A Theology of Solidarity

Posted in Uncategorized | March 16th, 2009 by Chris

Thanks, Carol, for your response.  Your honesty is refreshing.  In your journey its obvious that you have been “in and out” of church.  Your roots have been shaped by Methodism and your family’s strong commitment to Christ.  We now live in a time when a lot of people are “out of church” more than in.  The original post from Yahoo speaks to that.  It may be that persons will discover that God is seeking them, if they will but listen.

My prayer for you is that as you continue to lead and serve in the congregation where you are, that you know that God stands with not only, you, Carol, but with everyone in your congregation serving Christ.

God bless you to be a blessing,

Chris Madison



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“A wide-ranging study on American religious life found that the Roman Catholic population has been shifting out of the Northeast to the Southwest, the percentage of Christians in the nation has declined and more people say they have no religion at all.

“Fifteen percent of respondents said they had no religion, an increase from 14.2 percent in 2001 and 8.2 percent in 1990, according to the American Religious Identification Survey.”  Ap Writer, Rachel Zoll, March 9, 2009 http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090309/ap_on_re/rel_religious_america

What accounts for this falling away from religious faith?   Is it really a falling away from religious systems, or is it an abandoning of beliefs?  Or  both?  And, if you would share, “how goes it with your soul?”

Chris Madison, March 9, 2009

 

 



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Welcome to my website.  It is dedicated to the crisis which all of us share at this point in the 21st century.  That crisis can be defined this way:  We are in a time when persons and nations are competing for resources, often in violent ways.

Why are we in this mess?  The letter of James says it this way:

1”Those conflicts and disputes among you, where do they come from? Do they not come from your cravings that are at war within you? 2You want something and do not have it; so you commit murder. And you covet something and cannot obtain it; so you engage in disputes and conflicts. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, in order to spend what you get on your pleasures.”  James 4:3

Many of us are people of faith.  We believe in one God.  Some of us believe in gods and goddesses.  Others believe in the Tao. Others believe in Buddha nature.  Still some of us see no evidence of a God at work in our world.  But there is a mystery to the universe, which we are only beginning to understand, and which cannot easily be explained.  But we can no longer afford using our religious faith to make war on one another.

Don’t misunderstand me:  I am a follower of Jesus Christ, a Christian in the western tradition.  I would describe myself as an evangelical catholic in the wesleyan tradition.  But, I have friends in all traditions.  This website will be dedicated to common ground.  It will be dedicated to faith, but faith that is open to exploration and still grounded in our faith traditions.  I know that we can learn from one another.  And as women and men of good faith, at the very least there can be understanding.  And should the One whom I believe made us all bless us, perhaps we can discover a greater family in the common hopes we have and share.

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