Indeed!
Posted on 10/17/2012 1:20:38 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
Ron Sider, founder and president of Evangelicals for Social Action (ESA), announced yesterday (Tues, Oct. 16) that he will retire in June 2013. His replacement: a "consensus model" leadership team of two co-directors.
Sider, who founded ESA in 1973, is most known for his ground-breaking 1977 book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger. CT ranked the book No. 7 on its list of the Top 50 Books That Have Shaped Evangelicals.
Scot McKnight, in his review yesterday of Moral Minority by David Swartz, described Sider and his influence as follows:
Sider emerged out of a quietist Brethren in Christ Canadian family; he caught fire intellectually and studied at an Ivy League school, Yale, where he studied under Jaroslav Pelikan; and Sider’s biggest influence was his radical call to evangelicals to become less consumerist, more aware of the impact of economy on the poor of this world, and the need to scale back.
[SNIP]
ESA, now part of Eastern University near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, will replace Sider with two co-directors currently serving as professors at Eastern's Palmer Theological Seminary.
Paul Alexander, currently ESA's director of public policy, teaches Christian ethics and public policy at Palmer. His ESA bona fides: he "protested the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories, was once fired for organizing against unethical business practices, and was jailed by the Los Angeles Police Department for peacefully protesting unfair labor standards in California."
Al Tizon, currently ESA's director of congregational ministry, teaches holistic ministry at Palmer. His bona fides: he "engaged in community development work, ministry to street children, and pastoral ministries among the poor in his native Philippines for almost ten years as missionaries with an international agency."
(Excerpt) Read more at blog.christianitytoday.com ...
Ron Sider, founder and president of Evangelicals for Social Action (ESA), announced yesterday (Tues, Oct. 16) that he will retire in June 2013. His replacement: a "consensus model" leadership team of two co-directors....
....Paul Alexander, currently ESA's director of public policy, teaches Christian ethics and public policy at Palmer. His ESA bona fides: he "protested the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories, was once fired for organizing against unethical business practices, and was jailed by the Los Angeles Police Department for peacefully protesting unfair labor standards in California."
Al Tizon, currently ESA's director of congregational ministry, teaches holistic ministry at Palmer. His bona fides: he "engaged in community development work, ministry to street children, and pastoral ministries among the poor in his native Philippines for almost ten years as missionaries with an international agency."
“... he protested the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories...”
Bad smell.
“... is most known for his ground-breaking 1977 book Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger...”
Are you a “rich Christian”? Then don’t feel bad about it — start a business, hire people, and teach others how to do the same! Love the Lord and use the prosperity that He gave you to help and bless others.
AMEN!
Soiunds like another leftist masquerading as a Chirstian. His god is Karl Marx and he is the spiritual brother of Jeremiah Wright and Father Pfleger. Remeber evangelicals for Obama? hmmmmmmm.
Indeed!
I always recommend “Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators” as a biblical antidote to Sider’s book.
Sider sounds like the kind of liberal who loves humanity but hates people. I’m sure he very well doesn’t understand how the policies he advocates make sure the poor and hungry of the world stay poor and hungry.
“Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators”
Thank you! Added it to my list.
I had another Sider, a relative of Ron Sider, as a history professor in college. Smart guy, but also a totally naive pacifist...which pushed him toward the pacifist-sounding academic Left.
This man went on and on about how utterly awful the McCarthy era was, without admitting that even at that time, in the 1980s, it was proven that there were indeed outright communists in positions of power in DC, during McCarthy’s exaggerations. He, a committed (supposedly) evangelical Christian, made fun of the pro-life movement for getting all excited over fetuses, when “killing” the poor. (We all know how all those poor people starved under Pres. Reagan, right?)
Anyway, the Sojourners magazine/Ron Sider “evangelical” left, are almost all pacifists...and they take their doctrinaire pacifism as a reason to separate from mainstream evangelicals...to support the (fake) pacifists on the Left...because of the Left’s supposed compassion for the poor.
Rather sad how stupid and gullible certain Christians can be.
So do I. See post #6!
Sider also writes and speaks against abortion and the sex/gender agenda of the Left, which takes significant conviction beccause his readership and audiences are prodominantly Christian liberals. Believe me, a whole lot of them don't love him for it. He's a signer of the Manhattan Declaration which is a Divine Law /Natural Law defense of the Biblical man-woman definition of marriage. Sider also signed a NY Times ad a couple of years back objecting to gay activists' violence against California Proposition 8 supporters.
So disagree robustly with his economics and pacifism, but rcognize that his ideological family starts with Menno Simons (Link), and not Karl Marx.
“I always recommend “Productive Christians in an Age of Guilt Manipulators” as a biblical antidote to Sider’s book.”
Excellent book; parts will really make a liberal’s head explode!
Sider looks at the world through emotional glasses, not Biblical ones. Unfortunately, I have dear Christian friends who think Sider’s book is great.
Thank you very much for the clarification and I stand corrected. However, charity is a loving act. When charity is imposed by the government through a desire for “social justice” it becomes confiscatory and coercive. That’s not charity, it’s socialism. Capitalism is moral in that it allows free men to provide what others need. There may a price (sale) or not (charity) but it is the essence of wealth creation. If the government is going to take the fruits of my labor and creativity, why work so hard? The United States is the most charitable country on the face of the earth—because we are free to give. But to hear the social justice people, we are the most selfish. The truth is the opposite and capitalism is perfectly compatible with Christianity.
Thanks for the link. I read this years ago and have since loaned my copy out.
I just downloaded this to my laptop. My Android phone is next!
The download works great on Kindle Reader on my Android phone.
I think you’re right. I’ve never quite figured out where Sider’s economic ideas were coming from. At this point (I mean now, not 20 years ago) Sider might actually agree with more conservative - pro economic liberty views, or at least be agreeable to hearing them defended.
Christ was not a community organizer and Obama is not THE ONE. If you believe in the ideology of SOCIAL JUSTICE, your god is Karl Marx.
I’m fully aware and agree that Dr. Sider’s convictions come from the radical end of the Reformation—of the Mennonites, and he is not primarily motivated by Marx.
My point is however, that pacifism makes him—and most on the “evangelical Left”—tools of Marxists and statists of all kinds as they join the union of so many “useful idiots.”
It’s a simple fact that when push comes to shove, the evangelical left SUPPORTS Marxists, radical-feminists, the homosexual-agenda and abortion, simply in their opposition to conservatives. Their personal opposition to the social-issue Left for some reason doesn’t prevent them from publicly supporting the Left in American politics whenever given a choice.
If you pick up a copy of “Sojourners” magazine you’ll see what I mean. In spite of the religious rhetoric in it, “Sojourners” could be published by the radicals in the DNC, or even the Socialist Workers Party.
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