5 Things to Know about the Paris Climate Agreement - Do Justice!

The Paris Agreement is a big deal, and the Christian Reformed Church knows it. 

You’ve likely heard a lot lately about the Paris climate talks that wrapped up a few weeks ago, and you’ve likely been left wondering what it’s all about. The follow up from Paris has seen lots of high talk from government officials and lots of complicated jargon, but little plain-English explanations of what the agreement actually says and what it means.

The Paris Agreement is a big deal, and the CRC knows it. That’s why we sent a delegation to be present at the negotiations in order to provide a public witness and to report back on the proceedings.

The work of turning the words of the Paris Agreement into action is already underway in the CRC.

So in case you’ve been wondering what this whole Paris Agreement is all about, here are five things you need to know:

1. It is monumentally historic
Never before has every nation of the world adopted an agreement on climate change. Rather than prescriptive demands imposed upon nations, the Paris Agreement is based on nationally determined commitments that each country submitted based on their individual circumstances.

2. It sets a clear long-term temperature goal for the world
The Paris Agreement committed to keep “global average temperature to well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels and to pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels.” This new goal is a big deal and took most experts by surprise. It is a testament to the advocacy of low-lying vulnerable nations and NGOs that pushed hard at the talks for a more ambitious long-term goal as a matter of survival for their people.

3. It calls for net zero greenhouse gas emissions by the end of the century.
“Net zero emissions” simply means that by the end of the century, the world will have reduced its greenhouse gas emissions significantly, and what is still emitted will be sustainably offset by things like forests and oceans which absorb greenhouse gases (especially carbon dioxide--the most important greenhouse gas). The UN panel of expert scientists (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has said that the world must reach net zero emissions by 2070 to avoid the most dangerous impacts of climate change.

4. It mobilizes billions of dollars for poor and developing nations
The Paris Agreement commits funds to be provided by developed nations to assist developing nations in the transition away from fossil fuels and in adapting to the effects of climate change that they are already experiencing.

5. It is the starting point, not the finish line
The agreement is a framework; a mutual agreement on how the world will move forward in the coming decades to address the challenge of climate change. Governments, lawmakers, and advocates (that’s you!) will now need to do the hard work of following up the important words of the Paris Agreement with even more important action.

The full article is available here

New Year, New Conversation about Immigration - Blessing Not Burden

"Scripture teaches that immigrants are made in the image of God and that a faithful response to a stranger is to extend welcome.

In the Bible, strangers are often used by God to bring blessing.

We have experienced the blessings that immigrants bring to the U.S., our communities, the economy, the church, and our lives.

So when we hear immigrants described as burdens, we're committed to change the conversation -- whether in our homes, churches, or congressional districts.

We commit to speak the truth: Immigrants are a blessing, not a burden."


Add your voice to the millions calling for just and sensible immigration policy that reflects that immigrants are a #BlessingNotBurden.

Join in changing the conversation about immigrants in the U.S. by signing the pledge at blessingnotburden.org/#sign

The Miracle of God Comes Through Us - Eberhard Arnold

From Charity to Advocacy to Deep Solidarity - Joerg Rieger in Patheos

Deep solidarity puts us in mutual relationship, helping us realize how much we share in common.

Charity, though widely appreciated, is neither the only nor the most faithful response to the problems of the world.

Jesus preached good news to the poor. What is good news to the poor? Is it that they can expect to be the recipients of handouts and donations? Or is it that they will no longer need to be poor?

Charity, however, is a place where we can start addressing the problems of the world when the eyes of those who engage in charity are opened to the causes of the problems they are trying to address.

Charity that is tied to a deeper understanding of the problems of the world often leads to advocacy, which means speaking out against the injustices at the root of our problems.  Such advocacy is solidly grounded in many religious traditions, including Hebrew prophets and Mary's Magnificat.

Jesus preached and embodied the good news to the poor by engaging in what I have been calling "deep solidarity."  It is a matter of understanding that nothing will change for the better unless we are addressing the problems of the world together.  Deep solidarity is the recognition that we are all in the same boat.

The ever-growing need for charity should make us aware of the extent of the problem of injustice and that there is no easy fix.  Those of us who still enjoy positions of privilege should begin putting them to use for the community and those who are struggling rather than solely for our own personal benefit.

The full article is available here

The Gospel and The Poor - Dorothy Day

The Work of Christmas - Howard Thurman

A Prayer For Justice Seekers at Advent - Do Justice!

Connection & Wholeness - Margaret Wheatley

Together We Can Banish Some Darkness - Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks

In A Hurry - Eknath Easwaran

Reflection and Renewal: Your Love Won't Let Us Go (based on 1 John 1:9)

Loving God, you never give up on us.  Even though we fail, wound and withhold love, you love and forgive us. Even though we judge, neglect and withhold compassion, you love and forgive us.

May your all-encompassing love shine through in all that we do. Keep our eyes and our hearts open.

 Amen.

Energizing Visions - Henri J. Nouwen

Benediction: Every Part Of Our Lives (based on Luke 1:31-38)

based on “Mary” liturgy by John Birch

In every part of our lives God; may our ears hear your voice, may our hands do your work, may our feet walk your path, and may our hearts share your love for all people.

Fidelity To The Gospel - Walter Wink

Preaching the Whole Magnificat - Nadia Bolz Weber

What Mary sings of is not an endless cycle of retribution, but a total dismantling of the entire system.  The child she bears is not coming to make the oppressed the oppressors.  He is coming to disrupt the whole notion of oppression itself. 

Mary's song isn’t a docile picture of obedience singing about how great it is to be pregnant.  Mary is singing of nothing less than complete overturning of the social and economic order.

There’s a reason why the Magnificat is said to have terrified the Russian Czars. Because, the message is that if you find yourself rich and powerful then … watch out!  This young little Jewish girl is not singing about a whole lot of good news for you.

What Mary sings of is not an endless cycle of retribution, but a total dismantling of the entire system.  The child she bears is not coming to make the oppressed the oppressors.  He is coming to disrupt the whole notion of oppression itself.  This divinely vulnerable love is the only way out of our cycle of power and oppression.

I’m certain that the reality of empire and oppression and poverty and the abject powerlessness of her very self in her very context was not lost on the mother of our Lord.  Quite the opposite.  I think she knew.  She knew that because of her lowliness and poverty and insignificance  – because of this and not in spite of this that God was and is doing an entirely new thing.

Never had the poor been so exalted than for God to slip into their skin insistently blessing the whole world in a radical way.  She knew you simply can’t speak of such things.  They have to be sung.

The full article is available here

John The Baptist and Mary's Magnificat: The Economics of Hope - Nancy Rockwell in Patheos

The repentance John advises to the crowds is economic change. The dedication Mary sings about is the same. These actions are hopeful, and in their view, fit preparation for the redemption of the world.

Each advent, John the Baptist steps up, announcing that the economics of the empire and the temple are a corrupt system. People listened to him because they already knew this to be true.

We've gotten so used to thinking of John the Baptist as a secondary figure to Jesus, the message was meant only to point towards Jesus. In this we sell him well short.

The corruption of the temple economy was at the center of John's attention. His leaving Jerusalem, his camel skin clothing and his diet of honey and locust were signs of his refusal to participate in that economy.

Yet for all of his fiery conviction, John's answer to the corrupt economy is practical, reasonable, and most of all, full of hope: You who have two coats, give one away to someone who has none, he says. You who have two loaves of bread, do likewise. Behave fairly, treat people justly, no matter what job you have.

Changing the economy is John's answer to Herod's imperial acts of terror and the Temple Leader's economic exploitation. He teaches that we can build a world of hope among us by meeting each other's needs.

Mary of Nazareth, Jesus’ mother and John’s cousin, and the other Forerunner who is our Advent guide, rings out the same message, telling about how God scatters the proud in the imaginations of their hearts, who brings down the powerful from their thrones and lifts up the lowly, who fills the hungry with good things and sends the rich empty away.

The repentance John advises to the crowds is economic change. The dedication Mary sings about is the same. These actions are hopeful, and in their view, fit preparation for the redemption of the world.

The full article is available here

Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome - Reba Riley

59% of all Millennials who grew up in church drop out either permanently or for an extended period of time.

When I read surveys and studies about America's changing religious landscape, I don't see statistics. I see Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome.

It is real, pervasive, and quite possibly one of the reasons why the percentage of adults who describe themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly 80 percentage points since 2007.

Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome is:

• A condition of spiritual injury that occurs in the context of religion, faith and/or the leaving, losing or breaking thereof
• The aftermath of said spiritual injury
• A diagnosis intended to aid in serious spiritual healing.

Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome can be seen in the many people tired of being spiritually bruised, of their faith being used to justify unloving policies, and some of whom give up on faith altogether.  In fact, 59% of all Millennials who grew up in church drop out either permanently or for an extended period of time.

For me, questions about faith weren't being asked or answered by the theology preached by family's church of my childhood.  It felt like the deconstruction of an entire world view all at once.

No one ever told me it was ok to explore outside the lines of my upbringing.  No one told me that God was big enough to handle all of my doubts, questions, wondering and wandering or that God would meet (and was already residing) wherever I was - or wasn't.

For me, the term Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome framed the pain I couldn't express.  It helped to identify the reason why I couldn't pray or darken the door of a church.  In the midst of such tumult, it is important for each individual to remember that they are not alone in their upheaval. When I have shared my experience with others, so many have had the same experience and say, "[t]hat's me."

I found my way through Post-Traumatic Church Syndrome by finally understanding that God was everywhere and in everyone whether they knew it or not.  I finally understood that we are all connected.

At last I understood that we cannot experience God without one another, because God is love. If faith is love in action, God is in love in action times infinity.

Full articles are available at Time Magazine, HuffPost Religion, Religion News and Faith Street.

Why We Need A Little Advent - Ben Irwin

Advent calls us to look upon the distress of our world and insists that we see the world as it is - that we see its brokenness and our part in it. Jesus' birth challenged (and continues to challenge) the legitimacy of an empire built upon slavery and coercion. 

We're not very good at waiting for Christmas - or lingering over it when it finally comes.

This may be because we're hoping for some kind of respite from the world, but somehow the payoff of Christmas feels hollow when we finally get there.

I believe the answer lies, in part, in allowing ourselves to fully experience Advent first.

Advent forces us to linger in the dark—even as we wait, sometimes impatiently, for our redemption. It’s only by lingering here that we can see the light of Christmas properly.

To experience the respite Christmas offers, we first have to understand: respite from what and for whom?

Advent calls us to look upon the distress of our world and insists that we see the world as it is - that we see its brokenness and our part in it. This can be challenging for those of us who’ve known nothing but privilege and power and comfort our whole lives.

Confronting the brokenness in our world means confronting the brokenness in our own hearts. It means confronting our complicity in systems that oppress, discriminate, or take away life.

Mary anticipated that her son would bring down rulers, lift up the humble, feed the hungry—and send the rich packing. His birth challenged (and continues to challenge) the legitimacy of an empire built upon slavery and coercion.

The angelic proclamation of “peace on earth” is not something we were supposed to just sit around and wait for. (No peace this year. Oh well… maybe next Christmas.) The Christmas proclamation is a vision we are called to embody.

The full article is available here

A War On What Christmas Has Become? Sign This Minister Up - Reverend Mark Sandlin

The Christmas story has been hijacked by the dominant culture. Our current story has become increasingly white-washed and sanitized.

The baby we remember this time of year was not part of the dominant culture (unlike us). The religious stories told in the time of Jesus' birth were told under the shadow of the dominant culture. They were stories of oppression and hardships; stories of hope for people living in times and cultural positions that felt hopeless.

Today, our stories are told from places and positions of power. So, instead of the story of a Middle-Eastern, unwed, pregnant woman who was seen as little more than property, giving birth to what her society would see as an illegitimate child who was placed in a smelly feeding-trough in an animal stall, we end up with a clean White Anglo Saxon Protestant woman giving birth to a glowing baby wrapped in impossibly white cloths and laid in a manger that looks more like a crib than any feeding-trough.

The Christmas story has been hijacked by the dominant culture. Our current story has become increasingly white-washed and sanitized. That has warped the comeuppance sensibilities of the original Christmas story. God's vision of liberating the oppressed and downtrodden has been air-brushed into a safe story that no longer brings fear to the Powers that Be, but rather supports big business agendas of profit and mass consumerism.

Does the story we tell bring light into darkness? Does it bring hope to hopeless? Does our celebration bring justice to those who have been treated unjustly?

Jesus' birth is a part of a story meant to teach us something about the value of every human soul; meant to teach us that "the least of these" is simply a human construct; meant to show us what life looks like when it starts from the assumption that all people are worthy of love.

So if there is a War on Christmas like many of the "not-least of these" claim, then sign me up. I refuse to let the story of my faith be co-opted by corporate interests who want us to believe we are entitled to a certain materialistic status that can be bought and that we should revel in our obscene abundance even as we celebrate the birth of a child who had no place to lay his head and told us "just as you do it unto the least of these, you do unto me."

In the 1st World, our abundance which is carried on and carved out of the backs of the 2nd and 3rd World. This corporate global dominance is enabled by an economic and cultural empire that dwarfs the Romans. 

The full article is available here

Giving Thanks As A Life Changing Dynamic - Fred Plumer

Living with thankfulness is not just about things that we have acquired or have been given. 

Living with thankfulness is not just about things that we have acquired or have been given. It is not even about good things that have happened. Being in-thankfulness is a way of living. It is a way of being aware. It is a way of being conscious. It is a way of discovering a new perspective; a new reality.

We are often one-dimensional in our thinking. We tend to think in terms of the material. We become score keepers for life based on things we think of as measurable. When we are thankful it is usually for things and events when we get what we thought we wanted.

This way of being ignores the multi-dimensions of existence, those things that bring us a more fulfilling happiness if we are open to them; i.e. beauty, grace, love, growth, connection. All too often, I suspect we pay less attention to what is happening in our relationships, to our souls, in the very essence or the beauty of all that is around us and within us than we do to our financial balance sheet. We concern ourselves far too much with how we are matching up with others.

The 2nd thing this kind of thinking ignores is that every day provides an abundance of lessons for life; every day can be a teacher. Let’s face it. Most of us know that some of our most painful experiences provide our greatest and often most profound lessons. We don’t necessarily choose to go through them but we can decide to learn what we can from them with a faith that says, someday I will look back on this and realize that there was an incredible gift in this experience.

The full article is available here

Shalom-Seeking - Kate Kooyman in Do Justice!

Our deeply-felt callings look different in their details, but look the same in their essence: That all may have life, and have it abundantly.

While the image for justice in our culture is a set of scales, the image for justice in Scripture is a river (Amos 5:24). A broad, flowing, living, rolling, sustaining, beautiful river. This river, I believe, is all about abundance.

I want there to be an abundance of compassion in life. I don’t want our hearts to be divided, I want our hearts to grow. I want to make things more alive. I want the church to be pro-life -- pro-abundant life.

Our deeply-felt callings look different in their details, but look the same in their essence: That all may have life, and have it abundantly.

We can more deeply invest in the issue that we believe in passionately when we come to understand and value other people's issues. Because drones have to do with immigration, which has to do with prisoners, which has to do with education, which has to do with racism, which has to do with abortion, which has to do with poverty, which has to do with housing.

These issues are all interconnected, and they all deeply affect people’s ability to flourish in community--which is to say, that they’re all about shalom.

I think to be pro-life today means embracing this ethic of abundance -- that there’s no person for whom God does not desire an abundant life. It is up to each of us to contribute to that vision of a wild, rolling, life-giving river of justice.

The full article is available here

Benediction: Lives of Gratitude & Service (based on Lamentations 3:24)

May the grace of God, the love of Jesus, and the presence of God's Spirit strengthen and encourage us as we go out from here to lead lives of gratitude and service.

What We Do Proclaims Christ - Henri J Nouwen

Care For The Poor - Henri J Nouwen

Going To The Margins - Henri J Nouwen