Dr. Joel C. Hunter is senior pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed, a pioneering congregation of 12,000 focused on building an international community of worshipers. A nationally and internationally recognized bridge-builder among religious and mainstream leaders, his challenge to Christians is to be the church everywhere, every day. Read here as he comments on today’s issues, finding common ground so that issues of compassion can be addressed in ways that benefit all.
Pastor Hunter offered his thoughts on the Restoring Honor rally during his pre-sermon “family time” at Northland. He emphasized that he is “not aligning himself with the Mormon faith or clergy against the government,” but rather “praising the tone and higher emphasis of the event.”
NOTE: Concerned over the alarming level of disrespect, personal attacks and even hateful rhetoric that is occurring among religious leaders, Dr. Hunter recently joined with 126 other Christian representatives from across the church to sign the Civility Covenant. You can participate by reading the covenant and then clicking the link below to sign on.
How good and pleasant it is when the people of God live together in unity.—Psalm 133:1
As Christian pastors and leaders with diverse theological and political beliefs, we have come together to make this covenant with each other, and to commend it to the church, faith-based organizations, and individuals, so that together we can contribute to a more civil national discourse. The church in the United States can offer a message of hope and reconciliation to a nation that is deeply divided by political and cultural differences. Too often, however, we have reflected the political divisions of our culture rather than the unity we have in the body of Christ. We come together to urge those who claim the name of Christ to “put away from you all bitterness and wrath and anger and wrangling and slander, together with all malice, and be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you” (Ephesians 4:31-32).
1) We commit that our dialogue with each other will reflect the spirit of the Scriptures, where our posture toward each other is to be Read more…
By Lisa Miller | Newsweek.com | Mar 10, 2010
There has been some bellyaching in recent months—including by me, and also especially in The Washington Post—over the relevance and influence of the task force of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (a god-awful mouthful of an administrative tag if ever there was one). This was a committee of about two dozen people, appointed by President Obama just over a year ago, asked to address some of the country’s most important values issues and make recommendations to the president. Rumors persisted that relations within the council were acrimonious and, given that council members had such differing views on questions of faith—they were progressive and conservative and were at odds over the best government role inside churches and other faith-based institutions—there was no way to hammer out any but the lowest-common-denominator type of resolution. The most persistent complaint, and the one that I continue to hear, is the worry that their recommendations, which they offered to the president this week, would not get a fair hearing at the highest levels of the administration. Read more…
WASHINGTON – We have different opinions, admitted the White House’s faith-based advisers on Tuesday when they presented their recommendations. But we were able to find “meaningful common ground,” they added.
After a year of work, the 25 members of the first Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships presented a report that included more than 60 recommendations for six issues – economic recovery and domestic poverty, fatherhood and healthy families, environment and climate change, inter-religious cooperation, global poverty and development, and reform of the Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships.
The proposals provide suggestions on how the government can better work with faith-based and community groups to tackle major social issues.
“We are a diverse group,” stated Melissa Rogers, chair of the council, at the onset of the event for the report’s release. “We differ on matters of faith. We differ in our political perspectives and our philosophical approach. We differ in matter of theology even within our particular faith traditions.”
Yet despite their diverse and strong opinions, she said, the advisers “really listened” to one another and found “meaningful common ground” that went beyond the “lowest common denominator.”
Rogers’ sentiments were echoed by Pastor Joel C. Hunter, an adviser on the taskforce for inter-religious cooperation.
Hunter, who sits on the board of directors for the World Evangelical Alliance and the National Association of Evangelicals, told The Christian Post frankly that he is not usually attracted to such interfaith dialogues.
“I’m a conservative evangelical,” Hunter stated matter-of-factly. “I kind of always shied away from general ecumenical, let’s-all-just-be-nice-to-one-another, kumbaya stuff. Well, that’s not this. Read more…
Dear Friends,
There is a great article in today’s New York Times by Nicholas Kristof, who has written about what a huge mistake it would be not to channel government money through faith-based organizations for international aid. Read below or at http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28kristof.html.
Blessings, Pastor Joel
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Learning From the Sin of Sodom
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
For most of the last century, save-the-worlders were primarily Democrats and liberals. In contrast, many Republicans and religious conservatives denounced government aid programs, with Senator Jesse Helms calling them “money down a rat hole.”
Over the last decade, however, that divide has dissolved, in ways that many Americans haven’t noticed or appreciated. Evangelicals have become the new internationalists, pushing successfully for new American programs against AIDS and malaria, and doing superb work on issues from human trafficking in India to mass rape in Congo.
A pop quiz: What’s the largest U.S.-based international relief and development organization? Read more…
In early 2007, the Come Let Us Reason Together initiative was launched. It was an undertaking that few thought could be successful: finding common ground between centrist evangelicals and progressives on the most divisive cultural issues of our times.
The heart of Come Let Us Reason Together is a Governing Agenda, released in January 2009. It represents the fruit of these labors and maps a joint path forward to heal a nation torn apart by the culture wars.
The most recent product of the Come Let Us Reason Together initiative is Come Let Us Reason Together: A Guide for Busy Pastors (developed with assistance from Pastor Hunter and other leaders). This user-friendly guide describes how pastors can embody this approach at the local church level and join a growing chorus of Christian leaders who are committed to finding a path beyond the culture wars to common ground.
Conflict Resolution from Northland Church on Vimeo.
God takes great delight in giving us relationships with people who are very different than we are. This is not for competition, but for completion. This is true in families, in friendships … and in resolving America’s culture war.
By Bill Schneider, Distinguished Senior Fellow and Resident Scholar at Third Way
Will the culture wars ever end? We have now had three Presidents in a row who promised to unite the country. They all failed.
Bill Clinton said in 2004, “If you look back on the sixties and, on balance, you think there was more good than harm in it, you’re probably a Democrat. And if you think there’s more harm than good, then you’re probably a Republican.”
The sixties were a long time ago. That was when China had a Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution and the United States had a Great American Cultural Revolution. China got over its trauma. The U.S. never did.
Why not? One word: religion. The United States experienced a ferocious backlash to the cultural changes of the 1960s. It’s a backlash that happened nowhere else. It happened because of the uniquely powerful role of religion in American public life. Religious observance is now the defining political difference between Democrats and Republicans. Regular churchgoers vote Republican (55 percent for John McCain in 2008). Irregular churchgoers vote Democratic (60 percent for Barack Obama).
Can anyone heal the divide? A group of centrist evangelicals and progressives is trying. Their project is called “Come Let Us Reason Together.”
A group of moderate evangelicals has joined forces with Third Way, a Washington think tank, (I should note here I am a Distinguished Senior Fellow & Resident Scholar at Third Way) “trying to change the nature of our engagement in public debate in the United States,” according to David P. Gushee, professor of Christian Ethics at Mercer University and president of Evangelicals for Human Rights.
“There’s a real weariness of the politics of division,” Robert P. Jones, president of Public Religion Research says. “This project is about trying to find a politics of common ground.” Jones estimates that 54 percent of white evangelicals in the U.S. can be described as “centrist” (40 percent) or “modernist” (14 percent). Among younger white evangelicals, the total rises to 61 percent. These are churchgoing Americans who, Jones says, “have increasingly found that the most loud and public voices in evangelical life are not speaking for them.”
In the past leaders who have tried to heal the cultural divide have taken two paths: either compromise or avoidance. But cultural issues are not easy to compromise. They’re about values, not interests. Interests can be compromised. Values — matters of right and wrong — can not. In 1992, Bill Clinton said abortion should be “safe, legal and rare.” Anti-abortion forces believe abortion is murder. Should murder be “safe, legal and rare”?
Barack Obama has followed the path of avoidance for the most part. In his first year, Obama hasn’t said much about God, guns and gays, although his supporters believe he will eventually deliver. Same with immigration reform. The President says he will deal with it — eventually.
“Come Let Us Reason Together” recommends a different approach: common ground. According to Rev. Joel Hunter, senior pastor at Northland Church in Florida, “There’s a world of difference between compromise and cooperation. On the one hand, you are somehow giving up your agenda. On the other hand, you are even more likely to achieve your agenda through things that you can still do together. Each side is getting part of what they always wanted.”
Jones argues that what makes this effort unique is that “it has put the more difficult issues front and center and tried to see what kind of conversations we can have about those, rather than pretending they’re not in the room.”
Is there really common ground on abortion? The project’s guide for pastors talks about reducing the number of abortions by preventing unwanted pregnancies and by supporting pregnant women who want to give birth. Surely progressives and evangelicals can agree on that.
Is there common ground on gay rights? The guide talks about protecting gays and lesbians from employment discrimination and hate crimes. Nothing about same-sex marriage. In Dr. Gushee’s view, “Civil unions don’t seem to be a solution that is satisfying to a lot of people in either the gay community or the Christian community, but to me, it seems like it could be a space for common ground.”
The project is not looking for dramatic breakthroughs. It’s promoting the experience of working together for shared values. Maybe they’ll like it. Maybe they’ll learn to trust each other a little more. “We now have entire industries and organizations that profit from polarization,” Dr. Hunter observed.
Can evangelicals be drawn away from the path of militancy? Dr. Gushee thinks they can because of the nature of their faith. He calls militancy “a violation of our own values . . . where commitment to a certain position on an issue has overridden core teachings of our faith and the example of Jesus.” Rev. Hunter says, “I would like to build into the evangelical part of the church a broader approach to controversial or divisive issues so that we can both be peacemakers and advance those values that we think are biblical values.”
Doesn’t the Bible say, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God”?
Find this article at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-schneider/what-would-jesus-do_b_441944.html