Conference speakers voice need for radical Christianity

Twenty-first century America needs a revolution, speakers said at the Generous Orthodoxy Conference last weekend. Christianity has to be relevant if it is going to impact the culture in any way.

Eleven EMU students explored the emerging church as a solution at the Generous Orthodoxy Conference held in Bethesda, Maryland over the weekend.

Brian McLaren, named by Time Magazine as one of America's "25 Most Influential Evangelists," was the conference's keynote speaker. He addressed the issues of generous orthodoxy, a generous church and a generous heart toward the powerless. McLaren emphasized a radical theological shift he saw happening in current-day America. This includes a rediscovery of what the Gospel is and the realization that every person is invited to partner in the healing of our world, he said.

"Christianity is the biggest religion in the world," McLaren said, "but what if we understood what it means to 'love your neighbor?'" McLaren questioned the notion that America was born a Christian nation. Christianity has never repented for the injustices of colonialism that directly caused Western prosperity, he said, which is a direct gain from another's expense.

This has, in turn, become America's despair, he said, as the quest we are still on for goods and riches prevents us from experiencing happiness. This, then, makes it exceptionally difficult to be a Christian in this country because we've been given so much, but we've taken away so much from so many others.

Jim Wallis, increasingly popular in the Evangelical world, reiterated his idea and topic of his popular book, "God's Politics," that "God is not a Republican. Or a Democrat." He gave two presentations on Thursday, saying that in his 35 years of ministry he has never seen more opportunity in the church for change.

The change, he says, is needed to take back Christianity from members of the Religious Right, who have somehow made faith into only "pro-war, pro-rich and pro-American."

He focused on the fact that the key issues of the Republican Party in last year's election were extremely narrow in scope: abortion and gay marriage/rights. He asked how this can be when there are 3,000 verses in the Bible on taking care of the poor. Wallis asked how the Religious Right could claim to be such when their focus is far from Jesus' Biblical teachings. He argued that there was once a time when the teachings from the Sermon on the Mount defined Christianity, and that somehow the culture has slipped far away from that view. Poverty, environmental issues, and the matter of how much truth is exposed in a time of war are all religious issues, Wallis said.

Martin Robinson gave a presentation on "The Hinges of History" on Sat., comparing the Dark Ages and 18th century Europe to today's U.S. "Single generations have been able to change the hinges of history," he said, "We need to make Christianity a movement again. We can never separate passionate prayer from committed action."

Robinson presented two scenarios for the year 2050, saying that either Christianity is going to fade away and lie next to Zoroastrianism as a dead theology or it is going to transform the world with real Christian values that everyone wants to live in.