speaking of Faith podcast. Krista Tippet, the host, just started a series on the "New Evangelical Leaders" which is really a fresh and honest look at what some are calling "Progressive Christianity", (there are many terms out there to describe what Rob Bell, Brian McLaren, Donald Miller, and others are doing), something I have been excited to see emerge in the past couple of years. The first of the series is about Jim Wallis, author of God's Politics: Why the Right gets it Wrong and the Left doesn't get it..

The interview is sooooooo good. Here is a man I can get behind--someone who goes against the grain of popular American evangelical culture and reminds us that Jesus is for the poor and the sick--and DEMANDS that we do something to help them. In the podcast he talks about how modern Americans don't do much to help the poor because we don't see them. They live in small sections of big cities or town and don't shop at the same grocery stores or visit Starbucks or Panera like we do. There have been several conversations I get into with my friends about this fact, and it was nice to hear someone put it more eloquently than I generally do. We don't know them.

Wallis also talks about the fairly new idea in our society that politically we are divided into Religious = Republicans and Secular = Democrats.
Really neither party should claim stake on religion, and its high time that changes.

Anyway, I am now going to post a link in my common clicks to God's Politics Blog. Go to it and see what you think.