This Is Our City

God bless you Kevin. I feel sorry for Franky, I loved his Dad and Mom and think Francis was speaking to our time...in other words, prophetic. I bought Franky's book. There is a certain wistfulness at the core of his skepticism. I really don't know whether he knew the Lord or not, not my place to know. But his essay on his blog about his Mothers passing a few weeks ago was really moving. I always felt like so many of the right-wing evangelicals (even though I am a conservative evangelical/pentecostal) surrounding him were flim flam men. They used him and he used them and it was evident.

In reading some of below, all I have to say is 'Boo-hoo for your widdle guilt fweelings' The Bible talks about those "who are poor because you are rich" A clear example would be Native Americans. If the concept didn't exist, it wouldn't be mentioned. Also, factor in NAFTA and the havoc in wreaked on the Mexican cornfields, caused migrant workers to flood our borders. You think it dampens "achievement?" Try being homeless for awhile. I spent 10 years as a musician in church that focused on the homeless & mentally ill. In any case, this "envy" thing is just opinion AFAICS, not one formed by those who've been on the frontlines of ministry. Plus your bemoaning the loss of "achievement" smacks of Randian Atheism. Conservative/Libertarian economics is Atheistic in it's nature. The Christian saints of the past new nothing of our modern concepts of Republican Democracy, the Bible is refreshingly free of it's polluting influence. Think not? Try selling your snake oil to the Catholic/Orthodox.

Other point I should mention: The Bible doesn't really support the modern concepts of Private Property. Ultimately, the Children of Abraham were to look at their land as given to them by God and that they owed him for it. That is no different than the modern concept of a nation allowing you to manage a piece of land, but you owe the government who protects you for it. As well as builds your schools, roads, sewers, water, etc. One of the most righteous Kings of the OT - Josiah - engaged in government seizure and destruction of private property. So Exra 10, which includes voiding marriage contracts. Before anyone gives me the "Theocracy" argument, remember that Israel was never properly a Theocracy after Saul was appointed king. Our own Constitution, which grants freedom of religion, could have and never would have been written by the great men of faith in the Old Testament. Or the New Testament. Or Jesus, for that matter. The Bible does not say "freedom" it says "worship Yahweh or die."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/20/us/20beliefs.html?_r=0 But “Sex, Mom, & God” is largely a story of Mr. Schaeffer’s doubts, which beset him throughout his career as a conservative activist. His break with conservatism, and with evangelicalism, came in the late 1980s. But he had long been skeptical of many of his bedfellows. He found the television pastor Pat Robertson and some of his colleagues to be “idiots,” he told me last week, when we met for coffee in western Massachusetts. Looking back, Mr. Schaeffer says that once he became disillusioned he “faked it the whole way... because it was easy, it was lucrative, and — rather poignant to say — he felt he had no other options. “Then there is Mr. Schaeffer’s more biting take, born of hard experience: “North Korea and evangelical empires have the same principle of leadership: nepotism to the nth degree. You may not get the call, but you inherit the mailing list.”

http://www.theird.org/page.aspx?pid=2285 "Schaeffer was once a self-described “founder” of the “religious right,” which he now vehemently opposes. His transition from “fundamentalism” to unbelief “wasn’t a crisis of faith, but a crisis of identity,” after he became deeply involved with the “religious right.” After reaching adulthood and leaving his parents’ home in Switzerland and coming to the United States, Schaeffer found himself “all of a sudden in Jerry Falwell’s private jet,” on a “high powered conveyor belt … that whisked us off to another planet of the religious right.” Schaeffer claimed it ultimately “turned out to be a mixture of power hungry lunatics, absolute flakes, money grubbing in a context that just blew me away … because my father was not a flake.” The major problem, he explained, was that “I was turning into a real jerk ...I’m not talking about a big theological deal, I just didn’t believe in this life.” After his father died in 1984, Schaeffer said he “began to ask questions I had never asked before, [like] what does it mean to follow Jesus? Does it mean billion dollar publishing business? Does it mean private jets?”