Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Silence, please - Brian Zahnd

Ours is an angry and vociferous age. We’re constantly subjected to the noise of charged political rhetoric — the wearying din of the culture wars. Too often Sunday morning can be little more than a religious echo of this same noise. But shouldn’t Sunday be a Christian Sabbath, a time to quiet our souls and receive the gift of silence? What if, instead of being another contributor to this clatter, our churches became a shelter from the storm offering respite to shell-shocked souls?

Silence belongs to an earlier age. Ours is an age of noise. With our technological progress has come the din of modernity. With the advent of digital social media has come the white noise of everyone “expressing themselves.” Silence is now a precious commodity, a scarce resource hard to come by. Sure, we can pray anywhere, anytime, but to pray well, to pray in a way that restores the soul, we need to find some quiet places. This is what we find appealing in the holy hush of the cathedral, the sacred stillness of the monastery, the reverent quiet of the woods.

When birdsong and gentle footfall replace the shrill rancor of 24-7 news and the inane blare from five-hundred channels, the soul has a chance to heal. Without some intentional silence the weary soul is a prisoner being slowly worked to death in a merciless gulag of endless noise. The always-posted sign at the entrance of the tourist-attracting cathedrals is perhaps a desperate plea from the soul of modern man — Silence Please.

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Invitation to Sons of the Holy Cross - Ron Dart

As some of you might know, we are launching in mid-February a contemplative Order (drawing from the ancient wells of the time tried Anglican Tradition). I have sent, by attachment, a brief summary of the raison d’etre of the Order—if interested in discussing this further, let’s do a coffee. The Order is being birthed from a variety of parishes on the west coast, but it will be a North American Order—already more than 1000 women in the Daughters of the Holy Cross in North America—always a delight to be a midwife for a delivery.  If interested, contact me.

Amor Vincit Omnia

RSD

[email protected]

CLICK HERE to see details

 

Review of Crisp & Sanders (eds), "Locating Atonement" & Ben Myers' Patristic Model by Chuck McKnight

There’s been a lot of recent discussion on the nature of Jesus’ atonement. All Christians universally affirm that Jesus’ death on the cross saved us from sin. But we debate exactly how his death brought about that salvation.

Western Christianity has long been dominated by penal views of the atonement, namely Calvin’s theory of penal substitutionary atonement. According to this view, God’s holiness demands that sin be punished; Christ bore that punishment in our place; God’s wrath was thus satisfied; and we can thus receive forgiveness. But this view is starting to lose its dominance. For reasons that I won’t get into now, I count myself among those who believe that it offers a distorted picture of God and that it undermines the nature of forgiveness.

Other views—such as recapitulation, ransom, Christus victor, moral influence, mimetic theory, and many others—are becoming more prominent. And so the debate rages. Those with opposing views lock themselves into their respective camps, and little progress is made.

But this book is not like the many others, seeking to push certain views in opposition to the rest. Locating Atonement: Explorations in Constructive Dogmatics (which is based on the proceedings of the 2015 Los Angeles Theology Conference) mostly avoids the debate of one theory vs. another. Instead, it asks how the doctrine of atonement relates to other key theological concepts. So the atonement is discussed in relation to doctrines like trinity, creation, and ascension.

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Benjamin Myers: Patristic Atonement Models--Solution and Surplus

"The richness of the early Christian [atonement] model lies not only in its coherence and clarity, but also in its refreshing breadth of vision, its sober assessment of the human plight, as well as its youthful optimism about human nature, its devotion to the death of Christ as well as its celebration of the resurrection, its attitude of humble gratitude as well as an audacity and freedom of spirit that come from believing that not only one is saved but also loved, not only debt-free but rich beyond imagining." - Ben Myers

In this lecture (available HERE), originally given at the Los Angeles Theology Conference (Jan 2015), Ben Myers lays out the Patristic atonement model or mechanism found across the early Fathers, including especially Irenaeus, Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, Gregory of Nazianzus, John Chrysostom and Cyril of Alexandria.

For those with an interest in atonement theology (how the Incarnation and Cross of Christ saves, from what it saves and who it saves), Myers' account is clear and faithful to the Fathers and the Orthodox tradition that has stewarded it. He also presents a clarifying critique of Gustaf Aulen's account in Christus Victor and he warns of (and demonstrates) the problems of anachronistic readings of the juridical theories of Anselm or Calvin into the Patristics. 

According to Myers, the atonement solution centers around the dissolution of death by an incorruptible divine nature and the atonement surplus is the implanting of the divine life of the Son as a new principle within human nature, thus gifting it with incorruptibility and participation (by grace) in the divine nature. Quoting Myers:

God's real intention wasn't just to free human nature from death, but also to elevate us to a new status. If Christ had only freed us from death, we would still remain corruptible by nature ... the Son of God goes a step further. He not only removes us from the clutches of death, but also allows our nature to participate in his own incorruptible life. He interweaves his life with ours, Athanasius says. This is the flip side of the 'communication of attributes.'

Through the union of natures, the divine nature shares in the human experience of death, without ceasing to be impassible and divine. And conversely--the properties are going both directions--dying human nature is suffused with divine life, without ceasing to be human.

Lucy Peppiatt - Women and Worship at Corinth

What did Paul mean in 1 Corinthians 11-14? Has this problematic text been misread? Should women wear head coverings? In her book 'Women and Worship at Corinth' (Cascade, 2015) Lucy Peppiatt offers a critical examination that warrants attention.

Lucy is the Principal of Westminster Theological Centre - WTC. She has BA degrees in both English and Theology. She completed her MA in Systematic Theology at King's College London, and her PhD through the University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand. Lucy's research interests are Christ and the Spirit, Charismatic theology, discipleship, and 1 Corinthians. She and her husband, Nick Crawley, lead Crossnet Anglican Church in Bristol. They have four sons.

Find her books here: wipfandstock.com/author/view/detail/id/12762/

Follow her here:
wtctheology.org.uk
twitter.com/lucepeppiatt

On the Grill: Inquisition of the Sincere - Brad Jersak

On the Grill: An Inquisition of the Sincere

 

Questions. Interviews, investigations, inquisitions. Grilling.

 

I’ve been on the grill a fair bit over the decades. Questions, so many questions. And I love questions. There is no greater favor you can do a vocational teacher than ask him or her a question.

 

These include the happy experiences of Q & A sessions where I really knew my material. Others were designed to be positive, yet felt stressful because the stakes involved were high: job interviews, candidacy committees or the closing viva (oral exams) for my post-graduate degree. Some interviews were promotional, whether on TV, radio or umpteen podcasts—but I still really had to be on my toes. I also underwent a few ambushes involving accusations that left a bitter taste.  Similarly, I’ve faced adversarial investigations where the interrogators were openly hostile—along with the growing pains of moving from defensiveness to detachment and what the Greeks called apatheia (freedom in Christ from being emotionally ‘hooked’).

 

But the most delightful, profound but highest stakes inquisitions I face come from earnest children with heartfelt queries of faith. The full transcript of one such conversation with a young teen is recounted in A More Christlike God (p. 15-18).

 

This week, I was served up two rounds of grilling by a very bright, utterly sincere nine-year-old. The parents are used to his never-ending barrage and are fully competent spiritual teachers. But over the last weeks, they’ve been deferring his questions for our inevitable meeting. “You’ll be seeing Brad soon. You can ask him.”

 

Round 1

 

Just as Mal (we’ll call him) kindly assured me he did not want to “disturb” me, so I insisted that his questions were most welcome. However, I added the caveat, “You are free to ask whatever you like, but I will also feel free to say, I don’t know.

Also, I will only respond with my ideas, not with answers.”

 

In round one, the questions he’d been waiting to ask gushed out:

• Why did all the firstborn of Egypt have to die? Was Pharaoh’s son wicked because he loved his dad? Is that why God killed him? Or who did kill him?

• Did King Saul ever murder anyone? What about the Amalakites? How many Amalakites did he kill? Were they all wicked? Were some of them good?

• How many people died in the flood? Why did God destroy them? Was it because He gave them enough time but they still didn’t listen?

• Why did Jesus say, “It would have been better for Judas if he had never been born”? If he felt bad about killing Jesus—like he couldn’t even stand it anymore—could Jesus still forgive him?

• When Jesus went down into Hades, what happened? What did Jesus do there? Who did he save?

I marveled at the combination of his insight and empathy, his ability to retain and process difficult texts and that his parents (who were present) gave me such freedom to say what I really think. The hardest part was distilling complex answers into words and ideas and stories appropriate (but also true) to his comprehension level (clearly higher than mine, if we’re including emotional intelligence).

Brothels, Banks and Barns - Caleb Miller

Brothels

In many an old West town, there sat one house of ill repute, one place where the menfolk could go to satisfy those insatiable urges we men just cannot seem to get under control. The brothel. The chicken shack. The whore house. And though that language may seem harsh, it is exactly what we have turned the church into through our programs (you know, singles “ministry” and the like) but even more so, through our theology.

A brothel is a place where—when the price is right—love is feigned for a time, but run out of currency and the love expires. Much like Las Vegas, you’re only as valuable as the wad in  your wallet. In the same respect, we have done a great disservice to the one we call “Father” by assuming His default stance towards us is one of “wait and see”. Put in the right currency (be it the “sinner’s prayer” or some other contrived, coerced prayer of “faith”), and He will feign love. Withhold the mandatory payment however, and His love will cease, awaiting your removal or His own. In this motif, God is nothing more than the “pimp of heaven” doling out “love” to the highest bidder, the one who will show the greatest commitment, or give the greatest gift. 

Where have we gone from the words of Jesus; “the Father judges no one” and “for God so loved the world”? Where did we step off the journey of faith and build a township out of a rest stop called contrition and repentance? Maybe it is in the word repentance itself? What began as metanoia—a change of the mind—became repentance through the Latin word paenitere or penance. Somewhere along the way, a word defined as to change your mind became admit that you are evil and in need of a savior thereby imposing upon God the attributes of a madame vis-á-vis “pay me or get out (of my presence and my heaven)”. A township has been built…no, an empire has been erected…around confession of guilt, confession of sin and repentance. And this thing called “church” has been the sole beneficiary of the will of the masses while the masses will their will for more masses. Or to put it more simply, “church” as we’ve seen it done only exists so that it can exist a little longer.

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Review of Lazar Puhalo's 'Gehenna: The Nature of Hell, According to the Orthodox Christian Church' - by Brad Jersak

Review of Lazar Puhalo’s Gehenna: The Nature of Hell, According to the Orthodox Christian Church (Dewdney: Synaxis Press, 2012), 204 pages. Available HERE.

Eschatological judgment and reward has been back on the table for theological discussion in a renewed way over the past decade. Increasingly, those who had not carefully investigated the Orthodox tradition (ancient and recent) are looking for solid resources that include the primary writings. Archbishop (ret.) Lazar Puhalo has done us the service of providing such a resource in his book, Gehenna: The Nature of Hell, According to the Orthodox Christian Church.

After a prologue citing St Anthony the Great on the unchanging goodness of God, Archbishop Lazar Puhalo launches Gehenna with a clear purpose statement:

The intent of this volume is to examine the actual Orthodox doctrine about the nature of hell, and touch upon the nature of the heavenly kingdom which is spoken of as the reward of the faithful. The intention is to free Orthodox people from those ideas of hell which make God himself immoral, which attribute to Him the serious sins of savage cruelty, vengeance and malice. The responsibility for our tragedy and the recompense for our free choice to follow Christ, ignore or renounce Him, lies with us, not with God (p 3).

In chapter 1, “Intent: Roots of the Problem,” Vladika Lazar initially problematizes the doctrine of hell, identifying the roots of the difficulty in confusion regarding the biblical texts, literalism around metaphorical imagery, imported errors (from Western theology to Zoroastrianism) and especially from the idolatry of folk religion.

Biblically, he unpacks the issues involved in the conflation of hades with gehenna (hell) and paradise with heaven. Further, he hints at the common misidentification of heaven and hell as two places or destinations. Rather, according to the Orthodox tradition, God Himself is the holy fire of divine love—light and warmth to those who love Him, pain and destruction to those who oppose Him—yet, one and the same fire (6-7).

Click to download Full Review of Lazar Puhalo’s Gehenna

Satan's Foundational Lie: "... As God 'knowing' good and evil" - Richard Murray

Here is the fundamental Satanic lie all men have subconsciously internalized--that God is BOTH good AND evil, BOTH love AND wrath, BOTH light AND dark, BOTH healer AND afflicter.

"And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: for God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be AS, AS, AS God, knowing good AND, AND, AND evil." Genesis 3:4-5 (emphasis added).

Or, put another way, Satan's core lie here was about God's nature -- that God experientially knew good AND evil, that God in fact authored good AND evil, that God ultimately WAS good and evil. So, the "knowledge of good and evil" is really the knowledge OF God AS the source of BOTH good AND evil.

And here is the poison. Once WE partake of THAT core lie--that God is internally dualistic, radically bipolar, ferociously fickle, violently volatile, and horribly inconsistent--then WE likewise become those things. The history of man has proved that proposition to be true. In short, we follow our image of God. Our destiny is determined by our view of God. If we believe God is BOTH good and evil, BOTH loving and wrathful, THEN so too will we be.

A. W. Tozer rightly believed that we tend "by a secret law of the soul" to gravitate toward and grow to resemble our mental image of God. Thus, Tozer was convinced that what comes to your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you. High thoughts of God bring us into pure worship and a sanctified walk, while low thoughts of God defile our hearts and corrupt our walk.

The bottom line is that you become what you believe about God. Simply put, Satan's foundational lie to us all is is that God is "not" ONLY good, ONLY light, and ONLY love. He is ALSO evil, ALSO dark and ALSO wrath. And since Satan is the ACTUAL source of all the evil and dark dynamics mentioned above, then what Satan is really doing is inserting himself into our image of God. He is illegitimately joining himself to God's hip within our own understanding. And this is exactly what happened to the Old Testament saints. They had an undifferentiated view of God which caused them to wrongly attribute the destructive works of Satan to God. They erroneously believed Satan was God's "angry voice," His "left hand of wrath" in other words.

Leaving Grape Soda Christianity - Excerpt from Brian Zahnd's 'Water to Wine'

Brian Zahnd, Water to Wine (2016) 

http://www.amazon.com/Water-Wine-Some-My-Story/dp/0692569189 

I once heard an Italian winemaker say that to produce good wine the grapes must struggle, they must suffer.

The taste of good wine is the taste of struggle and suffering mellowed into beauty. There’s a deep truth there that applies to far more than winemaking—it also applies to the formation of the soul. All the great biographies of the Bible involve suffering. The great souls grown in the Lord’s vineyard all know what it is to suffer.

American Christianity, on the other hand, is conditioned to avoid suffering at all cost. But what a cost it is! Grape juice Christianity is what is produced by the purveyors of the motivational-seminar, you-can-have-it-all, success-in-life, pop-psychology Christianity. It’s a children’s drink. It comes with a straw and is served in a little cardboard box.

I don’t want to drink that anymore.

I don’t want to serve that anymore.

I want the vintage wine.

The kind of faith marked by mystery, grace, and authenticity. The kind of Christianity that has the capacity to endlessly fascinate is not produced apart from struggle and suffering. It’s the pain of struggle and suffering that confers character and complexity to our faith.

After the first twenty-two days of 2004 I knew I had to move beyond a watered-down, grape-juice faith—the popular schlock I had begun to refer to in the pulpit as “cotton candy Christianity.” By August of that pivotal year I had told my church I was packing my bags from the Charismatic Movement and moving on.

The congregation applauded. Except neither they nor I really knew what would come next. The problem was I was embarrassingly ignorant of “the good stuff.” I had been reading the early Church Fathers, philosophy, and classic literature. Saint Augustine, Søren Kierkegaard, and Fyodor Dostoevsky were all a significant help, but I needed something that spoke more directly to the time in which I was living. I needed a deep well dug in my own time and place. What did Jesus say about seeking and finding? My seeking heart was about to be rewarded.

George Grant and Robert Crouse: Prophetic Tories - Ron Dart

Robert D. Crouse represents that paradigm of those catholic of scholars, whose investigations of the Christian tradition have consistently shown courageous sensitivity to its complex origins and trajectories from late antiquity to our present.        

- Robert Dodaro (OCA) Instituto Patristico Augustinanum Divine Creation in Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Thought: Essays Presented to the Rev’d Dr. Robert Crouse (2007)                

George Grant has been called Canada’s greatest political philosopher. To this day, his work continues to stimulate, challenge, and inspire Canadians to think more deeply about matters of social justice and individual responsibility.

- Athens and Jerusalem: George Grant’s Theology, Philosophy, and Politics (2006)                                   

I. Introduction                              

There can be little doubt that George Grant (1918-1988) and Robert Crouse (1930-2011), for different reasons, were two of the most significant Canadian Anglican intellectuals of the latter half of 20^th and first decade of the 21^st century. Grant was a public intellectual in a way Crouse never was, but Crouse had a depth to him (in his many probes into the Patristic-Medieval ethos) that Grant did not. Grant challenged the ideological nature of liberal modernity at a philosophical and political level in a way Crouse never did, but Crouse, in a detailed and meticulous manner, articulated and enucleated the complex nature of the Patristic-Medieval vision in a way Grant did not. Both men were deeply concerned about the passing away of a more classical vision of the soul, church and society and both attempted to retrieve the discarded image. Crouse was much more of an Anglican churchman than Grant, but Grant engaged the larger public square in a way Crouse never did.

I have been fortunate, over the last few decades, to do in depth work on George Grant and I have many a letter from Sheila Grant (George’s wife) on life at Dalhousie-King’s (where George began and ended his academic life). I also have many a letter from Robert Crouse, many a fond memory of visits with Robert (some fine photos also) when in Nova Scotia or when Robert visited the West Coast (Robert bunked in at our home). My interest, therefore, in the Anglican life and writings of George Grant and Robert Crouse is both of some academic interest but also of a personal nature. Hopefully, this essay will embody and reflect both these approaches.      

Review of Baldwin & Bily's 'Soul of the Wilderness' - by Ron Dart

John Baldwin and Linda Bily, Soul of Wilderness: Mountain Journeys in Western BC and Alaska (Harbour Publishing, 2015).

There has been an unfortunate yet understandable tendency within Canadian mountaineering literature and photography to frontstage the Rockies and subordinate BC Coastal Mountains to secondary status. There has also been the tendency to valourize rock jocks, first ascents (on ever more difficult and trying routes and pitches) and minimize a more artistic and contemplative yet equally competent approach to mountaineering. The sheer breakthrough beauty of Soul of Wilderness is that “mountain journeys in western BC and Alaska” are front staged and the “soul of the wilderness” rather than a simple literal approach to the mountains is the core of this burnished gold book—truly artists, mountaineers, contemplatives and photographers wed and knitted together in this A++ keeper of a mountaineering classic.

This wordsmith of a text and exquisite photographs evoke and draw the curious and keen reader into both the form and soul of the mountains. John and Linda should be heartily congratulated for a pure diamond of a book that, simply put, has no competitors and would be hard to surpass—it is truly the west coast mountaineering book of 2015 to purchase, read and inwardly and meditatively digest. The expansive photographs, for the most part, cover treks on glaciers, high alpine traverses and fine sloping snowfields. There are a few photographs that span the mountain seasons, but most of the visual delights in Soul of Wilderness have been on ski trips in western BC and Alaska.

There are 10 chapters in this must buy book: 1) Footsteps in the Wilderness, 2) Wilderness at our Doorstep, 3) Where the Ridges Run Wild, 4) Whales and Icefields, 5) Gentle Wilderness, 6) Ski Wild, 7) Thirty Years on Ice, 8) Both Sides of the Stikine, 9) Touch the Wild and 10) Soul of Wilderness. There is often a graphic and, at times, subtle transition from urban to rural to wilderness to a wildness ethos---John and Linda have tracked the trail well and made it abundantly clear why wilderness and wildness are essential for a sane and centred soul—the soul of the wilderness is, in essence, oxygen for the human soul—without such oxygen, our souls shrink, wither and, eventually, die.

The BC mountaineering community has a rich line and lineage. Dick Culbert took mountaineering to new levels in his creative years. John Clarke told yet a fuller tale and story. John Baldwin and Linda Bily very much stand on the solid and innovative shoulders of Dick Culbert and John Clarke and Soul of Wilderness: Mountain Journeys in Western BC and Alaska amply illustrate why this is the indisputable case.

Ron Dart                     

Love is the Glue - Lazar Puhalo

Love is the glue that holds the universe together. This is reflected in our hymnology, "Christ the word, the wisdom and the power of God that creates and sustains all things." We can assimilate such a concept as the basis of our spiritual life, and rise above the fundamentalist and literalist understanding of Scripture. The alternative is to engage in monumental flights of the most irrational fantasy in vain attempts to reconcile the concepts of God revealed in Christ Jesus with a literalist understanding that God Himself actually commanded the ancient Hebrews to commit the most unspeakable acts of war crimes and crimes against humanity ever recorded in history. In our own eon, those same acts would have landed their perpetrators, not in the Hague, but in Nuremburg. Yet those same literalists will ascert that God is loving, caring for mankind, just and willing to sacrifice His own son for love of mankind. And they do this in the vain hope that more civilised generations will accept their senseless attempts to justify those monstrous actions. Nor can they explain why the miracles of modern medicine that heal and save the lives of millions of people outstrip the notion of the few, if any at all, actual healings take place through their ministrations. Perhaps this is why medicine in a very modern sense, was a ministry of the Orthodox Church from the time of Apostle Paul until the fall of the Byzantine Empire, why in the Orthodox world, medicine was hospital based, the unmercinary physicians are among the most venerated of saints, and the foundations of Arab medcine were laid in Jundeshapur by Nestorian Christians exiled from the Byzantine Empire. The perverse notion of linking the concept of justice to "punishment," rather than its original concept of putting in balance and setting matters aright, is inexcusable. God is love, and therefore the balance and adhesive of the universe is love. There is no other meaning to life than to love and be loved, and the highest manifestation of that is co-suffering love, the cosudffering love of God with humanity in Christ Jesus. But at every level, sincere love, unselfish love, is the essence of all meaning to life.

Regret: The Silent Killer - Brad Jersak

Various diseases have been labeled “the silent killer.” For example, “hypertension” is called the silent killer because it increases the risk of heart disease and strokes, two of the top causes of death in America. Other emotional and spiritual diseases could compete for that title: fear, shame, resentment and bitterness would be high on the list. But the silent epidemic we’ll examine now is regret. 

It’s not that regret goes unnoticed. Oodles of motivational posters decrying regret litter the Internet. I say “litter” because they largely represent a worldly wisdom that exhorts us to move beyond regret, but only leave us feeling worse—regretting our regrets. Sampling this pseudo-sage advice, obvious patterns emerge.

Three Anti-Regret Slogans

1) Thou shalt never regret. Henry Thoreau wrote, “Never look back unless you are planning to go that way.” Or “Make it a rule of life never to regret and never to look back. Regret is an appalling waste of energy; you can’t build on it; it’s only good for wallowing in” (Katherine Manfield). 

2) Thou shalt (not) regret what you didn’t do more than what you did do. “The mistakes I’ve made are dead to me. But I can’t take back the things I never did” (Jonathan Foer). “Our biggest regrets are not for the things we have done but for the things we haven’t done” (Chad Murray).

3) Thou shalt (not) regret not being yourself. “One of the greatest regrets in life is being what others would want you to be, rather than being yourself” (Shannon Alder). “One of my main regrets in life is giving considerable thought to inconsiderate people” (Jarod Kintz). 

What are we hearing? You should not have regrets. Or, you’ll regret regretting, so let us “inspire” your willpower: just stop regretting! Why? Because regret is for losers. Those who have “arrived” boast, “I regret nothing!” They forget that Nazi war criminal, Adolf Eichmann, first coined the phrase. Here’s the double bind! If you have regrets, you’re lame; if you don’t, you’re a sociopath! 

Shaming Regret?

All of this amounts to shaming us for the torment of regret, attempting to punish the disease out of its victims. As if regret were a bad choice. As if my regrets were completely in my hands. What if we made mistakes in all sincerity? Should we now feel ashamed for feeling the grief over the consequences? What if our dreams were stolen by others? Should we feel nothing for our losses?

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On the Kingdom of God and Atonement - Lucy Peppiatt

Lucy Peppiatt Crawley We all have a story about what the cross means for us personally and that’s a good thing. It will be our story. It will be how we know and came to know God. But it will only be one little part of a big picture of everything that God has achieved through the death and resurrection of Christ. So when we tell our story, we need to remember that there are always other aspects of the story that we might want to include. We should ask ourselves the following questions. Does our story include something of the coming of God’s kingdom and the part that we might have to play in that? Does our story have a role for the Spirit? Does our story include the possibility that the atonement has a cosmic affect and can therefore potentially effect every single aspect of human life from the most basic of material needs to the deepest of spiritual and emotional needs? Does our story of atonement include the history of Israel and the covenant? Does it include not just my reconciliation with God but my reconciliation with others and the possibility that there can be a reconciliation of enemies, even at national levels? When Paul writes about the power of the cross in Ephesians 2, he doesn’t apply the story just to individuals, but he is driven by the fact that this cross of Jesus has brought two ethnic races together; two races that thought they should never come together, let alone eat together and worship together. It is the cross that has destroyed the barrier of hostility that had kept them apart. Yes, the atonement story is about ‘me’ knowing forgiveness, and it always starts there, but it is also something so much bigger than that too. Paul is convinced that two peoples who are at war with each other and cannot mix, can be brought together. Imagine the cross of Christ that brings together members of ISIS and Christians. Imagine the reality that one day they may worship together. That is the vision that Paul has. That is the significance of the cross. It unites those of different race, religion, gender…..that’s what the atonement has done for us. Think of the gender wars that go on. Think of the pain that men cause women and women cause men. The cross changes all of that. It applies to slave and free – it brings together the powerful and the powerless on an equal footing. In Christ we are only and finally brothers and sisters. It is hugely radical. Let’s not get distracted by arguing over which story is best, and whether my story is more faithful than yours, and just remember to tell a bigger and better story.

Nicolas Henin, held captive by Isis for 10 months says how they can be defeated

Review of Ashley John Moyse’s ‘Reading Karl Barth, Interrupting Moral Technique, Transforming Biomedical Ethics’ - by Ron Dart

Ashley John Moyse, Reading Karl Barth, Interrupting Moral Technique, Transforming Biomedical Ethics 

There are those who labour long and hard in the world of Barthian scholarship (disputing and debating how Barth is to be read and interpreted) but never, in any substantive way, apply his exegesis and theology to practical and applied ethics (much less biomedical ethics).

There are others who, consistently informed by a secular approach to ethics, separate ethics from theology and, for the most part, substantive philosophy. This means, therefore, ethics lacks a deeper and more solid grounding. The strength and brilliance of Reading Karl Barth is the intricate and meticulous way that Ashley Moyse has integrated (in a way few do or can) an approach to Barth that interrogates and interrupts a questionable way of doing biomedical ethics (which tends to be more fixated on technique and skill manipulation). Needless to say, as the title of the books suggests, the task of Moyse is to transform biomedical ethics by taking the dialogue to a deeper and more demanding theological place—Barth is, for Moyse, the guide to such a destination.

How Should We Think About the Bible as History? Fr. Stephen Freeman

Editor's Note: The following article was originally posted at Ancient Faith Radio but many interested viewers were not able to access there. We've reposted here for their benefit. The article also includes many helpful clarifying comments. We have posted some from Fr. Stephen that expand on the article. 

A recent conversation on the blog seemed worth a full article. The question centered around the problem of the historical character of the Biblical record. I’ll let the question speak for itself:

I have a question to ask about the historicity of the New Testament, one that’s been gnawing at me for quite some time. Paul was wiling to interpret Scripture allegorically, as his treatment of Galatians makes clear. How, then, do we treat 1 Corinthians 10:1-11? As far as I can see, Paul considers the events of the Exodus as literal history, especially in verse 11: “Now these things [the events of the Exodus] happened to them as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come” (NASV). Isn’t Paul implying there was a literal Israel, who literally left Egypt through a parted sea? And what if there was no Exodus, as some scholars maintain? Or even a period of bondage in Egypt? How would this affect the Christian faith?

Marked by Mercy in 2016 - Brian Zahnd

I’m praying that in 2016 the church would be marked by mercy — that we would walk the world as the pardon of God.

I wrote these words yesterday following our Wednesday Noon Prayer and Communion service in the Upper Room. As we were praying about the witness of the church in America in the coming year, our prayers took on the theme of mercy.

We are living in a moment marked by mean-spiritedness. Much of this meanness is directed toward immigrants and refugees, Muslims and foreigners. And, of course, various political factions aim their ire at one another. As we move through the presidential campaigns of 2016, I sadly anticipate the mean-spirited rhetoric to grow worse.

My prayer is that in 2016 the church would be something other. That instead of conforming to the spirit of the age, the church would model mercy as a Christlike act of nonconformity. Or to say it another way, I’m praying that the church would conform to the mercy of Christ and not to the current zeitgeist of mean-spiritedness. I’m praying that we would walk the world as the pardon of God — a phrase borrowed from G.K. Chesterton’s description of Saint Francis of Assisi.

Speaking of Francis… I’m aware that Pope Francis has launched an “Extraordinary Jubilee Year of Mercy” in the Roman Catholic Church. When we were praying at Word of Life for the new year to be marked by mercy, we weren’t thinking about the Pope’s decree; but I would like to think we are all being led by the same spirit. Perhaps the Holy Spirit really is saying something to the church about modeling mercy in 2016.

While we were praying I felt drawn to the words of James. As the first bishop of Jerusalem, James (the brother of Jesus) was the first pastor of the first church. That seems significant. At the end of the third chapter of his epistle, James exhorts the church with words like these…

If you are wise and understand God’s ways, prove it in the meekness of wisdom.

If you harbor bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it.

Do not be false to the truth.

Jealousy and selfishness are not from above, but are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic.

The wisdom from above is pure, peaceable, gentle, and full of mercy.

A harvest of justice is sown in peace by the those who make peace.

And in the second chapter of his epistle, the wise bishop famously says…

Mercy triumphs over judgment.

Maybe that could be our mantra in 2016 — “Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

So in 2016 I’m praying the church will be more marked by mercy and less characterized by judgment.

I’m praying that we will walk the world as the pardon of God, instead of acting like the wagging finger of God.

I’m praying that when mean-spiritedness and scapegoating reach a fever pitch later this year (as it will), that the church will be a haven of mercy and a sanctuary of peace.

Most of all I am praying that I would live as an answer to my own prayer.

Perhaps you will pray this too.

Peace.

BZ

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Beyond the Undifferentiated God - Richard Murray

A cautionary limitation of the OT is that it sometimes presents a distorted image of God. This distortion was formed by people who labored under "developmental limitations" (in a spiritual sense, remember Paul likens OT saints to schoolchildren in Galatians).

OT saints wrongly conjoined God and Satan together at the hip. Under their hyper-sovereign view of things, they saw Satan as God's angry voice, God's minister of wrath, God's "left hand" in other words. The resultant image leaves us with a frequently un-Christ-like, Janus-faced, and bipolar image of God.

But, Jesus came to reveal that Satan is NOT the left hand of God. Jesus may be seated at the right hand of the Heavenly Father, but Satan is not seated at His left hand. Jesus is BOTH hands of God. In Him dwells the fullness of the Godhead bodily. If you see Him, you have truly seen the fullness of the Father's boundless goodwill toward us.

Yet, many claim to this day that Satan IS the left hand of God, doing only what God expressly commands him to do. Many Calvinists believe this (that Satan is on God's leash). Ancient and modern Judaism believes this. Islam believes this. In fact, even the Old Testament saints believe this.

But, thankfully, Jesus doesn't believe it. He came to reveal that Old Testament thinking was misguided on this point. Jesus came to correct Old Testament thinking about the relationship between God and Satan.