Here’s a link to a helpful piece by William McGrath called, Anabaptists: Neither Catholics nor Protestants. Also worth checking out is the young.anabaptistradicals.org. Peace, dwight
The Synod at Nice set forth this Creed. The Ecthesis of the Synod at Nice. We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things visible and invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only-begotten of his Father, of the substance of the Father, God of God, Light [...]
My family and I are in Winnipeg for the better part of the week, if there are any emergent or resonate folks open for a cup of coffee or a pint email me and we might be able to make something work. Peace, dwight
This is a helpful link for anyone looking to learn more about the emerging conversation and how it is shaping and re-shaping church and faith practices. peace, dwight
I recently received my copy of the freshly minted, Emergent Manifesto of Hope. It is the first release in the new ēmersion line for Baker Books. The book is a collection of hope-filled essays by a diverse group of participants within the emergent village conversation. Doug Pagitt and Tony Jones are the editors. Chapter 17 [...]
“Forgiveness flounders because I exclude the enemy from the community of humans even as I exclude myself from the community of sinners. But no one can be in the presence of the God of the crucified Messiah for long without overcoming this double exclusion – without transposing the enemy from the sphere of monstrous inhumanity into the sphere of shared humanity and herself from the sphere of proud innocence into the sphere of common sinfulness. When one knows that the torturer will not eternally triumph over the victim, one is free to rediscover that person’s humanity and imitate God’s love for him. And when one knows that God’s love is greater than all sin, one is free to see onself in the light of God’s justice and so rediscover one’s own sinfulness.”
Miroslav Volf: Exclusion and Embrace, 124.
Here is a link to a four part interview with theologian Stan Grenz. The interview took place in Seattle with Dick Staub (author of a number of books, most recently Christian Wisdom of the Jedi Masters) whose radio program, The Kindlings with a focus of theological and cultural intersection. The interview focuses on the nature [...]
In the history of the modern evangelical movement it could be argued that no gathering has been more influential in shaping evangelicalism than the first two gatherings of the Lausanne Conference. I was privileged to be a participant in Lausanne’s Younger Leaders Gathering (YLG) in Malaysia earlier in the autumn. During the flight home I [...]
Reflection on Truth, Beauty and Goodness – the three transcendent virtues – is vital to anyone seeking to lead a good life. To ponder the question, “What is a full and flourishing life?” seemingly takes us to consider these three virtues. The three transcendent virtues are not unique to Western (Hellenistic) thought they appear in various forms within Eastern thought as well.
Have you ever noticed that the Serpent tempted Eve with all three?
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” “You will not surely die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing [truth] good and evil.”
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good [goodness] for food and pleasing to the eye [beauty], and also desirable for gaining wisdom [truth], she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (Genesis 3:1-7, NIV – emphasis added)
Jesus added a trump-virtue to the classic three. Jesus Christ brings love. Love is the relational move giving meaning to truth, making goodness good and making beauty visible.
Without love the virtues become vices – as they did in the Garden of Eden. Without love the virtues become clanging gongs and crashing cymbals. Love moves toward the other in humility and service. Love acts in faith for the other and hopes in Christ for the other. Love is the ethic that translates truth into beauty and goodness. Love is the ethic that transforms beauty into goodness and truth. Love is the ethic incarnating goodness as truth which sets free and beauty instead of ashes.
Go back and read the temptation again. What the serpent presents as a temptation is the very goal of Christian discipleship, “that you will be like God.” Didn’t Christ invite his followers to be holy as he is holy. To be like God, to be like Christ is the hope of glory.
This temptation the serpent brought is the virtues without love. To have truth without love, beauty without love, goodness without love is to reject relational oneness the Father extends to us through Christ in the Holy Spirit. But God (I love those two words together), but God pursues, God reconciles, God redeems.
Truth without love puffs up and is evil. Beauty without love is seductive and empty. Goodness without love is moralism and a façade. O, but with love, they are fullness of live.
Peace, dwight
PS – For a wonderful treatment on God’s love extended through God’s people, pick up Pope Benedict XVI’s first encyclical letter, God is Love: Deus Caritas Est.
To live in the world is to live with shadows, even more it is to create shadows. In a universe that revolves around a sun, to live is to cast shadows. There are only a few times when we don’t have a shadow: high noon, cloud cover and night. All three are inescapable realms of life.
Night is often be feared; our difficulty seeing at night heightens our fear of the unknown; and of course crime, sneak attacks, and espionage often are perpetrated under the cover of dark but “dark” is so much more. Though often frightening, the night is also is our time for rest. Work ceases, communities gather to tell stories and dance, night is for intimacy and expressions of love. This light/dark dance is a daily rhythm. Every moment is either growing darker or lighter; it is simply the way life works on planet earth; a constant move from one to the other.
Remember God’s first act of creation in the Genesis one account is to separate light from dark. But the separation was not the whole story; rather it was the relationship between light and dark that together made day. The God-given shared identity “Day” that gave meaning to both light and dark. And God called the existence of light and dark together “good.”
Cloud cover forms when the convergence of the invisible warm water vapor in the air with cool air or surface condenses the vapor into visible water droplets or ice crystals. Basically cloud cover is about convergence, warm meets cool. What happens when “my world” meets your “your world”? When my cool front (my last name is pronounced “freezen”) meets your warm front. Sometimes I get steaming mad; sometimes my thinking gets foggy, still other times my vision clouds over. When opposing forces collide clouds, thunder storms, or even tornados are likely to follow. Clouds also give us rain, and who would chose draught over rain. The collision of worlds is vital to life.
At first glimpse the shadowless state of high noon seems so perfect. High noon is life directly under the son, life without shadows. Well that’s not entirely true; at high noon we stand on our shadows. The short period of time directly around high noon exposes sun-dwellers to the dangers of sun stroke, sun burns and dehydration like no other time in the day. One of the challenges of being in the sun is that we are often having so much fun that we lose track of time and before we know it we look like lobsters, feel faint and are in desperate need of a cool drink and some shade. To live in the sun requires time in the shade and vis versa.
What about good and evil?
peace, dwight