Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Becoming Neighbors" - Kinship with Refugee Claimants - Anika Bauman with Ron Dart

CLICK HERE to order your copy of Anika Bauman's Becoming Neighbours: Five Values for a World of Welcome. 

CLICK HERE to visit kinbrace.ca.

Bruce Fisk with Bradley Jersak - Israel, Palestine and Engaging Christian Zionism

Dr. Bruce Fisk of NEME (Network of Evangelicals for the Middle East) joins Bradley Jersak (Dean of Theology & Culture, SSU / IRPJ) to discuss Israel, Palestine and Engaging Christian Zionism. 

Among the questions we discuss:

1. LIFE ON THE GROUND: What can you tell us about life on the ground in Palestine? 
2. POLITICS: What is the policy of the state of Israel in the occupied territories
3. THE WALL: What? Why? What are the real and perceived threats re: terrorism that generate Jewish fears?
4. THE US: What role does the US play? Are they an honest broker? 
5. CHRISTIAN ZIONISM: What is Christian Zionism? Key beliefs? 
   How do they (ab)use the Scriptures to make their case?
   What has been the impact of Christian Zionism on Palestinian Christians? 
6. BIBLICAL JUSTICE: The Hebrew prophets seem to connect Jewish relationship to the land on two contingencies (1) treatment of the stranger and (2) NOT making military alliances with foreign empires.
7. ANTISEMITISM: When drawing attention to the injustices, there's the threat of being labeled anti-semitic. How do we avoid the perils of anti-Semitism while also addressing concerns regarding human rights, biblical exegesis, and even the Gospels themselves.
8. SOLUTIONS: situation feels hopeless. I see the powerlessness of oppressed people. Is there hope? Have you seen paths to productive dialogue and reconciliation?

 

Reflections on Mother Maria, helping Jews forge baptism certificates - Wayne Northey

I have relatives though who insist, not unlike Trump cultists, that there is “no good thing” (John 1: 46–slightly paraphrased) that comes from Christianity.Ever.

Though I have pointed them to this winsome article, On the Front Lines, by former noted CBC journalist, Brian Stewart. In it we read:

For many years I’ve been struck by the rather blithe notion, spread in many circles including the media, and taken up by a rather large section of our younger population, that organized, Mainstream Christianity has been reduced to a musty, dimly lit Backwater of contemporary life, a fading force. Well, I’m here to tell you from what I’ve seen from my “ring-side seat” of events over decades that there is nothing that is further from the truth. That notion is a serious distortion of reality. I’ve found there is NO movement, or force, closer to the raw truth of war, famines, crises, and the vast human predicament, than organized Christianity in Action. And there is no alliance more determined and dogged in action than church workers, ordained and lay members, when mobilized for a common good. It is these Christians who are right “On the Front Lines” of committed humanity today and when I want to find that Front, I follow their trail.

It is a vast Front stretching from the most impoverished reaches of the Developing world to the hectic struggle to preserve caring values in our own towns and cities. I have never been able to reach these Front lines without finding Christian volunteers already in the thick of it, mobilizing congregations that care, and being a faithful witness to truth, the primary light in the darkness and so often, the only light.

Apparently for my relatives, Christopher Hitchens is their last word on the matter:

Religion poisons everything!

Hence Peter Hitchens’ (brother to the above Enraged One, now deceased) testimonial: The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me to Faith.

As all faith-full discover however, God has his ways  . . . (Hint: it helps to be open-minded! . . .) My sister-in-law however, pretty much each time she sees us seems hellbent–pun intended, though there is much on my website about hell that runs contrary to religious fundamentalism–on reminding us that for her part, she is running as fast as she can away from organized Christianity . . . (There are sadly enough, some forms of “eschewable” Christianity dotting the vast 2,000-year-plus, worldwide Christian landscape.)

Would that she eventually discover, like Francis Thompson in the brilliant poem, The Hound of Heaven, that there is nowhere left to run, and give into God’s unrelenting Love! Though while God is indeed relentless, as the poet eventually discovered, to date, my relative seems to be just as obstinate. But the only hell there is, is the fire of God’s ceaseless Love poured out towards us! So there is endless hope! And Jesus of course, like hot knife through butter, descended into hell according to the  great Church creeds, precisely to initiate full Infernal Meltdown–to rid hell’s contents forever! Amen! And Amen!

Bluntly: Love wins!

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Ron Dart - Homer, Xenophilia & Christian Formation

The Mystery of Christ – John Behr’s Systematic Hermeneutics by Bradley Jersak

The Mystery of Christ: Life in Death – John Behr’s Systematic Hermeneutics by Bradley Jersak

Students of Fr. John Behr learn to frown at any systematic theology that begins with “God” or “Revelation” (as so many do) without reference or logically prior to the Incarnation of Jesus Christ and his Passion. He’s taught us to always begin with the Lamb crucified and risen, for the One enthroned on the Cross IS the image of the invisible God and the Alpha and Omega of divine revelation.

Further, Fr. John teaches students to beware of imposing anachronistic categories back into the Patristic era as we try to make sense of their work. That is, we stumble when we ask, “What did Irenaeus or Athanasius say about ______________? Why? Because we tend to fill in that blank with some theological container that only came to be later. Instead, we need to practice the discipline of simply asking, “What did they say?” Then we read what is there, on their terms, without retroactively cramming their words into subsequent doctrinal cubbyholes.   

That said, it does not follow that Fr. John’s body of work omits a systematic approach. And for those who read him or study with him, it’s helpful to know how his contribution is ordered or organized. Specifically, his ‘systematic’ is hermeneutical … or perhaps apocalyptic (in the sense of ‘unveiling’). I confess that I would not have inferred his system without his help, but I’m grateful to convey it to others. It is all there in his beautiful little book, The Mystery of Christ, which ensures that our theology begins where it ought—at the Cross.

Each chapter title in that book corresponds to a guiding question, which is his hermeneutic:

1. “Through the Cross” – What we're talking about?
2. “Search the Scriptures” – How we're talking about it?
3. “For this were we created” – Who is the 'we' who is talking?
4. “The Virgin Mother (Virgin Church)” – In what context are we talking?
5. “Glorify God in Your Body” – To what end are we talking?

I commend readers to review The Mystery of Christ to discover Fr. John’s response to each of those questions. Suffice it to say, his systematic hermeneutics revolve around an unveiling of the Cross of Christ, the axis mundi of our theology, our worship, and indeed, of the cosmos.

Advent Reflections in Shards of Broken Pottery - Paul E. Ralph

It’s Advent.  And as I wait, I wonder about what manner of good news I can anticipate? What manner of good news my neighbours can expect this time of year?  (What with Omicron, Putin and delayed Amazon shipments!)

Call me crazy, but perhaps we’ve truncated the gospel to be the vaccination for a virus that we’ve been unconsciously peddling for some time.

In other words, it might be that we’ve been answering questions that very few people are actually asking. Worse yet, could it be that we’ve been telling people what question(s) should matter to them?

And this might just be the granddaddy of them all. “Do you want to spend an eternity apart from God?” As I see it, this hardly matters if the unsettling reality that perplexes us is “Who am I?” (Followed closely by “Who are you?, Who are we?, and Why the hell does it matter anyway?”)

The forced question of eternity only matters to the person(s) in possession of the golden ticket to escape this life.  Are we disciples of Willy Wonka?  And is the most pressing ailment we suffer from an insatiable craving for chocolate?

To bastardize a Canadian poet, I hate to tell you that the candy man isn’t just gone,…he never was.

As best I can tell, humankind is alienated.  Primarily from ourselves.  Each of us possesses an unsettling awareness that we were meant for so much more.  There is a deep longing at our soulish level to well and truly live in each moment as we encounter it.  To surrender our past shortcomings and those of our loved ones, friends, and former friends.  And its corollary, to quit living in the glory of our previous accomplishments. 

To love, and be loved.

To know, and be known.

To forgive, and be forgiven.

(Sometimes I think I’d settle for a phone call, text or emoji from ‘that’ person.)

We live disconnected from ourselves, others, this planet, and the divine impulse which animates all of it.

Asking humankind to conjure up ‘an eternity’ in their minds while the very ground upon which we stand is as inhospitable as it’s ever been seems to me a fools’ errand.

This Advent, as I wait for belonging, I am choosing to heed the advice of the songwriter:

Kneel down

Pick up the broken shards of pottery that are strewn in the dirt around my own two feet

Dust them off.

Describe them to whoever will listen - myself included

In so doing, I might happen upon the beauty of dignity and grace in the delicious ambiguities of life.  By chance, I might see a reflection of myself in the pottery.  I just might even begin to see myself for who I am.  Others for who they are.  Creation for the inexplicable mystery that it is.  (Wait. I am crazy.  It’s true.  I might even see the meaning, mercy and Messiah my heart craves.)

It’s advent, so I’m told.

While I don’t know much about spending eternity apart from God, I do know that it is decidedly good news that God decided not to spend an eternity apart from me.  From you.  From us.

Ps.  I look forward to seeing you in the pottery.