Saturday, October 03, 2015
Comic Art
Friday, October 02, 2015
Set It All Aside
Mark Daniels links to Daily Bread on the miracle that is the incarnation:
incarnation understanding
Consider the awe we should feel for the incarnation. Jesus, who enjoyed the majesty of heaven in partnership with the Father, set it all aside to be born in poverty, to face many dangers, and to be crucified for us. Coming out of Egypt is one thing, but leaving heaven for us—that’s the grand and amazing part of this story!The title of this post is what I see as the key phrase in that whole thing. God did not merely take up human form, He set aside His Lordship to do so. (Yeah, yeah, I know dual nature, trinitarian mysteries, etc. - not the point.) God becoming man is not like He put on a suit or something, it was a big deal. I don;t think I can ever understand it, but I have to know it was a big deal, a really big deal.
incarnation understanding
Friday Humor
Thursday, October 01, 2015
Our Role in God's Miracles
Adam Joyce writes and abstract in Christian Century:
Optimism is a funny thing. Unchecked it results in silliness like seeking bad things to watch miracles. I knew people that are now dead because of such thinking. Optimism must be coupled with reality, and an understanding that WE are the mostly likely agents of God's miracles - we are not mere spectators. God may indeed raise the mainlines form the dead, but we are going to be the agents of the resurrection.
So I ask you - what are you doing about it?
church death resurrection
The numerical decline in churches, the graying of the mainline, and the growth of the nones (people who claim no religious affiliation) have generated lots of talk about institutional death. The activities of death and decline in the church happen quietly: endowments atrophy, sanctuaries are deconsecrated, and church bodies strain to make the membership losses seem less obvious.You know, there is a difference between God raising someone from the dead and someone seeking to die in order to be resurrected. That's what keep going through my mind when I read this kind of stuff. God will make the best of whatever circumstance confronts us, but that does not mean we should seek lousy circumstance just to watch the miracle!
In almost every conversation I have about this phenomenon—especially with ecclesial leaders—the idea of institutional crisis and renewal comes up. A common theme is that crisis—the threat of death—presents an opportunity for renewal. The language of crisis and renewal (borrowed from the world of business management) is paired with the theological categories of death and resurrection. The church needs to experience a death in order to experience a resurrection, the argument goes.
Optimism is a funny thing. Unchecked it results in silliness like seeking bad things to watch miracles. I knew people that are now dead because of such thinking. Optimism must be coupled with reality, and an understanding that WE are the mostly likely agents of God's miracles - we are not mere spectators. God may indeed raise the mainlines form the dead, but we are going to be the agents of the resurrection.
So I ask you - what are you doing about it?
church death resurrection
Wednesday, September 30, 2015
Why We Cannot Cloister
Robert Tracinski:
Now I suppose we could all sit around and discuss how this time of trail and tribulation will cleanse the church and make her stronger. And God being God, I suspect if things get that far that is exactly what will happen. BUt do you honestly think God wants us to sit by and let it happen? Think of all the souls that will be lost that might have been found had we fought harder. Do you honestly think God does not want us fighting for them?
If so you worship a much crueler God than I.
church fighting future
But this year, I discovered that while I might not be interested in the culture war, the culture war is interested in me. It’s interested in all of us.As an atheist he then goes on to describe situation after situation where freedom is being squelched. My favorite:
This is the year when we were served noticed that we won’t be allowed to stand on the sidelines, because we will not be allowed to think differently from the left.
In the one real comment I had been prevailed upon to make about gay marriage in the past—so long ago that I can’t even give you a Web link for it—I explained my ambivalence by citing my concern that the left was using the issue to secure the imprimatur of the state for homosexual relationships so they could then use anti-discrimination laws as a bludgeon against religious holdouts.I wonder how many of us understand this? And how many of us understand that if they succeed, they will not steop there, they will use this approach as a template until religion is simply gone. (Or so they think, no one has ever been able to squelch it, really.)
Now I suppose we could all sit around and discuss how this time of trail and tribulation will cleanse the church and make her stronger. And God being God, I suspect if things get that far that is exactly what will happen. BUt do you honestly think God wants us to sit by and let it happen? Think of all the souls that will be lost that might have been found had we fought harder. Do you honestly think God does not want us fighting for them?
If so you worship a much crueler God than I.
church fighting future
Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Searching...
CT looks at teh bible reading habits on people on the web. The most interesting take-away to me:
bible love web
The report also shows that readers searched for love more than any other term. The word never fell out of the top 10 searches, and was the top searched word more than 200 days of the year.What they do not report is whether people were looking for love or looking to give love. Which do you think the serious mature Christian should be looking for?
bible love web
Monday, September 28, 2015
Cynicism
Steven Garber writes in CT of cynicism in Washington. He concludes this about this cynics:
church cynicism government
There is much to be cynical about—and it is a good answer if there has not been an incarnation. But if that has happened, if the Word did become flesh, and if there are men and women who in and through their own vocations imitate the vocation of God, then sometimes and in some places the world becomes something more like the way it ought to be.What I find interesting is that I am not cynical about Washington - I have few expectations of it, but I am quite prone to cynicism about the church. Garber's prescription applies equally.
church cynicism government
