I found the Evangelical Manifesto to be one of the most hopeful documents to come out in the last few years. It gives me hope that, along with the committee that wrote A Call to an Ancient Evangelical Future, the leaders of Evangelicalism are wresting control away from those that seek political, religious, and economic power over the largest demographic of American Christendom.

The good points:

• ---A move toward post-conservative/post-liberal theology as the consensus of evangelicals
• ---A dismissal of power
• ---A stubborn refusal to submit to the "discourse"
• ---A holistic socio-political outlook that denies pandering from political parties and interest groups
• ---A long and generously repentant section of confessions (I think that Evangelical churches should read these confessions from the pulpit and confess these sins together)
• ---A tone that seeks to establish Evangelicals as the definers and leaders of Evangelicalism, wresting control away from the Religious Right and paving the way for Evangelicalism to take hold of the evangelical conversation again
• ---A call to civility

The bad points: ... more

On Icky Thump, the White Stripes latest album, there is a bagpipe backed blitz of sound that forms the backdrop of a spoken word section by Meg White, the drummer of the band.

She pleads her words in St. Andrew (This Battle is in the Air):

This is the final installment in my Meditations on Rousseau series. 

''The mind has its needs as does the body.  The needs of the body are the foundation of society, those of the mind make it pleasant.''

''Almighty God, thou who holds all Spirits in thy hands, deliver us from the enlightenment and fatal arts of our forefathers, and give back to us ignorance, innocence, and poverty, the only goods that can give us happiness and are precious in thy sight.''

This year for Christmas I'm trying to get past the traditional consumerism of our culture by doing something a bit unconventional. Instead of doing the traditional splurge on buying gifts, there will be a new spin on it: we're going to purchase gifts to give to one another in the form of unique donations and fair trade items to benefit the poor, hungry and recently freed slaves in the world. So instead of giving someone your old stuffed goat, you can actually ''give'' a loved one or friend a real goat that will feed and economically sustain an impoverished family in the third world!

This is not my idea, so I don't want any credit for it. 

One of the pastors at my church said in his sermon on Luke 8:36-50 that although Thanksgiving is this great holiday where we gather to give thanks and be appreciative, it is not a true American celebration because we are not thankful the rest of the year.  The truest American holiday is Black Friday, when we drop all masks and pretentions of being thankful and content, go to the mall, and plunge ourselves in to debt for gimmicky electronics and piles of clothes.

This is the fourth installment offering thoughts on Rousseau's First Discourse.

''When innocent and virtuous men enjoyed having Gods as witnesses of their actions, they lived together in huts; but soon becoming evil, they tired of these inconvenient spectators and relegated them to magnificent Temples. Finally, they chased the Gods out in order to live in the Temples themselves, or at least the Temples of the Gods wee no longer distinguishable from the houses of the citizens.''

This is the third part in the series Meditations on Rousseau. 

''Ancient Political thinkers incessantly talked about morals and virtue, those of our time talk only of business and money.''

How does the above statement relate to the Church in America?  Althought the ball is often dropped in isolated incidents, on the whole the American church does talk about morals and virtue a lot, though the definition of morality and virtue is heavily contested, as the many denominational shake-ups are continuing to show.

''In politics as in morality, it is a great evil to fail to do good, and every useless citizen may be considered a pernicious man.''

This maxim, though not intended to be used in a Christian way, sums up a great deal about what it means to be a citizen of the Kingdom of God.  We are to do good, to be political, to let ourselves be open to be used by our Amazing God in mysterious and exciting ways.  Idleness and laziness have no place in the politics of Christ's kingdom.  The harvest is ready, and we are called to be workers.

This is a first in a series I am writing on Jean-Jacques Rousseau's First Discourse On the Sciences and Arts, one of the founding texts of the Enlightenment.  Each post is a meditation on an important section of the First Discourse.  These meditations are not meant to be academic but to contemplative.  Enjoy!