Posts Tagged ‘Jim Wallis’

Moral Choices in the Budget

Wednesday, July 6th, 2011 by JEL

Congress is working on a debt agreement and let’s hope they come up with something thoughtful and substantial very soon. $14 trillion is a lot of money to be in hock and borrowing more to meet obligations seems scary, stupid, and immoral. What will we be leaving our children? A trashed planet and hyperinflation?

There are two sides to every budget equation: income (taxes) and expenditures. Like any business, America will have to try to push both levers by raising taxes and cutting spending. But who and how do you tax and what programs do you cut? The military and healthcare are the biggest cost items in the budget. Getting out of Iraq and Afghanistan seems not only moral, but prudent.

The video below is of interest to us all:

 

Watch the full episode. See more Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly.

One Wild Goose

Monday, June 20th, 2011 by JEL

If you’re in the North Carolina neighborhood this week, you might want to stop in and check out the Wild Goose Festival. Festival organizers describe it thusly:

The Wild Goose is a Celtic metaphor for the Holy Spirit. We are followers of Jesus creating a festival of justice, spirituality, music and the arts. The festival is rooted in the Christian tradition and therefore open to all regardless of belief, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, denomination or religious affiliation.

Michelle Shocked, David Wilcox, and T-Bone Burnett are among the musicians to perform, and speakers include many highlighted in this very blog: Brian McLaren, Jim Wallis, and Shane Claiborne. The festival is a whopping ten years in the making.

I’ll leave you with two quotes from today’s USA Today story. The first is from festival organizer Gareth Higgins:

“We gather to learn what Jesus came to teach us, which is not how to be a Christian, but how to be human.”

The second is from Ken Silva, a Southern Baptist blogger of New Hampshire-based Apprising Ministries:

“The wise Christian will have nothing to do with these neo-Gnostic fools who’ve unbuckled themselves from the Word of God and have embarked upon their Wild Goose Chase of subjective experience.”