Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Am I Missing Something by Joe Beach

'Christian' Militia in the News

This morning, I read about the arrest in Michigan of eight "patriotic Christians" who had plotted to bomb a funeral service of a policeman. On the same day, I received another email about the "pray for Obama" bumper sticker - this time from my sister (who's really a very committed Christian, intelligent, etc. A wonderful person). So I wrote down these thoughts:

Most of us, by now, have heard of the bumper sticker going around which reads: "Pray for Obama - Psalm 109:8”. It’s may be a trivial example of how ugly some of us Christians have become in recent years – but it’s also a horrific example. The full passage, which is supposed to elicit satisfying chuckles from us when we look it up, reads “May his days be few; may another take his place of leadership. May his children be fatherless and his wife a widow." As my friend likes to say, “yeah, funny… but not in a HA-HA way.”

The Matrix of Liberalism: A Seven Act Drama - by Ron Dart

“Liberalism was, in origin, criticism of the old established order. Today, it is the voice of the establishment.”
--George Grant

“The end is in the beginning.”
--Plato

“I have found from many observations that sometimes our liberal is incapable of granting anyone else his own convictions and immediately answers his opponent with abuse or something worse.”
--Dostoyevsky

“The saint needed by each culture is the one who contradicts it the most.”
--G.K. Chesterton

1.
The Matrix of Liberalism

     All of us, whether we are consciously aware of it or not, think from a core of philosophic principles. It is from these seed thoughts, principles or ideas, that the fruit of various and varied ethical positions are taken. We live in a period of time in which many ethical positions are embraced, contested and questioned in our culture wars. Many is the hot button issue that, when articulated and argued in the public places, creates many a reaction. Ethical tribes and clans (and chieftains aplenty) have emerged to beat the drums for ethical positions on the political right, sensible centre and political left.

The Prophetic Culture of the Kingdom (pt. 4) by Eric H. Janzen

Chapter Four

Transcending Culture

 I have attempted to show that kingdom culture is a spiritual culture revealed by God.  This culture comes out of his character, which is unchanging.  The spiritual culture of the kingdom is unchanging as well.  How the people of God are to live is a constant that does not change from era to era.  This characteristic of kingdom culture is markedly different from world culture, which is always in flux, changing and evolving.  This is important to understand for the community of Christ by the way it lives life fulfills its prophetic role in the world to reveal who God is.  Christians ought to be those who understand what God is truly like in character.  They ought to be those who not only know about God, but who know him relationally.  All the theology in the world does us no good if we do not know him.  At the heart of kingdom culture is this spiritual reality: we can be reconciled to God through Jesus and truly know him.  The Christian style of life revolves around this reality.  God has made it possible for us to have a genuine and real relationship with him.  

"The Christian Platonism of Simone Weil" and "Exiles from Nowhere" - Reviews by Brad Jersak

Book Reviews by Brad Jersak 

    E. Jane Doering and Eric O. Springsted, The Christian Platonism of Simone Weil (Notre Dame: UND Press, 2004.

     Alan Mendelson, Exiles from Nowhere: The Jews and the Canadian Elite (Montreal: Robin Brass Studio, 2008). 

In reviewing these two scholarly gems, I read them from a particular perspective. I am at the fledgling stage of George P. Grant research, with a special interest in enucleating the animating core of his life as a contemplative theologian and Canadian ‘prophet.’ One cannot hope to understand Grant’s work as a philosopher, political scientist and activist apart from the context of his Weilian Christian Platonism, for in his spiritual journey out of the dark cave of modernity (think Plato), Simone Weil was truly his ‘Diotima.’[1] Further, Grant’s emergence as one of Canada’s preeminent thinkers must be understood in light of his progressivist liberal pedigree. From that point of view, a book of essays on Weil’s Christian Platonism and a history that situates him among Canada’s intellectual elite are must-reads.

The Prophetic Culture of the Kingdom (pt. 3) by Eric H. Janzen

Chapter Three

Divided Loyalties

The Church has been facing a crisis for some time now, a crisis surrounding the question of relevance.  Its critics claim that the Church and the Gospel have ceased being relevant and meaningful.  Many have sought to answer this crisis by searching for ways to connect with the culture outside the Church, a challenge to say the least.  Some programs and plans may have limited success in drawing some into the Church, but the question regarding the crisis needs some kind of answer: why has the Church and the Gospel lost its relevance in a world so desperately in need of both Christ’s community and message?  Part of the answer, though it is surely a complicated one, lies in understanding that Christians are called to a way of life.  Their style of living is to be culturally distinct from the world they find themselves in.  It is this way of life that makes the Church the salt of the earth and the light of the world.  The Church needs to recall its spiritual culture and live according to it in order to be relevant, which will give the treasure of the gospel which they hold real meaning in today’s world.

The Neurobiology of Sin by Archbishop Lazar Puhalo

Outline of a Proposed Paper for the Orthodox Christian Conference on Psychology and Psychotherapy.

1

INTENT 

"Man, with respect to his nature, is most truly said to be neither soul without body, nor...body without soul; but is composed of the union of body and soul into one form of the beautiful” (Saint Methodios of Olympus, On The Resurrection, 1:5)

The purpose of this paper is to examine the roots of what we call “sin” from a perspective which takes into account more fully the understanding that “sin” ultimately means the misuse of our energies.

While I realise that, at this conference, I may be preaching to the choir about the need for greater cooperation between clergy and mental health care professionals, I feel that it is necessary for a hierarch of the church to address these matters. Even in our era there are too many superstitions and mythologies surrounding mental health problems. Because of this we have seen some serious tragedies even in the past few years.

Because we use the metaphor of the Church as a spiritual hospital, we need to call upon our clergy to follow the dictum of Hippocrates of Kos who said of the medical profession, “above all do no harm.” If we consider the church to be a spiritual hospital and the priests to be spiritual healers, then surely we must also apply this dictum. A certain amount of knowledge and awareness are necessary in order accomplish this. Allow me to give some examples in which this dictum was most certainly violated as superstition and ignorance prevailed.

Merton and Chrysostom from Ben Eisner

Friends. This morning, while reading Merton's Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, I came across something that took the wind out of my sails (that’s a good thing).  I instantly thought of Jesus' call to be shrewd as serpents and innocent as doves.  
=======
In the refectory a tendentious book about Communism was being read.  Communism is insidious.  We should hate all that is insidious, especially this ultimate diabolical insidiousness which is Communism.  If we truly hate it with all the power of our being, then we can be sure that we ourselves are, and will remain righteous, free, sincere, honest, open.  Today then (we are told) hatred of Communism is the test of a good Christian.  The pledge of all truth is political hate.  Hate Castro.  Khrushchev.  Hate Mao.  All this in the same breath as "God's merciful love" and "the beatings of the Sacred Heart."  There seems to be some other dimension we have not discovered....

Chrysostom has some fine things to say about sheep and wolves in the III Nocturn of St. Barnabas' Day.  "As long as we remain sheep, we overcome.  Even though we may be surrounded by a thousand wolves, we overcome and are victorious.  But as soon as we are wolves, we are beaten: for then we lose the support of the Shepherd, who feeds not wolves, but only sheep."
                                            - from Homily 34 on St. Matthew 
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From Merton’s Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, pg. 44

The Prophetic Culture of the Kingdom (pt. 2) by Eric H. Janzen

Chapter 2

A Spiritual Culture?

Christians face an added complexity in considering culture and paradigms.  This complexity is summed up nicely in the well known axiom “In the world but not of the world.”  What does that mean exactly?  This question is what will  concern us from here on and we begin with the idea that Christians are called out from the world, called out of their cultures and paradigms.  They are to live according to a spiritual culture based on and in God who calls them out of the world and into his kingdom.

Jewish Zionism, Martin Buber and Mahatma Gandhi by Ron Dart

“To Buber, therefore, Judaism is coincident with a vital prophetic tradition.”  

Hans Urs Von Balthsar

Martin Buber and Christianity (p.36)  
 

The Jewish Zionist tradition took two different paths within the early years of its formation in the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. The tradition of Theodore Herzl, Max Nordau and Vladimir Jabotinsky was aggressive and hawkish and had limited sympathy for the Arabs that were living in Palestine. Sadly so, when most think of Zionism, they tend to assume the perspective of Herzl and followers was the only approach to a Jewish homeland. There was, though, another approach to the Zionist position. Men like Ahad Ha-am, Martin Buber and Judah Magnes stood within this more irenical and prophetic heritage. 

The Prophetic Culture of the Kingdom (part 1) by Eric H Janzen

The Prophetic Culture of the Kingdom

Part I of a 8 part series: Introduction and Chapter 1

Culture and Paradigm: The Underlying Problem 

 A new command I give you: Love one another.   As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know that  you are my disciples, if you love one another.

John 13:34-35

 Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.  If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews.  But now my kingdom is from another place.  “You are a king, then!” said Pilate.  Jesus answered, “You are right in saying I am a king.  In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth.  Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.”

John 18:36-37

 Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together.  One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question: “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?”  Jesus replied, “Love the lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: Love your neighbour as yourself.  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Matthew 22:34-40