A Theology of Reality Abp Lazar Puhalo
A theology of reality & the human condition
A theology of reality describes the human condition instead of creating dogmas about what we think it should be. It looks at the realities of the human condition to try to understand them in the light of understandings that have developed through medicine, through psychiatry and neurobiology, and shape our theology around the way humanity actually is instead of the way we fantasize it to be.
Without a theology of reality, we deprive people of their authenticity—of life—with some of our dogmas and doctrines. We need to accept the authenticity of human life and then shape our theology around that because otherwise, we end up excluding certain people and certain conditions from God's love… as if we ever had power over dispensing God's love ourselves.
A theology of reality also includes a theology of the world condition or situation.
We now live with a whole new set of realities—things we've learned are the realities of humanity. But much of our theology talks around the realities of human existence and the realities of social structures in the world. And we try to impose an almost fantasy idea about what society and culture should be and what humanity should be. But we don't talk about what humanity is.
read more…WHY I AM NOT A UNIVERSALIST (but sound like one) Reflections on David Bentley Hart’s “That All Shall Be Saved” (PART 4) – Brad Jersak
“For we labor and struggle to this end because we have hoped in a living God who is the savior of all human beings, especially those who have faith.” –1 Timothy 4:10
WHY I AM NOT A UNIVERSALIST (but sound like one) Reflections on David Bentley Hart’s “That All Shall Be Saved” (PART 3) – Brad Jersak
“For we labor and struggle to this end because we have hoped in a living God who is the savior of all human beings, especially those who have faith.” –1 Timothy 4:10
WHY I AM NOT A UNIVERSALIST (but sound like one) Reflections on David Bentley Hart’s “That All Shall Be Saved” (PART 2) – Brad Jersak
“For we labor and struggle to this end because we have hoped in a living God who is the savior of all human beings, especially those who have faith.” –1 Timothy 4:10
WHY I AM NOT A UNIVERSALIST (but sound like one) Reflections on David Bentley Hart’s “That All Shall Be Saved” (PART 1) – Brad Jersak
“For we labor and struggle to this end because we have hoped in a living God who is the savior of all human beings, especially those who have faith.” –1 Timothy 4:10
A Different Kind of Feast – Homily by Fr. Sean Davidson
A Different Kind of Feast Sept. 1, 2019 | St. Mark’s Gospel – Luke 14:1, 7-14 Let’s set the scene. We’re at a dinner party hosted by a prominent religious leader in the community. Friends and family and other influential people are in attendance. So is Jesus. As...
Hermann Hesse, “Siddhartha” – review by Ron Dart
When New Directions decided to publish the first English translation of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha in 1951, it could never have foreseen the enormous impact it would have on American culture. —Paul Morris (p. xiii) Hinduism has been much misunderstood in the West...
A Rainbow Seen through Celtic Eyes – Fr. David Jones
How is possible that a Republican political activist (at the national, state and county levels), an advisor to a very conservative former U.S. Senator and Republican candidate for President who nearly won his party’s nomination to be President, and a conservative...
Q&R WITH BRAD JERSAK: “UNDER GRACE, ARE WE STILL ‘SINNERS’? IS CONFESSING SIN A DENIAL OF GRACE?”
QUESTION Under grace, are we still ‘sinners’? Is confessing sin a denial of grace? What about saying “the Lord’s Prayer,” which asks God to forgive our sins? Some grace teachers regard the Lord’s Prayer as Old Covenant since Jesus taught it before the Cross and at the...
Lamentations and (Anti)Theodicy – Mark P. Stone
“Theodicy: Ça se déconstruit” Those words were too much, too little was said, understood, imagined. Win your peace, vindicate your god, it is pyrrhic, brittle. I thumb the pages of that same old text, and hope—quelled to bare velleity, dim and frail—whimpers o’er...
Authentic Christianity versus Ascendant American Christendom – Kenneth Tanner
What we see Christians doing and saying in the name of Jesus Christ in this country is alarming, frustrating, disturbing and—yes—angering. I tend to the wounded daily. I see the tears in their eyes and hear the hurt in their hearts. I witness the harm and it crushes...
