January 22nd, 2010
You’ve already heard what he said: the earthquake in Haiti is the outworking of a spiritual, not a geologic history. A supposed pact made with the devil around the time of Haiti’s birth as an independent nation. The wrong thing to say at the wrong time for so many reasons. But let me just point out one of those reasons: laziness. Robertson was cherry picking historical factoids.
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Tags: genesis, Haiti, history, Jacob, Job, pat robertson, slavery
Posted in advice to young pastors | 31 Comments »
July 13th, 2009
This is a guest post from Steve Hamilton, a young Vineyard pastor in Maryland who is active in mobilizing the church to help the victims of human trafficking. Steve hosts his own blog, verse by verse.
The pathos [sorrow, suffering, pity are synonyms] of God is on the prophet. It moves him. It breaks out in him like a storm in the soul, overwhelming his inner life, his thoughts, feelings, wishes and hopes. It takes possession of his heart, giving him courage to act.”
- Abraham Joshua Heschel
You know how when you are in a conversation with someone and stumble upon some topic that they are really into, and they start getting all passionate and animated, and it makes you take a step back and say “Okay…tell me how you really feel about that…”; well, I believe for God, that issue is justice or what we might more precisely call biblical justice. Biblical justice is the more precise term that I prefer, mostly because it reflects the range of justice issues that I see God clearly and deeply cares about, as witnessed in scripture and in my own experience. The issues of biblical justice are social, economic and environmental. They are also intertwined and interconnected.
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Tags: Abraham Heschel, environment, Haiti, Hillary Clinton, human trafficking, Jesus, justice, migration, pathos, poverty, prophet, slavery
Posted in environment | 25 Comments »