{"id":917,"date":"2013-03-14T20:16:59","date_gmt":"2013-03-14T20:16:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/beta.dminlgp.com\/shalom-living\/"},"modified":"2013-03-14T20:16:59","modified_gmt":"2013-03-14T20:16:59","slug":"shalom-living","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/shalom-living\/","title":{"rendered":"Shalom Living"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, I watched as Catholics across the globe celebrated a new pope \u2013 Francis I.\u00a0\u00a0I couldn\u2019t help but be excited, part of which is due to the name he chose, evidently after St. Francis of Assisi.\u00a0\u00a0I will never forget my experience visiting the tomb of St. Francis in Assisi, Italy.\u00a0\u00a0This white-washed city on a hill was not only beautiful but I felt peaceful there.\u00a0\u00a0It was a different feeling there than when I visited the Vatican in Rome, somehow more full of \u201cshalom.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

The life of St. Francis, at least from what I have read was one of practicing what the author James Davison Hunter would call a life of enacting shalom, or living a \u201cfaithful presence.\u201d In his book,\u00a0To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World<\/em>,\u00a0Hunter details a new approach for Christianity.\u00a0\u00a0He explains that all previous Christian paradigms have been influenced by philosophies such as Hegel\u2019s \u201cidealism\u201d and Nietsche\u2019s radical skepticism.\u00a0\u00a0The Christian \u201cworking theory\u201d towards culture has resulted in the postures of \u201cdefensive against,\u201d \u201crelevance to,\u201d and \u201cpurity from.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0He explains, \u201cFor Christians to regard the work of culture in any literal sense as \u201ckingdom-building\u201d this side of heaven is to begin with an assumption that tends to lead to one version or another of the Constantinian project, in which the objective is for Christians to \u201ctake over\u201d the culture, fashioning all of the world in the image of the church or at least in accord with its values. Typically, this assumption leads to the dualism in which the culture either declares Jesus as Lord or it doesn\u2019t. Christians are either \u201cwinning\u201d the culture or \u201closing\u201d it, \u201cadvancing the kingdom\u201d or \u201cretreating,\u201d which is why all versions of the Constantinian approach to culture tend to lean either toward triumphalism or despair, depending on the relative success or failure of Christians in these spheres. This is why it is always dangerous to aspire to a \u201cChristian culture\u201d or, by extension, a Christian government, a Christian political party, a Christian business, and the like.\u201d (234)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, Hunter argues a way forward called \u201cfaithful presence,\u201d a way of living which includes \u201cflourishing people\u201d \u2013 acting in ways of sacrificial love and support towards Christians and non-Christians alike, \u201cformation,\u201d which includes immersion of the individual in a community of faith, and a fully present commitment to a Christian\u2019s life tasks \u2013 an engagement with everyday life.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Hunter explains that the theology of faithful presence happens when the “…Word of all flourishing – defined by the love of Christ – becomes flesh in us, in\u00a0<\/span>our relations with others, within the tasks we are given, and within our sphere of influence\u2014absence gives way to presence, and the word we speak to each other and to the world becomes authentic and trustworthy.\u201d (252)\u00a0\u00a0It\u2019s action requires modesty, humility and charity.<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, he explains that God is the one who will \u201cchange the world\u201d into a place where \u201cswords will be beaten into plowshares\u201d and the \u201cwolf will dwell with the lamb.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Our job is not to \u201cengineer\u201d the world but to worship God in all we do.\u00a0\u00a0This is outlined for us in Genesis 2:15 where God gives the instructions that we are to\u00a0abad<\/em>\u00a0(nurture, sustain) and\u00a0shamar (care for, protect)\u00a0<\/em>the Earth.\u00a0\u00a0We are here to \u201cenact shalom\u201d and by doing so we do our part in fulfilling God\u2019s purpose for us on Earth.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Will the new Pope Francis enact shalom like his namesake?\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

How do you enact shalom and live in \u201cfaithful presence?\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Hunter, James Davison (2010-04-14). To Change the World: The Irony, Tragedy, and Possibility of Christianity in the Late Modern World. Oxford University Press. Kindle Edition.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, I watched as Catholics across the globe celebrated a new pope \u2013 Francis I.\u00a0\u00a0I couldn\u2019t help but be excited, part of which is due to the name he chose, evidently after St. Francis of Assisi.\u00a0\u00a0I will never forget my experience visiting the tomb of St. Francis in Assisi, Italy.\u00a0\u00a0This white-washed city on a hill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":47,"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":[2,5,82,357],"class_list":["post-917","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-dminlgp","tag-hunter","tag-presence","tag-shalom","cohort-lgp3"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917","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\/47"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=917"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.georgefox.edu\/dlgp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}