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bhags — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 07:21:57 +0000

Diversity in Politics

bhags — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 06:12:47 +0000

Lately there’s has been many articles and news on diversity. This one, I found it on NYT describing how there’s diversity in the TV Political pundits (Like the Candidates, TV’s Political Pundits Show Signs of Diversity). On the side, I met with a pastor of a Chinese Church who has the same vision of planting a multicultural church. It’s very encouraging to see that the issue of diversity is being recognized more and more by people around me. Here’s the intro of the article.

The historic and long-running presidential campaigns of Senator Barack Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton have injected issues of race and gender into politics as never before. With campaign coverage center stage on the cable channels, producers and critics are again assessing the diversity among pundits, who talk (and talk) about things like Mr. Obama’s pastor, the Hispanic vote, Iraq and the economy.

Multiracial churches

bhags — Wed, 02 Apr 2008 07:12:36 +0000

As you can see from the previous, I confess that I’m obsessed with multiracial and multicultural churches. Browsing through the web, I came across another article on “Christianity Today” titled “All Churches Should Be Multiracial“.

In Divided by Faith: Evangelicals and the Problem of Race in America (2000), sociologists Michael O. Emerson and Christian Smith argued that much of the racial dysfunction in the American church today is the result of an individualized theological worldview that blinds white evangelicals to certain societal injustices.

Furthermore,

Race, as it always has, plays a significant part in the lives of people living in the United States. It shapes where people live and whom they live with, where people send their children to school, with whom they can most easily become friends, their likelihood of having access to wealth and health, whom they marry, how they think about themselves, and their cultural tastes. Race also shapes how people value others, how much they trust others, provides quick stereotypes by which to classify people, and shapes fears of crime.

Building a multiracial church is quite an uphill battle, but one that is worth the fight.

Mixed Race

bhags — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 05:12:55 +0000

Omaba’s speech on race is causing quite a stir on mixed race issues. This article is the second one in two weeks about the rising number of mixed people in the US. What was once a taboo, it is becoming a normal part of our lives. Read the rest of the article here. Also there’s a blog that deals with multiracial issues: www.racialicious.com. I hope this interest can continue to grow for the betterment of our society. Life is constantly changing but racism hasn’t changed much in the last four decades. What’s encouraging is that little things, such as a speech, an article can move us towards seeing the problem for what it is. This is the beginning of something positive.

The 2000 Census counted 3.1 million interracial couples, or about 6 percent of married couples.

Globalization

bhags — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 07:19:00 +0000

This past week, I attended a conference sponsored by Acts 29 in which the speaker, Mike Goheen spoke about Globalization among other topics. Goudzwaard said that

“this moment, at the turn of the millenium, appears to me to be one of the most critical points in human history, powerful, untruthful, hypnotic ideologies corrupted societies and destroyed millions of people throughtout the twentieth century. Yet none of them had the instruments of communication available to it to infiltrate the human mind the way the present ideology of limitless economic and technological expansion can do”

Globalization along with postmodernity and consumerism are three tetonic plates to better understand today’s time, Goheen argued. Hearing about it, I was also reminded of a video clip someone sent me a few months ago about globalization that left me wondering what’s going to happen in the future. I found it in youtube for your enjoyment.

Tim Keller at the Veritas Forum

bhags — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 07:04:42 +0000

Tim Keller, the author of “The Reason for God” spoke at the Veritas Forum in UC Berkeley. Here’s the lecture!

Obama’s Speech

bhags — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 05:52:49 +0000

What an inspiring speech that Senator Obama gave the other day! Here you can find Obama’s Speech on Race. Also check out the editorial on the NY Times title “Obama & Race”

A Donor Match Over Small Talk and Coffee

bhags — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 05:52:05 +0000

This story, about a Starbucks customer who offers to donate her kidney to the Starbucks barista, is so powerful that I don’t know where to put it in the scheme of the greatest stories of giving. If this compassionate customer, later kidney donor, participated in Ophrah’s “BigGive”, she would definitely have won it, hands down. Click here for the entire story.

This raises an important question: what can you do to show compassion to someone who is in need? Your action today can go miles away.

Tracing My Roots to Korea

bhags — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 04:10:05 +0000

Returning to Korea for the first time since my adoption was a defining moment in my life. It took 20 years to muster the courage to confront the most basic of questions: Who am I? Where did I come from?

Read the rest of the story here

Make a Joyful Noise

bhags — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 03:45:58 +0000

There has been enormous growth in the evangelical Protestant movement in America over the last 25 years, and bands in large, modern, nondenominational churches — some would say megachurches — like this one, 90 miles northeast of Los Angeles, now provide one of the major ways that Americans hear live music.

Read the rest of the article here