Bill Moyers Interviews Newark Mayor, Cory Booker

I just saw a great interview with Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, NJ. INSPIRATIONAL! I think I might go back and watch this one several times. He spoke like a man who truly understands the responsibility of freedom. No blame-shifting and empty promises here. At one point he said,

“We have the statue of Liberty, but I believe on the other side we should have the statue of responsibility.”

Follow the link and you can watch the whole thing on PBS. Or you can download the videopodcast on iTunes.

Fatherless

This is burning on my heart. I just can’t shake it. Ever since I made the connection, there is a growing fire within me. Malachi 4:5-6

See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, ad the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.

With all the crazy things happening with young people today, it’s not a far stretch of the imagination to say that our land is under a curse. But the cure? Who would have ever thought? I mean, we can blame postmodern relativity for a break down in morals, video games, point and click porn, violent movies, and the list goes on. Yet, the Lord simply states that where there is a problem of fatherlessness there is a curse. Moreover, the Lord promises that his spirit will empower men of God to be Fathers! Yet we still think Hollywood, Washington, public schools, liberalism, etc, is the problem. My perspective of the kingdom and ministry is undergoing a radical shift.

Accountability Partners or Warriors?

Thanks to the men’s movement the church understands now that a man needs other men, but what we’ve offered is another two-dimensional solution: “Accountability” groups or partners. Ugh. That sounds so old covenant. “You’re really a fool and you’re just waiting to rush into sin, so we’d better post a guard by you the keep you in line.” We don’t need accountability groups, we need fellow warriors, someone to fight alongside, someone to watch our back… The whole crisis in masculinity today has come because we no longer have a warrior culture, a place for men to learn to fight like men. We don’t need a meeting of Really Nice Guys, we need a gathering of Really Dangerous Men. That’s what we need. I think of Henry V at Agincourt. His army has been reduced to a small band of tired and weary men, many of them are wounded. They are outnumbered five to one. But Henry rallies his troops to his side when he reminds them that they are not mercenaries, but a “band of brothers.”… Yes, we need men to whom we can bare our souls. But it isn’t going to happen with a group of guys you don’t trust, who really aren’t willing to go to battle with you. It’s a long standing truth that there is never a more devoted group of men than those who have fought alongside one another, the men of your squadron, the guys in your foxhole. It will never be a large group, but we don’t need a large group. We need a band of brothers willing to “shed their blood” with us. (Eldredge, Wild at Heart 175).