Hi there! Thanks so much for coming to UnderTheOverpass.com. Chances are that you've read Under the Overpass, or someone has told you about my friend Sam's and my intentional journey on the streets of six different American cities as homeless men. Either way, I'm excited that you're here.
Whether you're wanting more information about our journey, or have some thoughts you'd like to share with the rest of us, or want to check out some video footage from our time out there, this is the site for you. Specifically, though, I'm hoping that it will do 3 things:
Connect: UnderTheOverpass.com is meant to be a place where you can connect with different people who have read Under The Overpass and felt the Lord move or lead them powerful ways. Use the Testimonies
feature on our bulletin board to post ideas / comments / reflections.
See other people's comments and how the Lord is moving in their life.
Learn more about Sam's and my journey through the streets of American
cities, and find out where we're at now.
Empower: God wants to use each of us in very real ways as we
live out loud for Him. What are some of the ways that God may be asking
you to get connected with other people or to make a difference in this
big world we live in? Want to get connected to some local Rescue
Missions and find out how you can help out? Go to the Rescue Missions page and check it out!
Encourage: Learn about just some of the ways that the Lord is using Under the Overpass to make exciting things happen in the world!
I know that there are lots of different places you could have
landed on the Internet. Know that I'm excited and prayerful about what
the Lord has in store for you because He directed you here.
My prayer is that you would evermore be willing to walk off the edge with Him!
Grace and Peace.
-Mike.
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My wife Danae and I have just released a new book: Zealous Love: A Practical Guide to Social Jusice.
This is a response to some of the world’s urgent needs in light of Christ’s great love. Through first-hand accounts and up-to-date facts about eight global issues, this book provides readers with the information, inspiration, and involvement they need to personally make a difference in their world.
Hope you can check it out!
To find out about having Mike speak at your church or organization,
click here.
For a list of Mike's Jan - April 2010 Speaking Schedule, click here.
Below is my latest journal entry. Click here to view the complete journal archive.
This brief blog entry is meant to serve as the beginning of what will hopefully become a larger group of blogs. My aim is to consider how various aspects of our Western culture impact / affect our calling as Christians to “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22:39), particularly as it relates to questions of Social Justice. All I'm hoping to do in this first blog is to consider the way ideology shapes how we live.
What drives human activity? Why do we do the things we do? I know that's an enormous question, the scope of which is far bigger than I shall even begin to adequately consider here. I want to suggest that the following, oversimplified causal diagram holds true as a general description of the “engine” of human activity. Beliefs->Ideologies->Human Actions
At the most foundational level, an individual's actions have their origins in the beliefs that person holds. What I mean by this is that what an individual believes about the big questions of existence: is there a God or is there not? Is life merely a chance coincidence? Is there such thing as universal truth or merely subjective opinion? etc. provide the very bottom layer of the structure which ultimately produces human action.
Next, proceeding from or built upon beliefs are ideologies. Dictionary.com defines “Ideology” as “the body of doctrine, myth, belief, etc., that guides an individual, social movement, institution, class, or large group.”1 An ideology is therefore more or less synonymous with “worldview,” in that it is “The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world.”2 An ideology is basically a matrix of ideas, opinions and perspectives which proceeds forth from our beliefs and which we ultimately use to shape our intentions, actions and responses to the situations we find ourselves in. Indeed it could be said that ideologies form the linkage between our beliefs and our actions.
At least, this is the way things should work. Ideally all of our actions would be consistent with our ideologies and all of our ideologies would flow naturally from our beliefs. Unfortunately this is not the case. Obviously humans do not always act in ways which are consistent with our ideologies, nor do our ideologies always flow appropriately from our core beliefs.
This tendency toward inconsistency, however, is not my subject. Indeed, what I'm going to argue over the next few blogs does not focus on belief (ie: Christian or non Christian) or even actions (ie: consistent or inconsistent), though of course beliefs and actions will be referenced when needed. Rather, I want to explore how ideologies relate to and impact Social Justice.
I'm doing this because in several recent conversations with people who are somewhat hesitant about working for Social Justice, much of their confusion and resistance seems to result from ideological confusion. There are many competing ways to think about ourselves and our place in our world. While some ideologies can coexist just fine, not all worldviews are implicitly harmonious. That's basically a fancy way of saying that sometimes there will be conflicts between various ideologies we could adopt and choose to shape our actions with. Whenever there is strong conflict between ideologies, individuals must make a decision about which potential ideology will have priority—we must determine which ideology we will ultimately allow to shape our actions.
Specifically, over the next few weeks I hope to build on this blog to consider how ideological confusion can hinder the good and necessary work in areas of Creation Degradation and Economic Inequality.
