Friday

Ways in which our culture promotes or condones practices and beliefs that are contrary to the gospel...

Part of the difficulty with this assignment is that we do not all agree on what is contrary to the gospel.  I just saw The Last Station. 

In 1910, famed novelist Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) and his wife Sofya (Helen Mirren) vehemently disagree over the rights to Tolstoy's literary legacy. Sofya believes her husband should bequeath them to her upon his death, while Tolstoy's chief disciple, Chertkov (Paul Giamatti), has nearly convinced the writer to sign the rights over to the Russian people.

The debate through the entire movie is what it really means to be a follower of Tolstoy.  We have the same difficulty being followers of Christ.

The gospel is clear on sharing with and caring for others so does that make anything that urges us to be over-consumers anti-gospel?

The debates on TV over health care do not sound like the gospel to me.

Reports on the war- wasn't Jesus a pacifist?

We have equated Christianity with being an American for so long I think we have lost touch with all the ways the gospel really does challenge our culture, our lifestyle, our priorities and our commitments.

What do you think?