Sarah, Caleb and I are in downtown Ashland, Oregon right now, along with close to 20,000 other people (in a town with a population of about 21,000 people), taking in the Fourth of July Parade. It’s apparently a pretty big deal in Ashland, and we’ll be seeing what all the fuss is about. I’ve never been a fan of church around this holiday, and so was glad I was coming home from a mission trip this past Sunday. The unfortunate aligning between US patriotism and the religious right in the recent past has been more than disturbing.
I wanted to share with you a short clip that Brian McLaren recently recorded…a message to the church on the Fourth of July:
