Dear Theophilus

The University I attend held a vision clarifying contest. Students could submit their ideas for how to interpret the school's vision statement. Here is my submission - submitted hastily (sorry the flow is not obvious). This essay was awarded somewhere in the top 8 - but not 1st, 2nd, or 3rd :) It has been long believed that engaging the culture and changing the world meant taking on power and influence. This has been recently labeled "the captains of industry" model and it suggests that if only enough Christians were equipped to leadership positions in the realm of politics and business, Christians would be able to leverage enough pull for the kingdom of God to shape the culture. The allure of this idea is that it is at least partially true. If Christians become the majority deciders and main policy makers, the world will be changed. The goal, then, is to have followers of Christ become CEO’s, legislators, school board members, governors, mayors, teachers, and admi...

Nijay Gupta talks about the upcoming Shane Claiborne/ Tony Campolo book and the endorsers... Ben Witherington talks about Mormonism and Christianity and why they are not the same. AMAZING Professor of Sociology at CSU Chico, Tony Waters, talks about why Chico State is awesome and Berkley sucks. John Hay inspires peace making as a norm for Christians with recollections of Vietnam.

"Jesus for President" isn't the latest fundamentalist cliche' to get people to hate Obama. This book is a paradigm shaker... and one of the first for our generation. JFP is about questioning our love triangle which has forced Jesus/Church, the State and Us into unholy matrimony. I am a bit skeptical at this point because our state is literally made up of us. "We the people" are the federal government and so it would be hard to see us apart from ourselves. But I love the idea and know a bit about the author to know that his view about being set apart has not kept him from some Holy mischief and protesting injustice, voting and counseling presidents. The point of this book is very clearly laid out, "This book is a project in renewing the imagination of the church in the United States and of those who seek to know Jesus" (p. 17). Section 1 "We hear people talk about 'the man' or 'the system,' but the prophets talked about 'the...