Have you ever seen those old Charmin bathroom tissue commercials, where shoppers get addicted to squeezing the Charmin because it’s irresistibly soft? The shopkeeper tells them: “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin!” The point of the commercials is to get people to buy Charmin because it’s softer than any other bathroom tissue brand.

Whether or not you have seen those commercials, you may be wondering what all this has to do with comparing religions. We tend to compare religions as if they are different brands of bathroom tissue: which is the softest?

All too often we load the discussion on comparing religions based on what facet or feature we find most endearing, such as softness, while ignoring the “selling points” of other traditions. But who said “softness” is the essential quality? I can think of bathroom tissues that may be soft, but not durable. Durability is also a quality to consider, as are economy and disposability (it won’t clog the toilet). There are all kinds of bathroom tissues that can get the job done. FULL POST

Now that the venerable holiday—Mother’s Day—has passed, I would like to reflect upon what I will call the Holy Mother’s Day. Typically, Mary, the mother of the Lord, is honored at Annunciation, which occurred this year on Monday, April 8, 2013. There is a sense in which every day should be this holy mother’s day, since she manifested the kind of radical obedience to God in honoring Christ that should be true of every Christian every day of the year.

Scripture records that when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and told her that she would be the mother of the Lord, Mary responded: “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38, ESV). Every Christian—myself included—should respond in the same manner. Just imagine how unimaginable the call of the Lord was upon her life. No doubt, she was aware of the fact that her fiancé would be greatly troubled by the news that she was expecting a child and he wasn’t the father! No doubt, she was aware of the fact that people would gossip about her state long after the baby was born. No doubt, she doubted that she was up to the task of being the mother of the Lord, even as she marveled at the thought (Luke 1:46-49). Who wouldn’t doubt, given what she sensed? She is blessed among women, just as the fruit of her womb is blessed (Luke 1:42), and every generation will consider her blessed (Luke 1:48). How weighty and monumental! FULL POST

Fundamentalism comes in all shapes and sizes. Liberals can be fundamentalists, too. I am not talking about doctrine, but an inflexible posture that makes dialogue impossible.

Tom Krattenmaker’s Huffington Post piece titled, “A Progressive's Confessional Journey to Focus on the Family,” is a shining example of a secular progressive who is progressive on dialogue. I wish I could say the same for some of the respondents at the close of the article.

Of course, we Evangelicals are well-known for our fundamentalist ways. Perhaps we Evangelicals can learn a thing or two from Krattenmaker. He is willing to risk and see the good in the other and tell it the way he sees it, even if it will cost him in terms of how his secular-progressive camp views him. I have heard him say that his liberal constituents are going to kill him for certain constructive claims he makes about the enemy. How challenging: how many Evangelicals are willing to cross party lines to connect with people no matter their ideological stripe? FULL POST

What is it about Charles Ramsey, the hero in the Cleveland kidnapping saga, that takes America’s imagination captive? Whether or not his appeal lasts a short or long period of time, his words and deeds have gone viral.

There are no doubt numerous reasons for Ramsey as a web phenomenon. One is how unbelievable the story is of his (and quite possibly others) freeing three women and a child brutally imprisoned for ten years in Ramsey’s neighbor’s house. It has all the makings of a horror/hero adventure film.

One also has to account for how unscripted and yet penetrating Ramsey’s words are. For example, the way in which he addresses America’s racial fears of black men surprises and challenges us: “I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man’s arms. Something is wrong here. Dead giveaway … Either she’s homeless or she’s got problems. That’s the only reason she run to a black man …” (Take note of the reactions of those around him, including the reporter interviewing him, when he says these words.) FULL POST

A friend of Hispanic descent shared with me after New Wine, New Wineskins’ recent conference on immigration reform that someone seated near her said, “I hate parasites.” My friend said that the person in question—presumably a Christian given the Christian setting of the conference—was questioning the value of undocumented people living here in the U.S. I have a hard time not devaluing the statement and perspective of the unidentified person to whom my friend referred. There are several reasons why I find the statement troubling and worthy of critique.

Certainly, undocumented people benefit in a wide variety of ways from living in America. But as they pay a variety of taxes, they are benefiting our system, even as they may not benefit from those tax dollars to the extent that we do. In some ways, citizens and other documented people may be benefiting disproportionately from the undocumented, as with such tax dollars and in the purchasing of produce that would quite possibly be priced higher if citizens and other documented people were working the fields where such produce is harvested by those without legal status. By the way, if Americans benefit from lower prices for food products harvested by the undocumented, does that not make American consumers accomplices in illegal activity, knowingly or unknowingly? (By the way, New Wine will address this subject at our spring 2014 conference on the multi-faceted phenomenon of food). Regardless of one’s response to that question, America benefits from the work, purchasing power, and taxes paid by the undocumented. FULL POST

By Paul Louis Metzger and John W. Morehead

Have you ever had a salesperson try and get you to buy something you did not want, and the person could not take “No” for an answer? The salesperson came across as a consumer predator.

Many salespeople are aware of the negative associations people have concerning their trade. So, they engage in soft sale tactics to avoid the perception that they are engaged in predatory proselytism. You may be as amused as we are when we get Christmas and birthday cards from former realtors. How much they care for us!

Like the realtors noted above, Evangelicals today are often aware of the negative associations people have of proselytism (including that the term “proselytism” is now often associated with unethical forms of evangelism). But are we sensitive enough?

In April, a lecture was given at Grand Valley State University in Michigan that featured Padma Kuppa, a Hindu interfaith activist with the Hindu American Foundation. She was sharing the results of her research into “predatory proselytization,” which she defines as unethical conversion strategies. Kuppa offered examples of how this phenomenon takes place in her home country in India. One example was that Christians used public obituary information in order to send sympathy cards to the relatives of deceased Hindus, only to include evangelistic elements, involving not only the citation of biblical verses, but also mention of eternal punishment. The response of these Hindu families should give Christians pause for reflection: “While unhappy, they seemed resigned, treating it as one of those unwelcome features of life in a religiously diverse society that one learns to accept and tolerate. ‘This is what Christians do.’” FULL POST

The Trayvon Martin case is back in the national news. The other night, an African American pastor posed the question to a group of people: why has the Trayvon Martin case captured the American public’s eye? Tragedies like this happen all the time. Why did this one shoot America in the face on the evening news?

In reflecting upon his question, I thought back on other high profile cases that raised questions about race: celebrity trials involving OJ Simpson and Kobe Bryant respectively and the late Rodney King. No doubt, each case was different, but each case attracted national attention. One of the striking features of this case is that an African American youth was shot to death by a Hispanic American man, who claimed he shot him in self-defense. In the Rodney King beating, captured live on camera, there was no way in the world that the police officers beat him to a pulp in self-defense. For some at least, this case is not so clear cut. And yet, why did Zimmerman—a community watch volunteer—pursue Martin, even when the 911 operator told him to stop? Was he racially profiling Martin? FULL POST

The Jets released Tim Tebow this week. Now the debate is on as to what team, if any, should sign him. Great athlete. Great person. But does he have the makings to be a good NFL quarterback who can win with his arm, not just his legs? I wonder if at some point he will abort an NFL career for another career path.

Yesterday, in an ethics class, my students and I discussed various models of ethics. As we discussed outcome-based ethics, we turned to consider the subject of abortion. We reflected upon the argument that is sometimes made that people shouldn’t abort based on the possibility that their children might grow up to be someone special. I was reminded of Focus on the Family’s 2010 Super Bowl commercial featuring a mother talking about how difficult it was giving birth to one of her children, and how he almost didn’t make it. It is only at the end of the commercial that you realize that she is Tim Tebow’s mom and is talking about him. While it is not explicitly stated, the message appears to be: it is worth fighting for life in a culture of risk and death because the child at risk may become a Heisman Trophy winner. FULL POST

Tom Krattenmaker is one of the liberals we evangelicals need to know.

In The Evangelicals You Don’t Know: Introducing the Next Generation of Christians, Krattenmaker, one of America’s leading journalists on religion, presents a fair-minded, critical assessment of evangelicalism from his liberal vantage point. Krattenmaker complexifies the situation in which we find ourselves in America today. Drawing attention to a groundswell of compassion and civic virtue within evangelical Christianity that does not fit the negative stereotypes of much of secular America, Krattenmaker powerfully argues that the battle is not between evangelicals and non-evangelicals, including secularists. As he sees it, the culture war dividing line is between religious and secular totalitarians on the one hand and those from across the religious and cultural spectrum that are coming together in support of the common good. Journalism of this caliber and scope is vitally important if we are to move beyond the partisan politics and religious fervor that so divides our society in the pursuit of a more humane America. A must read for all concerned—everybody. FULL POST

What would you expect from a beat poet? Certainly not someone who stays on the beaten path. One of the ways in which Tony “The Beat Poet” Kriz goes off the beaten path as a Gen-Xer raised in the Evangelical Christian tradition is by finding spiritual value in what those from non-Christian traditions have to say and how they live. He wrote about this recently at Leadership Journal. It also shows in his book, Neighbors and Wise Men: Sacred Encounters in a Portland Pub and Other Unexpected Places. Here he differs from many Evangelicals from a previous era.

The other is by finding spiritual value in the Evangelical tradition in which he was raised and in closely aligning himself with his tradition, including its weaknesses. As an evangelist, Tony is shaped in part by his years with CRU (Campus Crusade for Christ) and holds a special place in his heart for the late Bill Bright. While he does not see them as exhaustive, Tony believes CRU’s Four Spiritual Laws are beneficial for evangelism and highlight key facets of the gospel. Not only though does Tony identify with what he takes to be strengths in the Evangelical tradition, but also he identifies with what he takes to be weaknesses and problematic forms of engagement in our witness to a watching world. In seeing value in traditional Evangelical institutions and also identifying with Evangelicalism in its weaknesses, he differs from many younger Evangelicals of the emergent sort today. FULL POST