A collection of links I found interesting this week:

• Those ‘Educational’ Toys aren’t what they say they are.
• Greg Boyd is an Anarchist. Go Greg! [via]
• Shaun talks about Dollar (Creflo that is) and Kanakuk.
• You might be interested in reading about Harlem Children’s Zone Project.
• No Impact Man tackles The Problem with Air Travel
• And Today’s Quote [via]:

A new survey of U.S. adults who don’t go to church, even on holidays,
finds 72% say “God, a higher or supreme being, actually exists.” But
just as many (72%) also say the church is “full of hypocrites.” –USA Today

Not to get too political on you, but I participated in a cool little project by Sunlight Foundation today that I thought I’d tell you about. Sunlight Foundation is all about bringing transparency to Washington (the government) and they are doing some very innovative things to do it.
The project I helped with is called ‘Where Are They Now?’ and the website describes it as:

The 109th Congress closed up shop nearly one year ago.
For those top staff members whose bosses resigned, retired or were voted out of office, the one year “cooling off period”–during which they are not allowed to lobby their former colleagues on Capitol Hill–is coming to an end. Lower level staffers have been able to work the Hill all year. Let’s see which staffers of former members have gone through the revolving door.

Basically, they are seeking to point out the close ties between elected government officials and the powerful lobbyist just down the street from them. What we are finding is that there are a lot of Congregational staff members who after leaving office have gone to work for those lobbyist firms. To put it another way, government staff are being bought by lobbyist who are offering them jobs (=money and power) in return for buying their votes in the Congress.

The ‘Where Are They Now?’ site is very well put together, and I’ve been making calls to Lobbyist firms checking to confirm that some of their new staff are indeed the same staff of Congress members who left office one year ago (the one year rule is to prevent this very thing from happening).

Take a visit yourself and do you part for government transparency by making some phone calls.

Also Of Interest:

• View a Directory of People passing through the Revolving Door
• Sunlight’s list of Insanely Useful Web Sites

Don’t know if I’ll make this a regular Thursday thing, but I’ve got to throw a post in every once in a while with an assortment of random links for your enjoyment. Here you are:

• Miller takes on the ethical shopping dilemma.
• Compassion in Politics predicts 2008 the Year of the Editor.
• Josh Brown tackles our wayward patriotism.
• You have to check out The Decapatator:
  
  A little gruesome but extremely creative anti-advertising campaign. Some great photoshopping skillz. [via] and [via]
• This is what I’m going to do next time I’m called for Jury Duty. Brilliant. And I mean that in a “wow I never thought to take my Christian thinking and apply it to that part of life” sort of brilliance, not a “how to get out of Jury Duty” sort of brilliance.
• Bart Campolo‘s take on the Bible.
• And I leave you with a quote [via, via & via]:

“There’s one thing left: Go sell whatever you own and give it to the poor. All your wealth will then be heavenly wealth. And come follow Me.”

The man’s face clouded over, as this was the last thing he expected to hear. Suddenly, he had an idea.

“But Teacher, what if we try this: I’ll stay here with the way things are, I’ll keep all my stuff, and I’ll tell people it’s a blessing from You! It’s a win-win for both of us—I get to maintain my lifestyle, and You end up looking good! What do You think?”

Guess who wrote this and when:

If it is religious to advocate rebuilding a church, why is it non-religious to advocate tearing down and rebuilding slum districts? If it is religious to encourage the church to recarpet the aisles and cushion the seats for the feet and backs of worshippers, why is it non-religious to speak of playgrounds for young feet and old-age pensions for aged backs?

If you guessed Walter Rauschenbusch 100 years ago, your absolutely right. Looks like we still have the same theological dilemmas in the church today that we did back then.

Zach has put together a great collection of quotes from Walter’s book and wrote a post about the importance of writings such as this.

Read Zach’s Post Here.

Read Walter Rauschenbusch Quotes Here.

Read the entire Christianity and The Social Crisis Here.

A story of mine:
When I was in middle school I bought this sweet jacket, it had a reversible red vest inside, which had a black side and a bright red side. The red side was way stylish, but too cool for me to wear to school, however, I was in the mall one day and so I flipped it, red side out. I happened to be in Walgreen’s when an old lady came up to me and asked me if I could show her where the pepto bismol was. You can imagine my embarrassment, she had mistaken me, the cool middle schooler with the red vest, for a Walgreen’s employee. It was a case of mistaken identity, that ended only in my own embarrassment. Needless to say I never wore my vest red side out again.

Now, imagine if you couldn’t change your identity with just the flip of your vest… And, the mistaken identity resulted sometimes in more then just embarrassment.

Also, for some inordinate reason, white people often seem to mistake me for an employee of home improvement stores. Hello! No orange apron! (But every once in a while I like to answer the questions anyway.) Maybe it’s the tape measure and the manly stride. A white woman once abusively screamed that she wanted to see my manager RIGHT NOW because she did not feel I was helpful. Even after she found out she was mistaken, she did not have the grace to apologize.

There are a lot of stories both in the post and in the comments section. You absolutely must read this post, get a glimpse of what kind of regular encounters people of color tend to have with white people.

Read here. (ht. Ally Work)

And, once your done reading and realize something must be done about this. Read Ally Work’s post on Qualities of an Ally.

Mak writes a great post on the topic:

Which then led me to think about the concept of “modesty” in general. And as I pondered all of these things, I finally figured out why I can’t stand the typical conservative Christian teachings about women’s appearance that go on all over the world in youth groups and Bible studies and women’s ministries every week…the whole point of these “lessons” teaches girls/women that our bodies do not in any way belong to us.

Read the Rest here.

I’m an advocate for people moving out of suburbia for a number of reasons, but I can respect people’s decisions to stay there. Will Samson is one of those people I’ve come to see as a conscience suburbunite. He recently posted a letter from someone else about 10 Ways to Live Intentionally in the Suburbs and I think they are worth checking out:

1) Live with others from your church community

Whether you share your home with another person or family, or whether you have several families that have homes in close proximity or both, sharing life together is perhaps the most powerful (i.e., going against the grain of suburban culture) way to be the body of Christ in suburbia. If you can’t live together, at least find a way to share resources (power tools, lawn mowers, children’s clothes/toys, etc).

2) Work Less!

One of the major powers that enslaves suburbia is the idolization of the career. There are many ways to pay the bills that do not involve a 9-5 job, and even within a 9-5 job, there are ways to work less (turning down promotions, taking unpaid leave, etc.) Working less will free you to serve your church community, your family, your neighbors, etc. It will also spur creativity: finding a solution for working less, finding a way to “make ends meet” financially, etc.

3) Throw out the television

Another (and perhaps larger power) that enslaves suburbia is consumerism. You’ll be amazed at how your desire for things ebbs as you take the TV out of the picture. If you can’t bring yourself to kill the television, at least take steps to lessen its influence (get rid of cable, only use it for movies, put it on a cart that can be wheeled in and out of a closet, etc.) Throwing out the television will also stimulate your creativity.

Read the rest here

I don’t usually completely repost someones writings, but since JesusManifesto is down and might be so indefinitely, I figured Mark wouldn’t mind. But what’s written below is not mine, it’s all Mark Van Steenwyk:

A while back, I listed some alternative economic practices.  Here’s a summary of them (go here for more details).

• Abolish the tithe…
• Care for the poor in your midst…
• Financial accountability groups…
• Spend less than 50% of your church budget on staff, building, and office expenses…
• Support local economies…
• When buying “globally” buy fair trade…
• Minimize waste, reclaim waste…
• Share stuff…
• Devote tax returns to the Kingdom, rather than to that “gotta have” luxury item…
• Donate your best stuff, rather than your worst stuff…
• If possible dump your car and use a combination of foot travel, bike travel, and public transit.

My co-conspirator Josh and I have started using Google docs more and
more for online collaboration.  It is a very synergistic way of
brainstorming-from-afar.  We use it for various ministry lists,
descriptions, and action plans.  And we recently came up with more
economic practices for Jesus followers:

•  Whenever possible, foster a gift economy. 
  This goes beyond just sharing stuff.  Instead, it encourages people to
  give stuff without expectation.  For example, we have a weekly outdoor
  hospitality meal called the “Hospitality Train.”  We load up our bike
  trailers, go set up a solid meal, and feed ourselves, our friends, and
  strangers.  And we have encouraged folks to bring something to give
  away next time.  Our hope is that our free meal will help foster a gift
  culture.  We hope that, someday, a sort of Free Market will grow up
  around this economy.
•  Christians should try to open source all of their intellectual property. 
  Instead of seeing our creations as our property, we should see it as
  belonging to the Body of Christ.  I believe that this is more faithful
  to our theology than assuming that we “need to work within the system.”
  We don’t anymore.  There are TONS of alternatives.  If you REALLY
  believed that your message is from God, then why should you make a
  profit off of it?  There is only one real challenge to this (and I
  believe it is a valid one): you’ll get a wider audience if you publish
  through the mainstream publishing companies or release music through a
  record label, etc.  In this case, we should feel free to use such
  methods, but always fight to make things available for free or cheap as
  we foster a better alternative.
•  Garden with friends and share the bounty. 
•  Supplement your gardening with Community Supported Agriculture.
•  Share housing. Yep…I sound like a hippy.  In some
  places like San Francisco, housing is SO expensive that many
  conventional and normal people share housing in order to afford living
  in a home.  In Minneapolis, housing is cheaper, but it is still
  economically beneficial to share housing.  It frees up money for other
  things, fosters sharing of resources, encourages hospitality, and helps
  us live the way that most people in the world live (and the way folks
  in America lived before the 1940s).
•  Start making and fixing more things yourself.  I
  grew up in rural Minnesota.  I grew up sucking at all those things that
  country kids were supposed to be good at: engine repair, agricultural
  skills, fixing stuff, building stuff, etc.  But compared to most of my
  friends who grew up in the suburbs or the city, I am a master among
  men! When you don’t know how to make stuff or fix stuff, you take
  things for granted.  And when you take your “things” for granted, you
  become wasteful and you begin to take your wealth for granted.  Don’t
  throw away that old chair, FIX IT.  Don’t throw away that rice
  maker…FIX IT.  Don’t throw away that bike, FIX IT! Don’t buy that
  Chinese food…MAKE IT YOURSELF.  Don’t go out and buy that $300
  bookshelf…MAKE ONE! Making bookshelves is the easiest thing in the
  world.  Trust me.
•  If you can’t make it or fix it, buy it used. I
  know it looks crappier than something new.  But you’re spoiled and
  should deal with it.  Stop caring about shiny appearances and take some
  pride in the fact that your simpler living frees resources for better
  things.  
•  Instead of investing in your future, invest in the futures of others through micro-financing. Liberating Waste
•  Reclaim Christmas as a celebration of Christ, rather than a
  celebration of affluence.  Celebrate a “Buy Nothing Christmas” or give
  away stuff at Christmas. 

If you have some that you’d like to add, you can comment here or visit our Facebook group page.

“Gentrification: The displacement of poor women and people of color. The raising of rents and eradification of a single, poor and working-class women from neighborhoods once considered unsavory by people who didn’t live there. The demolition of housing projects. A money-driven process in which landowners and developers push people (in this case, many of them single mothers) out of their homes without thinking about where they will go. Gentrification is a premeditated process in which an imaginary bleach is poured onto a community and the only remaining color left in that community is white…”
—Taigi Smith, “What Happens When Your Hood is the Last Stop on the White Flight Express?” from the anthology Colonize This! Young Women of Color on Today’s Feminism.

Racialicious does a fascinating piece on gentrification which every person in any way connected with gentrification, whether your living in a gentrified, gentrifying, might be gentrified in the future neighborhood, or no someone who does, should read this piece.

Link: The Gentrification Shuffle.