Last night, I caught an episode of
“Red Letter Christianity” on JUCE TV, in which Tony Compolo and
Shane Claiborne interview Bruce McLaren. I was familiar with
McLaren's name via his being quoted by Frank Viola, and one, when
having to kill time in a mall a few years ago, got to read a few
pages of one of his books while on a bookstore. As I say all too
often, I don't think as well as I did up to a few years ago, so I
really couldn't get into reading some less than basic theology, but I
recognize that he is respected by some people whose thinking I
respect. At whatever level, I would guess that that is the real
reason behind which leaders we pay attention, and which ones we
either don't or don't go out of the way to consider. Anyway, the
program was a level above the level of thought that usually appears
on the TBN family of networks. As the program was only one half hour
long, they couldn't get too heavily into any one subject.
I think that I had heard Shane
Claiborne's name before, but didn't know anything about him. Let us
just say his physical appearance got my attention. While McLaren
appears as a conservative dressing, middle aged Caucasian male, and
Compolo similar and maybe a decade older (I guess I could have taken
the time to look up their ages on the net, but that's not the point),
Claiborne is younger, also Caucasian, and has nearly belt length red
dreds. From being a foster parent, I know second hand how difficult
it is for most white folks to get dreds right (but, then again, that
might have been the makeup folks, although my gut feeling is probably
not). Anyway, I got on my computer to try to find out a little more
about what he has had to say.
To that effect, I wound up at Rachael
Held Evans' blog (another name I have heard of, but knew little
about), where, on her February 27, 2013 post, has him do a guest Q&A.
It is an interesting group of comments on some controversial issues,
including the proper role of the church in the world, and
homosexuality, and how the gay community perceives Christians as
being near-polar opposite of what we espouse to be. Claiborne makes
some comments which are worth thinking through, although done in the
process of not answering the actual question asked. This rings my
bell in what I have said previously about various Christian leaders
avoiding answering or even speaking about certain difficult
questions, in that I perceive that Claiborne, in these answers,
actually says more than if he had addressed the direct question.
Evans, later, in answering a comment, points out that Jesus, in the
Gospels, oftentimes did the same thing, and that can be a lesson for
us.
Let me say that this is not a hard and
fast rule—I don't believe it is an excuse for a certain preaching
“star” avoiding telling the world where he got his earned
doctorate, or another one from articulating his view on a basic
doctrine by using words that have a clear meaning in Buddhist
theology, but not in Christian theology. Of course, except in our
media age, I probably wouldn't know those two persons exist.
All this is, in part, because of a
sentence Rachael Held Evans wrote, which sums up why I have not
written a blog on all kinds of subjects:
“...I'm still trying to figure out
how to articulate my thoughts well.”
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