The other day, I wrote a blog post about what we should do if Amendment One did not pass. It got a lot of traffic and got shared a lot on Facebook and Twitter and so on.

An editor from Religion News Service read it and suggested that there was a longer article to be had in that post, and that if I would write said article, they might be interested in syndicating it.

So, I did. And then they did.

But then the Washington Post picked the article up, and Holy Crap! my name was attached to an article I wrote on the Washington Post website.

Wow. Just Wow.

Apparently, we have also been drying our hands the wrong way, too.  Joe Smith (if that is his real name) shows you how to use only one paper towel and thus save bajillions of pounds of paper every year.

If I keep finding these videos telling me I am doing everything wrong, I may soon lack the confidence to even leave the house.

It is an attack on many different types of families – families where both parents are of the same sex, obviously – but also an attack on single parents, an attack on couples that are not legally married, and an attack on healthcare for children.

It is a bad law – not because I disagree with it (although I do) but because laws should protect rights, not take them away.

I am, it should surprise no one who knows me, voting against this amendment. Many “progressive” people of faith join me in this, and I am very proud of the faith communities that have taken aggressive stands on promoting the “Vote Against” cause.

But I have a word for the people of faith of North Carolina.

We may not be victorious today. It may be that the voters of North Carolina decide to pass this amendment, despite our best efforts to educate them as to why they should not.

What do we do then?

Vote again.

We vote every day of our lives, by our lives.

• We vote for equality when we notice that everyone who sits at our table as a guest is of the same sexual orientation we are, and we work to change this.
• We vote for equality when we notice whose voice is not being heard, and we call attention to that.
• We vote for equality when we ask why our church has no one in a position of authority who is not a straight male.
• We vote for equality when we decide to not attend conferences where all the speakers are of the same gender, race and sexual orientation.
• We vote for equality when we realize that equality is a fact to be lived into, not a right to be granted by the state.

If this amendment passes, it will be a tragedy for the people of the state of North Carolina. So, if you can vote in this election, I really, really hope you will.

But whatever the outcome, it will have no bearing whatsoever on my responsibilities as a follower of Jesus to love my neighbor.

And loving my neighbor means, among other things, treating my neighbor as if my neighbor is my equal.

Because they are.

Huh. Who knew?

“Who is Will D. Campbell?” she asked.

Oh dear.

I told her Will is a Baptist minister from the South (although, he makes it clear he was no longer a Southern Baptist minister) who is a prime example of the Radical Christian tradition.

It was Will’s belief (as it is mine) that the average Church building is no different from the average Rotary club in the desired outcome of its existence. They both want to create good citizens – folks who do not rock the boat, but neither do they cheat or steal. In other words, the average church wants to create good, solid American citizens.

I guess that is admirable, but what has any of that to do with the fact that “God through Christ reconciled the world” or “The Kingdom of God is among you”?

Not much.

She asked if I could provide her a list of books to read, to introduce her to this Radical Christian tradition.

So here are a few.

Like all lists of books, it is incomplete. This list is primarily for a 21-year-old Presbyterian female in the US south. As a result, I am using authors who can speak to her context – so Gustavo Gutierrez is not on the list – neither is any number of other dark-skinned radical folks. This list is just to get her started. Once she starts down that road, she will find the books that are looking for her.

It is also highly recommended that you read other things these folks have written – they are all the real deal.

Dorothy Day – The Long Loneliness

Oscar Romero – The Violence of Love

Will D. Campbell – Brother To a Dragonfly

Leo Tolstoy – The Kingdom of God is Within You

Clarence Jordan – The Essential Writings

Jacques Ellul – Violence

William Stringfellow – My People is the Enemy

Every one of these books rocked my world when I first read it. Every one of them wrecked my faith – in the best possible way.

My reaction has generally been like that of Stanley Hauwerwas after he read Yoder’s Politics of Jesus -

“Shit. I thought I was a Christian until I read this.”

I get emails questioning my orthodoxy all the time. For example, about a year ago, I was asked if I denied the resurrection of Jesus, and I replied. I have learned, however, that answering critiques does nothing to calm them down. Witness, for example, the comments on that post. 

Lately, the emails have started back. Do I believe this, or that or the other thing. Virgin birth, historical resurrection, Genesis 1, the book of Job.

Sigh.

So, let’s try this again. . Here is what I believe… today.  

I believe:

• That action is to belief as 19 is to 1.
• That faith without deeds is not faith at all, but superstition.
• That people are worth fighting for.
• That the problems of the world are, at their core, relationship problems. 
• That when people ask “What can we do to end homelessness,” what they really mean is “What can we do to end homelessness and not change anything about us.”
• That you can replace the word homelessness in the previous sentence with almost anything and the statement will still be true.
• That when you ask for help and people say “I will pray about that”, you had better start looking for Plan B.
• That it is not we who wait on God to act, but it is God who waits on us.
• That no one is going to care about your dream as much as you do. This does not prevent them from having opinions as to how you are doing it wrong, however.
• That folks who ignore you in your struggles will flock to you when you are successful. And then they will be hurt when you question their sincerity.
• That to follow the Jesus path will look like failure to the world that watches you.
• That, when measured in terms of impact on the world around them, the average church is indistinguishable from the average book club.
• That a lot of church people will be pissed off at that last statement.
• That some of them will be pissed off that I said “pissed off”, and wish I would just talk about hell or something.
• That people who love that I fight for the rights of homeless people but wish I would shut up about the rights of women or the LGBT community do not understand either me or my work.
• That atheists contribute more financially to my work than do Evangelicals. (Actually, this is a fact.)
• That to ask whether evangelism or social justice is more important is the same as asking whether it is more important to send doctors to medical school or to heal people.
• That when there are two people groups, and one people group has more of something – power, money, privilege, resources, etc. – the onus for changing that discrepancy lies on the group with more, and to do less than that is less than Christian.
• That Jeremiah probably did not get invited to a lot of parties, either.
• That most Christians are indistinguishable from the culture around them.
• That I take anti-abortion people much more seriously when they have adopted a couple of kids.
• That the best critique of the bad is the performance of the good. As a result of this, I believe that if you want to know what I believe, you probably ought to just watch what I do.

How about you? What do you believe?

“To us the moral state of society, for all its spots and stains, seems fair and trim; to the prophet, it is dreadful. So many deeds of charity are done, so much decency radiates day and night; yet to the prophet satiety of the conscience is prudery and flight from responsibility.” – Abraham Heschel

From his most awesome and fearful book The Prophets.

What could be better, after all, than a book on the Jewish prophets, written by a Jewish prophet?

A weary looking, soft spoken black man, approximately 70 years, old gets on the bus in front of Glenwood Towers, a retirement community for low-income peoples. He boards the bus, says “Hey!” to the bus driver and shuffles to a seat. He looks across the aisle and smiles at me with a smile that can only be made when the one smiling owns less than 10 teeth. I smile back, and he responds by settling down into a posture that somehow speaks simultaneously of resignation and assurance.

The bus sits idle for a few minutes as we make up time gained by so few pick-ups at this hour of the morning.

“Hey! Bus driver?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you from Raleigh?”

“Yes, sir. All my life.”

“Do you know a lady named Betty Simpkins*?”

“Hmmm. I know some Simpkins, but I can’t call a Betty.”

“Well, she just passed.”

The driver looks across the street and sees the ambulance and fire apparatus parked in the lot of the apartment building.

“Oh, just now? Is that why the ambulance is there? ”

“Yeah. She was a nice lady.”

“Well, I know some Simpkins, but I am not calling a Betty. Did she ride the bus?”

“Some, but she had a car. You would probably know her if you seen her.”

“Maybe.”

“I wish I had a pitchur to show you of her. She was a beautiful woman – you would recognize her right off.”

“Was she sick long?”

“Not too long. It got bad at the end, though.”

“Well, I’m sure sorry. I’m gonna pray for her family.”

“Yeah, me too.”

The driver starts the bus and pulls back into traffic, and the old man closes his eyes and puts his head back and softly begins to snore.

*Her name was not Betty Simpkins; I changed it out of respect for her family. 

Clinically diagnosed with ADHD, for which I am
medicated. Married, no kids, two cats. 39 years old. I am a visionary and an idealist and admittedly have a tendency toward extremism. I am Christian in the way Dorothy Day and Martin Luther King were Christian, not in the way Billy Graham is. I struggle with self care. I have problems with follow through. I never miss appointments. I get called prophetic often, and unrealistic even more. I like peanut m&m’s.