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Blog_Blair_Pledge_Card
Originally uploaded by MikeRoe.

I think it's absolutely insane that the Democrats can't just get it together and figure out a way to look, you know, sane to the voting public. England's Labor Party figured it out, and the Democrats need to take a cue from them.

The Washington Monthly

"Over on the right is the unveiling of the Labor Party's 2005 "pledge card," a cheap and cheerful list of six things the Laborites say they stand for. Beneath it is a short amount of text expanding (slightly) on each of the six points.

Now, the wording of the points is worth looking at, but it's the marketing itself that's more noteworthy: six simple points, none of them longer than six words. This is accompanied by six explanations, none of them longer than 30 words.

Compare this to the comically inept "New Partnership for America's Future" unveiled by House Democrats a few weeks before the November election. I sagged when I first read it. The pamphlet version had a laundry list of 60 separate topics — 60! — jammed together in small type spanning six pages. The complete version needed nothing less than an entire website to contain its full gloriousness."

Revisiting the Passion of the Christ

I felt that one of my favorite Christian thinkers (one of the few non-Republican popular Christian thinkers out there), Brian McLaren, made some great points in this article contrasting the Passion of the Christ with Hotel Rwanda. I hope that you can find this enlightening as well. I've included an excerpt, and you can click on the link to read the whole article.

SojoNet: Faith, Politics, and Culture

Revisiting the Passion of the Christ
by Brian D. McLaren

Maybe it's because I spent time last summer in Burundi, the poorer twin sister of Rwanda that shares a similar history, tribal makeup, geography, culture, and terrifying undercurrent of genocide. Maybe it's because while I was there, I met Anglican priests serving in Rwanda who told personal stories of the tragedies there - and their efforts to bring healing and reconciliation in the aftermath. Maybe it's because (some readers may be tempted to write me off after reading this sentence) I was so frustrated by last year's promotional hype surrounding Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ - and I was so frustrated by the movie itself, though I know many found it moving and spiritually edifying. Maybe it's because I have deep concerns about the alignment of major sectors of Christianity with "red-state Republicanism," and I worry that a kind of modernist, nationalist neo-fundamentalism is trying to claim all Christian territory as its sovereign domain.

For whatever reason, when I walked out of the 2005 film Hotel Rwanda this thought wouldn't leave me: If we really had the mind and heart of Christ, this is the movie we would be urging people in our churches to see. In fact, I can't think of a more worthwhile experience for Christian leaders than to watch Hotel Rwanda and then ask themselves questions like these:

Which film would Jesus most want us to see, and why?

Why did so many churches urge people to see Gibson's film, and why did so few (if any?) promote Terry George's film? What do our answers to that question say about us?

What were the practical outcomes of millions of people seeing Gibson's film? And what outcomes might occur if equal numbers saw Hotel Rwanda - as an act of Christian faithfulness?

In what sense could Hotel Rwanda actually be titled The Passion of the Christ?

What do we make of the fact that a high percentage of Rwandans who participated in the 1994 genocides were churchgoers?

What do we make of the fact that a high percentage of the Americans who ignored the 1994 genocides (then and now) were and are churchgoers?

What kind of repentance does each film evoke in Western Christians? Why might the kind of repentance evoked by Hotel Rwanda be especially needed during these important days in history?