Sunday, November 1. 2009
You are not alone. So have I, many times. But less frequently, as time goes by.
Sunday, October 18. 2009
From scholar Richard Rubenstein's The Religion of Sacrifice and Abraham, Isaac and Jesus:
Judaism never entirely rejected the idea that God demands the sacrifice of the first-born son. However we evaluate the existence of child sacrifice in ancient Judah, Israel, Canaan, and the colonies of Canaan-Phoenicia, it is evident that we are dealing with a God who demands the death of children. In reflecting on the issue of child sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity, Levenson comments, “…the mythic-ritual complex that I have been calling ‘child sacrifice’ was never eradicated; it was only transformed."
A prime example of that transformation is the pidyon ha-ben ritual in fulfillment of the commandment already noted: “You shall redeem all the firstborn of your sons. None shall appear before Me empty-handed.” (Exodus 34:20) In this ceremony, the father presents his first-born son to a cohen or hereditary priest on the thirtieth day after his birth whereupon the priest asks the father, "Which do you prefer, your son or your money?" The father declares that he prefers his son and presents the cohen with five silver dollars, the symbolic equivalent of five biblical shekels, in order to "redeem" his son. The priest accepts the coins with the ritual formula, "This (the coins) in place of that (the child). This in exchange for that."
 Read the whole thing. We Christians often refer to Christ as "the lamb of God;" "Lamb" because a "spotless lamb" was one of the ritual Jewish sacrifices of the time, used as a symbolic substitute for human sacrifice like Abraham's ram in the thicket.
Christians view the sacrifice of Christ - God's "son" - as the final and essential sacrifice needed to redeem a fallen mankind. Thus the ancient themes of blood and human sacrifice endure and give deadly serious substance to our worship today.
My August photo of the stone urns in Carthage which contained the ashes of firstborns sacrificed to Baal:
Monday, October 12. 2009
From David Virtue's "England, Oh England, How Often Would I have gathered You...":
Britain is spiritually famished. It is starved from hearing the Word of God. Churches that focus on music and Eucharist are not drawing the crowds. People want to hear something that will change their lives. They want to hear about God, who He is, and what He is doing. They do not want sermons on the environment or Labor's policies for senior citizens. The average pulpit is bereft from hearing the Word of God.
Enter ALPHA. If it wasn't for ALPHA, one wonders if the Church of England would have any relevance at all. The other truth is that if the Church of England would do its job properly, there would be no need for ALPHA.
The very fact that ALPHA exists bespeaks the failure of the church to communicate the simple verities of the gospel to ordinary people. And it took an attorney turned priest to do it. The biggest growth in cities like London is precisely because of ALPHA's outreach into the urban jungle. ALPHA has been so successful they have taken over dying churches and filled them with new converts, much to the chagrin of laissez faire vicars who believe their benefice should not be beholden to these "happy clappy evangelicals."
Here's the link to Alpha USA.
Sunday, October 11. 2009
Hebrews 12: 1-3
1Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us,
2Looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3For consider him that endured such contradiction of sinners against himself, lest ye be wearied and faint in your minds.
Monday, October 5. 2009
"Please understand. God's goal is not to make you happy. His goal is to make you His."
I do not know who said that.
Friday, September 18. 2009
Be a light unto the world
The ten day period from Rosh Hashanah, beginning tonight, through Yom Kippur is often called the Ten Days Of Repentance or Penitence or Atonement, but the term High Holidays emphasizes the personal, inward looking nature of this time, our highest obligation being self-responsibility for our thoughts and deeds. The repeated blowing of the Shofar symbolizes the sounds from Mount Sinai in the 40-days until receiving the Ten Commandments, the Israelites trembling in awe, hence another name for the holidays Days Of Awe.
Central to the High Holidays is Teshuvah, or return. Sincere, complete Teshuvah allows us to begin anew, our sins forgiven, and to be our mission as the light unto others. Teshuvah, according to Maimonides, requires four steps:
1. Leaving the Sin
Leaving the sin consists of stopping the commission of the sinful act. One cannot do Teshuvah if one continues to do the sin, even if he or she were to perform the next three steps perfectly.
2. Regret
Regret consists in sincerely regretting one's wrong action. One must be genuinely ashamed and embarrassed over one's sins.
3. Confession Before G-d
Acceptance for the future consists of resolving in one's heart never to commit the sin ever again.
4. Acceptance for the Future
Confession before G-d consists of an oral confession spoken out loud, in which one formulates in words the commitments and attitudes one has reached in his or her heart. One should say, "I have sinned, I have done such and such; I deeply regret my actions, and I declare before G-d, Who knows my innermost thoughts, that I will never do this sin again."
But...
1. The above steps only work for sins committed against G-d; for sins committed against other people, one must first ask forgiveness from that person before G-d will accept the Teshuvah.
This is the source of the practice by many Jews to contact all of their family, friends and co-workers during this period to ask for forgiveness for anything we may have done to upset them during the past year(s).
2. These four steps are of course only valid if we do Teshuvah AFTER THE FACT. One cannot say in advance - "I can do this sin, then do Teshuvah and He will forgive me..." It simply doesn't work that way as it may in other belief systems
On the other hand...
One should keep in mind that Teshuvah is an ongoing process that cannot be accomplished overnight. No matter how many times a person may stumble in the Teshuvah process, that person has to simply pick him or herself up and keep trying to stay on the right path.
What G-d is really looking for is the sincerity of the effort that a person puts into their Teshuvah!
Near the conclusion of Yom Kippur we fervently implore G-d to have heard our sincerity, in the prayer Neilah, that ends with “Thou desirest the repentance of the wicked and not their death, as it is written: ‘Have I any desire, says the Lord, for the death of the wicked man? Would I not rather that he should mend his ways and live?’"
This Roman rite prayer book, printed by Joshua Solomon Soncino in 1486, is one of the earliest published. Volume 2, containing the prayer for the High Holy Days, Rosh Hashanah (the New Year) and Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), is open to a penitential prayer in the fifth and final service of the Day of Atonement, Ne'ilah (the closing of the gates). It begins: "Thou stretcheth forth thy hand to the sinner, and thy right hand is open to receive the repentant." It is the only prayer printed in large type throughout. Could this have been done with Marronos in mind, those who had been forcibly converted but retained loyalty to the ancestral faith?
Mahzor Minhag Roma (A Prayer Book of the Roman Rite), Casalmaggiore, 1486. Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress
If you think Teshuvah is an easy task, just consider the sins listed in the oft-repeated prayer Al Chet, as we traditionally pound our chest.
We greet each other at the start of the High Holidays with L'shanah tovah tikatev v'taihatem (or to women, L'shanah tovah tikatevi v'taihatemi), which means "May you be inscribed and sealed for a good year." The “inscribed” refers to the Book Of Life, the judgments of G-d being sealed upon each at the close of Yom Kippur. Go back and review the sins list again, and again, and Return to the righteous path G-d desires of us and we of each other.
Tuesday, September 8. 2009
"Please understand. God's goal is not to make you happy. His goal is to make you His."
Max Lucado
Sunday, September 6. 2009
 Here they are. (h/t, Smart Christian) Examples:
Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to God's glory, and my own good, profit and pleasure, in the whole of my duration.
Resolved to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general.
Resolved to do this, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many and how great soever.
Resolved, Never to lose one moment of time, but improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.
Resolved, Never to do any thing, which I should be afraid to do, if it were the last hour of my life.
Resolved, To be endeavoring to find out fit objects of charity and liberality.
Resolved, To maintain the strictest temperance in eating and drinking.
Do we find Edwards' life fascinating? Yes, as we have noted previously. We view him as the link between the Pilgrims and the Founding Fathers.
Besides writing and thinking and preaching and raising ten kids, Edwards loved to take a boat down from MA to NYC for lobsters, oysters, and good conversation with the Presbyterians. Probably also to get a break from all of the kids.
Except for a brief stint in a Presbyterian church in NYC after graduating from college, Edwards spent most of his life in western MA, which in the 1730s and 40s was frontier. He was fired as Pastor of Northampton (actually, voted out by the town government, which hired and paid the pastors in those days) because they felt he was overly harsh about morality. So he moved west to become the pastor of the Indian mission town of Stockbridge.
He ended his career with a brief Presidency of The College of New Jersey (now Princeton), where he died after a smallpox inoculation at age 54. A Yale grad who had excelled in the sciences, Edwards followed fellow Yale grad Aaron Burr Sr, of Fairfield, CT, in that job.
A re-post from 2007 -
 Paul Davis, author of Cosmic Jackpot: Why Our Universe is Just Right for Life, has an opinion piece in the NYT: Taking Science on Faith. It begins:
Science, we are repeatedly told, is the most reliable form of knowledge about the world because it is based on testable hypotheses. Religion, by contrast, is based on faith. The term “doubting Thomas” well illustrates the difference. In science, a healthy skepticism is a professional necessity, whereas in religion, having belief without evidence is regarded as a virtue.
The problem with this neat separation into “non-overlapping magisteria,” as Stephen Jay Gould described science and religion, is that science has its own faith-based belief system. All science proceeds on the assumption that nature is ordered in a rational and intelligible way. You couldn’t be a scientist if you thought the universe was a meaningless jumble of odds and ends haphazardly juxtaposed. When physicists probe to a deeper level of subatomic structure, or astronomers extend the reach of their instruments, they expect to encounter additional elegant mathematical order. And so far this faith has been justified.
The most refined expression of the rational intelligibility of the cosmos is found in the laws of physics, the fundamental rules on which nature runs. The laws of gravitation and electromagnetism, the laws that regulate the world within the atom, the laws of motion — all are expressed as tidy mathematical relationships. But where do these laws come from? And why do they have the form that they do?
Read the whole thing. Jonah Lehrer at The Frontal Cortex in a piece titled The Faith of Scientists expands on the topic, referring to the ideas of philosopher V.W.O. Quine. A quote:
When Quine came up with his holistic version of knowledge, he also demonstrated that our most necessary scientific principles are actually the least provable. For example, most scientists, when asked what constitutes the starting principles of reality, will probably say something about one of nature's fundamental laws, like gravity or the theory of natural selection. But these are precisely the same things that we will never see directly. (As Gertrude Stein once wrote, "The laws of science are paper laws, they make believe that they do something.")
Read this whole thing too. The notion that the laws of nature have no existence seems obvious, but it turned on a lightbulb for me. The point, as I see it, is not to discredit the scientific method or scientific theorizing, or to glibly equate science with religion: the point is that we must have humility about the depth of our knowledge.
Photo: Starburst Galaxy NCG 3310 "blazing with star formation", from the Hubble site.
A re-post from our archives -
 The Bird Dog family enjoys providing coffee hour at church. It's a gratifying ministry because it promotes fellowship. The more goodies you provide, the more fellowship you nurture, and the longer folks stick around and get to know eachother.
If a church is a manifestation of the living body of Christ, you can't have loose body parts all over the place: a congregation needs to congregate, in small groups and in large. Other churches in the area have copied our tradition of providing more than coffee and a pitiful bowl of goldfish crackers. We do brunch, essentially. Here is what we brought today:
Bagels and cream cheese; red and white grapes; plain pound cake, sesame pound cake, walnut pound cake; Vermont cheddar, brie, and Roquefort cheese and crackers; blanched carrots, broccoli, sugar snap peas and string beans with blue cheese dip; strawberries with sugar to dip them into (no matter how many you bring, they will disappear fast - the kids go for them like piranhas); cheese "Danish" pastries, tortilla chips with that excellent Costco salsa and Costco guacamole; corn muffins, chocolate chip muffins and blueberry muffins; croissants. Coffee, cider, and orange juice. I forgot to bring the sliced red peppers for the vegetable dip, and forgot the strawberry jam for the corn muffins.
I was surprised by how the blue cheese disappeared first today, and I brought a huge hunk. We don't bring doughnuts anymore because the little kids stuff themselves with them and the fussy parents don't seem thrilled with that. Next time, I think we'll bring a spiral-cut ham with honey mustard, and slice up a mountain of baguettes. This would be good with a ton of sliced melons. (Too bad we don't do wine and beer too - people would never go home.)
Friday, August 21. 2009
I take the view that the core tenets of all religions are essentially the same and should guide each individual, and as applicable to what should be governments’ very limited role in our personal lives should guide the role of governments.
The Seven Noahide Laws are found in the same Testament basic to Judaism, Christianity and Islam, and are similar to tenets found in Eastern religions:
1. Belief in G-d
2. Respect for and praise of G-d
3. Respect for human life
4. Respect for the family
5. Respect for others’ rights and property
6. Creation of a judicial system
7. Respect for all creatures
To quote my religious guide to the importance of these basics:
Without these laws as a bedrock of government, a society will either have despotism, where individuals’ lives are compromised and possibly abused, or anarchy, where every person pursues his or her own needs without regard for the law.
There are varying views of the relationship of politics and religion. At one extreme, government forbids or represses or dictates the activities of one, a few or all religions. The ideology of the state, and avoidance of any challenges to its sole power, is paramount. We have too many real examples of this. At the other extreme, the dictates of a religion, or of a segment of a religion, dictates or is allowed to substitute for the usual role of government. Islamic Sharia courts and laws are one widespread example. Another is in Israel where the traditional Orthodox maternal lineage to be Jewish, and a traditional Orthodox conversion to be Jewish, is government policy. Although those following more relaxed standards are not persecuted or otherwise, they are still at a disadvantage in some important respects.
At both extremes, sometimes or often the reasonable differences or even the essential rights of individuals may be injured.
In the United States, we more than other nations have taken great care to walk the fine line. Still, in the past few decades, this fine line has been challenged by tensions expressed in two major issues, abortion and marriage, and now we can add health care.
When government requires that taxpayer funds pay for abortion or that private health insurance pay for abortion, and even moreso when government requires that medical practitioners perform abortions regardless of individuals’ conscience or religious scruples, government has crossed the line.
When government requires that the legal privileges and obligations of voluntary union between two consenting adults only be between a man and a woman, government has crossed the line. Civil unions are the role of the state. Sanctification as marriage is the role of religions.
Government has an accepted and important role to play in the protection and furtherance of public health, most particularly as regards pandemics but also in promoting better and more widespread health care. Experience in the United States, and elsewhere, demonstrates this is most accomplished when there is the freer choice and competition in the private sector, to the maximum degree possible, that best serves adaptivity, innovation and individual circumstances.
In the current health care debates, the overwhelming majority of Americans reject that government should take over control of health care. Unfortunately, primarily due to the strong arm tactics and language of its advocates both polarizing and enlarging opposition, we may for now also lose the opportunity to make some far smaller but important incremental improvements.
President Obama has now crossed another important line. His phone calls to garner support from religious leaders of several faiths who lean toward liberal political views is not objectionable in itself. (Neither is it objectionable for religious leaders to have political views, but they should refrain from imposing them on their flock or ignoring the contending justifiable moral, practical and factual considerations.) What is objectionable, far over the line, is that President Obama requested they preach from their pulpits support for his political position.
This is an important issue. It is a completely inappropriate and precedent-breaking overt effort by President Obama to use our religious leaders as his mouthpiece/propaganda "tools." If our religious leaders do, they are "fools." If we tolerate this, we are being badly used, such congregations’ majority political leanings toward liberal indeed being abused, for manipulation by President Obama. Then, are such congregations a religion or a political party? If the latter, it indicates one of the reasons why so many depart from organized religions in the US. Individuals in congregations, and those in leadership positions in congregations and our community, should speak out strongly to our religious leaders how truly inappropriate this is, as well as dangerous, to our communities of faith, to be a propaganda arm of any Washington administration, political party, or policy. President Obama's steering of sermons is far beyond anything that's ever been tried before, and should be recognized for what it is, blatant and disrespectful. At least, do our religious leaders have any self-respect or respect for us in their congregations? If not, they have forfeited respect, and should forfeit their pulpits.
Friday, August 14. 2009
A post of the above title, by Auster. Good fun about the cosmos, first causes, the vertical dimension of existence, etc.
I never had any problem hypothesizing a Big Mysterious Something, but many times I have had problems with the idea of a personal God who would be interested in me, much less love me. Still, I know that that is intellectualizing, and that God does not reach out to us mainly on an intellectual plane.
He talks to us everywhere, inside and outside. I just need to listen more. BD taught me that.
As Sippican might say, "There is no Second Congregational Church." No, there isn't. Not yet, anyway.
I had the pleasure of shaking hands with the Rev. Norman Koop on the steps of the First Congregational Church of Woodstock, on Sunday morning. I had heard many good things about him and his congregation (including the Dartmouth folks who cross the river to attend), and had listened to some of his sermons online.
You can listen to his some of his preaching at Sermon Audio.
Here is the church's Statement of Faith. Yes, it is what I call a "strong dose" church in what polls say is the least religious state in the USA.
I have no time for weak dose churches. I like that old-time religion: The living Jesus and the living Word: straight up, no ice. As a sinner, Christ is what I need.
Glad to have met ya, Reverend.
Tuesday, August 11. 2009
It would be nice to simply wake up one day and suddenly be a mature Christian, but in order to grow up in God, we will have to go through trials. There is no other way to grow strong spiritually than to go through trials.
1 Peter 5:10 says, And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast. You may not like trials, but this verse says that when you are going through trials after you have suffered a little while, you will grow to be firmly rooted and grounded (strong, firm and steadfast) in God.
Similarly, James 1:12 says, Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. Here again, you don't get the rewards (the crown of life) until you have persevered under trial and stood the test.
So, learn to be thankful in your trials, because in order to get your breakthrough, you need a trial to break through.
Therefore, don't be discouraged during times of suffering. Know that after you have suffered a little while, God himself will make you strong, firm, and steadfast.
Friday, August 7. 2009
From the review of physicist John Polkinghorne's new book at First Things:
As he notes in the preface, for fifty years such contextual theologies as feminist theology, liberation theology, or African theology, have been flourishing. Polkinghorne takes the novel step of treating science and religion as an important type of contextual theology in its own right, recognizing that science, no less than other aspects of modern thought and culture, can suggest insights and provide information that are vital for theological reflection. “Theology conducted in the context of science must be prepared to be candid about the evidence for its beliefs,” he says forthrightly, but science does not dominate the conversation: There are clear limits to its authority and competence that both believers and unbelievers need to realize.
The overall message Polkinghorne brings is a crucial one: Science cannot provide its own metaphysical interpretation. As he says with typical precision, “Physics constrains metaphysics, but it no more determines it than the foundations of a house determine the precise form of the building erected on them.”
Sunday, August 2. 2009
Quoted by our Pastor this morning, from a letter from a Christian martyr in Zimbabwe, quoted in Brennan Manning's (1996) The Signature of Jesus:
I'm part of the fellowship of the unashamed. I have the Holy Spirit's power. The die has been cast. I have stepped over the line. The decision has been made - I'm a disciple of his. I won't look back, let up, slow down, back away, or be still. My past is redeemed, my present makes sense, my future is secure. I'm finished and done with low living, sight walking, smooth knees and colorless dreams, tamed visions, worldly talking, cheap giving, and dwarfed goals.
I no longer need preeminance, prosperity, position, promotions, plaudits, or popularity. I don't have to be right, first, tops, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded. I now live by faith, lean in his presence, walk by patience, am uplifted by prayer, and I labor with power.
My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven, my road is narrow, my way rough, my companions are few, my Guide reliable, my mission clear. I will not flinch in the face of sacrifice, hesitate in the presence of the enemy, pander at the pool of popularity, or meander in the maze of mediocrity.
I won't give up, shut up, let up, until I have stayed up, stored up, prayed up, paid up, preached up for the cause of Christ. I am a disciple of Jesus. I must go til he comes, give til I drop, preach til all know, and work til he stops me.
Friday, July 10. 2009
 It's John Calvin's 500th Birthday today (1509-1564). He was indeed one of the shapers of the Western world.
Marvin Olasky offers Three Cheers for John Calvin.
Here's a Calvin quote via Marginal Rev:
Whatever be the kind of tribulation with which we are afflicted, we should always consider the end of it to be, that we may be trained to despise the present, and thereby stimulated to aspire to the future life. For since God well knows how strongly we are inclined by nature to a slavish love of this world, in order to prevent us from clinging too strongly to it, he employs the fittest reason for calling us back, and shaking off our lethargy.
Thursday, July 9. 2009
268 years ago, as of yesterday, Jonathan Edwards preached his most famous sermon in Enfield, CT.
At that time, our readers know, CT was a Congregationalist theocracy, in effect, and the Yale-educated (especially in the sciences) Edwards was a well-known but back-woods preacher.
Scriptorium takes a look at Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
The prissy-mouthed portrait of Edwards does not capture what a fun-loving guy he really was (not kidding).
Wednesday, July 8. 2009
 It's the Codex Sinaiticus, a 1600 year-old Greek Bible.
The British Museum curator notes that it does raise some theological questions in its differences from modern versions.
The hand of God moves in mysterious ways, and, sometimes, we humans are His deeply flawed and inadequate agents - or wish to be.
Sunday, July 5. 2009
From a review of the book God is Back in The Washington Monthly:
Where once it was widely assumed that modernity and its handmaiden "secularization" would kill off religion, the reports of God’s death turn out to have been greatly exaggerated. Indeed, Micklethwait and Wooldridge assure us, "the very things that were supposed to destroy religion—democracy and markets, technology and reason—are apparently combining to make it stronger." Europe was wrong, and America right. Irreligion in Europe is the anomaly, and the "hot religion" (namely Evangelical Protestantism) of the United States is the future. "American-style religion" is very much here to stay, and on the whole that is a good thing—especially for business.
Back? I never knew He left. Maybe He was just vacationing in my neighborhood, where we ignorant bumpkins cling to God and our guns instead of investing our limited capacities for faith in the arrogant, incompetent bozos in government - most of whom, today, could never do much of anything in real life (except for Sarah Palin, who knows how to make a living fishing, and Mitt, who understands finance).
But is God good for business? I thought God was all about God's kingdom - the invisible kingdom, and not man's. Read the whole piece.
Tuesday, June 23. 2009
From Dr. Bob's The Temperature of Hell (no, it's not about "climate change"):
In our therapeutic culture, where all is tolerated but the good, the assertion that there are consequences for our behavior, either temporal, or especially eternal, is a truly noxious notion. The idea of Hell is perceived as an anachronistic anathema, promoted cynically by clergy controlling the poor, ignorant fools who follow them. Even those with a nominal belief in a deity will attest, with a pretense more wishful than wise, that a God of love would never condemn those who reject Him to Hell. In some sense–surely not that which the proponents of such pop theology intend–this may well be true. It will be, for those who enter that dark, hopeless, and agonizing eternity, not something dictated from on high by a vengeful God gleeful at our torture. It will be our own choice, fully, to reject the mercy and grace which has been offered to us without cost by Him who gave everything to draw us toward an eternal relationship, filled with unspeakable joy and peace, with Him.
Saturday, June 6. 2009
Another quote from the John Rawls book review we linked this week:
What makes belief in inviolable or natural rights reasonable? It is not enough to argue that each individual possesses an inalienable inviolability because all are, as Rawls holds in both A Theory of Justice and Political Liberalism, free and equal persons. Or that our inalienable inviolability flows from our moral capacity to form and act on rational life plans. Neither our natural freedom and equality nor our capacity to form, choose, and act on rational life plans rules out that conquest and dominion over others represents the best use of our freedom.
When all is said and done, the mature Rawls’s epic intellectual labors do not illuminate this fundamental perplexity. Indeed, those labors obscure the perplexity, even as the difficulties are diminished — though they are far from overcome — by the young Rawls’s theological doctrine. Inasmuch as it conceives of man as in but not entirely of the natural world, and possessing a spiritual dimension or soul for which he is not responsible but which is of ultimate worth and allows him to transcend determination by nature, the young Rawls’s doctrine fortifies a liberalism whose guiding thought is that of an inalienable inviolability possessed by all individuals.
Such considerations provide more than ample reason for scholars to vigorously open or reopen the question of Rawlsian liberalism’s — and the larger liberal tradition’s — religious roots.
Thursday, June 4. 2009
I've gotten around a bit.
I've rubbed shoulders with all sorts of kooks. True believers of the believingest kind, without much truth discernible in the final recipe. Holy rollers; snakehandlers. A few animists. Dopers, Buddhists, straight-up Leninists soldiering on long after Lenin lost interest. Knights of Columbus. People that wouldn't eat meat on Friday all the way to Sikhs that would stab you with their little dagger if you lit a cigarette next to them. People that speak Klingon.
But in all my travels I've never encountered a bigger bunch of intellectual anti-matter apocalyptic paranoid delusional wharrgarbll cult nonsense than this item from ABC News. Think about that. If David Koresh and Ted Kaczinski got married and started sharing notes, they couldn't come up with a less reasonable worldview than one of the three major networks serving as a news outlet to the american continent. ABC must be hiring interns from The Onion, because this is listed under Science and Technology:
It's an idea that most of us would rather not face -- that within the next century, life as we know it could come to an end. Our civilization could crumble, leaving only traces of modern human existence behind. It seems outlandish, extreme -- even impossible. But according to cutting edge scientific research, it is a very real possibility. And unless we make drastic changes now, it could very well happen. Experts have a stark warning: that unless we change course, the "perfect storm" of population growth, dwindling resources and climate change has the potential to converge in the next century with catastrophic results.
Well, they got it partially correct. I indeed "would rather not face" these "ideas," in the same way I don't want to face the ideas being yelled at passing cars by men who sleep on park benches and wet themselves regularly.
So people with misspelled signs, unkempt beards, and who wash themselves in the bubbler in the public park are my go-to guys for such apocalyptica. Who are the "experts" that ABC News goes to for their volcano-maiden advice?
Continue reading "Got Apocalypse?"
Wednesday, June 3. 2009
From a fine review of a new book about God and Lou John Rawls:
 Persons flourish in community. A community is not an “aggregate of individuals,” but rather the special form of association through which individuals, in and through relations to others and to God, become persons. In becoming a person one recognizes that other human beings are, like oneself, created in God’s image. “The Imago Dei,” Rawls declares, is “that which in man makes him capable of entering into community by virtue of likeness to God, who is in Himself community, being the Triune God.”
Faith, sin, and grace, Rawls maintains, revolve around personality and community. Faith is “the inner state of a person who is properly integrated and related to community.” Sin is the destruction and repudiation of community. It receives expression in egotism, or pride, self-love, and vanity; egoism, or exclusive attention to the satisfaction of natural desire; and despair, or the nihilistic escape from the world. Grace is “the activity on God’s part which seeks to restore the person to community.” It overcomes sin and accomplishes conversion. Since ethics is bound up with community and personality, and community and personality are bound up with God, “there can be no separation between religion and ethics.”
Photo of John Rawls
Sunday, May 31. 2009
Another Taize chant: Veni Sancte Spiritus. I love this one.
Anchoress reminds us that
The Gifts of the Holy Spirit are Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel (Right Judgment), Fortitude (Courage), Knowledge, Piety (Reverence) and Fear of the Lord (Awe of God).
Good gifts indeed. Who does not hunger for these?
Sunday, May 24. 2009
Pentecost, marking the end of the Easter season, is next Sunday.
There isn't much Taize music on YouTube, but here is a bit of the Taize chant Bless The Lord, My Soul:
Tuesday, May 19. 2009
From Stanley Fish's God Talk, Part 2, in the NYT, a quote:
Pking gets it right. “To torpedo faith is to destroy the roots of . . . any system of knowledge . . . I challenge anyone to construct an argument proving reason’s legitimacy without presupposing it . . . Faith is the base, completely unavoidable. Get used to it. It’s the human condition.” (All of us, not just believers, see through a glass darkly.) Religious thought may be vulnerable on any number of fronts, but it is not vulnerable to the criticism that in contrast to scientific or empirical thought, it rests on mere faith.
Sunday, May 17. 2009
It is a wonderful day indeed when we stop working for God and begin working with God.
Anon.
Thursday, May 14. 2009
Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world -- the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does -- comes not from the Father but from the world. The world and its desires pass away, but the man who does the will of God lives forever.
1 John 2:15-17 (New International Version)
Friday, May 8. 2009
Stanley Fish reviews Terry Eagleton's Reason, Faith, and Revolution. A quote:
Progress, liberalism and enlightenment — these are the watchwords of those, like Hitchens, who believe that in a modern world, religion has nothing to offer us. Don’t we discover cures for diseases every day? Doesn’t technology continually extend our powers and offer the promise of mastering nature? Who needs an outmoded, left-over medieval superstition?
Eagleton punctures the complacency of these questions when he turns the tables and applies the label of “superstition” to the idea of progress. It is a superstition — an idol or “a belief not logically related to a course of events” (American Heritage Dictionary) — because it is blind to what is now done in its name: “The language of enlightenment has been hijacked in the name of corporate greed, the police state, a politically compromised science, and a permanent war economy,” all in the service, Eagleton contends, of an empty suburbanism that produces ever more things without any care as to whether or not the things produced have true value.
Sunday, May 3. 2009
The lowest level of Hell, according to Dante, is reserved for those who betray their benefactors.
The Circles of Hell. h/t, Thompson's Friday Ephemera.
Friday, May 1. 2009
MSNBC asked America, “Should the motto ‘In God We Trust’ be removed from U.S. currency?”
1,837,987 people voted “Yes”, but 12,300,371 voted “No”. Wow! If anyone has so much time on their hands that they actually watch MSNBC, I’d love to know how, with what attitude, and at what time of day they announce the result!
Saturday, April 18. 2009
A quote from Terry Mattingly's piece of the above title:
Consider, for example, the media storms surrounding discussions of Holy Communion and the sacramental status of Catholic politicians who disagree with church doctrines on abortion, marriage and other issues. In his book "Render Unto Caesar," Chaput argued that it's the "political duty" of Catholics to "know their faith and to think and act like faithful Catholics all the time" -- even those who work inside the Washington Beltway.
Alas, the journalists think they are writing about the rights of politicians, while some Catholic bishops want to discuss the salvation and, yes, damnation of souls. If journalists insist on describing this conflict in strictly political terms, he said, there is no way the public will ever understand what is happening.
Thursday, April 16. 2009
In an interview by Paul Bradshaw with Rick Warren, Rick said:
"People ask me, What is the purpose of life? And I respond: In a nutshell, life is preparation for eternity. We were not made to last forever, and God wants us to be with him in heaven. One day my heart is going to stop, and that will be the end of my body - but not the end of me. I may live 60 to 100 years on earth, but I am going to spend trillions of years in eternity.
This is the warm-up act - the dress rehearsal. God wants us to practice on earth what we will do forever in eternity. We were made by God and for God, and until you figure that out, life isn't going to make sense. Life is a series of problems: either you are in one now, you're just coming out of one, or you're getting ready to go into another one.
The reason for this is that God is more interested in your character than your comfort; God is more interested in making your life holy than He is in making your life happy. We can be reasonably happy here on earth, but that's not the goal of life. The goal is to grow in Christ-likeness.
This past year of my life has been the greatest year of my life, but also the toughest with my wife, Kay, getting cancer. I used to think that life was hills and valleys - you go through a dark time, then you go to the mountain, back and forth. I don't believe that anymore.
Rather than life being hills and valleys, I believe that it's kind of like two rails on a railroad track, and at all times you have something good and something bad in your life. No matter how good things are in your life, there is always something bad that needs to be worked on. And no matter how bad things are in your life, there is always something good you can thank God for.
You can focus on your purposes, or you can focus on your problems. If you focus on your problems, you're going into self-centeredness: my problems, my issues, my pain. But one of the easiest ways to get rid of pain is to get your focus off yourself and onto God and others. We discovered quickly that in spite of the prayers of hundreds of thousands of people, God was not going to heal Kay or to make it easy for her. It has been very difficult for her, and yet God has strengthened her character, given her a ministry of helping other people, given her a testimony, drawn her closer to Him and to people.
You have to learn to deal with both the good and the bad of life. Actually, sometimes learning to deal with the good is harder. For instance, this past year, all of a sudden, when the book sold 15 million copies, it made me instantly very wealthy. It also brought a lot of notoriety that I never had to deal with before. I don't think God gives you money or notoriety for your own ego or for you to live a life of ease.
So I began to ask God what He wanted me to do with this money, this notoriety, this influence. He gave me two different passages that helped me decide what to do, ll Corintians 9 and Psalm 72. First, in spite of all the money coming in, we would not change our life style one bit. We made no major purchases. Second, about midway through last year, I stopped taking a salary from the church. Third, we set up foundations to fund an initiative we call The Peace Plan to plant churches, equip leaders, assist the poor, care for the sick, and educate the next generation. Fourth, I added up all that the church had paid me in the 24 years since I had started the church, and paid it all back. It was liberating to me to serve God for free.
We need to ask ourselves: Am I going to live for possessions? Popularity? Am I going to be driven by pressures? Guilt? Bitterness? Materialism? Or am I going to be driven by God's purposes?
When I get up in the morning, I sit on the side of my bed and say God, if I don't get anything else done today, I want to know You more and love You better. God didn't put me on earth to fulfill a to-do list. He's more interested in what I am than what I do."
Sunday, April 12. 2009
 From a pleasantly rambling post by Dr. Bob, Open Hands:
The walk of faith is said to be belief in the unbelievable, the fool’s way out of life’s challenges and disappointments, the easy path of cowards and knaves. It is in truth none of these things, but rather the very hardest of things: submission. It is to bend the knee; to trust when sight is dim or absent; to rely on the benevolence and wisdom of One who knows all and reject the false knowledge we tenaciously trust in our self-will, fear, and deception. If there is a God — sovereign, transcendent, just, good in ways we cannot begin to fathom, and above all passionate in His love for us — then there is nothing to do but trust, to submit, to rest. It is the Cross — in all its horrors, irrationality, agony, foolishness — and victory.
This week the church celebrates Holy Week, commemorating and meditating on that moment in history when darkness seemed triumphant, when earthly hopes were dashed, when the irrational ruled and evil gloated. In that dark moment, the glorious hopes of man haughty and triumphant were forever dashed on the stones of Golgatha; the blood of a failed prophet sealed their fate forever. Such is as true now as then; it is a timeless certainty, eternal despite all appearances to the contrary.
And so I must — we must — open our hands, and bend our knees. It is a time for prayer, for humility, for fasting, for simplification. It is time for turning over the foolishness of man and the corruption of a culture to Him who alone knows the ways of man and the wanderings of nations. We must lift up the country, its leaders; the culture; the church. It is not ours to seize nor to save. We must stand in truth, suffering what consequences we may endure.
Mark 16, 1-8
When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus' body. 2Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb 3and they asked each other, "Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?"
4But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. 5As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.
6"Don't be alarmed," he said. "You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7But go, tell his disciples and Peter, 'He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.' "
8Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
Below: Dutch tulip fields from Lucianne:
Thursday, April 9. 2009
 Today is Holy Thursday. Our church holds a silent Seder each Holy Thursday, in remembrance of Christ's last supper.
No wine, unfortunately, but all of the traditional Seder foods.
We do not post things on this site on Good Friday because it is a day of prayer and reflection on the cross and its meaning to us.
Wednesday, April 8. 2009
1 Corinthians 11:23-25 23For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, 24and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of me." 25In the same way, after supper he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me."
The Last Supper is thought to have been a Passover seder.
Da Vinci's Last Supper in Milan (c. 1498). Unfortunately, the dramatic picture began deteriorating and flaking within years of its completion. It's not a fresco.
 Tonight is the first night of Passover, and the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943.
"Central to the Pesach seder is the recounting of the ten plagues. As moderns educated in natural science, the story strikes us as childish, as primitive, as mythological. Yet we may be missing the point of these extraordinary events if we understand it as an ancient superstition. Instead the miracle is a symbol of the spontaneity in history, a faith in the changeability of oppressive regimes. What appears as a historical necessity, a small people subject to a great empire, is revealed as an illusion. God's miraculous intervention in Egypt presents history as an open-textured drama. There is an unpredictable Power present in the universe, the God of surprise.
"Belief in miracle is the basis of the "hope model" of Judaism. Exodus becomes a call to revolutionary hope regardless of the conditions of history. Out of this memory of redemption, they can defy the given conditions. The act of protest against their environment can occur because the Jews possess a memory of the impossible that became possible. The order that people observe in the cosmos and in history, is not irreversible. Tomorrow will not necessarily be like today."
So we repeat:
"In every generation one is obligated to see oneself as one who personally went out from Egypt. Just as it says, 'You shall tell your child on that very day, It's because of this that God did for me when I went out from Egypt.' " (Exodus 13:8)
Passover Seder Symbols Song
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Sunday, April 5. 2009
Giotto, 1304
Luke 19: 28-40
28After he had said this, he went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. 29When he had come near Bethpage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, 30saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. 31If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” 32So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. 33As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” 34They said, “The Lord needs it.” 35Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. 36As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. 37As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, 38saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” 39Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” 40He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”
Monday, March 23. 2009
It's not your parents' humanism. Scruton never disappoints. His main point is that the Old Humanism was about building up mankind's strengths and virtues, while the New is negative, and stands for nothing worthy. A quote from The New Humanism:
Like so many modern ideologies, the new humanism seeks to define itself through what it is against rather than what it is for. It is for nothing, or at any rate for nothing in particular. Ever since the Enlightenment there has been a tendency to adopt this negative approach to the human condition, rather than to live out the exacting demands of the Enlightenment morality, which tells us to take responsibility for ourselves and to cease our snivelling. Having shaken off their shackles and discovered that they have not obtained contentment, human beings have a lamentable tendency to believe that they are victims of some alien force, be it aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, capitalism, the priesthood, or simply the belief in God. And the feeling arises that they need only destroy this alien force, and happiness will be served up on a plate, in a garden of pleasures. That, in my view, is why the Enlightenment, which promised the reign of freedom and justice, issued in an unending series of wars.
That is, I think, a profound observation.
Saturday, March 21. 2009
A repost from last year -
 From Joseph Bottum at First Things. A quote:
He begins:
America was Methodist, once upon a time—Methodist, or Baptist, or Presbyterian, or Congregationalist, or Episcopalian. A little light Unitarianism on one side, a lot of stern Calvinism on the other, and the Easter Parade running right down the middle: our annual Spring epiphany, crowned in bright new bonnets.
The average American these days would have trouble recalling the dogmas that once defined all the jarring sects, but their names remain at least half alive: a kind of verbal remembrance of the nation’s religious history, a taste on the tongue of native speakers. Think, for instance, of the old Anabaptist congregations—how a residual memory of America’s social geography still lingers in the words: the Hutterites, Mennonites, and Amish, set here and there on the checkerboard of the nation’s farmland. The Quakers in their quiet meetinghouses, the Shakers in their tiny communes, and the Pentecostals, born in the Azusa Street revivals, like blooms forced in the hothouse of the inner city.
And yet, even while we may remember the names of the old denominations, we tend to forget that it all made a kind of sense, back in the day, and it came with a kind of order. The genteel Episcopalians, high on the hill, and the all-over Baptists, down by the river. Oh, and the innumerable independent Bible churches, tangled out across the prairie like brambles: Through most of the nation’s history, these endless divisions and revisions of Protestantism renounced one another and sermonized against one another. They squabbled, sneered, and fought. But they had something in common, for all that. Together they formed a vague but vast unity. Together they formed America.
and
...somewhere around 1975, the main stream of Protestantism ran dry. In truth, there are still plenty of Methodists around. Baptists and Presbyterians, too—Lutherans, Episcopalians, and all the rest; millions of believing Christians who remain serious and devout. For that matter, you can still find, soldiering on, some of the institutions they established in their Mainline glory days: the National Council of Churches, for instance, in its God Box up on New York City’s Riverside Drive, with the cornerstone laid, in a grand ceremony, by President Eisenhower in 1958. But those institutions are corpses, even if they don’t quite realize that they’re dead. The great confluence of Protestantism has dwindled to a trickle over the past thirty years, and the Great Church of America has come to an end.
And that leaves us in an odd situation, unlike any before. The death of the Mainline is the central historical fact of our time: the event that distinguishes the past several decades from every other period in American history. Almost every one of our current political and cultural oddities, our contradictions and obscurities, derives from this fact: The Mainline has lost the capacity to set, or even significantly influence, the national vocabulary or the national self-understanding.
Read the whole thing.
Sunday, March 15. 2009
A re-post from 2005:
Anthony Esolen:
If Jesus’ parable is an extended metaphor for a life of mercy—if we are to treat those suffering souls whom chance has thrown in our way as if they were people among whom we live—then we have taken the wheels off that metaphor’s vehicle. If you do not really have neighbors, how can you understand Jesus’ command to be a neighbor to others? You have to disembody it, etherealize it into a manifesto of general benevolence and almsgiving (perhaps of the political variety, whereby you stoutly sacrifice the alms of other people). Jesus tells the story of the Good Samaritan, and you hear a call to be kind to your friends and to give to the United Way.
But before I come to how I think that parable must be understood, I should vindicate myself and my family just a bit, and in so doing point out a few reasons why neighborhood life in America is past. You see, my wife and I are not by nature sullen or withdrawn or suspicious. We live in a suburb of Providence, Rhode Island, but we have begun to spend summers in a small home in an old fishing village, called West Arichat, on the coast of Cape Breton Island, in Nova Scotia. In that village, after only a few weeks, we have met more people—have been in their homes, have eaten with them—than we have in eight years in our place in the States.
Read entire piece at Touchstone.
Friday, March 13. 2009
I assisted with an abortion one time in medical school, on my OB-Gyn rotation. I went to the bathroom afterwards, shook and sweated, and then puked my brains out. I refused to help with another abortion. Nobody minded. I delivered about 30 babies during that rotation. Scary if you get into a jam, but otherwise good fun.
Knippenberg considers the embryonic stem cell issue (an issue about which I have no particularly strong opinion), and notes the contradiction between the amoral notion of "let science do science" and the political notion of "most people want this."
I guess pols are experts at insulating their decision-making from morality and ethics. In my view, Utilitarianism, like "efficacy," is neither a moral nor an ethical posture. It's a cop-out. It's the easy way.
From Yuval Levin's Obama's False Choice:
Obama (also) chose to repeat the familiar cliché that the Bush policy was a betrayal of science. In his administration, he argued, “we make scientific decisions based on facts and not ideology.” The facts of the Bush administration’s funding of the research, its support for science funding more generally, and the emergence of alternatives to embryo destruction seem not to count. And the fact that every human embryo is a living human being seemed unworthy of mention.
Science policy is not a science: It must seek to use science to the benefit of the larger society, and also to restrain science in those rare instances when it threatens that society’s ideals. In hindsight, it seems increasingly clear that President Bush’s stem-cell-funding policy will stand as a model of how to strike a balance between these concerns. President Obama’s overturning of the Bush approach offers an unfortunate example of how fragile that balance often is.
Ed. note: Krauthammer today: Morally unserious in the extreme
Sunday, March 1. 2009
Do not observe the sins of others, and do not behave inimicably, inwardly or outwardly, towards those who sin, but represent to yourself your own sins, and deeply repent of having committed them, considering yourself in every truth worse than all. Pray lovingly for those who sin, knowing that we are all inclined to every sin.
– St. John of Kronstadt
Do not be ashamed to enter the Church to confess. Be ashamed when you sin but not when you repent.
–St. John Chrysostom
Cry out, o sinner, with all your might, and spare not your throat; for your Lord is merciful and loves those who repent. As soon as you return, your Father will come out aforehand to meet you, and rejoice in you.
–St. Ephraim the Syrian
Wednesday, February 25. 2009
- From Vanderleun: Let my cry come unto Thee: An Ash Wednesday Confession
- Via The Anchoress in her Ash Wednesday post:
Milwaukee Archbishop Timothy Dolan, newly-named, Archbishop of New York City ...:
“Maybe the greatest threat to the church is not heresy, not dissent, not secularism, not even moral relativism, but this sanitized, feel-good, boutique, therapeutic spirituality that makes no demands, calls for no sacrifice, asks for no conversion, entails no battle against sin, but only soothes and affirms.” -
 The 40-odd days following Ash Wednesday culminating in the prayer-laden and introspective Easter Vigil are the time when all Christians focus most intently on their relationship with the living Christ, and His role in their lives and in their hearts.
I welcome Lent with hope, and excitement about discovering where this year's Lenten journey might lead. It is the gravitational center of my year. Plant roots wake up and start growing months before the spring buds begin to swell. Lent is my root-growing time.
Tuesday, February 24. 2009
 Everyone has the choice of whether to live in Christ, or not to. I am grateful that I have the choice of whether to accept that offered gift, or to refuse it.
I once thought that living in Christ just sort-of happened when one deliberately accepted the gift, but I think differently now. I no longer think that I can be aligned with God on autopilot, as Augustine said he, or we, could. Maybe he could.
I need a discipline, both internal and external, to partake of the blessing of the Christian faith and of a life in Christ because sometimes I am there, but sometimes I am far away.
I have been thinking about the old-fashioned virtue of "self-command" recently, and about our cultural values - "authenticity," "genuineness," "follow your heart and emotions" and things like that. Why isn't "self-command" and "self-discpline" as much a part of our selves as anything else? Are our precious selves were so splendidly worthy and wonderful when on autopilot? If anybody is that wonderful, God bless 'em. I am not.
Internal discipline is about self-command. How good am I at commanding myself? And how often, like a bad parent, do I fail to be a good Chairman and CEO of myself and let things slide that should not slide, and permit leeway where there is no leeway? To let myself play in the street, as it were?
My discipline muscles need constant exercise. I have a few planned for this Lenten season.
Even the "best" Christians are sometimes prone to overlooking the beam in their own eye while noting the motes and beams in others'. We are taught to "hate the sin but to love the sinner." Readers know that I do not believe that Christianity is mainly about morality, but about faith. However, I believe that a deliberate living in Christ requires a discipline. Like when your Dad gives you a car for your birthday, the joy is contingent. Getting to that "life in abundance" isn't meant to be easy, but it is probably the definition of success that I value most highly for myself.
I judge others constantly, not from a high place but mainly for self-protection. I judge myself at least as judiciously, and likely far more harshly. Usually at 4:30 AM. The conscience I am stuck with tolerates little or no compromise with normal exigencies. At the same time, I know my conscience isn't necessarily God's voice. Sometimes it's my own, and some of it is my moral vanity.
In my mens' Bible study last week we wandered into a discussion of sexual temptation, and how we each deal with it. It's safe to say that each one of us has a deep appreciation for appealing females, and are fun-loving fellows who enjoy the pleasures of life. We aren't a "holy" bunch. We also agree that our word is our bond. It's discipline and self-command. Of course, anyone can make whatever choices one decides to, and live with that. That's fine, as long as you do not ask me to be responsible for guiding your choices.
I am meandering towards the subject of external discipline. If we are to enjoy the blessings of a life in Christ, most of us need that. I need my brethren to help keep me on track. Otherwise, I'll be off on my own track, and there is nothing too wonderful about that. "My track," I am ashamed to say, is probably all about me and all about gratification - and as instant as possible. OK, call me an obsessive if you want to: it's probably correct. I need and want to be judged. I do not want to be an animal.
Editor's note: I stumbled onto a sermon by Rev. Norman Koop, Pastor of the First Congregational Church of Woodstock, VT, yesterday. I thought it relevant to my "House Church" meeting on Sunday afternoon where the topic was confronting evil and sin (in self and others). Intolerance. Pastor Koop makes the case, via Paul, that it is our unpleasant duty to confront and address the sin of our church brethren because, as Congregational Church members, we have made a solemn committment to the well-being of eachothers' souls. Paul's letter was a tough message for the Corinthians - and we are the Corinthians. The sermon is here (try "Listen now using the flash player").
|
