Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Susay Oakley-Baker's 'Finding Jim' - Review by Ron Dart

Susan Oakey-Baker, Finding Jim (Rocky Mountain Books, 2013).

Joy and woe are woven fine,

A clothing for the soul divine,

Under every grief and pine,

Runs a joy with silken twine.

It is right it should be so,

We were made for joy and woe,

And when this we rightly know,

Through the world we safely go.

William Blake                     

I met with Sue for an hour Harvest Thanksgiving weekend at Whistler to discuss her published book Finding Jim as the sun turned to the west--autumn trees spoiled us with their flaming red, rust and yellow hues. Sue had recently returned from her 15^th climb of Kilimanjaro to raise funds for Alzheimer’s--her first trip to the summit of Kilimanjaro was with Jim Haberl and the trip is poignantly and honestly recounted in Finding Jim (chapter 4).                                                           

Many of us remember, with predictable understated Canadian patriotism, the day Jim Haberl reached the summit of K2 in the summer of 1993--he and Dan Culver were the first Canadians to do so. The climb was marred by the death of Dan Culver who died on the descent. Haberl recounted, in evocative and graphic detail, the climb in K2: Dreams and Reality (1994). Haberl continued his mountaineering tales with a follow up book, Risking Adventure: Mountaineering Journeys Around the World (1997). Risking Adventure was dedicated “To Sue, my partner in the biggest adventure of all-life”. Haberl in the Acknowledgements, doffed his grateful cap to Sue once again—“And a very special thanks goes out to Sue Oakey, who supports who I am and gives me perspective”. Jim Haberl died in an avalanche in the University Range in Wrangel-St. Elias National Park in April 1999, and in 2006, the ACC-Jim Haberl Hut was opened in the Tantalus Range in the Coastal Mountains (Cloudburst: Fall/Winter 2006, pgs. 22-23). I remember, with some fondness, the ACC week trip in 2006 to the Tantalus Range to celebrate the 100^th anniversary of the ACC--the Haberl Hut was ever in our sights and imagination---it opened a few weeks before our trek.

Pursue Hospitality -- by Steve Stewart (Impact Nations)

Pursue Hospitality - Steve Stewart 

To visit Impact Nations or join them for a Journey of Hope Click Here

A few months ago I went to India to see the House Church Movement first hand. This is a movement that is baptizing over a million new disciples a year and is now the largest church movement in that nation. A couple of months ago I wrote about what I observed as I attended a number of gatherings in different parts of the country. Since then, I have been studying, praying and thinking about how to contextualize in North America what I experienced in India. 

While in India, I spent several days in two different homes. In both places I was struck by how many people constantly came and went. Usually there would be anywhere between 6 and 20 ‘visitors’. I would go to sleep to the sound of people talking, laughing, praying, singing, watching sports on television, eating etc. If I woke up early, I would find people sleeping on the floor or making breakfast, or talking. Both homes were filled with energy and life. These were not people who lived there; the people were constantly coming or going, changing, with old friends bringing new ones. It was a place for everyone, where unbelievers were included into unstructured, but an incredibly vibrant and attractive life. At one point, I asked my friend’s wife, “Is it always like this?” She looked at me in a puzzled way and replied, “Of course. This is the church.”

"You're not a 'pacifist,' are you?" -- by Brian Zahnd

“You’re not a pacifist are you?”

I get that question a lot. People who have read my books or heard my sermons will often “confront” me with that question. There seems to be a hint of scandal implied in the question, like asking, “you’re not a pornographerare you?” This strikes me as a bit strange. I suppose the hint of scandal comes from the assumption that pacifism is a sort of cousin to cowardice. This also strikes me as strange. To endorse the dominant view that the employment of violence is compatible with Christianity requires no courage at all — that’s just following the crowd. But to differ from the dominant view on the sanctity of state-sponsored violence may require an uncommon reservoir of moral conviction. Pacifism is not a popular position in America, and especially not among patriotic evangelicals who have ardently sought to amalgamate the American state and the Christian faith into one hybrid entity. Still I know what you’re wondering: what’s my answer to the loaded question about pacifism?

Punished “for” or “by” our sins – The Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53 - Santo Calarco

Punished “for” or “by” our sins – The Suffering Servant of Isaiah 53

Santo Calarco

There can be no doubt that Isaiah 53 is a pivotal chapter as far as the New Testament is concerned.  It was used as a springboard for proclaiming the Gospel (Acts 8:30-35) and as a prophecy of restorative suffering fulfilled through the ministry (Matthew 8:14-17) and death of Jesus (1 Peter 2:21-25).

The common Protestant view of this crucial Old Testament passage maintains that the Servant had to suffer and die through the hands of God so that God could make atonement for sin through an act of penal substitution.  That is, God was bound by his holiness to satisfy his wrath against sin by transferring sin and its punishment onto an innocent substitute Jesus, as a form of retributive justice.

In this paper we will test this claim against the specific data presented within the chapter itself.

According to the Protestant view:

-1- Jesus dies to appease God’s wrath because
-2- Jesus’ death in the place of sinners satisfies retribution and punishment for sin.

Does Isaiah 53 talk about the death of the Servant in either of these two ways?

Salt in Soup - by Fr. Michael Gillis

I am often asked by devout parishioners why it is that many of their loved ones have so little interest in matters of faith. The most correct answer is, of course, I don't know; but a possible explanation has to do with the nature of salt.

Jesus says in Matthew 5 that his disciples are the salt of the earth. Then Jesus asks a question: if salt loses its saltiness, how will it be made salty? [the 'again' in many English translations is not in any Greek manuscripts]. Most English translations assume that the 'it' in the second clause is referring to the unsalty salt. This makes sense in English because 'it' appears in both clauses. In Greek, Jesus' question reads more like this: If the salt becomes insipid (literally, foolish), how will it be salted? Reading the sentence this way, the possibility becomes clear that Jesus may be speaking of the earth--how will the earth be salted?--rather than how will the insipid salt be salted (again), although that too is a possible reading.

Marriage as prayer, prophecy and revelation - Archbishop Lazar Puhalo

A Plea to Rethink Justice-as-Punishment - by Henry Smidstra

A Plea to Rethink Justice-as-Punishment

News reports on crime usually attract lots of interest, and our newspapers cover it greedily; one wonders, though, if reports of injustice done to prisoners get read at all. Federal Correctional Investigator (ombudsman) Howard Sapers  (www.oci-bec.gc.ca),  writes regular reports of the state of affairs in Canada’s federal prisons and highlights issues for attention for the benefit of all our MP’s, as well as making his reports available on line for the public.

I remember the title of one report quite some years back: “Prisons are not good for your health.” Last week (Oct.  Sept. 30) his lament was mentioned on the CBC news citing the deteriorating health condition of mentally ill prisoners overrepresented in our prisons. Critical concerns have been reported by him many times.  He reports again and again, on the injustice of the overrepresentation of Canada’s First Nations people in our prisons. Later in the week, the news reported a radical cut in “wages” for prisoners, a wage which is on an average, 2 or 4 bucks a day, hardly a living wage for prisoners. They do have financial obligations to purchase their own shampoo, postage and phone calls, and pay for other personal needs. Sapers’ reports contain information about inadequate health services and unhealthy conditions for high-need prisoners in Canada’s prisons. His reports of an increase in self-harm and about the dangerous conditions in which these human beings are forced to live as wards of the state, should shock us. Are we deaf to this issue of the continued injustice to our fellow human beings in prison, or are we convinced that justice is not relevant here?  I wonder if this sort of institutional injustice just gets ignored by our government (they have Howard Sapers’ reports), and that it generally goes in one ear, and out of the other, of the greater public. Who cares? I will hear it said, “They don’t deserve justice, they don’t deserve it, look at what they are in for; and by the way….they are already getting the justice they deserve!”

The Father-Son Fear-Not Covenant - by Caleb Miller

If we are going to speak of 'covenant' in our day and age, we must be certain that it be rightly framed through the lens of covenant between Father and Son. You see, the Father does not have a covenant with you, rather, He has a covenant with His Son.

This covenant between Father and Son is most accurately rendered by the gospel writers in the following statements spoken over the Son by the audible voice of the Father;

- "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased" (spoken before any miracles, ministry, or murder). - "This is my beloved Son, hear Him" (spoken in response to a question of raising multiple tabernacles, or erecting a monument to dual covenants).

The Son is the bearer of the covenant, not you or I, and to create a "new" covenant is to erect a new tabernacle. Jesus was/is the once-and-for-all summation of Israel, and the consummation of all human history in one being. That meaning; everything in the old led forward to Him, everything in His present was all about Him, and everything in the new points backward to Him. If it’s not all Him, it’s not Him at all.