Urban Onramps

Sauna or Meat Locker

Those are the two temperatures here in Singapore. It’s either hot and humid as a sauna (when you go outdoors) or as cold and frosty as a meat locker (when you are inside the hotel). I’ve been here with a World Vision global gathering. I’m a non-voting delegate, invited because I’m a member of the United States board of World Vision. It’s actually been slightly overwhelming to be here. It’s a place full of people who are not just Christians, not just seeking to do God’s will, and not just working in exotic places. These folks are the front lines of creating something out of nothing, so to speak. WV is not just about relief, but about developing people and helping them to positively influence their situations and contexts. That’s a lot harder than we imagine. I was in a meeting yesterday, talking about Islam, with folks from Afghanistan, Mali, Palestine, Malaysia, Indonesia, Chechnya, and Australia (yes, Australia). Seven places and seven unique contexts in which WV staff relate to the Muslim community. In the center of this discussion, and all of our discussions, is what Jesus said are the greatest commandments: “Love the Lord your God… and love your neighbor as you love yourself. On these two commandments hang all of the law and the prophets.” Heavy, as the aging boomers say. I’m glad to be here, though missing home and my beautiful wife and my children.

Jim Wallis is here. He is a plenary keynoter. He had some good stuff to say. I have significant concerns about the solutions and worldview put forward by Jim and Sojourners (they do a lot of protest talk that tends to alienate those who are woolly about investment and need to be wooed, not badgered, to the protest side). We got to talking together as we rode a water taxi to the Asian Civilizations Museum. Some of you know that I have a rap I call “Protest and Invest” where I say that Christians need to teach youth and the poor to be effective at both protesting and investing, and I say that Christian urban ministers are very weak at teaching about investment. Jim emphasizes the protest side of things, and I think I’ve spent a lot of time in this decade rattling the drum on the investment side, so I’m thinking about Jim’s rap and finding lots of important pieces to fill out the protest side of my rap. You gotta have both. Here’s my original Protest and Invest article from 2004 (it appeared in PRISM magazine)

posted Aug 28, 2007, 12:40am by Rodolpho Carrasco