http://ragamuffinsoul.disqus.com/enWed, 27 Feb 2008 16:44:12 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521474<p>oooo harsh<br>i thought my post had not gotten through. no excuses...i stick by my double posting genius</p>Patrick MurphyWed, 27 Feb 2008 16:44:12 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521473<p>apparently re-posting is also good... ;) just kidding.</p>ryanWed, 27 Feb 2008 15:17:17 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521486<p>Thinking is good. Re-thinking is also good. I am glad that you posted this Carlos. I am also glad that you got to meet someone that is really special to me.</p>Patrick MurphyWed, 27 Feb 2008 13:30:59 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521485<p>Thinking is good. Re-thinking is also good. Thanks for posting this Carlos. I am glad you got to meet someone that is really special to me.</p>Patrick MurphyWed, 27 Feb 2008 13:29:11 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521439<p>I keep seeing "Christian" this and if we are to be "Christians" that.....No one has metioned anything about being a DISCIPLE. I Heart Revolution has mentioned a quote that goes "To be saved cost us nothing, To be a DISCIPLE cost us everything". Everyone around you claims christianity......We are called to be set-apart and not of this world, in a relevant fashion. If we look to our CREATOR for CREATIVITY then we will set the standard and not have to compete with the world while trying to immitate everything. Jesus didn't go around telling everyone he was the Messiah, everyone knew. How did everyone know? He lead by his actions and miracles and DISCIPLINE, not until a miracle or someone being curios did he say or mention that he is the Messiah. If we take on and lead as Jesus lead then everyone will see by example that the grass is greener on the other side, and they will come by flocks and heards. That is what will make us authentic...You can call it a culture, body of christ, or whatever man made name you want to call it. In the end the only words that matter are "Welcome good and Faithful servant, welcome to my kingdom".</p>DioicioWed, 27 Feb 2008 10:45:16 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521438<p>Yea, that comment is not true. We are called to change the world, one person at a time. We are called to love, spend everyday loving God and our neighbor, this is the greatest command according to Jesus. THAT will change the world.</p><p>I'm with Shaun, the world "Culture" is so overused and "Relevant" that it's lost it's meaning.</p><p>How do we change the world? Sponser a child, that gives them hope. Feed the homeless, that gives hope, adopt an orphan, that gives hope, that also shows US Jesus because they are some of the least of these (matthew 25) and always love, really love, like 1 cor. 13 says not like we see "culture" loving, and THAT will change the world.</p>Carole TurnerWed, 27 Feb 2008 10:33:05 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521442<p>MLK...quite the man. Thanks for sharing that quote, that's awesome.</p>ChambersWed, 27 Feb 2008 10:16:39 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521443<p>As Christians, isn't our job simply to love thy neighbor? It seems like there are already so many "cultures" that Christians have created, from the old skool baptist culture to new skool "we're all super trendy Christians" culture. Sure, the new skool stuff is probably more aesthetically pleasing to non-Christians who may have been burned by previous Christian cultures, but who's to say that today's culture won't also burn people? IE - the not so trendy guy who's just trying to get connected but can't fit into the bubble of cook people that the new skool can create.</p><p>If we all (myself included, because I'm not good at this) stopped and just loved those different from us, God would probably step in and do the rest.</p>Stevo28andGrowingWed, 27 Feb 2008 10:13:17 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521472<p>Martin Luther King Jr., said to friend Andrew Young:</p><p>Andy, I think the Good Samaritan is a great individual. I of course, like and respect the Good Samaritan….but I don’t want to be a Good Samaritan.” Dr. King continued, “…you see Andy, I am tired of picking up people along the Jericho Road. I am tired of seeing people battered and bruised and bloody, injured and jumped on, along the Jericho Roads of life. This road is dangerous. I don’t want to pick up anyone else, along this Jericho Road; I want to fix… the Jericho Road. I want to pave the Jericho Road, add street lights to the Jericho Road; make the Jericho Road safe (for passage) by everybody….”</p>S KWed, 27 Feb 2008 09:44:33 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521471<p>Great discussion. <br>I think to <a href="http://www.beliefnet.com/blogs/jwalking" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank" title="http://www.beliefnet.com/blogs/jwalking">David's</a> point, we are called to do exactly what David is stating FIRST. I wonder though, where the line of the definition lies as to when we have achieved those things. Is it at that point that we engage into the devices that are reaching at a much faster pace than our local churches are?</p>LosWed, 27 Feb 2008 09:21:06 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521469<p>Um, Why the heck would our job be to "create culture"? I don't get that.</p><p>Our job is to love God and really love people.</p><p>I think we get easily distracted when we over analyze and make it something more complicated ("creating culture").</p><p>It's actually much, much harder (and simpler) to love God and love people.</p>Jesse PhillipsWed, 27 Feb 2008 08:44:11 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521470<p>my comment about Jesus rather than trends was not a bash on the quoted Tyson, rather a comment me as result of hearing one too many intellectual reinterpretations of what 's wrong with the world, and how we can fix it. it's totally boring and totally off track. If it works for Mother Theresa then cool, if it's white boy christianese then count me out. I stopped going to christian bookstores a long time ago.</p>RodgeWed, 27 Feb 2008 07:39:44 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521468<p>Coincidence...<br>Just came home after listening to this author on the radio...his book:<br>Our Culture, What's Left of It: The Mandarins and the Masses By Theodore Dalrymple<br>"...Dalrymple's bracingly clearsighted view of the human condition. ... Theodore Dalrymple is the best doctor-writer since William Carlos Williams. --Peggy Noonan."<br>I came in thinking that I must read this book !!<br>Thanks for tossing the topic out there.Lots to think about.</p>alexsandraWed, 27 Feb 2008 01:51:20 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521484<p>Read Future Church by Jim Wilson ....Future churches neither criticize culture nor adapt to it. Future churches leverage culture to the gospels advantage.there are critical fulcrum points the church must locate in order to remain effective in the post modern, post-seeker,post-christian age.</p>mjWed, 27 Feb 2008 01:19:56 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521483<p>WOW!! A lot of great comments, here's one from an old lady. How does anyone expect to change the world or culture or anything for that matter if they aren't making changes within themselves. Being a "real" Christian,...Being real with ourselves, with others and with God, these are the things that being a christian is and being that kind of Christian is what causes change in the world and in culture but in my walk it starts and ends with who I am and choose to be, in God. If I am not aloowing God to change me I will not be any kind of effective change maker anywhere for God.</p>Karen EricksonWed, 27 Feb 2008 01:18:01 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521465<p>"Culture" for a society is analogous to "operating system" for a computer.<br>For a Christian, "creating culture" means that we are on a completely different "operating system". Like it says in Colossians, we have been transferred from the Kingdom of Darkness to the Kingdom of His Beloved Son.</p>S KWed, 27 Feb 2008 00:58:45 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521467<p>I like the quote but I think that it shouldn't end there. My experience is Christian culture is too comfortable with taking being entertained. It shouldn't be so clickish.</p>MWed, 27 Feb 2008 00:05:03 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521466<p>Sorry, I think its lame - nothing against you (obviously - LOVE you guys) but this quote is part of kind of namby-pamby, pseudo-intellectual, self-satisfied, me-centered Christianity crap... Jesus told us what our job was as Christians and it was to serve radically, give radically, and above all love radically. Once we've mastered that then we can talk about its higher meaning. First we've got to do it.</p>David KuoTue, 26 Feb 2008 23:49:30 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521453<p>Not sure what "on a p" means but im sure it's profound...</p>ChambersTue, 26 Feb 2008 23:24:26 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521464<p>What am I doing to change the world?</p><p>On a large scale, not much.</p><p>Personally, I'm trying to read everything I can get my hands on that addresses some of the problems out there - namely poverty and oppression. The End of Poverty, Banker to the Poor, even heathen books like Everything Must Change. I'm trying to watch challenging movies like blood diamond, hotel rwanda, city of god (id consider these great art and culture). Hopefully God can use the activist part of me to do something.</p><p>I'm trying to recycle and do other things to take good care of the earth and am trying to give God all the time I can for inward healing/renewal/transformation.</p><p>I think the church can and should lead the way on righting what's wrong, and sometimes it involves government and politics and whole systems and is messy, but is probably well worth it.</p><p>On a p</p>ChambersTue, 26 Feb 2008 23:20:36 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521462<p>correct me if i'm wrong... wouldn't creating a culture that truly loved and followed Jesus change the world?</p>JacobTue, 26 Feb 2008 23:15:50 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521463<p>If you are responding with the "Let's follow Jesus and not the latest buzz trend word flashy thing" try to remember that this statement was part of a 40-ish minute talk that Jon gave a couple of weeks ago. I'm sure that it's one of his familiar talks and has said the same thing to groups of leaders all over the place.</p><p>Don't get caught up in just thinking that this is Mr. Tyson's mantra - that he is asking Christians and artists who are Christians to abandon the teachings and understandings of Jesus as it relates to engaging and interacting with the world around them.</p><p>The tension is here - for centuries society looked to the church for the finest in art, music, education and "culture" (whatever that means, says Shaun) but we've allowed every philosophy EXCEPT for that which Christ preached to be the filter through which society understands itself.</p><p>Jon's comment was more of a challenge to Christians and artists who are Christians to reclaim their role as creators - or co-creators or even re-creators - of culture. His intent is to inspire those of us who are inspired by the Divine to reflect that divinity through art - not to simply produce art as a reflection of what culture is already (mass-) producing.</p>ChrisTue, 26 Feb 2008 22:48:54 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521456<p>dude, sometimes its enough trying to change myself!</p>jamey johnsonTue, 26 Feb 2008 22:32:13 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521455<p>and the king of all that Jesus hates: Testamints candy</p>Derek SweatmanTue, 26 Feb 2008 22:29:35 -0000http://www.ragamuffinsoul.com/2008/02/dont-try-and-change-the-world/#comment-3521461<p>oh, and GodTube</p>Derek SweatmanTue, 26 Feb 2008 22:28:45 -0000