A Fifth of Worms (Exiles #5)

I didn’t anticipate writing an entire Series of Worms out of my reading of Frost’s Exiles: Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture. I’d probably advocate this book as being near the top of any list of books to read about the emerging/missional church. Exiles provoked, at various times, a range of reactions:

Deep thought,

Hearty agreement,

“You're reading my mail” resonance,

“I’ll have to think more on that” reflection, and

“Frosty, I’m gonna drag you by the ankles over shards of broken glass before dumping your sorry carcass into a shark-infested pool of iodine.”

Any book that evokes such a wide range of reactions qualifies as a good read. I’ll explain my last reaction in a later post. In today’s post, I’ll comment briefly on Frost’s chapters on justice, the poor and persecuted, and on the inclusion of ecology and environmentalism in our stewardship of Creation.

Frost cranks out a lengthy and devastating list of human rights abuses around the world, horrendous depictions of the torture and murder of Christians, observations and predictions on the ecological rape of Planet Earth …

Whew – by the end of these two profoundly disturbing chapters, I felt overwhelmed and useless. The implications for Christian responsibility in every one of these areas are mind-numbing and soul-sucking in their enormity.

Where to even start? I’m just a blogger. I suppose I could post links to justice-oriented websites, but the longer I thought about it, the more pathetically childish the idea seemed.

What I finally came around to was simply this:

Pick one.

Poverty. The persecuted church. Environmental responsibility. Racial injustice. Homelessness. Immigration reform.

Just pick one. Do something. Anything. Don’t let the enormity of it all overwhelm you.

Pick one.