Christ at the Checkpoint with Brad Jersak
May.07, 2012 in
Guest Appearances, Podcast Episodes
In this episode Ray is joined once again by Brad Jersak for a discussion about Brad’s recent trip to Israel for the Christ At The Checkpoint conference. The aim of Christ at the Checkpoint is to “provide an opportunity for evangelical Christians who take the Bible seriously to prayerfully seek a proper awareness of issues of peace, justice, and reconciliation.” Brad and Ray discuss the Middle East crisis, otherness, and what it means to follow Jesus. Make sure to visit BradJersak.com for more about Brad’s books, audios, and resources. It’s always fun having Brad join us for a good conversation! Thanks Brad!
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:44 — 28.2MB) | Embed
May 8th, 2012 at 3:05 pm
This really is so encouraging! It’s hard to try to get away from the bad “news” in this country. But this is the “rest of the story” so to speak.
I remember several years ago, when I was still enmeshed in the religious machine, going to Israel. I was going to walk all over the place, claiming the land for Jesus, and all that stuff. I did have a friend who was working in Jericho, who was ministering to the Palestinian refugees there. I brought a bunch of clothes over to share, and it was amazing how thankful those folks were. It was the beginning of changing my mind and heart about a lot of things.
I am still amazed at how people eat up the propaganda in this country, but I was one….. and perhaps might still be. I SO appreciate these podcasts, actually having a conversation rather than listening to a monologue from a very narrow fear based point of view.
May 8th, 2012 at 11:12 pm
I so appreciate you Heather! I totally bought in to the whole Christian Zionist thing too. Most of the people that I know (face to face anyway) still lean this way. Some times I get really frustrated with “those people”, but I am quickly reminded by the Holy Spirit that I have been there and I still don’t have much figured out. Love really is the only thing that never fails. Our theology will fail. Our agendas will fail. Love will never fail.
May 10th, 2012 at 7:38 am
There were so many good 10-30 second sound bites in this podcast.
Incredible. A few years ago, I asked a friend “How far have we strayed from what Jesus wanted”… This really helps answer that in so many ways.
Loved the discussion about the “lines”, especially the part about “who is a follower of Jesus”.
May 17th, 2012 at 9:27 am
“I’m just going to borrow Jesus’ methods won’t work…”
That’s the main point to me.
In some ways, all these conferences and protests and organizations are again an attempt by humans to come up with a better way of doing things than Jesus laid out: the kingdom is within us. It can only happen one changed life at a time. We simply don’t believe that this can work. Or maybe we’re just too impatient. So we want to hurry it up with programs and movements and even podcasts sometimes.
What do we do in the meantime? What is the relationship between Jesus followers and political orders instituted by humans to keep some kind of order, whether that’s a democratic, authoritarian, theocratic or otherwise? Do we remain aloof? I think it’s really a personal question for each of us, something that can’t be answered universally. Unfortunately, as the podcast touched on, we really don’t have a clue about these things.
May 23rd, 2012 at 9:36 am
On a side note, is a bit of violence really all that bad? After all isn’t that how the violent take the kingdom (Matt 11:12)? See post by Bert Gary (http://www.myspace.com/bertgary/blog/545751045) and related footnote by Avram Yehoshua (http://www.seedofabraham.net/kingdomv.html).