Immigration and Arizona

I emailed out to the church I pastor a letter that a pastor wrote to his church regarding the New Arizona law and immigration reform. I invited response from our church was not let down. There is definitely no shortage of opinions and feelings on the matter and so I thought we could talk about it a bit here.

Some of the comments I received were more of a party line answer but many were heartfelt and relayed personal experience and fears. There were no surprises as to what the fears were. There were those who leaned on to the law of the land as being supreme while others favored compassion. Some wrestled with both in their email to me.

Overall I was impressed with the transparency people communicated how they felt and some of the driving fears and concerns they had. It made me wonder if we were to approach this issue with a bit more vulnerability and putting some weight on what truly is our concern rather than on the party line if we might make more progress in our national conversation.

Back to the seeming dichotomy of law vs compassion: How do we take seriously the emphasis the Bible puts on compassion especially for the "foreigner" among us while still being a nation with laws and one that is democratically governed?

Failures and Successes

The author of a book I just finished reading makes the claim that much of our fixation is on mistakes and sins and also on successes. This is how we measure our worth. This moralistic view causes us to put great weight on the failures and successes found in the Bible.

Here are some questions he raises: (I have paraphrased them and added some of my own)

What if our mistakes and sins really aren’t the focus. What if the test of life isn’t whether we will obey or disobey? What if the real test is how we respond to successes and failures? What if there isn’t a single point or moment that qualifies us as believers, as good people, as acceptable? What if the plan is for all of life’s failures and successes to be used to draw us into greater knowledge and experience of God?

The writer is very clear that these mistakes do have consequences, some very bad. His point seems to be that God is after relationship with us rather than to get us to conform our behavior. It is from the place of relationship with God that we then love people better and make less destructive decisions.

How does that strike you?