The Current (09.22.10)

	In This Issue... Calendar of Events A Call to Love Our Neighbor Community News  Unpacking the Core Convictions (6) Voice & Verse
	Kingdom Tide 'serve' Date: Sunday, September 26, 2010 Time: 5:30-7:30p Location: Butler Church, Rms 17/18 (4884 E Butler Ave) Please join us explore our identity through service. See the article "A Call to Love Our Neighbor" below for more information.
	Common Meal Date: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 Time: 6-8p Location: the Schneider's home (6916 E Heaton Ave) Please join us for food and fellowship. Bring a dish to share. Place settings and drinks will be provided.

A Call to Love Our Neighbor On September 8, 2010, MCC U.S. issued "An Open Pastoral Letter to Anabaptist Churches" that included a call to embrace Christ's love for all and make an intentional effort to support and encourage Muslims in our community in the face of ever-increasing anti-Islamic sentiment. This Sunday (9/26), the Kingdom Tide community will heed this call and gather together to offer words and gifts of support and encouragement to our Muslim neighbors who are part of the Islamic Cultural Center in north Fresno.  The evening will include reflecting on recent news events, making personalized cards based on the words of Jesus in Mark 12:28-34, preparing a gift basket of dried fruits and nuts, and offering information on ways to further connect with and understand our Muslim neighbors. Kingdom Tide will also be offering a monetary donation to support service and relief activities in the Muslim community. Please join us as we serve and extend Christ's love to our Muslim neighbors.  If you would like to contribute to this event, we would gladly accept additional card-making materials such as card stock, pens, pencils, stamps, stencils, stickers, glue, scissors, etc. Community News Joel, Kristin & Evie present Aylin Madison! Wednesday, September 22, 2010, 4:37am "It's a girl! She weighs 7 lbs 14oz. The delivery ended up being an emergency c-section because of a surprise breach. Everyone is doing well now and recovering. Aylin means 'Bearer of Light' and it's our prayer she will walk in the light and shed light on ALL the life around her." - Joel fiful presents City Scope Study & Tour Saturday, September 25, 2010, 9:00am-3:30 pm 1st Presbyterian Church, Downtown Fresno - The day includes a bible study in the book of Jonah, a walking/driving tour of Fresno and lunch. Deadline for registration is Thursday, September 23.  For more information, click here. WAG presents WAGmusic! Sunday, October 17, 2010, 9:00am CCCC United Church of Christ, 5550 N Fresno Street, Fresno - WAGmusic!, from the Alpine foothills of Switzerland, is a magical mix of generations, cultures, physical abilities, muscial styles and instruments who face and conquer mountains every day. they are also a joyful group of Swiss mussmaker,s, with and without physical disabilities, whose repertoire ranges from folk and gospel styles to English pop songs and Swiss-dialect standards.  An array of insturments and speica-effects sounds round out their very special program. Barbie Larson directing.  Unpacking the Core Convictions (6) by Stuart Murray [This is the sixth in a series of seven articles based on the core convictions found in Stuart Murray's book "The Naked Anabaptist".] The sixth conviction reads: Spirituality and economics are inter-connected. In an individualist and consumerist culture and in a world where economic injustice is rife, we are committed to finding ways of living simply, sharing generously, caring for creation and working for justice. In our article on the fourth conviction we noted the reference to Anabaptists in the thirty-eighth of the Anglican Thirty Nine Articles (1571): ‘The riches and goods of Christians are not common, as touching the right, title, and possession of the same, as certain Anabaptists do falsely boast.’ It was not the Anabaptists’ insistence on baptising believers rather than infants or their supposedly heretical theological beliefs that most worried English ecclesiastical authorities. What was most disturbing was their economic radicalism, challenging notions of private property, modelling communal ownership, implicitly and often explicitly criticising the wealth of the churches and their failure to respond to the needs of the poor. Good Anglicans, this Article goes on to insist, should certainly be generous in sharing their resources, but they should not be misled by this kind of radicalism. They should continue to assert the importance of private ownership, which was such a foundational principle of English society. Having ‘all things in common’ was not, in fact, the normal expression of economic discipleship among Anabaptists. The Moravian Hutterites developed ‘common purse’ communities, initially through necessity and increasingly on the basis of theological conviction and biblical interpretation (especially of Acts 2-4). The short-lived and disastrous Anabaptist uprising at Münster, which so alarmed English and other authorities, also imposed common ownership. But Swiss Brethren, Mennonites and most other Anabaptists practised ‘mutual aid’, continuing to own property but gladly making their resources available to brothers and sisters in need. This sounds quite similar to what the Thirty-Eighth Article advocated, so why was Anabaptist economic radicalism so troubling in the 16th century? And what are the implications of Anabaptist thinking and practice at the start of the 21st century? Wholehearted commitment to ‘mutual aid’ (and even more powerfully to ‘common purse’ community) did, in fact, result in much more radical sharing of resources than the Thirty-Eighth Article normally inspired. Over the centuries, though not always consistently, Anabaptists have been distinguished by their simple living, contentment, community ethos, resistance to consumerism and practical service to others. There have certainly been some who have been seduced by individualism and consumerism (as in all Christian traditions), but overall the Anabaptist tradition offers perspectives and practices that may continue to be helpful in our struggle against these powerful twin temptations. Anabaptism (in common with some other Christian traditions) has generally insisted that theology and practice cannot be divorced: orthopraxy is as crucial as orthodoxy. Spirituality and economics are interwoven. Love for God is demonstrated in love for brothers and sisters, expressed in very practical ways (cf. 1 John 3:17). Lifestyle matters. Living simply and being content with enough demonstrates faith in God and an orientation towards the kingdom of God. One of the aspects of the Anabaptist tradition that attracts others is the practice of community that offers a counter-cultural way of living in an individualistic culture. This is multi-faceted but certainly includes ‘mutual aid’, from the barn-raising of the Amish to creative alternatives to mortgages for house purchases to the deployment of church planting teams that mutually support their members. Another very disturbing feature of the 16th-century Anabaptist movement was its opposition to paying tithes. This state-church tax was experienced by the poor as oppressive and provoked frequent protests (for example in the peasants’ movement of 1524-1526), but it was foundational to the Christendom system and defended by both church and state with determination and increasing desperation. Anabaptists, in common with other radical groups, rejected the state churches’ approach to tithing as unjust and based on bad biblical interpretation. The re-emergence of tithing during the 20th century, especially among some evangelicals, who promote this as a form of economic radicalism, would have surprised and appalled 16th-century Anabaptists. Tithing is highly individualistic, does little to challenge global or local injustice or the power of consumerism, continues to disadvantage the poor and does not build community. Those drawn to the Anabaptist tradition today are much more interested in exploring other biblical concepts such as jubilee in the Old Testament (the proper context for the tithe) and koinonia in the New. Two areas contemporary Anabaptists have been exploring in recent years that 16th-century Anabaptists were either unaware of or unable to engage with are caring for creation and working for justice. Anabaptists were no more ecologically aware than their 16th-century contemporaries and, as a powerless and persecuted minority, they had little opportunity to work actively for a more just society. But the principles of simplicity, contentment, community and service that have imbued the Anabaptist tradition are increasingly inspiring Anabaptist Christians to explore the connections between spirituality, caring for creation and actively working for justice. Stuart Murray Williams, editor of Anabaptism Today, lives in Oxford and works as a trainer and consultant under the auspices of the Anabaptist Network.

Voice & Verse Monastic spirituality says that we are to honor one another. We are to listen to one another. We are to reach across boundaries and differences in this fragmented world and see in our differences distinctions of great merit that can mend a competitive, uncaring, and foolish world. - Sr. Joan Chittister But now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips. Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. Here there is no Greek or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.  Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. - Colossians 3.8-14 "The Current" is a weekly email publication of Kingdom Tide and is open to community input. Distribution is typically on Monday evening. If you have an article, a blog, a request or anything else you would like to share, please contact Barry at barrymast(a)gmail(dot)com.

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"The most important [commandment] is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." - Jesus

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Kingdom Tide is an alternative, emerging, Anabaptist Christian faith community which meets regularly on the campus of Butler Church [4884 E Butler Avenue, Fresno, Californa].