The word “repurpose” came up on TV as a substitute for the word recycle and reuse. I heard the word and thought of the emerging church movement that wants to adapt to a post modern way of doing things in worship.
The word repurpose touches something in me that says that maybe the emerging church movement should step back and look at the original purpose of Jesus and his gospels and look less at institution(s) that have in fact emerged around Jesus and his message over the centuries.
Indidvidually, people should decide what is needed in their hearts in response to the message of Jesus. Then institutions should recycle tradition around repurpose together with the individual and grow into the next centuries long phase of the Christian Spirit and Church.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Amanpour and the “Radical Mosque”
In her approach to reshape her new anchor of This Week on ABC, Christiane Amanpour should be applauded for her efforts to increase the dialogue in the public forum. No statue of George Will this week to parrot the right view.
The “radical Mosque” is a term used by evangelical Gary Bauer on ABC’s This Week with Christiane Amanpour to describe the average place of Muslim worship infiltrated by “radical Islam”.
The show this week was a forum format – a “digital town hall” - with many people in the news discussing among other things the proposed Islamic Center proposed for two blocks from the new World Trade Center.
In the move forward toward the future, there is still a lot of anger in America and fear toward the religion of Islam.
I have no answers. The act of violence of 911 opened a door to America whereby its basic beliefs among them the concept of the freedom of Religion was brought to the forefront to include a once foreign to Europeans belief of Islam.
Time will hopefully heal the wounds of 911. Time will hopefully make it okay to have an historically alien to European culture religion exist in Ameria.
I believe that the Islamic Cultural Center in lower Manhattan will be built. The original presentation had too many loose ends that eventually invited dissent on the matter. Too many things to mention. The location of two blocks from the old WTC is the main trigger for a lot of people who are still lingering in the past and have not addressed the new world of post 911 reality.
A globally small world of the future will have to feel comfortable with all beliefs and religions. It is hard ground to take or shape in that possible new Global Village reshaped after 911.
America’s traditional isolation ended 911 and a brave new world was born. Practicing one’s religion will continue in America. Tolerance has to make a notch or two upward on our scales of recognition. The whole thing to heal takes time and effort. Think positively.