Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Christ and Nothing - David Bentley Hart

David B. Hart is an Eastern Orthodox theologian. The original version of this article was delivered as a lecture at a conference on the Ten Commandments held at St. Olaf’s College in Northfield, Minnesota, June 2003, under the joint sponsorship of the Center for Catholic and Evangelical Theology and the Society for Ecumenical Anglican Doctrine. 

Click here to download Synopsis of the Article

Click here to download an audio file of Hart's lecture, 'Christ or Nothing'

As modern men and women ” to the degree that we are modern ” we believe in nothing. This is not to say, I hasten to add, that we do not believe in anything; I mean, rather, that we hold an unshakable, if often unconscious, faith in the nothing, or in nothingness as such. It is this in which we place our trust, upon which we venture our souls, and onto which we project the values by which we measure the meaningfulness of our lives. Or, to phrase the matter more simply and starkly, our religion is one of very comfortable nihilism.

This may seem a somewhat apocalyptic note to sound, at least without any warning or emollient prelude, but I believe I am saying nothing not almost tediously obvious. We live in an age whose chief moral value has been determined, by overwhelming consensus, to be the absolute liberty of personal volition, the power of each of us to choose what he or she believes, wants, needs, or must possess; our culturally most persuasive models of human freedom are unambiguously voluntarist and, in a rather debased and degraded way, Promethean; the will, we believe, is sovereign because unpremised, free because spontaneous, and this is the highest good. And a society that believes this must, at least implicitly, embrace and subtly advocate a very particular moral metaphysics: the unreality of any “value” higher than choice, or of any transcendent Good ordering desire towards a higher end. Desire is free to propose, seize, accept or reject, want or not want ” but not to obey. Society must thus be secured against the intrusions of the Good, or of God, so that its citizens may determine their own lives by the choices they make from a universe of morally indifferent but variably desirable ends, unencumbered by any prior grammar of obligation or value (in America, we call this the “wall of separation”). Hence the liberties that permit one to purchase lavender bed clothes, to gaze fervently at pornography, to become a Unitarian, to market popular celebrations of brutal violence, or to destroy one’s unborn child are all equally intrinsically “good” because all are expressions of an inalienable freedom of choice. But, of course, if the will determines itself only in and through such choices, free from any prevenient natural order, then it too is in itself nothing. And so, at the end of modernity, each of us who is true to the times stands facing not God, or the gods, or the Good beyond beings, but an abyss, over which presides the empty, inviolable authority of the individual will, whose impulses and decisions are their own moral index.

CLICK HERE to read the rest of the article at FIRST THINGS

Each Step By Bloody, Halting Step - Boyd Barrett

New poetry from www.boydbarrett.com

Each step by bloody, halting step

Each step by bloody, halting step

we marched behind a sound

which first did barely reach our ears

yet louder whispers through the years

made firm our trodden ground

Each step by bloody, halting step

 

Each step by bloody, halting step

we strode the path of Cain

where at the entrance to the east

we heard the raging of the beast

its victim's mortal pain

Each step by bloody, halting step

 

Each step by bloody, halting step

ascended we the tower

on stairs first built to look ahead

and see the one whose path we tread

to share his fearsome power

Each step by bloody, halting step

 

Each step by bloody, halting step

a people we became

both settled in and set apart

secured with law but not with heart

to make our special name

Each step by bloody, halting step

 

Each step by bloody, halting step

we drew the battle line

and those who said they never heard

the one who called us by his word

we slew and left behind

Each step by bloody, halting step

 

Each step by bloody, halting step

our prophets pulled away

and pointed back at roads unturned

lamenting every bridge we burned

that brought us to this day

Each step by bloody, halting step

 

Each step by bloody, halting step

we hurried on, unfazed

as sounds of battle now decreased

reflecting an uneasy peace

the kind where doubts are raised

Each step by bloody, halting step

 

Each step by bloody, halting step

the battle plan now blurred

we sang of who was in the lead

imagining a mighty steed

rear'd at its rider's word

Each step by bloody, halting step

 

Each step by bloody, halting step

we finally turned around

and saw the troops down on their knees

before a lamb slain in the trees

and recognized the sound

And ceased our bloody, halting steps

The Angel’s Song is not merely a Seasonal Favourite - Henry Smidstra

St. Luke’s Gospel account begins and ends in the temple, a creative, stylistic, arrangement of the Gospel. At the outset, a thin religion of externals is silenced and a whole new era is announced by heavenly voices in the in the open grazing region far distant from downtown Jerusalem and the temple. Sketched out in Luke’s Gospel account is  a picture of a transformed, enlarged place of Grace, inclusive enough to contain all people young and old, shepherds and common folk, male and female, citizen and refugee, defiled and undefiled, rich or poor. It is a picture of jubilee-society in process in which ultimately there is no prejudice, no poor, no war, peace and God’s glory fills the earth. It is a totally new dimension of temple; interestingly at the end of Acts, Paul is under house-arrest preaching the Gospel indicating the complexity of the new pluralistic social-political situation in Christ.

The enlarged ethos, lived out by Jesus in the activities of daily life in gracious, dramatic, Word-act is narrated by Luke. Speaking and acting in the tradition of the Old Testament Prophets, Jesus is stretching the scope of what was considered proper religious activity to dimensions unimaginable before, causing considerable reaction and discontent amongst those who had much at stake in the maintenance of the status quo. Implicating issues of social status and political power, Jesus was “hitting” too close to home for some. Some, entrenched in economic interests and social benefits, enjoying privileged status, considered themselves righteous, deserving of their wealth and prestige, so unlike the despised, undeserving unrighteous of low estate….like shepherds, Galileans, sick, or poor. Luke is writing a “right strawey” Gospel to well-off folks acculturated and conditioned by Hellenistic culture, enjoying the international benefits of Roman Pax.

 Luke’s narrative begins with silence in the Temple in Jerusalem; Zechariah can’t speak for nine months. But on the margins of society, to those of low estate there is privileged communication; to the lowly shepherds, the hills resound with the glorious message and the song of angels of the birth of the one who is breaking in with the new international order of grace and wellbeing: Glory to God in the Highest, and peace and goodwill, among all people (Lk. 2:14). The lyrics of the song of the angels of course have many variations in translation, perhaps revealing discomfort with inclusive, cosmic dimensions of Glory in Heaven and grace and peace on earth. The Song of the angels transcends any notions of the rule of Pax for prosperity that Theophilus and his friends may have experienced or dreamed of; and of any visions of righteousness that the shakers and movers of Jerusalem and Juda might have had. Angelic Singing of international honours to someone other and greater that Caesar, declaring a peace attributed to something other than Pax Romana, would be considered subversive, astounding! Not only was it being politically incorrect, it was insensitive, not doing justice to reigning, “proper” social values.

Download the whole Angelsong article

 

Where is God when Innocent Children Die? Massacre of the Innocents - Martin Little

 

¹³ When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

¹⁴ So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, ¹⁵ where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.”^[c]

¹⁶ When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi. ¹⁷ Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

¹⁸ “A voice is heard in Ramah,
    weeping and great mourning,
Rachel weeping for her children
    and refusing to be comforted,
    because they are no more.”

Our Bible passage today tells us the next part of the Christmas story, and it’s about as far removed from our normal, cosy view of Christmas as it’s possible to get. 

“At least six soldiers entered”

“There was chaos everywhere”

“I tried to hide, and I called for my mother”

“We saw children falling down, crying and screaming”.  

Words of terror, confusion, shock, grief.  We can readily imagine these being spoken by those who witnessed the terrible killing of the children by Herod’s soldiers.  But these words were actually spoken in 2014 by those who witnessed the killing of 133 children and 9 staff at a school in Peshawar in Pakistan.  These children were murdered - not by a distant king in ancient times, but by the Taliban just 12 days ago.

The Song of Zechariah in Luke 1, says of Jesus:

“In the tender compassion of our God

the dawn from on high shall break upon us

To shine on those who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death

And to guide our feet into the way of peace.”

If ever we found the way of peace, we have lost it again.  And we may well ask ourselves: where was the ‘tender compassion of our God’ when those school children were killed?  And indeed, where was it when the Jewish babies were slaughtered by Herod all those years ago?

This is an almost impossibly tough question, but it is one that our passage today forces us to ask:  Where is God when innocent children die?

Download the full text of Massacre of the Innocents - Martin Little

Angelic Protest and Christmas Hope - Jarrod McKenna

Truly He taught us to love one another;

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains shall He break for the slave is our brother;

And in His name all oppression shall cease.

Sweet hymns of joy in grateful chorus raise we,

Let all within us praise His holy name.

Chrysostom and Gregory of Nyssa on the Beatitudes: A Hermeneutical Comparison - Alison Whittall

Typically, the view of Alexandrian and Antiochian hermeneutics has been one of dichotomy: Alexandrians were allegorical, and Antiochians were literal-historical. However, Patristic scholars have been arguing for at least sixty years that this is far too simplistic and that, whilst there were some differences, the two schools had much in common, if indeed two schools existed at all.[1]

This essay focuses on Gregory of Nyssa (ca 335-384), associated with the Alexandrian school, and John Chrysostom (350-407), associated with Antioch, and considers how their Homilies on the Beatitudes might reflect the two schools. There is more to contemplate than just how literal or allegorical they were; as Florivsky encourages, we will try to enter into their mindset (phronema) and experience of faith (vioma) because I agree with Jasper that ‘the way in which we read and interpret is dependent on how we see the world and our place in it’ as individuals and not because we are members of a ‘school’.[2]

We will look at the following: the basis of their hermeneutic, the purpose of it, their method, their theology and their style.[3] I will argue that whilst there are some differences in hermeneutical approach, it is actually the style of their homilies which differentiates them most strongly, and that these fathers have more in common than not.

The Basis of Hermeneutics

- Apostolic Tradition and the Rule of Faith

Firstly, let us look at the basis for patristic hermeneutics. Irenaeus (ca135-200) established that it should be based on apostolic tradition and the rule of faith, and Chrysostom and Gregory would both agree on this.[1] Chrysostom was concerned ‘to hear apostolic voices’[2] and refers to Paul and Timothy.[3] Gregory also often cites Paul and refers to him as ‘the sublime thinker’.[4] Both were staunch supporters of the Nicene faith.[5]

- The Unity of Scripture

Irenaeus also established that the Jewish scriptures, and the stories of Christ and the Church, are ‘a single narrative with an over-arching plot’.[6] Again, both fathers would agree on this and that the ‘mystery of the saviour’ was in the Old Testament, although Alexandrians were perhaps prone to see Christ on every page of the Old Testament, whereas the Antiochians would be more cautious, and be concerned with tracing the prophecies of Christ.[7] In these homilies, both Chrysostom and Gregory frequently link their points to scriptures from both testaments.

Click here to download a pdf of the full essay

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[1] Frances Young, “The 'Mind' of Scripture: Theological Readings of the Bible in the Fathers,” IJST 17 (2005): 126 - 140, p. 129.

[2] Anthony C. Thistleton, Hermemeutics: An Introduction (Grand Rapids, MI: William B Eerdmans, 2009), 112.

[3] John Chrysostom, "Homily 15 on Matthew ." Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, First Series. Vol. 10. Translated by George Prevost. Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1888. Accessed through http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/200115.htm (accessed 16/10/14).

[4] Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nyssa, Homilies on the Beatitudes. An English Version with Commentary and Supporting Studies. Proceedings of the Eighth International Colloquium on Gregory of Nyssa, Paderborn, 14 - 18 September 1998. (ed. Hubertus R. Drobner; Boston: Brill, 2000), 66.

[5] Stylianopoulos, “Comments on Chrysostom,” GOTR, 80.

[6] Young, “The 'Mind' of Scripture,” IJST , 129.

[7] Hieromonk Patapios, “The Alexandrian and the Antiochene Methods of Exegesis: Towards a reconsideration,” GOTR 44 (1999): 187 - 191, pp.187 - 8 and Guillet quoted in Fairburn, “Patristic Exegesis,” WTJ, 8.

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[1] Donald Fairburn, “Patristic Exegesis and Theology: the cart and the horse,” WTJ 69 (2007), 8.

[2] David Jasper, A Short Introduction to Hermeneutics (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004), 39.

[3] Gerorges Florivsky quoted in Theodore Stylianopoulos, “Comments on Chrysostom, Patrisitc Interpretation and Contemporary Biblical Scholarship,” GOTR 54 (2009): 189-204, p. 192.

Bishop John Colenso (1814-1883): South African Prophet & N.T. Wright - by Ron Dart

Two hundred years have passed in 2014 since John Colenso was born. Colenso dared in the 19^th century (when few did) to ponder the troubling and difficult passages in the Old Testament in which violence seems to be ordained by a just and loving God. Colenso pondered such notions of sovereignty, election, conquest and the implications of obedience when the content of such Divine commands was about invading, colonizing and wiping out (genocide) another people. Colenso did many a lecture on Joshua and the Pentateuch in which he explored and examined such troubling passages and texts.     

John Colenso became the first bishop of Natal in 1853 at the age of almost 40,  and his heart became one with the Zulu nation. The fine film, Zulu Dawn (1979), featured John Colenso as the probing Freddie Jones who simply would not accept the notion of apartheid and many other injustices that were occurring in South Africa. Needless to say, Colenso’s questioning of the many violent texts in the Hebrew canon did not make him popular amongst the 19^th century Biblicists. In fact, many were those who insisted Colenso was a heretic who should be deposed as  Bishop of Natal---many others held Colenso high in terms of how prophetic theology should be done. The Zulu nation hailed him as one of their own. There are those who have rightly suggested that Colenso is a forerunner of liberation theology, and there can be no doubt his life and writings had an impact on Nelson Mandela and Bishop Desmond Tutu.  

Every human tragedy ... Abp. Lazar Puhalo

Every human tragedy is a tragedy of all humanity. All mankind shares a common human nature. The fact that we do not often recognise ourselves in people of other tribes, nations and cultures is among the greatest of our human tragedies. How is it that we so seldom understand from the heart that all humans feel pain, hopelessness, despair, love, joy, hope and aspirations in the same way? Is it not because we also act with fear, malice, hatred and prejudice in the same manner?

Every nation, every tribe, every race and every era produces great humanitarians and savage tyrants, and every form of character in between. The constant struggle of mankind is to become fully human, to recover the image and likeness of God in ourselves, in which likeness we are all created, and to learn to see that image in every other human being. We can validate our own humanity in no other way than by fully acknowledging from the heart the equal humanity of those whom we consider to be enemies. This can hardly be accomplished until we, altogether, liberate ourselves from the tyranny of the past.

(Vladika Lazar)

Luke 1:39-56 - The Magnificat: Song for the Poor by Nicole Giesbrecht

December 14, 2014

Luke 1:39-56 – The Magnificat. [Read the passage]

I have three questions for us today. The first is: what does this tell us about Mary? In my protestant church upbringing, there was great backlash against venerating Mary and the usual emphasis was that she was just an ordinary person, no different than us, to the point that we almost thought less of her. But I think that in picking her, God was saying that there was something special about her and that makes her worthy of our honour. And without praying to her or elevating her to godlike status, we can honour her for who she truly was and what God saw in her.

In this passage, we have Mary’s reaction to being given possibly the greatest honour in the history of the world. Really. In sitting with this passage, here is what I see.

Mary goes quickly to visit Elizabeth. At this point, Mary probably did not feel pregnant but Elizabeth was the sign the angel gave her. She goes immediately to check, which I think is a sign of faith. And God honours that in giving Elizabeth a word of confirmation the instant Mary walks through the door. Then Mary’s joy overflows because it really is true and Elizabeth is the safest possible person to share it with. 

In picturing Mary, I imagine a young woman with dark hair and bright eyes. She is courageous, yet innocent and slightly shy. She is overwhelmed by the honour of God picking her. She can’t see any reason why he would but she is so glad that he did. I’m struck by her humility and settled contentedness in who she was and whose she was because she receives this honour without any grasping or groveling about not being worthy. She is simply awed that from now on all generations will call her blessed! You can hear her pure joy as she talks about how good God is. That is a woman worthy of praise.

My second question is what does this tell us about God? Try this on for size: Jesus is the only person in the history of the world who got to pick his parents, and he picked a peasant girl and her tradesman fiancé. And then look at what Mary says again. (Read vs 51-53) Do you see the emphasis on God lifting up the poor? This is more than just charity, this is God honouring the poor.

Review of Najla Said's 'Looking for Palestine' - by Ron Dart

Najla Said, Looking for Palestine: Growing Up Confused in an Arab-American Family (Riverhead Books, New York: 2013). Hardcover: ISBN: 978-1-59448-708-8: 258 pages

I tried to wrap my teenage head around the existence of such a place (Gaza) in the world, where people are trapped like caged animals in the filthiest zoo on earth, while I somehow got to prance around in suede shoes and $150 skirts and then get on a plane and go home. - Najla Said Looking for Palestine, p. 173.         

It is virtually impossible for those interested in the Middle East, Israel-Palestine and Imperial-Colonial literature not to know and have read the voluminous and controversial writings of Edward Said (1936-2003).                 

I have often wondered what it might be like to have grown up in the household and cultural ethos of the Said family------passion and intelligence, seeker of justice and literary mandarin, educator and activists at the highest and most demanding cultural and political levels---such was the core of Edward Said’s life and writings. 

How Far Would God Go? - Greg Albrecht

Therefore if you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any common sharing in the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.

Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross!—Philippians 2:1-8 

This passage has been one of my favorites for well over 40 years. What a beautiful and profound expression of God’s love! There seem to be many layers and many degrees of God’s grace expressed here. For that reason, I keep coming back to this second chapter of Philippians and studying it again and again—it continually yields fresh and deeper appreciation of the nature of God.

This article poses the question, How Far Will God Go? Boundaries are one of the defining characteristics of what it means to be human. As children, we probe and push until we can discover just how far our parents will go before they lower the boom on us. When we marry, we normally do a similar thing with the person we have promised to love and protect and cherish.

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Calvary: Crucifixion as Torture, Cross as Hope - Brad Jersak

Trite or true, we're each and all on a journey, not quite sure whether any given year, week or moment is really ascent or descent -- the calm before a storm or the dark before dawn.

I see this tension in the biblical story of Calvary, at once a crucifixion and a Cross, the intersection of goodness and affliction, of torture and hope. At Calvary, we see the violence of religious fanaticism married to national security ... and we see the humility, forgiveness and self-giving love of God.

I hear this tension in Augustine, who is quoted in the movie, Calvary, as saying, "Do not despair; one of the thieves was saved. Do not presume; one of the thieves was damned." Calvary the movie is a profound and powerful tale of an Irish priest (played by Brendan Gleeson) who receives a death threat during confession and is warned to get his house in order over the course of a week. During that week, we see two themes intensify towards the climax.



First, we see how Gleeson represents goodness and sincerity. Even his would-be killer, the victim of long-term childhood sexual abuse by a priest, says, "There's no point in killing a bad priest ... but killing a good one. That'd be a shock." In that sense, Gleeson's character (Father James) serves as a Christ figure--and each character in the drama defines his or her own spiritual condition by their response to him. The truth of their lives become transparent through their attitudes and actions towards the priest.

The Most Dangerous People In The World - Kevin Miller

We’re often led to believe that the most dangerous people on the planet are those with the least to lose, the gun-toting, suicide-bombing militants who will stop at nothing to burn down the world. I’ve think we’ve got it wrong. The most dangerous people in the world aren’t those with the least to lose, it’s those with the most to lose, the flag-waving, Bible-believing patriots who will stop at nothing to preserve the status quo. Yes, Bible-believing. Why these people? Because they have fused the preservation of their faith with the preservation of the state. Therefore, they view the fight against terror as a holy war. The same goes for secularism or any other force that threatens Christianity’s privileged place in society. They abide by the dictum, “Without God, all things are permissible.” Little do they realize that exactly the opposite is true. As philosopher Slavoj Zizek says,

it is for those who refer to “god” in a brutally direct way, perceiving themselves as instruments of his will, that everything is permitted. These are, of course, the so-called fundamentalists who practice a perverted version of what Kierkegaard called the religious suspension of the ethical.

I can think of no better example of a religious suspension of the ethical than the use of torture and death against our enemies.

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You Cannot Be Christian and Support Torture - Brian Zahnd

You cannot be Christian and support torture. I want to be utterly explicit on this point. There is no possibility of compromise. The support of torture is off the table for a Christian. I suppose you can be some version of a “patriot” and support the use of torture, but you cannot be any version of Christian and support torture. So choose one: A torture-endorsing patriot or a Jesus-following Christian. But don’t lie to yourself that you can be both. You cannot.

(Clearly you do not have to be a Christian to reject the barbarism of torture, you simply need to be a humane person. But to be a Christian absolutely requires you to reject the use of torture.)

I remember when Pew Research released their findings in 2009 revealing that six out of ten white evangelicals supported the use of torture on suspected terrorists. (Patton Dodd talks about that here.) The survey stunned me. I spoke about it from the pulpit in 2009 and have continued to do so. I said it then and I’m saying it again today: You cannot support the use of torture and claim to be a follower of Jesus.

Any thoughtful person, no matter their religion or non-religion, knows that you cannot support torturing people and still claim to be a follower of the one who commanded his disciples to love their enemies. The only way around this is to invent a false Jesus who supports the use of torture. (The Biblical term for this invented false Jesus is “antichrist.”)

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Fountain of Immortality - Meditation on the Orthodox Divine Liturgy

Towards a synthesis of East and West: Human nature, sin and salvation in Augustine and Gregory of Nyssa - Manfred Hedley

     For all its diversity and divisions, the Christian faith still holds forth a common agreed narrative: it is the problem of sin met with God's promise of salvation. However, disagreement begins with the effort to quantify these two essentials. Those of us in the Western church may be acutely aware of how these are disputed between the Catholic and Protestant traditions,¹ even within them,² but less conscious of a wider divergence from the Eastern church.

     This divergence, although partially the result of unfolding history - the Latin West and Greek East, each developing its own distinctions according to the pressures it faced³ - has given rise to notably different presentations of the human condition, rooted in the writings of the patristic theologians celebrated in each stream to this day. J. Patout Burns identifies two figures in particular as exemplifying these two traditions: Gregory of Nyssa for the East, Augustine for the West.⁴ Both wrote extensively on the impact of sin and assurance of salvation, yet each interpreted these very differently, such that Eastern and Western theology can seem incompatible in these matters.

     How, then, did Gregory and Augustine, and with them East and West, arrive at such a disparity? Such a question brings with it a daunting prospect, given the vast scope of the topic and the prolific work of each writer. Therefore, in this paper, we will narrow our assessment to how each understood the fall of humanity, and God's response to it. In doing so we may find that, far from being incompatible, the Eastern and Western traditions may combine to offer a richer perspective on God's redemptive work in His image.

Click here to download the rest of "Towards a synthesis of East and West"

Footnotes

1. Consider, for example, the tenets of sola scriptura or sola fide.
2. Within Protestantism, consider the significance of baptism (E.g. Sheila D. Klopfer, “From Personal Salvation To Personal Baptism: The Shaping Influence Of Evangelical Theology On Baptism,” Baptist History and Heritage 45 (2010): 65-79, pp.65-77); within Catholicism, consider the changing face of purgatory (E.g. John E. Thiel, “Time, Judgement and Competitive Spirituality: A Reading of the Development of the Doctrine of Purgatory,” Theological Studies 69 (2008): 741-85, pp.741-42, or Robert L. Kinast, “The Pope, Purgatory and Process Theology,” Encounter 73 (2013), pp.39-46).
3. Andrew Louth, Introducing Eastern Orthodox Theology (London: SPCK, 2013), xiii-xx.
4. J. Patout Burns, “The Economy of Salvation: Two Patristic Traditions,” Theological Studies 37 (1976): 598-619, p. 599.

Thomas Merton: Hedgehog and Fox - Ron Dart

 Thomas Merton: Hedgehog and Fox

The fox knows many things, but the hedgehog knows one big thing.

- Archilochus

Already there are some who unabashedly compare Merton to the Fathers of the Church. In fact, this is not far-fetched. It is simply an expression of the significance of what this compulsive writer from silence had to say, and a statement of his promise for the future.

- Victor Kramer, Thomas Merton: Monk and Artist p. 193                           

I. Introduction

The publication in 1953 of Isaiah Berlin’s classic missive, The Hedgehog and the Fox: An Essay on Tolstoy’s View of History, opened up fine pathways regarding the tensions that exist between those who think broadly and those who think deeply. The fox, of course, embodies those who think in a wide ranging manner---the hedgehog burrows deeply into a narrow channel. Tolstoy, Berlin suggested, lived the tension of the fox and the hedgehog---so did Thomas Merton. Merton thought, read and wrote widely----his sheer breadth links him to the best of the Christian Humanist Tradition. Merton also, more than most, played a significant role in reviving and renewing the contemplative way of knowing and being----he was very much the contemplative hedgehog in doing so.  I think the perennial significance of Merton is the way that he, like Tolstoy, was both fox and hedgehog—this short essay will explore this reality and why Merton still matters.

His Kingdom is Peace: What About the Temple Cleansing? Caleb Miller

I am often questioned about my stance on peace, as though it is some radical new thought that we should aim for peace in every circumstance. The questions usually come in the form of a barrage, and the barrage heads in one of two directions. The first is the inevitable "what if your wife or children were being raped" atrocity of a question. Why is this where our minds go for rhetorical questions? Straight to rape? It can't just be that one of my kids is being bullied by an adult? I think this says a little bit about our state of mind. 

The answer to this and all questions like it is - I intervene. Killing the assailant is not the first thing on my mind, but saving the victim is. I can use all sorts of means to make the situation move in a more favorable light without ending the life of someone who is obviously in serious pain. (we don't hurt one another unless we are hurting-and we all are). We have created a false dichotomy in saying that every situation is a “kill or be killed” situation. I choose to not judge the life of someone who has had darkness nearly overtake them as less valuable than my own. I also do not judge others who don't take that stance. Everyone has to do what their convictions lead them to, and my convictions and my theology have led me to non violent response because I believe it is how Jesus told us to live. 

The other question that comes to the floor is regarding the temple cleansing incident. We all know the story - Jesus gets pissed about something, makes a whip, and goes to town cleansing the temple like a wild man. Makes for a great story, and I can just imagine Jesus running around screaming and cracking his whip. Jesus wasn't a weakling, he was just nonviolent. 

The Sign and Raising Signs of Christ’s Kingdom - Henry Smidstra

A large, ominous, mysterious, billboard along Highway #1 approaching Vancouver from the East boldly proclaims: “Every unjust sentence bullies the victim.”  One wonders what they, whoever “they” are, consider a just sentence, one that bullies back the one committing the harm?  One also wonders on what evidence or grounds they base their theory of justice. The sentiment Implied is that sentences currently given are a pain to the victims; sentences are not severe or painful enough for the offenders. Assumed also is that just sentences can simply be measured in a quantitative sense to reflect in the application of “justice” the same amount of pain (or more)  delivered, as suffered by the victim. Perhaps they desire “throwing the book” at the wrongdoer, meaning sentencing the maximum amount of time sanctioned by the criminal code without any reductions by the Judge. Will the supporters of this legal opinion posted at the Highway, perhaps be satisfied with the recent sentencing of Justin Bourque to seventy-five years for the murders of three policemen and of wounding two others in Moncton in June 2014? Justin was sentenced last Oct 27 (2014) to five concurrent life sentences; he will be prison without eligibility of parole for seventy five years! This sentencing was the harshest sentence given since the abolition of the death penalty in Canada in1975. Is this the kind of justice desired by those behind the opinion written on the sign?

The timing of Justin’s sentencing however, a week after the violence and highly publicized murders of unarmed soldiers in Ottawa and St.-Jean-sur-Richelieu last October (2014), also leads one to wonder at the intent of the public message sent. The tragic events at Ottawa’s National War Memorial and in Quebec are disturbing, and we are all led to expressions of outrage and lament. Raw lament, grief, and confusion, must not, however, be exploited for political ends. These senseless murders of soldiers defy simple quick simply legal answers; so do the murders and violence that Justin Bourque committed. It could be said that, freed by new legislation allowing this kind of concurrent sentence, the judge not only threw the allowable book at Justin, he reflected the nature of the crime: an approximation of life for a life. Even the 18^th century Utilitarian crafters of deterrence theory actually considered life sentences even more severe and evil that the death penalty.

Christians and the Middle East Conflict - Two Reviews by Ron Dart

Challenging Christian Zionism: Conferences and Book Reviews

Donald Wagner & Walter T. Davis (Editors), Zionism and the Quest for Justice in the Holy Land (Wipf and Stock Publishers: Eugene, 2014).

Paul S. Rowe, John H.A. Dyck, Jens Zimmerman (Editors), Christians and the Middle East Conflict (Routledge: London, 2014).

The Canadian Friends of Sabeel (CFOS) and University of the Fraser Valley (UFV) co-sponsered a mini-conference October 24-25 called “Challenging Christian Zionism: Canadian Roots and Responses”. The October 24^th event was a packed evening with about 250 in attendance at University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, British Columbia. The follow up event on October 25^th was held at St. Mary’s Anglican parish in Vancouver and about 80 attended the event. Gary Burge from Wheaton College was a key note speaker at both events and he lectured on “Israel/Palestine: Theological Questions”--I lectured on “Canadian Christian Zionism: A Tangled Tale”. The Canadian tradition of Christian Zionism has a complex history and it is often ignored in the larger discussions about Christian Zionism. The fact the ruling Conservative Party in Canada is the most pro-Israeli in Canadian history does mean the roots of such a foreign policy do need to be probed and examined. The “Challenging Christian Zionism” mini-conference was also the formal book launch for my book, Canadian Christian Zionism: A Tangled Tale (2014) and the recently released book, edited by Donald Wagner and Walter T. Davis, Zionism and the Quest for Justice in the Holy Land (2014).

Zionism and the Quest for Justice in the Holy Land is a timely and much needed addition to the growing literature on the way the ideology of Zionism (Jewish and Christian) leads to injustice in the Holy Land. Each of the chapters in this informative book, unpack and unravel the historic, religious and political reasons for the obvious and not to be ignored injustices in the Holy Land. The titles of the nine chapters speak for themselves: 1) Political Zionism from Herzl (1890s) to Ben Gurion (1960s), 2) From 1967 to the Present---The Triumph of Revisionist Zionism, 3) Rising to the Challenge: A Jewish Theology of Liberation, 4) Eastern Orthodox Perspectives and Christian Zionism: Voices from the Ancient Church, from Modern America, and from the Middle East Today, 5) The Vatican, Zionism and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, 6) The Mainline Protestant Churches and the Holy Land, 7) Evangelicals and Christian Zionism, 8) Zionism: A Different Memory and 9) A Concluding Theological Postscript. The Kairos Palestine: A Word of Faith, Hope and Love document hovers over this comprehensive, ecumenical and ably written interfaith book. Appendix Two, rightly so, raises the needful challenge to the church: “After Zionism: Claiming the Heart of the Church” is a must read and finale to a theme that must be faced and thought through wisely and well.