When We Welcome the Child – Kenneth Tanner
Among earth’s biological species humans are the least instinctually equipped to survive. It takes much more than a decade to give a child a fighting chance.
The nascent humans and human children of our species are the most vulnerable on our planet without the constant unconditional care and regard of parents, communities, and nations. And God chose to become a nascent human! Ponder that.
Yet in a desire for power we “weaponized” these little humans, to win seats, control outcomes, and force what can only be acquired by the heart and welcomed freely: the immeasurable, timeless gift of the child.
The majority of these little ones are future women and the children of the marginalized: persons of color and the poor, who in their poverty and ethnicity bless societies with the very presence of God.
In the parade of memes and sound bites on all sides it’s the child that’s missing and the child that’s exploited for our narcissistic cultural conflicts, as are the children at our southern border, bloodied in the war-torn apartment complexes of Europe and the Middle East, hungry to learn in America’s inner-city schools, the neglected and hopeless of our fentanyl wastelands.
Yes, women are exploited and abused and left to fend for themselves, bearing the greatest burden of human existence without complaint and with grace, and their bodies are sacred, owing of a far deeper reverence than either American extreme seems capable of imagining.
But it’s not just the bodies of women that are at stake; it’s also the bodies of the smallest of our species, the faces of the poorest, which as our wisdom teaches are one body with us, and with us comprising one human body in Jesus Christ.
Reverencing the bodies of humans—women and children—means treasuring them in our laws and in our hearts by advocating for their priority and providing for their natural flourishing.
One cannot enforce this vision of “all for one and one for all” interdependence. It’s costly and depends on the “let it be to me” of every human.
Yet what a gift awaits! When we welcome the refugee child, the abused child, the unwanted child, the unexpected child, and women, we welcome God.
Erasmus then and now — by Ron Dart
The name of Erasmus will never perish. John Colet Erasmus has published volumes more full of wisdom than any which Europe has seen for ages. Thomas More What would the Christian Church be like today if the guidance and wisdom of Erasmus in the early 16th...
Review of William Nicholls, ‘Christian Antisemitism’ and Don Lewis, ‘The Origins of Christian Zionism’ — by Ron Dart
The Christian Tradition is a child of the much older Jewish Tradition, and as a youthful Christianity challenged and broke from its parent heritage, varied reactions and responses have been the order of the centuries. Many have been the books written on the Christian relationship to Judaism, but two tomes have emerged in the last twenty years that embody and reflect opposite views of the Christian attitude towards Judaism.
Simone Weil on Oil, War and National Security
Simone Weil, speaking prophetically in the late 30's / early 40's What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war; petrol is much more likely than wheat to be a...
Déjà vu: Alexandria and Antioch
This past week the Lower Mainland in British Columbia has been abuzz with a visit by N. T. Wright. Wright has thoughtfully challenged the reformed and evangelical clan to be more deeply reformed and evangelical.
Does God Punish? by Fr. Michael Gillis (Holy Nativity Orthodox)
Thomas Hardy says of the main character in The Mayor of Casterbridge, Michael Henchard, that “misery taught him nothing more than the defiant endurance of it.” What does misery teach us? What can it teach us? Can it teach us more than just the fact that we must endure it?
Signs of God’s Kingdom Now by Bob Ekblad
Over 20 of Sugar Creek’s members were conscientious objectors in WWII– an unpopular outworking of following Jesus in choosing to love and pray for (rather than kill) national enemies. Like many peace churches, living out Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7 is a high priority. Nathan, the pastor, had invited me to share on dimensions of discipleship less known & practiced by his congregation–the gifts of the Holy Spirit & healing prayer.
Aung San Suu Kyi Free — by Oddny Gumaer
On Saturday November 13th the Burmese junta released Daw Aung San Suu Kyi from her illegal house arrest. The junta has detained Suu Kyi for 15 of the last 21 years, and continuously since May 30, 2003. While thousands rejoiced in the streets of Rangoon and millions joined around the world, the military junta continued its offenses in the ethnic areas around the country. For the thousands who were forced to flee from their homes, the day was far from happy.
Nouvelle Theologie & Sacramental Ontology: A Return to Mystery by Hans Boersma — Book Review by Ron Dart
Hans Boersma has already rendered exquisite and probing yeoman’s duty with Violence, Hospitality and the Cross: Reappropriating the Atonement Tradition (2004). This groundbreaking tome made it abundantly clear that the historic and patristic church had five main ways of understanding the atonement, hence there is no need to be committed to one particular version of the atonement (particularly the penal-juridical theory). Hans’ turn to the breadth and depth of the Great Tradition signaled, for the alert, the larger project that he is engaged in — a return to the ancient sources as a site of insight and nourishment for the mind and imagination, soul and heart. The modern and postmodern project are thin and lack a decided depth, hence the much needed and delayed return to the life giving wells of the waiting past.
Refugee Crisis: Thousands Flee Burma
Over the past three days tens of thousands of people have fled from Burma Army clashes and forced conscription. More than ten thousand fled the border town of Myawaddy into Mae Sot, Thailand, alone. There have also been confirmed clashes–including the launching of heavy artillery–in other parts of Karen State, Burma which have resulted in more than 10,000 people fleeing for the Thai border with only their clothes on their backs.
Movie Review of ‘With God on our side” – by Frank Schaeffer
The State of Israel just announced a decision (New York Times, Tuesday Nov 7, 2010) to advance the approval of some 1,000 new housing units in East Jerusalem during a sensitive time in the peace negotiations with the Palestinians. What they didn’t mention is that several American Christian Zionist groups have been raising money to help build new illegal settlements on occupied land for years.