As I read today's newspaper, several news articles seemed to fit together like the opening scenes in a screenplay about a dystopian society. Amidst the anguish of the shootings at Virginia Tech and the Dow reaching a record high, most of these headlines do not need much comment or explanation.

Vatican panel condemns limbo to eternal dustbin: An advisory study, approved by the pope, concludes that unbaptized babies may go to heaven after all. The editor obviously had some fun with the first portion of that headline. What progress! How pathetic! I could not even read the article it seemed so silly and out of touch.

Toxic slag pile adjacent to wetlands is stabilized. I lived near this aluminum and magnesium smelting plant while it was operational 20 years ago. It was already obvious what a mess they had made during the previous 20 years and yet it continued for another 20 years. How could it take so long to stop them? They finally declared bankruptcy as the owners tried to secretly shift money to another company in the southern part of the country.

Alleged saboteur of power grid gained access despite warning. This is the stuff of science fiction. The general public is unaware of how delicate the electrical grid is. Although he crashed computers used to communicate with the power market by pushing an emergency shut-off switch, blackouts and disruptions were avoided since it did not happen during hours of peak demand such as a summer afternoon. "Twenty computer technicians worked for seven hours to restore the system." (Emphasis mine.)

Blackberry maker says software caused blackout. This was not sabotage, just "a minor software upgrade." "Grumbles were heard at the highest levels of business and government, including the White House and the Canadian Parliament." "The failed upgrade apparently set off a domino effect of glitches, which the company referred to as "a compounding series of interaction errors between the system's operational database and cache."" Although we joke about 'Crackberry' Addiction, look at how far reaching the use of this technology is and the impact when it fails.

Google's data-storing features fuels privacy fears. This voluntary Web History service debut came "as privacy advocates continued to raise alarms about the prospect of Google combining its collection of information on individuals with that of DoubleClick, Inc. ...which distributes Web ads and tracks where the majority of people go on the Internet." Google previously purchased Blogspot and so hosts this blog. You are being watched right now.

Is that enough to set the scene? This is not how I see the world or the future. Also newspapers always report the bad news since it is more interesting. I just found it to be a fascinating confluence.

The Last Week: A Day-by-Day Account of Jesus's Final Week in Jerusalem by Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan was mentioned by a college friend who is a Lutheran pastor that I don't see very often. The book was mentioned because it had been reviewed in the Christian Century. (It was later reviewed in The Lutheran but I am not a subscriber and haven't read it.) I don't remember the specific comment by my friend but it highlighted the authors view of Jesus and the meaning of holy week. Since it was positive, I took the opportunity to mention how much I enjoy the writing of Marcus Borg. It felt like a coming out to someone who would know what that meant. There was no specific reaction as the dinner meal with our spouses continued. I took comfort in the fact that it did not bring out a negative reaction or word of concern. Here is a quote from the review:

Borg and Crossan say that the Maundy Thursday meal, with its soon-to-be traitors and deserters, is best understood in light of prior meals with misfits and outcasts. This connection between Jesus' life and his death is established by way of a clever pun: the "passion of the Christ," these authors maintain (with obvious reference to the Mel Gibson film), can be understood only in light of what the Christ was passionate about. It was Jesus' passion for the distributive justice of God's rule that brought him to the passion of punitive justice that is definitive of most human civilizations.

The story, however, is not a tragedy. Jesus views his cross as the cost of liberation (that is, as a ransom), and he calls us to follow him, entering a new way of life by dying to an old one. Thus, if Jesus' death is a sacrifice, it is not substitutionary; it requires our participation to become meaningful.

The Last Week is beautifully written and thoroughly engaging, and its authors are well informed. The reflections not only elucidate matters that are potentially difficult to understand but explain the significance of such matters for Christian life. What is at stake, the authors maintain, is an understanding of Christianity as a way of life in this present world as opposed to simply a means for gaining access to a world to come. A biblical understanding of Holy Week views Easter both as testimony to Jesus' continuing presence and as vindication of his claims. With that in mind, the authors close their volume with a virtual altar call, inviting readers to accept this vindicated Jesus as their personal Lord and Savior and to accept him as their political Lord and Savior as well.

The italics are in the original.

I like how they reclaim the word sacrifice in a way that makes it even more challenging to each of us. I felt similarly in my early post college years when reading John Howard Yoder especially The Politics of Jesus. These are both the same type of call that one does not usually hear from the mainstream or evangelical churches pulpit. I feel I am renewing my journey along this path after many years of being asleep.

The call for social justice has been somewhat of a habit these past years. Although a passion for social justice grew during my college and early post college years, the active faith underneath faded away and thus the social justice issues lost their root and anchor.