{"id":36935,"date":"2024-03-21T19:43:27","date_gmt":"2024-03-22T02:43:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/?p=36935"},"modified":"2024-03-21T19:43:27","modified_gmt":"2024-03-22T02:43:27","slug":"to-move-forward-we-will-have-to-choose-a-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/to-move-forward-we-will-have-to-choose-a-road\/","title":{"rendered":"To Move Forward, We Will Have To Choose A Road"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Intro<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This week, I&#8217;m just going to be me on this post. A pastors perspective, rather than an academic look.<\/p>\n<p>I enjoyed Matthew R. Petrusek In <em>Evangelization and Ideology: How to Understand and Respond to the Political Culture.\u00a0<\/em>Petrusek tackles a difficult subject that is tearing many countries apart, especially in America. Where I live and minister there are two completely different cultures. Machias road where my church is located is the dividing line between urban and rural living. It is also the dividing line between social economic classes of upper middle class and the wealthy community around the Lake that has become very liberal. On the east side of Machias road is primarily urban living with more conservative family values and republican. The dividing line is so significant and that on the west side of Machias road is considered city, the east side of Machias road considered county. In Washington State over 150,000 families have relocated out of the state. Over 50,000 youth have been pulled from public schools. People are angry on both sides of Machias Road.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Summary<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In <em>Evangelization and Ideology: How to Understand and Respond to the Political Culture<\/em>, Matthew R. Petrusek offers solutions to ideological thinking and principles from a Catholic mindset. Petrusek shows how Catholic teaching, while respecting the genuine concerns of these worldviews, responds to their errors and deficiencies by providing a more rational and moral alternative. From this reading, I can break down the book into these four points.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>How the current secular trends destroy society<\/li>\n<li>The antidote: Catholic social teaching<\/li>\n<li>Analysis of secular ideologies and response to their errors<\/li>\n<li>Where there is hope and how to redirect our culture<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Matthew R. Petrusek believes\u00a0 there is hope in &#8220;our hyper-politicized society is an opportunity for evangelization rather than an obstacle.&#8221; He communicates the brokenness of our political systems and believes there should not be separation of church and state. Through this very topic, our ministry, my life during Covid has suffered greatly. The Well Church is a community of diverse people. I have a small group of young adults (16-20) that are extremely different from their parents and views. We have immigrants who are trying to preserve the traditions and ways of the countries they migrated from. We have conservative older people that love me for staying true to country values. I have middle aged people that love me for being intellectual and to hear and explore different viewpoints. I have a group of young adults that feel safe sharing their ideologies and different social beliefs and convictions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A Shepherd&#8217;s Heart<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Through the years of being a head pastor, I have realized I am not an academic, but I am a good pastor and one heck of coach. I have seen this issue divide my family, church, community, and nation apart. In my young adult group, I have one of the most brilliant young minds I have ever met, yet he is so offended by politics he will leave conversations and possibly the church if I bring up politics. Things are worse in his family as they argue and live in seperate areas of a 5,000 square foot home. I have done family counseling from time to time, within a few minutes everyone is standing, yelling, pointing fingers, storming towards their rooms. There has become dividing lines in this home. From Matthew 22-28 a house divided cannot stand. Therefore, the love of self always brings division, the love of others always brings unity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>From the time of John Chapter 2 when Jesus turned water into wine. He eliminated the separation of heaven and earth, the natural vs. the supernatural. The water representing the natural, the wine representing the supernatural. The water and wine came together into the clay pot and you could no longer separate the water from the wine. Therefore as Petrusek leads to, you cannot separate church and state, it is all together. Perhaps this is the personal turmoil I have been living on Machias road at the Well Church. Perhaps I need to make a final decision between academia and pastoring so I can keep moving forward. The problem will always be with our hearts, not a political problem. Perhaps too many people are like me, standing on the road, unsure of the way to go forward and need a map to help them.<\/p>\n<p>John 13:34-35<\/p>\n<p>A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.<\/p>\n<p>[1] Matthew R. Petrusek In <em>Evangelization and Ideology: How to Understand and Respond to the Political Culture. <\/em>Park Ridge IL: Word on Fire Institute, 2023<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Intro This week, I&#8217;m just going to be me on this post. A pastors perspective, rather than an academic look. I enjoyed Matthew R. Petrusek In Evangelization and Ideology: How to Understand and Respond to the Political Culture.\u00a0Petrusek tackles a difficult subject that is tearing many countries apart, especially in America. Where I live and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":162,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3032],"class_list":["post-36935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-petrusek-dlgp","cohort-dlgp01"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/162"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36935"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36984,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36935\/revisions\/36984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}