Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Jesus Stands with Humanity. Always. - Kenneth Tanner

Jesus is in humanity’s corner. He is on our side against all dark angelic envy. He stands with us even against humanity’s strange contempt for itself, the odd and en vogue way we run our species down, even our unspoken hatred of ourselves.

Of all the exquisite and deep-down good things in creation, God crowns his creative work with us. Ponder that.

God not only invests humanity with the divine image but *becomes* human, becomes the flesh he handcrafts from clay.

And this should guide us in how we think about what it means to be human.

Two things stand out:

God does not become what is not inherently good and God does not become what God hates. Ponder those until they sink beneath your skin.

The divine solidarity with humanity is radical.

Jesus is not only in the corner of humanity but in every human’s corner *as* a fellow human who also happens to be God.

This God does not stand outside the human experience of suffering or death-bearing but enters our condition, makes our contingency his own.

There is no human with whom Jesus does not stand. Not one person. Not one!

Against every hurled accusation, every derision, and all that mocks our existence: famine, decay, murder disaster, disease, and death, Jesus has our back. Always.

Jesus stands with humanity and with *every* human person.

This makes us different from Jesus because we are not ready to stand with every human person against all comers and some of us have given up on humanity altogether. Some of us have given up on our own humanity.

What makes the solidarity of Christ unique is that our human brother Jesus is also God, the Word who in the beginning worded the cosmos into existence.

So Jesus stands with humanity against all that accuses us and belittles us and seeks to destroy us, and he does this as our human brother and as God.

Do you understand this?

Re-reading Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" (amid church scandals) - Jim Forest

One of the thirty pilgrims described by Chaucer in the prologue to his “Canterbury Tales” is a saintly parson. He serves as a contrast to several more worldly clerics on their way to Canterbury. It's especially poignant reading these remarkable lines in the context of the church scandals of our day...

 

A holy-minded man of good renown

was, and poor, the Parson to a town,

Yet he was rich in holy thought and work.

He also was a learned man, a clerk,

Who truly knew Christ’s gospel and would preach it

Devoutly to parishioners, and teach it.

Benign and wonderfully diligent,

And patient when adversity was sent

(For so he proved in much adversity)

He hated cursing to extort a fee,

Nay rather he preferred beyond a doubt

Giving to poor parishioners round about

Both from church offerings and his property;

He could in little find sufficiency.

Wide was his parish, with houses far asunder,

Yet he neglected not in rain or thunder, I

n sickness or in grief, to pay a call

On the remotest, whether great or small,

Upon his feet, and in his hand a stave.

This noble example to his sheep he gave

That first he wrought, and afterwards he taught;

And it was from the Gospel he had caught

Those words, and he would add this figure too,

That if gold rust, what then will iron do?

For if a priest be foul in whom we trust

No wonder that a common man should rust;

And shame it is to see – let priests take stock –

A shitten shepherd and a snowy flock.

The true example that a priest should give

Is one of cleanness, how the sheep should live.

He did not set his benefice to hire

And leave his sheep encumbered in the mire

Or run to London to earn easy bread

By singing masses for the wealthy dead,

Or find some Brotherhood and get enrolled.

He stayed at home and watched over his fold

So that no wolf should make the sheep miscarry.

He was a shepherd and no mercenary.

Holy and virtuous he was, but then

Never contemptuous of sinful men,

Never disdainful, never too proud or fine,

But was discreet in teaching and benign.

His business was to show a fair behaviour

And draw men thus to Heaven and their Saviour,

Unless indeed a man were obstinate;

And such, whether of high or low estate,

He put to sharp rebuke, to say the least.

I think there never was a better priest.

He sought no pomp or glory in his dealings,

No scrupulosity had spiced his feelings.

Christ and His Twelve Apostles and their lore

He taught, but followed it himself before.

 

-- from “The Canterbury Tales” by Geoffrey Chaucer

translation by Nevill Coghill (Penguin Classics)

 

* * *

 

new book:

At Play in the Lions' Den: a biography and memoir of Daniel Berrigan

www.jimandnancyforest.com/2017/06/daniel-berrigan-bio/

recipient of the International Thomas Merton Society’s “Louie” award:

The Root of War is Fear: Thomas Merton's Advice to Peacemakers  

www.jimandnancyforest.com/2016/06/root-of-war-is-fear/ 

 

books in print: www.jimandnancyforest.com/books/

web site: www.jimandnancyforest.com

photos: www.flickr.com/photos/jimforest/albums/

Amazon author page: www.amazon.com/author/jimforest

Pasternak's Dr Zhivago (pt 1) - Zhivago & Sound of Music: 2 World Views - Ron Dart

Millennial Evangelicals Diverge from their Parents' Beliefs - Wayne Northey

"The separation of families at the border, climate change, and various progressive causes have galvanized young Christians." - Eliza Griswold

WAYNE NORTHEY: I have a white Canadian Evangelical friend who expresses being fed up with white Evangelical-bashing — in particular towards white Evangelicals south of the border^[1]. I argue on the contrary that such bashing should be the Evangelical norm, because over 80% of said Evangelicals voted for Trump in 2016, and continue to this day to be in thrall to Trump. My Bible fairly screams against virtually everything Trump, and therefore against 80% of white American Evangelicals, who long since abandoned most vestiges of Jesus’ teachings on love of neighbour/enemy/the Good Creation, in favour of crass embrace of political power and influence, a perverse civil religion idolatry as old as Billy Graham‘s modelling, who led the post-World War II Evangelical Renaissance; which trajectory fully matured into the Evangelical anti-Christ travesty that is his son (and majority of similar ilk), Franklin Graham.^[2]

Is this too harsh? If you think so, please go back and read Amos in condemnation of the religious charlatans of his day; then really read Jesus (possibly again for the first time?) in his scathing remonstrance against everything Pharisaical — a term arguably interchangeable with (four-fifths of white American) Evangelicals. Evangelical historian/sociologist Doug Frank argues this in his book Less Than Conquerors: The Evangelical Quest for Power in the Early Twentieth Century^[3].

Now if the next generation of Evangelicals en masse became truly pro-life and rejected as well American Empire brutality the world over, something unstoppable — the Gospel as Counter-Narrative to Empire — just might radically redraw the face of white American Evangelicalism. In such a case, Trump would immediately be expelled from the world stage — along with virtually (if not) every federal politician in the United States! The article highlighted below certainly gives hope to that end!

One can always dream of/hope for such mass conversions (with greats like Martin Luther King Jr. and Archbishop Desmond Tutu)… and continue to pray "Thy Kingdom Come"…

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE

"Can These Bones Live?" (Ezek 37:1-3) - Tracy Saletta

Ezekiel 37:1-3 The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

I said, “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

Ezekiel is brought by the Spirit of the Lord to the place that no one wants to enter, the Valley of Dry Bones. None of us wants to see this valley, the Valley of shattered dreams and hopes, the valley of things dead for so long that nothing is left on the bones--no tendons, no flesh, no breath, no life-- nothing but death. The bones are dry, brittle, and scattered into little pieces all across the hot, dry valley. And God asks the most ludicrous question: “Son of man, can these bones live?”

Really God, we might think, is that the question you’re asking me right now? However, Ezekiel, smart prophet that he is, answers, “Only you know, Lord!” But is that what Ezekiel was truly thinking in this moment? Or was he thinking the same thing that anyone would think, staring at a valley filled with long-dead dry bones--and this is especially true when one is staring at the fragments in their very own valley of dry bones--“Are you kidding me? Is this a trick question? Can you not see what I’m seeing? What I’m looking at in this moment makes the answer quite obvious! No, absolutely not, these bones cannot live! Impossible!” Yet, perhaps it is not impossible with God.

 

When we allow God to bring us “by the Spirit” into our own Valley, into the shadow of death, strewn with dry bones, and allow God to remind us of the dry bones of our own lives and expose them to us, the bones we work to cover over or pretend aren’t there, what do we see? What do we hear as we stare at the dry, brittle bones of our shattered hopes, dreams, wishes, and desires? Those jagged, ruined shards lie there crushed into tiny fragments of brokenness and hopelessness, and God has the audacity to first expose them and then challenge us with the frightening question, “Can these bones live?” Everything in us screams, “NO!” as we stare into this abysmal valley.

However, consider Ezekiel. He walks through this death valley, staring at these dry, brittle, hopelessly dead bones, but it is God who has brought him here, so he responds in the only way anyone who has ever encountered God can: “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” Then he listens closely to the whisper and wooing of the Spirit. He is prompted not to look at what is seen, but to seek what God knows can be done with those broken, fragmented bones-- and then, to dare to prophesy!

We too must learn to allow the Spirit of the Lord to take us into our valley of dry bones, to walk among the fragments, to find God’s life-breath where only death can be seen. In our valley of dry bones, God sees something other than what we see: God sees resurrection and promise and Love and hope and newness of life. God sees the Truth in these fragments. God sees where, how, and when these fragments can be brought back together with tendons attached, and flesh and skin restored into new creations, into new lives, into new promises. This new thing will most certainly be something different from what we expected, and in that difference, we will find beauty, because it will be crafted from God’s hand of Love. This new thing will be what the God of the impossible can do when we first allow ourselves to be taken into our valley of dry bones and then allow our breath to be joined with God our parent, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, so that together we will prophesy over the dead places in our valleys, and then watch as God brings our dry bones back to life.

But--and this is the important part-- we must courageously first allow the Spirit of the Lord to take us into this frightening valley, and we must dare to look at our dry bones, and we must wait and listen for the question, “Son and Daughter of mine, can these bones live?”

Can our answer be any different from Ezekiel’s? “O Sovereign Lord, you alone know.” Again, we wait and listen for the Truth… for God’s Truth... and like Ezekiel we join with God’s breath and begin to prophesy: “Dry Bones, hear the Word of the Lord!”

The Crucified Creator - Kenneth Tanner

Athanasius tells us that the crucified savior is the one who creates the cosmos.

He says that the divine and human person who ascends the cross is the Word who in the beginning speaks all things into existence.

Christ is begotten of the Father from eternity and begotten of Mary in time.

Fr. John Behr says there is a logical priority in that but not a temporal one. You cannot ask how long after one begetting the other happens. It does not work that way.

Behr sees no “pre-incarnate Christ” in the fathers, only in modern theology. There is simply the one subject of the Word who simply is the crucified creator from eternity.

So the only creator there is the one who is on the cross and the cross is itself the creative act that founds the cosmos, the axis from which andto which all times find their origin and orientation. Any and all gods that are not this crucified Word who creates the world in love and who loves the world he creates and who becomes the good humanity that he makes, who becomes clay to save us from death, from falling back into non-existence‹are idols made by human minds and hands.

Even the ones that Christians project.

Fr. John Behr's two talks from December on Athanasius are a good place to start:

 

http://youtu.be/QmqWdq-eznY

 

https://youtu.be/iME3zAA6I98

 

The best first book would be The Mystery of Christ. 

Earth Steals - Joni Miller

Earth Steals…It’s a broken system

It looks stable…big trees, tall buildings, FB/Instagram/Twitter, pretty flowers, psycho-driven marketing campaigns, money, power…the list goes on. But it’s all a façade… a paper tiger-a frail substitute for what should have been.

You know…The Garden…Eve/Adam/Perfection

 ...this is where we live…in the substitute world-the one that we weren’t supposed to get.

THIS is what we inherited!

We’re all like kids that got this huge inheritance-a massive estate with rolling green hills, vibrant barns and enormous main house.  It all looks so good from far away.

But up close…it’s a mess…

Broken down fences, dirty, dark, overgrown weeds, falling beams, holes & traps, snakes in the fields, pestilence, floods, fires, abandonment-an empty vast job...work…work…work…more work…

No escape…no release…no way out. all the good has been stolen…Earth steals

But there is this…

One Hope…One Thing…One promise

We also have ANOTHER inheritance. One that doesn’t live within the constraints of this earthly inheritance. One that breathes new air, streams new visions and implants new dreams into the vast emptiness of the “fallen substitute”

Jesus came…for this….
                                   …for us
                                               ...for Love

 He knew we wouldn’t make it in this broken world. He could see that we were all lost without hope and with absolutely no tools to navigate this world we had inherited.

So, at a great cost…the ultimate cost…HE came…implanted Himself into this broken “estate world”-gave himself as the doorway out…to a new world…a new way to live.

We have to walk through this doorway, ”THE DOOR”, to begin to believe in what IS possible.  Otherwise, all we see is the broken-down old estate, the dirty non-working barns the thorny overgrown fields…and it is all...drudgery…

Yes…Earth Steals…but Jesus Gave…

Joni Miller (8/4/18)

______________

Joni Miller lives in West Chester, Pa where she is the Dir. Of Worship & the Arts at Cornerstone Christian Fellowship. She and her husband, Dr. Robert S. Miller (Bob) founded Cornerstone in 1991. In 2015, Bob died after an exhausting battle with prostate cancer. Her writings are actual pages from her journal from 2015 through to the present day as she continues the journey through grief, loss and hope.

Renouncing Worldly Power for Jesus' Path of Humility - Kenneth Tanner

The gospels upend every human notion of power.

The cosmos—superclusters of galaxies, delicate wildflowers in countless meadows, every ocean that teams with life—thrives on one source of energy: a hidden force of charity that does not seek its own, a Person with an unremarkable face who came not to be served by his creation but to serve.

When I talk about this personal force that John calls Love I often describe it as some of the first Christians did. They name his passion for everyone and everything in creation extreme humility.

The biggest challenge presented to humanity by Humility’s gospel is our mistaken bedrock projection that what drives the universe is an unbridled might that rules by fiat.

This is after all the only form of power we humans recognize and so we make our gods in its despotic image: brute force, cunning strategy, ruthless competition, and, above all else, "winning."

It goes against everything that man has ventured and everything that man has built to accept the idea that the authentic power that sustains all movement and all life, that binds all things together—from subatomic particles to intergalactic distances—is measureless self-sacrificial Love.

"If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it."

Jesus is not just talking about your mortal existence but is describing how *everything* works.

The losers in Christ’s scenario do not "win" but instead come to participate forever in the life of him who lays down his life for the life of the world and in so doing—by a great humility—redeems the cosmos and makes all things new.

This trust—that to give your life away is to keep your life—is not going to get you anywhere in the world humanity has made. If you live and act on this trust you will be crucified.

You can serve the crucifying world—this world that Christ loved before it loved him—by embracing his sacred path of humility and by renouncing all other ways and means and kinds of power.

All of them.

Political. Military. Intellectual. Physical. Artistic. Genetic. Technological.

All.

It is telling that almost every news story that compels the urgent attention of Christians these days can only do so because we have denied that we serve a Lord that rules by a mysterious humility that conquers all hearts by self-giving.

We are concerned about losing our “life” in this world. We fear the way of the cross.

Christians do not trust that we will be rescued from the cross but that after enduring it we will be resurrected.

The real power that holds everything in movement and life is an indestructible Love in human flesh that has no beginning and no end precisely because it has been crucified.

And this is how in the face of all our crucifixions he has the authority in the face of death—his enemy and ours—to give us his favorite commandment: do not be afraid.

The Present Church Crisis of Toxic Male Power - Fr. Kenneth Tanner

The present crisis in the church—not just the Roman church but in all the churches—centers in toxic male power.

It would be a mistake to make the crisis about sex (though I am interested in a separate discussion about celibacy).

Sexual abuse is about power, about objectifying, predatory behavior toward women and children. Abusive male power is everywhere under judgment and it’s about time the church caught up.

This crisis is about entitled male leaders who believe their positions grant them the unholy privilege to take whatever they want whenever and wherever they want it. And then to cover for each other or allow other lay leaders to cover for them based on this same unholy privilege.

How far this is from the model of our crucified God, who tells us he is the servant of every human person!

I do think that *part* of the solution is removing the exalted status we afford our pastors by:

— lead and teaching pastors sitting down during the homily/sermon on a regular basis to listen to the laity in our communities share their stories and their experiences and their thoughts about our life in God. Women, the young, persons of color, the elderly, and the marginalized need to be heard for the whole church to heed what the Spirit is saying to the churches.

— insisting that church leaders be available and answerable to the communities they serve, especially when the community gathers, but also throughout the week. We need pastors who stay in worship spaces and greet the people, finding out what’s going on in their lives. We need pastors who dwell in and among their people during the week and bear their burdens with them. Someone told me that the magicians Penn and Teller greet every person who comes to their shows who wants to see them. The church is not a show and pastors are not entertainers—that horrific model of church also needs to end—but this principle of making time for everyone is the same. What pastor is so busy that they cannot reprioritize servant-hearted availability toward all those they serve?

—opposing clericalism in the sacramental churches (where the priest is the center of the community instead of Jesus, where the laity are not activated and helping to speak and lead) and opposing what my friend Rich Villados calls “celebrity pastoral culture” in the free churches (where the lead and teaching pastors are aloof and unavailable, where leaders are treated like rock stars instead of as servants of the servants of God).

—reading and listening to black and female voices writing and speaking on social justice (this need is acute in the American Church in particular). There are unique, pertinent lessons for toxic cultures of male power in these voices that cannot be found elsewhere.

—making sure that pastors have pastors and accountability partners. No servant of the servants of God can lead the church without a willingness to also be led and held accountable.

—empowering lay leadership at every level of the church that partners with heads of communities to share the load of the ministry together in humility.

—psychological and temperamental screenings in tandem with seasoned discerning mentors in the education and formation period for clergy and lay leaders that identifies narcissistic personality disorder and unmasks areas of brokenness and disorder in those preparing to serve the church.

I could go on.

We had a “moment” about some of this after the children were dismissed this morning and for some reason, it was a lot more raw and thus better delivered in that context of worship than the above.

These are the kinds of conversations that need to be happening in all of the churches until we recapture the sense that leading in the church looks like taking a knee and washing feet, not having your feet washed.

Review of David C. Downing's "Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C.S. Lewis" by Ron Dart

Review of David C. Downing, Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C.S. Lewis (InterVarsity Press, Downers Grove Illinois, 2005).

There are a variety of portals into reading and interpreting the life and varied publications of C.S. Lewis. There has been an unfortunate tendency to equate Lewis with variations of evangelical Christianity (such a misread), but Lewis was much more a catholic Anglican. Then, there are those who argue Lewis is more of a rationalist (makes for a good Christian apologist). Or, there is Lewis the romantic or the rationalist-romantic. Is there more to Lewis, though?

There sheer beauty and strength of David C. Downing’s Into the Region of Awe: Mysticism in C.S. Lewis is the way he convincingly highlights how Lewis is much more than a rationalist or romantic or some combination thereof—in short, Lewis is at core and centre a mystic. And, to the pertinent point, who are the writers Lewis was most indebted to? Downing suggests there are three writers that have had a substantive impact on Lewis’s mystical vision: George MacDonald, William R. Inge and of prime importance Evelyn Underhill. Underhill is referenced more than any other writer in Into the Region of Aweas directly and indirectly influencing Lewis’s notion of mysticism. It is also worthy of note to remember Underhill-Lewis corresponded for a few years before Underhill’s death, the correspondence initiated by Underhill as a result of reading Lewis’sOut of the Silent Planet.

 

Into the Region of Awe is divided into ten compact, succinct and insightful chapters: 1) Introduction: The Overlooked Lewis, 2) The Mystique of Mysticism, 3) Mystical Elements in Lewis’ Life, 4) Christian Mysticism as Lewis Knew it, 5) The Mystical Way in the Space Trilogy, 6) Finding Words to Explore the Mind of God, 7) Mystical Elements in the Narnia Chronicles, 8) Lewis’ Critique of Mysticism, 9) Learning from the Mystical Way and 10) A Brief Timeline of Christian Mystics. It is significant that Underhill is on front stage in most of the chapters and referenced many times in the compact missive by Downing. The fact that Downing has focussed, in his read of Lewis and mysticism, on the Space Trilogy and Chronicles of Narnia speaks much about how Lewis did some of his best theology via literature and, more to the point, his mystical writings emerged through the genre of literature (albeit his Space Trilogy and seemingly children’s literature, although the Chronicles can be read at different layers and levels). Needless to say, Underhill had a literary bent also.

Evelyn Underhill, like Inge and MacDonald, were a generation older than Lewis and each of them matured in an age and ethos that tended to be both suspicious and cynical about religion and mysticism. But, it was Underhill and Inge, in their different ways, who challenged the reign of positivist philosophy and a certain notion of science that tended to be reductionistic. Underhill, Inge and MacDonald realized that the mystical way, once banished, left the human soul bereft of deeper sources of meaning and purpose---they were, in many ways, the heralds of the mystical way. Lewis read and inwardly digested their writings and his, wisely articulated by Downing, carries forward the fullness of the mystical way—such is the contribution of Downing to Lewis’s full renaissance notion of the all too human journey.

Ron Dart

           

The Mirror - Hailey Dueck

Here we are again.

Another day, another secret.

I am beginning to doubt myself – what’s my secret? I mean, I must have one, right?
I peer over my shoulder and wonder what nervous secret hides away in her? Hah. What about Him? His must be awfully tucked away.
Her hair covers her face like a blanket for her lies. Trapped. No one can see them but her. Yet she, day in and day out, doesn’t dare to stare them back in the eyes.
And him. Oh, the boy with the crooked smile. He parades thinking his secret is what gives him power. It fuels his fire, feeds his flame. Yet, once again, he wouldn’t dare let anyone take a peek at the private world he created for himself. For the truth is much more terrifying than the blissful lie that he has comfortably made home.

How is it that every time one of these secrets comes out, I feel another knife enter my back? Is it because the truth is painful? Or is it the hiding of the truth that causes such suffering?

I start to wonder if I even want to hear the truth. I mean, living in my quaint little world of unknown lies felt a whole lot safer than stepping foot in the truth. 

Now I have to ask myself, how on earth am I supposed to find God in this?

I mean, I have been taught my whole life that I don’t have to search for Him. After all, why “look” for something that is already there. Apparently, He will “never leave you nor forsake you.”
Even David wrote about how “If we ascend into heaven, He is there;
If we make our beds in hell, behold, He is there.”

How is it that God is somehow in Hell but I’m stuck here searching?
…

I look in the mirror and start to wonder, “Hailey, what are you looking for?”

Looking for another secret? Just another excuse?
Huh, maybe another reason why I think it’s my fault?

Someone as confident as me shouldn’t have to search. I never did. So why now?
It all comes back to the secret. Or maybe it just comes back to the truth.
The brutal, honest, and so very painful truth.

Maybe I’m searching for an answer. I mean, I have so many questions that entangle me. They
trap me. Wrap a rope around me and pull tight. No oxygen. No hope. No life.

The answer would free me, I think. Or would it just make the cuts deeper?
Why wasn’t I enough? What did I do to deserve this? Why didn’t you tell me sooner?
…

The mirror stares back at me. Nothing has changed, yet I’m a whole lot more confused.
Again, I ask what I’m searching for.

I think of the girl. The one who tucks away her secrets. Her secrets aren’t even hers to hide.
She doesn’t want to be hurt again and if she tells the truth she has to relive the nightmare of her pain.

The boy, on the other hand, hides his secrets because he knows they will hurt others. He
forbids his private world from ever seeing the light -- thinking once his secrets are seen, he will be trapped in his darkness.

I can see God in both these scenarios:
He is hurting with the girl. He knows how she was hurt in the past and prays she will stand up for herself and share the truth.
He also hurts for the boy. He is present in the boy’s private world, and hopes he will turn to Him.
He loves them both dearly and cries in their pain. 

I stand, adjust my hair, and stare at the reflection of a torn up, broken-hearted girl.
I start to cry.
I realize I was never looking for Him.
He never left.
I was looking for myself: the funny, loud, confident girl who found joy in life. The girl who loved who she was.
She is still there. She still has a voice. She is just hurting.

I wipe my tears and stare.
I will conquer this. I will come out stronger. I will heal.

For now, I am just a baffled king, composing hallelujah.

 

"Knowing the Word” - John MacMurray

Photo by John MacMurray

The other day I was talking with someone about eternal life. I had been saying that eternal life is the life of the Triune God and that it becomes ours because we know God. In other words, we experience eternal life because we say “yes” to a relationship with them. The Incarnation surely revealed this, yes?

My friend thanked me for my reminder and then politely corrected me explaining, “The relationship means nothing if I don’t have the “right doctrine”, which could only be found in a book—the Bible.”

I thanked him for his thoughts. As I was contemplating what I would say his wife added, “How do we come to know God if it isn’t through studying a book?

Sadly, we were interrupted and I never got to answer. The next day I was still thinking about the conversation and how much I would have enjoyed discussing her question—because it’s a good and legitimate question—especially if you come from the tradition I was raised in.

What follows is not quite an “answer” but more of a starting point to one.

The Bible gives us metaphors, anthropomorphisms, names, and stories and all of it helps us begin to know something about what God is like, which may or may not lead us to know him. Decades of studying and teaching the Bible has helped me tremendously but to equate knowing a text with knowing a person is, well, just a bit foolish, yes? If God is a person (actually three persons) then knowing him requires an encounter with him, not just a book.

The Triune God does not want to be known as the invisible, metaphysical deity we conjure in our minds, who we desperately hope hears our prayers.

John 17:1 "Father, the time has come..." Tracy Saletta

What time? The now time, the present available time. The I AM time. The time that is right now in this second time. The time of fruition of God’s time, of God’s Presence, of God’s Promises, which are all happening now, in this moment that God is… that God is in right now.

Jesus is speaking to the Father that this is the time for the fruition of God’s purpose in Christ, in God’s own self, that is to come to pass. The time to give humankind the ability to return to the roots, to return to the memory, the knowing of humankind’s union with Christ. The time of revealing, of reminding, that the garden was always available for the dance. The dance in the garden of relationship.

Rev. Dr. Tracy Saletta

Relationship. What does that mean? The true relationship, the transparent relationship, the one that entails walking, sharing, listening, enjoying one another’s presence, simply being together in silence breathing in the other’s cadence, movements, steps, or in the rhythm of conversation listening fully to the other’s heart in their words. The relationship of resting in one another, no performance, no work…just the dance.

God still calls out to us for this garden walk of daily, abiding unstrained relationship. Nothing has ever changed except our vision, except our ability to see that God yearns for and is available…waiting for us to see that the garden is here…the garden is now, in this time…right now.

The time has come…now is the time to enter in, now is the time to take a walk, now is the time to rest in, drink in, and see what is there, what is here, right now. What has always been, and what remains even if we don’t.

Child, the time has come…

Why the Vatican Continues to Struggle with Sex Abuse - Wayne Northey

Wayne Northey: Pope Francis by all accounts is faltering on this, rather than robustly pursuing justice in all cases reported worldwide. Is it as straightforward as choosing love over fear? In this case, fear would be of the truth! Perfect love drives out fear (I John 4), we are told.

One can only hope and pray that the Pope will respond wisely, lovingly, and decisively — for all concerned. “God’s preferential option for the poor”, widely affirmed in the Roman Catholic Church, invariably has victims at the forefront.

A superb movie dealing with the sex abuse scandal in Massachusetts is appropriately titled Spotlight.

One of my dear Catholic friends, with a very deep spirituality, in response to all this, expressed to me his sense of deep sadness — and anger. Jesuit writer and editor at large of America magazine, the Rev. James Martin, urges in “The Virtues of Catholic Anger” an appropriate use of anger to bring about change. He cites Jesus as a prime example of this.

Former Catholic Rod Dreher, who left the Catholic Church due to sex abuse scandals, now Orthodox and senior editor of The American Conservative, in “What Must Survive a Corrupt Catholic Church” sums up for all Christians how to respond hopefully to this crisis:

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On Mending the World in Silence - Mercy Aiken

There are too many issues to comment on, too many terrible and wonderful things happening, too many bombs hitting and religious-ethnic sequestering and divisions everywhere and little-known abuses that some government somewhere is doing to some minority group, too many books to read, too many brilliant thoughts that other people have thought and layers of knowledge and understanding that entice me and sometimes freeze me up altogether.

It wears me out. It strips all words from my tongue and I find I have nothing to say, nothing to add to the cacophony, except maybe the precious addition of silence.

I jump into the news-noise for a moment, but only a moment. Then I must send it all away with my own breath, like smoke is blown away before the breath of the Lord and sit in my own quietude (a precious gift) and do old-fashioned, small-world things like run my fingers over the smooth skin of a Madrona tree and observe the squawking gulls and the ships at sea and the feeling of sand between my toes and the burning of the Holy Spirit in my heart.

It is said that the whole world is carried inside the heart of an intercessor/saint/prophet/priest and as they carry it inside them it is mended and healed. In this way, the world is yet held together. There are people right now who are praying for us all – from desert monasteries and other places of worship and sickbeds and living rooms and jail cells and on their knees on ratty old rugs by their bedside -- bathing all of us in Christ, entreating mercy upon the poor and the great alike. Entreating mercy upon the children of this world. Upon the animals, even, and every green thing. Upon the halls of petty power that choke the Spirit. Upon the world’s myriad winding graffiti alleyways where nothing grows except the greenness of children kicking an old ball. (Because it is true that God shares His own work with us, His image-bearers).

And I can’t think of anything more worthwhile for my short life than to close my mouth for a while and open my heart towards whatever He would hold inside of it as He rests within me, the whole world in His hands.

How does this all end? How do we come back together? Wayne Northey

Wayne Northey: In the article highlighted below, we are told — again by this author — that America has a wisdom problem. I have no doubt that he is right.

What must be asserted however much more so is that America has an Evil Empire problem? When an Empire models brutality, greed, fear etc., to the wider world, something that has been inter-generational since its founding, and elects in 2016 one of the most vile and divisive of all previous Presidents, such evil invariably is acted out in its people. (What the author of the highlighted article says of Trump and his stalwart followers, in particular by implication of his fellow white Evangelicals, is right on; and likewise, his long citation of a passage from Ronald Rolheiser’s Sacred Fire, is so important for all of us!)

The woman in the photo above is America to every people worldwide it dominates to extract maximum wealth. Such evil is unsustainable. Such evil is contrary to the “arc of justice” the universe is bent towards — and away from America’s being “the most violent nation on earth” (both quotes from Martin Luther King, Jr.) — and ultimately will experience in Kingdom Come.

Maranatha! Even so come, Lord Jesus!

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"No More of This!" (Why Jesus Armed and Disarmed Peter) - Brian Zahnd

It’s soon after midnight. We’re in an ancient olive grove with a full moon shining through the boughs. Jesus is in anguished prayer. Disciples are nearby…sleeping. We hear angry voices. A mob is approaching bearing torches. Now they’re upon us and the torchlight reveals the mob is bearing something else — weapons. A battle is about to begin. Luke tells us what happens next.

“There came a crowd, and the one called Judas, one of the twelve, was leading them. He drew near to Jesus to kiss him, but Jesus said to him, ‘Judas, are you betraying the Son of Man with a kiss?’ And when those who were around him saw what was coming, they said, ‘Lord, should we fight? We brought the swords!’ Then one of them struck the servant of the high priest, cutting off his right ear. But Jesus said, ‘No more of this!’ Then Jesus touched the man’s ear and healed him.” –Luke 22:47–51

A few weeks ago I spoke at a conference where the presenters explored the beliefs of Jesus. I spoke on what Jesus believed about violence. And what did Jesus believe about violence? Well, it’s reported that Gandhi once said, “Everyone knows that Jesus taught nonviolence…except Christians.”

But that’s not entirely true. For the first three centuries, all Christians knew that Jesus taught nonviolence. Prior to Constantine the Old Testament text most frequently quoted by the Church Fathers was Isaiah 2:4 — a messianic prophecy that says in the age of Messiah swords and spears will be turned into plows and pruning hooks, and that the study of war will be abandoned. The early Christians believed that Isaiah’s prophecy spoke of Jesus, and that with his death, burial, and resurrection the peaceable kingdom Christians are to inhabit had been inaugurated.

The most quoted New Testament text by the Ante-Nicene Fathers was Matthew 5:44 — “Love your enemies.” In that same passage, Jesus says this: “You have heard it said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also.” (Matthew 5:38–39) Thus the earliest Christians believed what Jesus believed about violence — that violence belongs to the old age that is passing away with the arrival of the kingdom of God.

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Paradigm Shift in Christian Theology - Wayne Northey

Wayne Northey: For any who embrace a peace theology, the profound implications of the “What It Means to Say” in the title (A Paradigm Shift in Christian Theology: What It Means to Say “God is Jesus”) are indeed foundation-shaking, or a paradigm shift as the title suggests. But for whom?, we respond.

That “God is Jesus” is commonplace for Christian peace theologians/peacemakers of every era. The “paradigm shift” I suggest is really therefore with two kinds of believers:

• those throughout Church history who have refused to read the New Testament as God’s final or ultimate self-revelation in Jesus may in fact feel confronted to genuinely wrestle with this (though this is nothing new);
• and those unwilling to wrestle to apply the implications of such a patently manifest theology to the realpolitik of whatever era and place may feel challenged to do so. (Okay this too is nothing new!)

In this writer’s view, there is no finer study on this at a profoundly exegetical level than Mennonite New Testament theologian Willard Swartley’s magnum opus:Covenant of Peace: The Missing Peace in New Testament Theology and Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006).

The above said, the reality simply is this: a vast majority of theologians of every stripe for the greater part of two thousand years of Church History have been doing an end-run around the New Testament teaching — with all its implications — that “God is Jesus”. Given the track record, I ask: “Is that likely to change?” My cynical answer is built into the question…

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America Just Won at Math Again! Mahbub Majumdar

Mahbub Majumdar is the national coach for the Bangladesh Mathematical Olympiad and a professor at BRAC University in Bangladesh.

Wayne Northey: I’m not anti-America! I am, though, anti-bullying! 

Click HERE for a highlighted story about the goodness of America. Though the backdrop to it reminds of the currently increasing evil of American Immigration policy.

Below that is a beautiful response to U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ use of a passage in Romans 13 to justify current American Immigration policy.

 

Shifting our View of Hell for Renewal and Evangelism (3/3) - Rev. Sophia A. Foutres

Rev Sophia A Foutres

No Greater Love

     Rohr explained what I experienced through this journey, “The people who know God well—the mystics, the hermits, those who risk everything to find God—always meet a lover, not a dictator. God is never found to be an abusive father or a tyrannical mother, but always a lover who is more than we dared hope for…God is a lover who receives and forgives everything.” ^[1]I searched for answers regarding hell, ones that I had hoped were different than my fleeting relationship with traditional evangelical views and found God woven throughout history as one who is through and through a loving community of love. A God who continuously invites humanity to join and when we do not, provides the fire to necessary to remind of us that we belong to a family and are pure gold in God’s eyes.  McVey explained it well, “To properly understand God’s nature, it is important to realize that he doesn’t wait for us to make a move to resolve our problem of sin. As Pure Love, he acts independently of what we do or don’t do. When humanity wasn’t seeking him, he came looking for us! (Romans 3:11).”^[2]Although the details and technicalities of our final destiny are still largely a mystery to me, I feel I have discovered more of who I believe God to be on earth and in heaven—a fierce lover not willing that any of God’s own children should be left out of the family.  In Adam, we were lost for awhile, but in Christ we now have a way to belong together forever, and for this I am truly thankful and humbled.

But what about Now?

     If all will one day be saved through Jesus, why bother with evangelism or even calling oneself a Christian? Although I believe Jesus is savior of all, I believe on earth we have to help others come into a place of surrender to make Jesus Lord of their lives as well. I believe that as Christians we are called to bring heaven to earth and if we can bring what will be our eternal fate of restoration to those suffering on earth, why would we hesitate a moment more?  My prayer is that the future of the church would be motivated by love for the family to be reconnected. How much more if we invite people back to the family table with love and invitation, instead of fear and judgement will they come running and eager to spread this love?   As a beloved of God, I want to train others up to be ready to proclaim the love and invitation of God who accepts us as we are, a mess and then pours over us with fire to purify us and oil to heal us!