"I'm an old man, and this is one of my dreams: that my descendants will one day live in a land where people are quick to confess their wrongdoing and forgive the wrongdoing of others and are eager to build something beautiful together." J. Perkins (click link for full quote)
Tag: social concern
Quote of Note #216: A Call to Confession
"Friends, I say this with compassion and love: We are not innocent. There is blood on our hands. We and our fathers have turned a deaf ear to our neighbors." John Perkins (click link below to read more)
Pastor Note #141: Getting My Bearing for These Times (Cont.): Rejecting Coercion
Coercion can never achieve the kingdom of God. I do not believe it is ever God’s desire or plan that any one group of Christians should aspire to get its hands on the levers of coercive governmental power and use that coercive power to impose its will on its unwilling neighbors. Again, coercion cannot and will never achieve the kingdom of God.
Quote of Note #210: We Will Still Love You
"Do what you will, and we shall still love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws, because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good." MLK, Jr.
Quote of Note #208: Compassion as Social Critique
"Thus the compassion of Jesus is to be understood not simply as a personal emotional reaction but as a public criticism in which he dares to act upon his concern against the entire numbness of his social context." W. Brueggemann
Quote of Note #207: The Church & Governments
"If the church is to be the conscience of the state, it must begin with the courage to tell the truth." S. Bezner in _Your Jesus Is Too American_
Quote of Note #206: The Cultural Conformity of the Church
"Called to combat social evils, [the church] has remained silent behind stained-glass windows." M.L. King, Jr.
Quote of Note #200: Caring for the Weak & Vulnerable
"We do justice and God smiles."
Bible Note #62: Compassion & the Anger of Jesus–Mark 3:1-6
They knew that Jesus was guided by compassion for the weak and broken and not by some hard-edged interpretation of the law.
Quote of Note #197: The Church and the State
"The church must be reminded that it is not the master or the servant of the state but rather the conscience of the state. It must be the guide and the critic of the state and never the tool. If the church does not recapture its prophetic zeal, it will become an irrelevant social club without moral or spiritual authority."
Gary Chorpenning's Notebooks 