Seek Justice: Gary Haugen comes to Fuller

I just listened to Gary Haugen speak at Fuller. Very inspirational, normal, looking white dude. He is the founder of the International Justice Mission that seeks to liberate people from oppression throughout the world by engaging the forces that keep them in oppression in very practical ways. He is a lawyer in Washington D.C, and started the Mission after he was commisioned to Rwanda after the genocide in 1994. As he looked at the thousands of corpses he realized that at the moment of their suffering, these people didn't need food, a sermon, a loving community, etc, that they would need at others times and are very important, but they needed someone to restrain the hand of the oppressor. he gave three stories of people (that millions more are like) who are trapped by violent forces that they have been able to liberate- one story about women and children who were forced to carry bricks for 12 hours a day with no hope, one story about sex trafficking of little girls, and one story about police brutality of children. Actually, two of the top 5 struggles of the poor have to do with legal issues- police violence and sex trafficking, and human slavery. Christians have historically been leaders in movements against injustice, but the church has often been very far behind retreating to the private world of faith and maintaining the status quo. (think slavery, civil rights movement)

In his talk today, he gave an urgent call for help. Over the last 100 years, Christians have basically left out the struggle for justice as a part of our mission. We have focused on evangelism and discipleship (5.7 billion a year now), relief of poverty and food (9.4 billion a year now), but basically contribute 0 to justice mission in actually engaging the powers of the world. He showed three circles of Christian missions- first evangelism/discpleship- tons of organizations; relief and development- lots of organizations that have all developed in the last 60 years; 0 social justice organizaions. He asked fuller for help because he believes the church is not adequately prepared to do something about the violence of the world. He called students of Fuller to help equip the church to understand God's truth about justice and his plan to bring shalom, to the earth through His people by engaging both personal private issues and structural, systemic issues. He called out for a generation to move to justice because our God is a God of justice for the oppressed, the orphan, the widow, and a sermon is not going to help them, just giving food and money is not going to help them. We need to give ourselves- our creativity, our energy, our imaginations, and our actions to expressing the character of God's justice. As paul says, "be prepared for action." God's plan to engage the powers of the world is his church, you and me, the people that His Holy Spirit dwells within.

It seems that there is a lot of lawyers with important roles to play in the future, and lots of ordinary radicals who need to rise up and move to action.

I remember reading his book in college, and it was a big paradigm shifter for me. (good news about injustice) Before that I really struggled with the grace/works paradgim that doing justice or good works is just trying to earn God's love and we need to receive God's grace. This made me often fearful and passive to act with conviction and confidence because I may be tryint to earn God's love. While I think many people do think they need to earn God's love and this is a trap, I think the real question people are asking is what difference does God make? So if God loves me, but what does He want for me and from me? I have learned that God's grace has chosen to be sent to express His character. We have been created and chosen with something to give to this world. We are saved to be sent. We are saved to participate. We are saved to take part in God's desires, intetions, Kingdom to put this world back together and bring His healing in all forms to this world before He finally returns to restore all things. When we move in this way, when we are asked to participate in what God is doing, we might actually find out that we actually need God because we cannot do what He is asking us without Him.

Well, there is a big vision, what it looks like is for communities of ordinary radicals to discern in their time and place---

Time Off is Over

We had a great week together as a family last week. I got to spend a lot of time chasing my little todler all over pasadena as well as getting to hold Lo-Lo a lot, and go on walks with my wife. We also had a good time with friends, Steve and Marianna and their kids Ethan and Andrew, the Medhursts, and then took the big risk of going out of town down towards San Diego to stay at a friends family house that overlooks the water and the mountains. It was beautifuly, although a bit...stressful travelling with the two little ones. I am really glad we got out of Pasadena, though. I was reminded of how much beauty is in California and how much a simple change of scenery can give me a breath of fresh air. we talked to a lady at a park in pasadena that said she moved four miles in town, and it totally changed her priorities. I think this is pretty profound. I want to build better rhytms into my life of getting out of my environment and being outside with my family in the quiet. I think this will help me to love the busy city even more.

Here are some pics:













Peace

Corey

Family Update

Little Lo-Lo turned 5 weeks yesterday which was very exciting. Hannah is adjusting to not having family around right now, and still wants all the attention. I finished 5 projects to finish the Winter quarter Friday, and was really looking forward to just relaxing for the night with my wife, but then I remembered that is no longer my life because we have two crying little girls. I love them so much, but sometimes we long for some peace and quiet. It's harder with two. We have a week off of class, and then my last full quarter at Fuller starts up Monday!

Here are some pics






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Little Survey: Who's the cutest of my girls at 3 in the morning?

Wide Awake!
She may kill me for either posting this picture or else for the patriarchal comment of "my girls"

This isn't really what she looks like at 3am, but funny

Stay tuned for more adventures in Paxton-land

Movies, Lids, and the Imagination of God

Hey everybody,

If you hadn't noticed. I discovered the power of youTube recently. As one of my internet friends, Shannon Smith, said recently, "technology, I think it is here to stay." In the past month, we have been able to do some pretty amazing things with new technology- talk to our missionary friends in Portugal and my sister and brother n law face to face through IChat, download videos at a click of a button, create websites to get out information, and send pictures to family all over the country. Pretty cool stuff that we could not even have imagined when I was born.

I posted that last video about the Flea Circus because I think it is a great thought-provoker about how we choose to live and the limits we set for ourselves in many different arenas of life. We've been watching a lot of movies recently, and this has been a theme I've picked up from Gattica, Stranger than Fiction, Cinderella 3 (that's right, I've got two daughters now and there is more where that came from for me), and Amazing Grace which I saw last night (and the button from Lost of course). In their own ways, each of these movies challenges the limits that we as individuals and the societies, structures, and cultures around us set for ourselves. In stranger than Fiction, Will Ferrell is the paradigm of a controlled, secure, and efficient life until he starts hearing this voice inside of his head that is narrating his life for him. At one point in his quest to figure out who is talking to him, he realizes that all of his controls in his life have kept him from really living life- no dreams, no passion, no significant relationships, no risk, no real meaning, and he was the only one imposing that on himself.

In Gattica, there is a striking contrast between one person who has been completely marginalized by the futurist society and one person who has every privelege and adavantage in the world. It was striking to me that the advanantaged one was suiscidal and depressed while the marginalized one became the hero by overcoming his obstacles and pursuing his dream by making great sacrifices and taking great risks. In the end, life was not worth living for one, but incredibly rich for the other.

Last night, we saw Amazing Grace and it was as inspirational as I thought it would be. (yes me and wife got to go on a date thanks to David and Vicki Paxton) William Wilberforce fought for twenty years through incredible pressure from outside forces and internal struggles, but persevered to end the dehumanizing slave trade in England. His actions had ripple effects throughout the world that eventually led to the end of slavery in America and the rest of Europe.

The one point in the movie that stuck with me came closer to the beginning of the movie after Wilberforce had a profound experience with God and contemplated leaving the parliament to join the ministry. His good friend, William Pitt, came to him and said: are you going to praise the Lord or change the world? This mindset is what stirrs fire inside of my soul. We cannot praise the Lord without being willing to follow Him to change the world. This is really the point of the movie that I loved: it showed how being a follower of Jesus and sacrificing to change the world is one and the same thing.

Each of these movies showed someone removing the lids of the particular situation and living for more than the status quo around them. We live in a culture when imagination has created great technology and great movies, but I wonder what lids need to be lifted in our lives to pursue the imagination of God?

In Ephesians 1-2 Paul reminds us that God's imagination dreamed each of us up before the world began to bring His goodness and hope to people on this earth in creative and imaginative ways. When we connect to God and others through Christ, we let loose the divine imagination in the world. I love how the church in so many places is asking questions based on the application of a redemptive imagination in our world rather than just trying to get more people in the church and present an abstract message about God. I think Paul would be very sad to think of us settling for entertaining ourselves with good movies and teachings and maintaining the status quo, but very excited to hear about us dreaming about how we can use the unique gifts, resources, and creativity as communities to bring restoration and hope to our world around us.

Let's take the lid off life (that was my little e-sermon)

Peace

Corey