The Trouble With Our Talk (James 3:1-12)
South City Church
October 23, 2016
See all sermons from this series on James.
Advocating for Religious Liberty, and Not Merely Our Own
Let’s be advocates of religious liberty… but not just our own.
Promoting and defending religious liberty is not a matter of doing what best makes us secure and comfortable. That’s not something we’ve been called to as Christians. Religious liberty is about doing what’s right. That means pursuing the religious liberty of others just as much, if not more, than our own.
So, when it comes to religious liberty, let’s be honest, neither Hillary nor Trump (cf. his remarks on Muslims) receive a good grade here. Evangelicals, please stop acting like the latter will be the of bastion of religious liberty. You only reveal your own self-interested definition thereof.
The Problem With Partiality (James 2:1-13)
The Problem With Partiality (James 2:1-13)
South City Church
October 9, 2016
See all sermons from this series on James.
Police Shoot Unarmed Black Man… [Your Excuse Here]
Police shoot unarmed black man.
You: It’s not about race.
Again.
You: We don’t have a race issue. This is an isolated incident.
Again.
You: We don’t have all/enough evidence (as a video, probably the most significant piece of evidence–mind you, sits online for your viewing).
Again.
You: The guy was a thug ( =red herring).
Again.
You: This is all rhetoric, a fabricated, anti-fact narrative pushed by the liberal media.
Again.
You: Black people are playing the victim and taking advantage of any situation they can to riot and loot.
Again.
You: Cops are good people who protect us. I’ve (a white person) never had a problem with cops. As long as you don’t _______, you won’t have an issue with them (because my experience is, of course, everyone else’s).
Again.
You: What about black-on-black crime? ( =red herring that demonstrates complete ignorance of the segregation of our cities where crimes will most likely be committed by those nearest each other, e.g., other black people).
Again.
You: It’s a sin issue, not a skin issue (as if sin can’t take on racialized, societal form).
Again.
You: __________?
Jesus: A Radical Progressivism Born out of Theological Conservatism
Jesus of Nazareth … somehow managed to combine with his radical challenges to tradition a strangely conservative attitude to God and to Scripture. (John Stott)
Yes, I love Jesus. He’s so theologically conservative that, in a way, it made him oddly/paradoxically progressive and anti-conservative, i.e., challenging the conservative elite and status quo of his day —
“Don’t you see, your tradition is actually violating God’s word and voiding it out” (Mark 7), as if to say, “You religious conservatives aren’t conservative enough!”
We need more of that today.
Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda.
Kirk E. Miller 