Two of Our Own

Today I'd like to highlight two pastors who write regularly on their personal blogs in addition to their contributions to the PC(USA) Blog.

First is Rev. John Stuart (aka Stushie) at Heaven's Highway, who's done some interesting blogging about human rights abuses in China and elsewhere. Excerpt:

Before last summer’s Olympics, I wrote to you about a Chinese Christian, Alimujiang Yimiti, who had been arrested in January 2007 for preaching the Gospel. He was one of the reasons that I boycotted the Games in China. I couldn’t stomach the fact that whilst the whole world was marveling at the Olympics, a Christian brother was languishing in a Chinese jail just because he was a preacher like me.

And second is Rev. John Shuck at Shuck and Jive. A few weeks ago, I blogged about Robert Jensen's book All My Bones Shake: Seeking a Progressive Path to the Prophetic Voice, which prompted an interesting discussion about what it means to call oneself Presbyterian, or even Christian. Rev. Shuck has reviewed the book on his blog and started some interesting discussion there about Christianity and atheism more generally. Excerpt:

What is an atheist? My general rule is that if you want to know how folks define themselves you ought to ask them. When that happens you find that things are generally not so simple. People define themselves for different reasons and mean many different things. At times our self-definition changes depending upon how the categories are defined.

I agree with many atheists in that I don't believe in the god they don't believe in either. But that doesn't mean much. If a person makes a straw man of my belief, I likely won't accept his or her definition. Often the terms are defined too narrowly (by both Christians and atheists).

These two PC(USA) pastors are very different (separated in ideology and theology if not geography) and yet part of the same denomination. Which is part of why I love it so.