Interesting reflection from the blog Journey with Jesus by Dan Clendenin on "Transformed Non-conformity"

 Non-conformity by itself is nothing special. Here in California where I live, non-conformists are everywhere. They ride funny bikes, experiment with alternative energy, eat organic foods, dress down instead of up, and flaunt what they think is an independent spirit, but which often is merely a different type of social conformity. Sometimes, says King, non-conformity is little more than exhibitionism. In contrast, the non-conformity that Paul describes in Romans 12 has a specific direction, which is Christ-likeness through a “renewed mind.”

           The French sociologist Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) encouraged believers to move from being "negatively maladjusted" to the world to being "positively maladjusted." King says something similar: “There are some things in our world to which men [sic] of goodwill must be maladjusted. I confess that I never intend to become adjusted to the evils of segregation and the crippling effects of discrimination, to the moral degeneracy of religious bigotry and the corroding effects of narrow sectarianism, to economic conditions that deprive men [sic] of work and food, and to the insanities of militarism and the self-defeating effects of physical violence.” Christian non-conformity, in other words, has a specific direction.
 Hope for our world rests in creatively and positively maladjusted believers, says King. This week’s text from Exodus 1:8–2:10 provides an example of nonconformity in relation to the powers of this world, in contrast to conformity to God’s redemptive purposes. The Israelites were in Egyptian bondage, increasing in number and power, when Pharaoh gave the order for infanticide — to terminate all the male Hebrew births. But the midwives defied the state authorities because, the text says, “they feared God” rather than Pharaoh (Exodus 1:17). Later, when asked what had happened, they covered up their civil disobedience by lying (v. 19).

Martin Luther King day

Martin Luther King Day has produced some interesting reflections and a great discovery:

A Reflection on Obana's speech suggests that if Obama is right Martin Luther King was wrong. that is the trouble with those pesky prophets.

Bethel College has discovered a recording of a speech by Martin Luther King from 1960 that had been thought to be lost.It's the only recording of the speech that exists, and until recently, school officials thought it was lost for good.King gave the speech, about the future of integration, at Bethel College in south-central Kansas in January 1960.

Good Friday and the pain of oppression

“Were you there when they crucified my Lord?” is a black spiritual which has its fitting place in the worship of Good Friday. The black congregations in the US respond wholeheartedly with a yes. Yes we were there. But there is more to this yes than the congregation placing themselves again imaginatively at Calvary. They affirm that what happened then in the crucifixion of Jesus has and has being lived out in their experience of suffering first as slaves and then in daily discrimination.

In the passage in the prophet Isaiah where the servant confesses his trust in God and willingness to absorb the violence of his enemies, we can sense the connection with Jesus as the suffering Messiah.

The story of Jesus in its turn opens up and has shaped the witness to the redemptive power of suffering by a Gandhi or a Martin Luther King, or numberless others in oppressed communities across the globe who have sought not only justice for, and the transformation of their own people but the moral healing of their oppressors and enemies.

Isaiah did not know when he penned his oracle how it would be taken up by later generations. But once we hear the story of Jesus in his passion we can see and affirm the connection between what was done and said then by the prophet, what was lived out by Jesus on the cross on Good Friday and we recognise this pattern whenever we see it lived out in our own time.

Thinking about Martin Luther King

While the election of Barack Obama will not bring in the millenium, or anything remotely approaching it, it is difficult to contemplate the possibility of his election as President of the USA without reflecting on the life and ministry of Martin Luther King and acknowledging the significance of the civil rights movement in making this event possible.

The possibility of an African American Democrat being competitive in a presidential poll in Georgia and North Carolina is a possibility that King would have appreciated.

Obama has his roots in the black church - the limits of what has been achieved are evident in the political pragmatics of Obama having to severe his direct connections with his congregation and its pastor mid way through the campaign becuse of controversy over the preaching of his pastor Jeremiah Wright and his confronting the USA with th truth of its past - a truth that is still not palatable to the mainstream media.

This Martin Luther King would have understood.

Obama's election is likely to be for African Americans who remember Martin Luther King a bitter-sweet moment indeed.