Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Praise for the Master - Laura Merzig Fabrycky

TUESDAY, MAY 4, 2010
Amman, Jordan
© Laura Merzig Fabrycky

Praise for the Master

You, the Storyteller!
You, the Poet!
Great crafter of beauty and intrigue
  and the framing of images
  before the mind's eye of the
  awake and the alive,
  or the awakening and the enlivening
  or the asleep and the near dead.
You call us up, out, and through
to images, to the fiery, detailed grandeur
of the story,
the words—jewels of your love.
The covenants—Master,
you are good,
over and through
it all.
You, the Creator of Creation!
You, the Creator of Context and Co-Creation,
  and of Co-Creators
You, the Envisioner of Imagination:
  l'histoire et de poésie--
  explicit and tacit
  lived and experienced--
we move within the pages of your verse,
rest within the gulleys of your impasto
       on the yet-dried canvas in your studio,
dance to the movement of your strings played
            by the heavenly spheres,
tread with fear within
       your language, yours words, and your language beyond language,
to find we are undone and remade by
  the play of it all
  the staging and lights
  (alongside its frightful reality).
We are living,
awed by your mastery.

Milton Acorn and Marya Fiamengo - Literary Red Tories - with Ron Dart

Ron Dart's 'Keepers of the Flame' - Review by Lazar Puhalo

The most firmly Canadian cultural, social and political tradition is Red Toryism. With deep spiritual and political roots in the development of the Confederation, the Red Tory factor was at the root of commonweal over the radical individualism that shaped the republic to the south of us.

Canada chose a peaceful evolution toward statehood rather than a bloody revolution, and constitutional system based on the principle of “peace, order and good government.”

Among the leaders and philosophers of our Red Tory tradition are many voices too often forgotten and neglected, to our social and cultural peril. The most well-known voice in the mid 20^th century, George Grant, gave voice to this peril in his most poignant work. He anguished over the decline and loss of Canadian nationalism in his famous Lament for a Nation.

If George Grant can be said to have a literary successor, it is surely Ron Dart. Keepers of the Flame is his latest contribution to jolting our collective memory to recall the spiritual and social foundations of our nation. Dart calls upon us to rediscover the Red Tory treasure which has made the Canadian experience unique, given us the means to resist both the anarchism of the American left and the sometimes brutal and destructive individualism of its political right.

In page after page, Dart sweeps us along the stream of great Canadian men and women of letters, philosophers, poets, novelists, clerics and often colourful politicians who made the Red Tory experience the roots of Canadian sovereignty and ethos.

Keepers of the Flame is essential reading for all who love and value the Canadian experience, sense of commonweal, ability to compromise when necessary, and continue a peaceful national evolution.

We will see much more from the pen of Ron Dart, and look forward to it with anticipation.

Archbishop Lazar Puhalo

Retired Orthodox Archbishop Of Ottawa.

Becoming a Prophetic Community - Brad Jersak

The following represents some guidelines developed by Fresh Wind Christian Fellowship as a protocol for practicing prophetic ministry in the local church in the 1 Cor. 14 'charismatic' sense. For a Word doc of the following in pamphlet form, which can be freely edited for use by others, click here: Download Becoming a prophetic community pamphlet 

Prophetic protocol For Freshwind Christian fellowship

I. We believe in the prophethood of all believers.

We take Jesus seriously when He said, “My sheep hear my voice” (John 10).

We believe that God meant it when He said, “Call on me and I will answer you” (Jer. 33:3)

We believe Jesus’ promise that because He had much more to tell us, He would send His Spirit to guide us into all truth, even as to what is coming (John 16).

We take seriously the truth that God’s Spirit has indeed been poured out on all people so that men and women, adults and children, the privileged and the lowly all have access to hear from heaven (Acts 2).

Thus, we have confidence that members of Fresh Wind can expect to hear from God and that what we hear should be taken seriously.

Just as not all are evangelists, but all can share their faith, so too, not all are prophets but all can prophesy.

The Spiritual Roots of Red Toryism - by Ron Dart

George Grant, Radical Orthodoxy and Red Toryism

Review of Ron Dart's 'Keepers of the Flame' - by Robert Williams

Keepers of the Flame: Canadian Red Toryism (2012) – A Short Review

Professor Ron Dart’s latest book, Keepers of the Flame: Canadian Red Toryism, a collection of Dart’s essays written over a period of about 15 years, was published by Fermentation Press out of Quebec in the closing days of December 2012. For those of us who’ve read Dart’s earlier work, the content of the book should come as no surprise. Within the pages of Keepers of the Flame, many a familiar topic is discussed, pondered and thought about:

• Red Toryism (its roots and new routes, to play off the title of an earlier text by Dart)
• Liberalism (its matrix, principles, prejudices and short-comings)
• American Imperialism and its impacts on Canada
• Canadian nationalism and compradorism

George Grant and Radical Orthodoxy - with Ron Dart

A Weapon of His Choice - Boyd Barrett

Why I don't own a gun - Brian Zahnd

Why I Don’t Own A Gun
by Brian Zahnd

I don’t own a gun. I never have. Why?

First of all I don’t hunt. I have nothing against hunting. (After all, I’m not a vegetarian.) I don’t hunt like I don’t golf—it’s just something I never took up. So I don’t own a shotgun or a hunting rifle for the same reason I don’t own golf clubs. And for the same reason you probably don’t own crampons and an ice axe. Since I don’t hunt, I don’t need the equipment.

Secondly, I don’t own a gun because I don’t want to shoot anyone. Shotguns and hunting rifles are designed for the purpose of shooting game. Handguns and assault rifles are designed for the purpose of shooting people. But I don’t want to shoot anyone. So, once again, I don’t need the equipment. I’m perfectly content to allow a trained and authorized police force to handle this equipment on behalf of society. I think that’s a good idea. (If you don’t think that’s a good idea, well, then we just disagree. Don’t shoot me.) I’m not a police officer, so I don’t need police equipment. I don’t own surgical equipment either, because…well, you get my point.

When Love is Like God - Fiona Calder

© “My Deepest Vocation,” Br. Mickey McGrath, courtesy of Trinity Stores,www.trinitystores.com

When Love is like God - Fiona Calder

I do not normally stand at the front and do the sermon. But inside of me is a child called Preacher Girl and she has been giving me hassle lately about wanting to preach her stuff. You may have run into her in my emails or when you’ve sat down for a cup of tea with me.  She’s not necessarily intellectual, but she is passionate about what she believes to be truth. 

Preacher Girl’s talk today is a snippet from my quest to discover more of what Love really is and what it is not.

I’ve been on this adventure to find what Love is for many years—and I’m still on it.  Throughout my life, I have experienced several complex, destructive relationships. Within each of those relationships, people were convinced that their words and actions toward me were motivated by 'love'.  In fact, much harm was done to me in the name of 'love', and it scrambled my brain, making it impossible for me to trust Love or even to be able to identify what is loving and what is not.

Click here to download Fi's entire sermon

The Gospel in Chairs - Brad Jersak with Lucy Smith

The Gospel in Chairs- Brad Jersak from Mark Lowe on Vimeo.

"I do not permit a woman" -- Brad Jersak with Lucy Peppiatt

Brad:

Without any qualms, I am proud to say that Eden Jersak is among the wisest pastors I've ever observed or followed, primarily because of her stubborn insistence on moving forward only according to what she sees and hears the Father doing as she attends to God's voice in the context of a trustworthy and prayerful leadership team. 

Further, I have come into a teacher's dream job at Westminster Theological Centre (UK) where I serve under the direction of the Dean, Dr. Lucy Peppiatt, who is profoundly gifted as a theologian, teacher and leader who knows how to both bring and stir vision in her staff and faculty.  

In other words, I'm enjoying the good fruit of some exceptional 'women in ministry.' And I like to say so. And when I say so publicly as an itinerant minister, invariably someone -- usually a young person, usually but not always a male -- will approach me after a seminar and say something like,

I really enjoyed your teaching today ... but ... you mentioned women in ministry. What do you do with the passage where Paul says 'I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man'?

Consider the context: I'm at the front of a church at the end of a talk, surrounded by a small crowd that wants to get in a parting question. The church (often led by dear friends) has been kind enough to invite me, even though many have a policy and practice of leading with all-male pastors and/or all-male eldership. Everyone is listening and I have at most two minutes to answer. Others are overhearing what is typically an unsatisfactory answer. Whatever I say will be seen as divisive or liberal or sloppy. But admittedly, I have pushed that button. I couldn't help it. To me, ecclesial sexism is a justice issue, a moral absurdity, and a sin against the Gospel.

So I needed help. I went to Dr. Peppiatt with my dilemma and asked her to coach me through a brief but decisive answer. What follows is the answer she provided. I have memorized it, internalized it and will begin to employ it. I found it so weighty that I felt the urge to offer it to readers for further thought and use. 

Lucy:

Listen. I want you to listen to me very carefully because this is very important.

We come from an evangelical tradition that believes that Paul, along with Jesus, taught and demonstrated that women should serve alongside men in absolutely every area of church life and ministry ... which includes teaching, preaching, leading, all the gifts of the Spirit, serving the poor and absolutely anything else that you can think of.

We don't believe that a woman has to have any authority over her apart from Jesus Christ.

One of our controlling texts is Gal. 3:28, which affirms total equality of men and women as central to the Gospel. That means that when we come to passages in Scripture that appear to contradict that, they need to be read differently.

Here's my card. If you want to contact me to talk about how we read those Scriptures, I would be more than happy to talk to you. If you want to argue with me, I won't have those arguments. I've read them all and I've heard them all and I don't find them convincing.

I take this issue with the utmost of seriousness. I believe that other traditions that have subjected women to men have caused untold damage to men, to women, to the church and to the church's witness in the world.

That's all I have to say about that for now.

Brad:

That's probably all I have to say about that for now too. Except to say ...

I would ask dear friends from patriarchal faith traditions to show the same mercy and restraint which I have shown over this issue when co-labouring with you.

And for those wanting to relook at some of the difficult texts, I recommend Gordon Fee's Gospel and Spirit as a primer.  

 

CS Lewis and George Grant - Ron Dart

Justice in Care - by Henry Smidstra

Justice in Care.                                                                                            Henk Smidstra, Dec. 2012

The Incarnation, for me, is the pivotal event in redemption history for peace on earth, no less than for eternal peace.  In God becoming fleshing and dwelling among us full of truth and grace, the “social distance” between heaven and earth is breached and reconciled, making universal social peace possible, as well as demonstrating the way of shalom in the embrace of justice and love. The birth of Christ is a cosmic and yet intensely intimate and relational event sharing in our humanity and social personhood.  The divine-human intercourse of life and relationship is done with intention and passion; this was not a mere abstract contractual or legal transaction, but God in Christ put His very life into it and got personally and intimately involved and attached to the human race, connecting to the historical events  in this world, social and material. Taking the form of a servant as saviour and Lord, in life and on the cross Christ rendered pretentious the audacious ways and claims of the devil, made a public spectacle of his defeat, and definitively broke down the [social] dividing walls of hostility, implicating any prejudice or bias that pretends to parade as the truth about human nature and its relationships.  Shalom rules in heaven, metaphysical peace has been achieved; now it is up to us, Christ’s Spirit helping us, to continue to guard and nurture the model for human relations that has been achieved and demonstrated for us, and in us, in Christ. The incarnation means that the eternal Logos humbly assumed our humanity, all humanity irrespective of status, and Christ’s spirit of truth and grace empowers us as followers daily in every circumstance of personal life as well as in political and social affairs, to live out of an ethic of care, to follow in his footsteps in the way of servant hood, humility, love and justice.  In faith hope and love, in the reality of the Incarnation, as hopeful stewards of the message of peace and good will we address the realities of our 21^st century society even amidst such tragic events as have occurred this past month in Connecticut, in Syria, and elsewhere, amidst celebrations of Christmas. There is also a real tragedy playing out on Canadian soil. It too calls for the good message of eirene (shalom) to all be applied to it lest it gets lost amidst the cares and business of the 2012 Christmas season.