Can you imagine living through a situation where there is fear to go outside, where businesses are affected to the point of closing, and where everyone feels unsafe and vulnerable?

Noel isn’t talking about the Boston Marathon.  Read more at -

Reflections on the Boston Bombing from CCDA Noel Castellanos

(Photo Credit: Tucson Sentinel)

by Barton Gingerich (@bjgingerich)

Yesterday morning, Christians from many walks of life gathered to the Evangelical Immigration Table to advocate for comprehensive immigration reform. Prominent voices of many races, ages, and cultural backgrounds spoke and prayed at the Hill’s historic Lutheran Church of the Reformation. That parish is no stranger to political activism: it hosted meeting for Martin Luther King, Jr. and is now the home of the radical Methodists for Social Action (MFSA). While most of the sponsors and speakers obviously favored looser immigration restrictions, more seasoned voices offered concern for the rule of law, border security, and fair taxes.

“Wouldn’t it just be like God to use immigrants and immigration to bring us together?” inquired Bridgeway Community Church’s David Anderson. “When you are loving your neighbor, you’re doing a good thing,” he added, “But the love of God is strong enough to break all barriers of hate.” It was evident that participants had a high view of their cause. Noel Castellanos of the Christian Community Development Association prayed, “God, we are so glad that we can be a part of such an important moment in the nation and the church…We are so grateful that now your kingdom on earth is becoming as it is in heaven.”

Laurie Beshore, global missions pastor at Mariners Church, observed, “While the Bible does not give us national immigration policy, it provides principles to work from.” She quoted a verse about extending hospitality to sojourners and strangers (without further explanation), warning, “In the United States especially, we see hospitality as offering refreshments.” She thought the term was an all-encompassing way of life. The Templo Calvario’s Rev. Lee de Leon declared, “As a Hispanic in the nation, it’s a wonderful day…God’s working a miracle in the capital. People are crossing the aisle…, and evangelicals are coming together as never before.” “We are to love the stranger,” he urged, “This is only the beginning…The nations of the world are at our door.”

The retiring Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission leader Richard Land offered the most cogent policy arguments: he discussed Romans 13 and the ordained responsibilities of civil government. “We in America are fortunate that we have a highly developed sense of the rule of law,” he proclaimed, “I can count the number of countries with that on my hands.” “The government hasn’t been enforcing its laws on immigration for twenty years,” he complained. Land contended, “We’ve had two signs up at the border: ‘No Trespassing’ and ‘Help Wanted.’” “[Illegal immigrants] have broken the law so they can work, unlike our own homegrown criminals, who break the law so that they don’t have to work,” he instructed. The ERLC president told audience members, “Government is a lagging indicator. It’s a caboose. The people are the locomotive…When the people change, the government changes after them.”

Another notable evangelical figure, Willow Creek Community Church’s Pastor Bill Hybels, also addressed the Immigration Table. He condemned the “never-ending nightmare” for undocumented aliens “of deportation” and “a never-ending limbo” of lacking citizenship. The Rev. Gabriel Salguero, president of the National Latino Evangelical Coalition, informed the large crowd, “The time has come…because nothing changes without brave people demanding it.” After praising the social witness of German anti-Hitler pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, he announced, “For if our action is not bathed in prayer, it is at rick in becoming unjust action. If we pray without righteous action, we are engaging in vain babbling….No one other than Jesus can give you power.” Salguero also lauded 19^th century evangelist Charles Finney, who used to make altar calls for people to get saved and to sign up for the abolitionist movement.

All these presentations granted enthusiasm and gusto to the reform cause in a rather nonpartisan manner. Nevertheless, the legislation briefing by World Relief’s Jenny Yang was more telling. “As evangelicals, we want immigration reform now!” she exclaimed. On the other hand, she confessed, “We don’t know exactly what’s in the reform bill…We don’t need to know the details; you just have to tell your stories.” Showing political naiveté and Social Gospel overtones, she insisted “This really is a historic moment as we meet here today…Elevate the moral voice you bring to the debate.” During the question period, someone asked if the security at the Congressional office buildings check for ID. Evidently, there were several undocumented immigrants who were going to join the crowds as they lobbied on Capitol Hill.

Indeed, activism feels good to enthusiasts, especially when coupled with a sense of moral superiority in one’s advocacy. By quoting Bible verses and making immigration reform a uniting trope for evangelicalism, the Table makes reform an issue of faith rather than prudence (and thus capable of religious enthusiasm). By extension, dissenting church members are implicated as bad Christians. Moreover, loosened immigration reforms are amenable to much of the popular culture at large, unlike life and marriage issues. The unintended consequences of immigration legislation, however, may rain on the parade later on. Regardless, as the old Religious Left can tell you, it feels good to be liked by society for once.

By Kristin Rudolph (@Kristin_Rudolph)

“Many of us here consider ourselves as empowered, wealthy, educated, as folks that … have the right heritage, the right color of skin,” said Noel Castellanos, CEO of the Christian Community Development Association to attendees of the 2013 Justice Conference in Philadelphia. Because of this, American Christians “need a shift of paradigm,” he said, bemoaning a perspective that views reaching the poor and oppressed as “the target of our mission.” This approach is wrong, Castellanos claimed, exhorting Christians to instead “embrace the poor as the launching pad and the center of God’s mission for justice in the world.”

Castellanos observed “[Jesus] doesn’t just come into the world as a human being, but He says ‘I am going to come into the world and incarnate myself as a Galilean Jew as a marginalized person … so that people will understand what the center of my mission is all about.’” He continued: “We are here to be participants with the poor to transform the world … they’re not the paternalistic subjects of our good works, but they are actually the key to bring transformation to a world that’s suffering … Who is more equipped to enter into the pain of the poorest regions of the world than the poor themselves?”

Further, Castellanos said “For a Mexican American who is seeking to follow the God of the Bible … it is very important for me to identify the message of Jesus … from a perspective that resonates with who I am.” In this context, he declared “It is impossible to talk about reconciliation in the Latino community without hearing the cries and the pain of 11 million people who are in our country today, and they’re here without proper documentation.” He continued: “It is impossible to have the message of God’s love make any penetration in my heart, in my life as a Mexican American that is embedded in this community if we don’t see a connection between trying to do justice by changing the current immigration system that we have, and really treating people with love.”

Leroy Barber, president of Mission Year spoke after Castellanos, explaining “The heart of this conference requests that we go deeper into what justice means … that we challenge the systems that are oppressing within our day.” Those who don’t seek justice for the oppressed may only be “moderate” followers of Jesus, he said, warning that “Scriptures tell us perhaps you aren’t a follower at all. Jesus challenges us deeply, deeply to care for the poor.”

“I pray the spirit of Jesus and the spirit of justice combine in your hearts … and you dive deeper into this conversation,” Barber said. “We live justly because it brings the Kingdom,” he concluded, asserting: “Justice challenges systems and any system that is not diverse is one that we must challenge because it hinders the presence of Christ in our world.”

The session with Castellanos and Barber was originally scheduled to include Richard Twiss, who passed away just two weeks before the conference after suffering a major heart attack. Before beginning the session, the two speakers spoke for a few minutes about Twiss, who was a Native American writer and activist vocal about reconciliation between Native Americans and mainstream American Christians.

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The first article in this series on President Obama’s Reparation Agenda revealed Sharon Watkins and the Anti-Racist/Pro-Reconciliation Church.   Watkins is just one of many pro-reparation religious leaders working with President Obama.

Mark Hanson, Vicken Aykazian, Peg Chemberlin, Noel Castellanos, Katharine Jefferts Schori, and Jim Wallis, just to name a few, were all appointed by President Obama to the White House’s Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships, and all preach the gospel of social justice and racial reconciliation — deceiving millions — by appealing to their ‘sense of morality’.

Driving an ideology that is deceptively subtle, but nonetheless, mirrors that of Father Michael Pfleger, James Cone, and Jeremiah Wright, the false prophets of the White House preach that America is a society of white skin privilege that continues to victimize minorities and that must be made to pay a penalty for the sin of racism.

The dangerous result of pitting race against race is being seen today in the rhetoric surrounding the death of Trayvon Martin. But another inherent danger that is going unnoticed is that of so-called religious leaders using God and politics to guilt corporations, churches, universities, and even cities into publicly apologizing for the ‘sin of racism’.

President Obama and his band of wolves pretend it’s the moral and just thing to do — recognize and admit that we have committed the sin of racism so that we can move forward and “begin to heal”. Don’t fall for it! A public or written apology is an admission of guilt that can be used against the apologizer in a court of law. Obama is a lawyer. He knows this.

As we speak, an organization called the Reparations Coordinating Committee is planning to sue the government and major corporations they believe have profited from slavery. It will be interesting to see how many named defendants have already publicly apologized.

I will talk more about this later in the series. For now, let’s look at some of President Obama’s faith-based appointees:

• Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, released a statement in 2007 calling upon church leaders to “name the sin of racism and lead us in our repentance of it.”

Hanson’s statement goes on to express a particular concern with racial profiling wherein he accuses police officers of stopping people of color for “”DWB” (driving while Black or Brown) and “DWM” (driving while Muslim)”.

• Vicken Aykazian, immediate past president of the National Council of Churches, presided over a meeting just one week after Obama’s election wherein Otis Moss, III (successor to Jeremiah Wright as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ) was invited to address the assembly on the issue of racial justice.

• Peg Chemberlin, who referred to those in opposition to the mosque near ground zero as bigots, is president of the National Council of Churches (NCC) and a recipient of the Angel of Reconciliation award from Unity Baptist Church in St. Paul, Minnesota.

The National Council of Churches has a long history of support for reparations. In fact, it was during a conference of the NCC in 1969 that Marxist-anarchist and leader of the Black Nationalists, James Foreman, first presented his Black Manifesto, which was a call for a transfer of power to blacks and for churches to pay 500 million dollars in reparations. The NCC voted in favor of Foreman’s plan.

Since that time, the NCC has released several statements calling on churches and governments to acknowledge that they benefited from the exploitation of Africans, Asians, and Indigenous Peoples through slavery and colonialism. The NCC also calls upon it’s churches “to address the issue of reparations as a way of redressing the wrongs done…”.

• Noel Castellanos, CEO of Christian Community Development Association (CCDA), says he was called to be a reconciler. CCDA was founded on principles of reconciliation, relocation, and redistribution. Castellanos believes that “a manifestation of justice is economic redistribution”.

• Katharine Jefferts Schori, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church of the U.S., led a major service last year in North Carolina on Repentance, Healing, and Reconciliation wherein an official apology for the diocese’s complicity in slavery and segregation was given. All 65 parishes within that diocese were represented.

• Jim Wallis, founder and editor of Sojourners magazine, is well known as an advocate for social justice. In 2007, Wallis wrote a piece for Sojourners titled America’s original sin: the legacy of white racism, wherein he wrote that “…America was established as a white society, founded upon the genocide of another race and then the enslavement of yet another.”

Wallis further claimed that anyone who has benefited from domination is to be responsible for it and that the only remedy for such a sin is repentance, and if that repentance were genuine, there would be reparation.

Again, this is just a glimpse into President Obama’s faith-based council – offering “genuine repentance” and salvation in exchange for money and power to minorities.

The time is long overdue for someone in the media to take a serious look at what this council is doing with our tax dollars.

Dear Familia,

Last week, I was in Baltimore, MD at our CCDA Leadership Cohort retreat with some of the most amazing young leaders in the nation, who happen to have a heart and passion for the vision and work of CCDA. The focus of the retreat was on the theology that under-girds CCDA’s 8 Component Philosophy. I wish you could have heard the honest, thoughtful, stimulating conversation, rooted in a love for Christ and in deep friendship with one another.

I had the privilege of addressing the group and shared what I’m calling the Five Expressions of Kingdom Ministry, a framework giving us the full mandate as Christ-followers to bring transformation to our communities. One of our leaders expressed a longing for the Church to embrace this framework as normative. With that encouragement, I am committing to communicating this message every chance I get.
What are the Five Expressions of Kingdom Ministry?

1) Incarnation
At the center of our mission is the Biblical truth found in John 1:14. The Message Bible reads; “The Word became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood.”

The incarnation of Jesus into our broken world, not only initiates God’s redemptive purposes, but provides us with a model for our ministry in under-resourced neighborhoods. Like Jesus, those of us who are called to CCD move into under-resourced neighborhoods to live out our faith, and are supported by many partners, who leverage our presence in the hood to be catalysts of change. For each of us, our response to the grace of God is to enter into the pain and suffering of the people of our neighborhoods through our proximity, relationships, solidarity and humility.

2) Proclamation and Formation
Matthew 28:18-20 instructs us to go into all of the world making disciples. This ‘Great Commission’ is at the core of our Evangelical ethos, and must be a continued commitment of our work in under-resourced communities. Life change and discipleship that occurs in local neighborhood churches not only creates dynamic Christians, but believers that work and pray for the transformation of their communities. My call to Christian Community Development began with a call to love and follow Jesus. CCD will always have both proclamation and formation at the core of our ministry efforts.

3) Demonstration of Compassion
Like the Good Samaritan in Luke 10, we are called to bind up the wounds of those that have been beat up on the road of life. Like Jesus, we are moved beyond pity, to actually get involved in crisis situations with a cup of cold water, a meal and blanket, and with our kindness to strangers and prisoners; some of the most vulnerable people in our society. But, when we live in the neighborhood, we quickly recognize when compassion is appropriate, and when it crosses the line to become destructive, as it creates dependence. Relief is necessary, but it must lead to development.

4) Restoration and Development
The book of Nehemiah, Jeremiah 29, and so many other Old Testament texts have informed the work of CCD from the beginning. In many respects, it has been our focus on changing unhealthy neighborhood environments as a Biblical expression of ministry that has set us apart. And, because we do this very bricks and mortar ministry from within the neighborhood, not from the outside, we have seen the potential, and experienced the effects, of lasting transformation that comes after many years of hard toil.

For many of us, the work of individual and community development has deployed us outside the four walls of the church and has released us to use our gifts and abilities in under-resourced neighborhoods. Living life shoulder to shoulder, deeply ingrained in our neighborhoods, has been key to not only changing our communities, but to changing our lives as well. Because we live there, when we seek the well-being of our neighborhoods, it impacts our personal well-being as well.

5) Confrontation of Injustice
Many of us committed to the poor and marginalized of our world have learned getting serious about seeing “justice roll on like a river, and righteousness like a never-failing stream” like we read in Amos 5:24, means we must include confronting sinful systems and institutions (comprised of sinful individuals) that keep people, especially the poor from experiencing the Shalom of God. So, we engage in advocacy for immigration reform, for school reform, and for prison reform, among other concerns, because these issues are rooted in the realities of our neighborhoods. They are not simply another justice issue to write congress about. For us, justice will never be a passing fad, because it is rooted in the suffering and pain of our neighbors, that we must never ignore.

After 30 years of ministry in under-resourced neighborhoods, I have discovered that these five expressions of ministry may be what Jesus is speaking about in Matthew 4:23, where it says that He preached the good news of The Kingdom of God.

May the Lord give us strength and perseverance to be agents of His Kingdom in the neighborhoods He has called us to minister and dwell in. And may we pray to our heavenly Father, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Much love,
Noel

Students,

You can use a  student discount code if you would like to attend No Need Among You.  It will take $20 off of the $60 registration fee which includes Thursday night dinner, two continental breakfasts, and two boxed lunches.

The code is:  BaylorSW

I am not sure what is is that is holding me back from enjoying this book. Chan’s words stand in line with my understandings of how we are to live out our faith. The central purpose of Chan’s book seems to be similar to the writings of John Perkins, Tony Campolo, Noel Castellanos, Soong Chan Rah, Ron Sider,  Robert Lupton and other Christians I respect . In fact, I am surprised I haven’t heard more backlash against this book as the “social gospel” or “works-based salvation” – perhaps it is because of Chan’s focus on the spirit and movement of the heart.

But something is amiss for me.

Has anyone else had this experience with Crazy Love?

Is it the writing style?

What could it be?

Can someone who liked the book help me understand the draw to it?