Wednesday, July 18, 2007

No separation of church and mafia

cla<"Maybe the world needs more fools..it's an interesting age when folks trust
the court jesters more than the court itself."
-"The Irresistible Revolution" by Shane Claiborne, p 19

One of my primary theses has been that in this unique day, God loves/needs to use "secular" folks and institutions as wakeup/shake up calls to the church. "It could be that for the first time in history, " Len Sweet offers, "God is more active in the world than the church."

Here's a great example from "The Irresistible Revolution." I see Len beat me to posting it. You should know that there is also a whole chapter about Christians in the Mexican mafia (!):

“One day we received a box of donations from one of the wealthy congregations near our college that will remain nameless. Written in marker on the cardboard box were the words, “For the homeless.” Excited, I opened it up, only to find the entire box filled with microwave popcorn. My first instinct was to laugh. We barely had electricity, much less a microwave, and popcorn wasn’t on the top of the needs list. My second instinct was to cry because of how far the church had become removed from the poor. Later that same week, another group of folks brought donations by St. Ed’s — the mafia. With the media jumping on the story, the mafia came by and gave bikes to each of the kids, turkeys to each family, and thousands of dollars to the organization. I guess God can use the mafia, but I would like God to use the church…”

From The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne, (63)



Claiborne reflects, "its easy to see these things (church and mafia working together) as spectatular, but I really believe that's only because we live in a world that has lost its imagination." (132)


“We may ignore, but we cannot evade, the presence of God. The world is crowded with him. He walks everywhere incognito. And the incognito is not always easy to penetrate. The real labor is to remember to attend.” - Armand Nicholi

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