JeffThigpen.com

A “blogolouge”with spirit….cool language.

Jim Wallis (The Great Awakening: Reviving Faith and Politics in a Post Religious Right America) and David Klinghoffer (How Would God Vote? Why the Bible Commands You to Be a Conservative) mix it up over at Belief.net in a series of discussions/debates about faith, politics, and policy.

The last post was from June 27, 2008.  A little old, and this is exactly what is needed.  Hope they’ll have another exchange.

From Mr. Wallis to Mr. Klinghoffer:  The problem with using the Bible as the basis for running a society is that it would always be somebody’s interpretation of the Bible, and a worst case scenario is that it might be your interpretation, Mr. Klinghoffer.

Mr. Klinghoffer to Mr. Wallis:  Jim, if in your opinion the Bible is neither liberal nor conservative, if God truly is non-partisan, if He isn’t in sympathy with Democratic more than with Republican policies, would you tell me the last major Republican candidates you voted for?

Ouch!!

I’m not sure what will get solved in this exchange, but these I’m glad to see them both fully engaged in their perspectives.

A new chapter in the story of the interfaith youth movement is about to begin. Several months ago Interfaith Youth Core (IFYC) announced our partnership with theTony Blair Faith Foundation on the global FaithsAct initiative, and things are about to get even more exciting.

This Thursday, September 25th, 2008 in Los Angeles, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation is hosting an special interactive event, and IFYC wants you to participate! Be one of the first to pose a question to a panel of experts including:

Tony Blair, former Prime Minister and founder of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation

Shaykh Hamza Yusuf, founder of the Zaytuna Institute, and a leading Islamic scholar

Saleemah Abdul-Ghafur of Malaria No More and an activist for Muslim women

June Sarpong broadcaster and founder of politicsandthecity.com

The panel wants to hear your questions! This event will give the interfaith youth movement the opportunity to discuss how young people can come together across faith divides to achieve common goals. People from faith communities around the world will be taking part in this exciting interactive panel discussion.

Send your questions! We need your ideas and thoughts on how to take action together to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges.

Watch the event  live online on the Tony Blair Faith Foundation website at September 25th at 5.15pm (PST).

Go to www.tonyblairfaithfoundation.org to find out more.

Factcheck.org reviews the first debate in Mississippi.

What happens when faith and everyday life intersect? What does it mean to be “church”? How do we become present to divine “presence” in the moment?  How can we develop the capacity to resist the leadership qualities of control, power, and domination and experience the full expression of who we are within God’s “co-creative” power?  The experiencing of Call, toward an everdeepening love of God and being deeply loved by God, caring for and serving the outcasts, the broken, and unwanted.   Do we live in the Empire, power over culture, or do we truly figure out what Jesus was talking about and where will that lead us?

Yep, I’m off the reservation again. 

TRY MATCH O MATIC! 

That’s not something a buyer would typically find in a Christian bookstore. Not unless it’s one of the more than 100 Lifeway Christian Bookstores across the United States, including about six in metro Atlanta.

Gospel Today, the Fayetteville-published magazine, was pulled off the racks by the bookstores’ owner, the Southern Baptist Convention. The problem? The five smiling women on the cover are women of the cloth — church pastors.  More here.

I’m only upset that the cover didn’t have Rev’s. Julie Peeples; Alma Purvis; Lucretia Middleton; Virginia Herring; Cindy Higgins; etc.    Some of Greensboro’s finest women of the cloth!

I’m lucky that I have friends from a variety of political perspectives.   Liberal, Conservative, Progressive, Libertarian, Christian conservative, you get the idea.   But its distressing to receive a number of emails containing some of the most deceptive, baseless, malicious, and unfounded lies you’d ever want to hear, especially in the Presidential campaigns.  And of course, this is the time of the year when many of us just love to argue.

Shankar Vedantam has written a good piece in the Washington Post about the power of political misinformation.  The main point is that even after the misinformation is debunked, it still permeates and reinforces and empowers bad information.  Right now, this stuff is all over the place.   My fellow citizens, Democrats and Republicans, we owe it to the public to raise our games a bit.

There are incredibly complex and challenging issues for our country–from war and foreign policy, to health care, reform of our economy in banking, housing, employment, climate change—the list is almost endless.

Obama, quit stretchin’ the truth on McCain and Social Security.   McCain, you’re lyin’ on Obama’s tax plan.  Dudes’, FOCUS please.  There is only around 40 days left to make your case.

And please, to all the surrogates who send out these counterfeit email spreading sultry yet  absurd fertilizer…get a life.