Quotes & Sayings


We, and creation itself, actualize the possibilities of the God who sustains the world, towards becoming in the world in a fuller, more deeper way. - R.E. Slater

There is urgency in coming to see the world as a web of interrelated processes of which we are integral parts, so that all of our choices and actions have [consequential effects upon] the world around us. - Process Metaphysician Alfred North Whitehead

Kurt Gödel's Incompleteness Theorem says (i) all closed systems are unprovable within themselves and, that (ii) all open systems are rightly understood as incomplete. - R.E. Slater

The most true thing about you is what God has said to you in Christ, "You are My Beloved." - Tripp Fuller

The God among us is the God who refuses to be God without us, so great is God's Love. - Tripp Fuller

According to some Christian outlooks we were made for another world. Perhaps, rather, we were made for this world to recreate, reclaim, redeem, and renew unto God's future aspiration by the power of His Spirit. - R.E. Slater

Our eschatological ethos is to love. To stand with those who are oppressed. To stand against those who are oppressing. It is that simple. Love is our only calling and Christian Hope. - R.E. Slater

Secularization theory has been massively falsified. We don't live in an age of secularity. We live in an age of explosive, pervasive religiosity... an age of religious pluralism. - Peter L. Berger

Exploring the edge of life and faith in a post-everything world. - Todd Littleton

I don't need another reason to believe, your love is all around for me to see. – Anon

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all. - Khalil Gibran, Prayer XXIII

Be careful what you pretend to be. You become what you pretend to be. - Kurt Vonnegut

Religious beliefs, far from being primary, are often shaped and adjusted by our social goals. - Jim Forest

We become who we are by what we believe and can justify. - R.E. Slater

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone. – Anon

Certainly, God's love has made fools of us all. - R.E. Slater

An apocalyptic Christian faith doesn't wait for Jesus to come, but for Jesus to become in our midst. - R.E. Slater

Christian belief in God begins with the cross and resurrection of Jesus, not with rational apologetics. - Eberhard Jüngel, Jürgen Moltmann

Our knowledge of God is through the 'I-Thou' encounter, not in finding God at the end of a syllogism or argument. There is a grave danger in any Christian treatment of God as an object. The God of Jesus Christ and Scripture is irreducibly subject and never made as an object, a force, a power, or a principle that can be manipulated. - Emil Brunner

“Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh” means "I will be that who I have yet to become." - God (Ex 3.14) or, conversely, “I AM who I AM Becoming.”

Our job is to love others without stopping to inquire whether or not they are worthy. - Thomas Merton

The church is God's world-changing social experiment of bringing unlikes and differents to the Eucharist/Communion table to share life with one another as a new kind of family. When this happens, we show to the world what love, justice, peace, reconciliation, and life together is designed by God to be. The church is God's show-and-tell for the world to see how God wants us to live as a blended, global, polypluralistic family united with one will, by one Lord, and baptized by one Spirit. – Anon

The cross that is planted at the heart of the history of the world cannot be uprooted. - Jacques Ellul

The Unity in whose loving presence the universe unfolds is inside each person as a call to welcome the stranger, protect animals and the earth, respect the dignity of each person, think new thoughts, and help bring about ecological civilizations. - John Cobb & Farhan A. Shah

If you board the wrong train it is of no use running along the corridors of the train in the other direction. - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

God's justice is restorative rather than punitive; His discipline is merciful rather than punishing; His power is made perfect in weakness; and His grace is sufficient for all. – Anon

Our little [biblical] systems have their day; they have their day and cease to be. They are but broken lights of Thee, and Thou, O God art more than they. - Alfred Lord Tennyson

We can’t control God; God is uncontrollable. God can’t control us; God’s love is uncontrolling! - Thomas Jay Oord

Life in perspective but always in process... as we are relational beings in process to one another, so life events are in process in relation to each event... as God is to Self, is to world, is to us... like Father, like sons and daughters, like events... life in process yet always in perspective. - R.E. Slater

To promote societal transition to sustainable ways of living and a global society founded on a shared ethical framework which includes respect and care for the community of life, ecological integrity, universal human rights, respect for diversity, economic justice, democracy, and a culture of peace. - The Earth Charter Mission Statement

Christian humanism is the belief that human freedom, individual conscience, and unencumbered rational inquiry are compatible with the practice of Christianity or even intrinsic in its doctrine. It represents a philosophical union of Christian faith and classical humanist principles. - Scott Postma

It is never wise to have a self-appointed religious institution determine a nation's moral code. The opportunities for moral compromise and failure are high; the moral codes and creeds assuredly racist, discriminatory, or subjectively and religiously defined; and the pronouncement of inhumanitarian political objectives quite predictable. - R.E. Slater

God's love must both center and define the Christian faith and all religious or human faiths seeking human and ecological balance in worlds of subtraction, harm, tragedy, and evil. - R.E. Slater

In Whitehead’s process ontology, we can think of the experiential ground of reality as an eternal pulse whereby what is objectively public in one moment becomes subjectively prehended in the next, and whereby the subject that emerges from its feelings then perishes into public expression as an object (or “superject”) aiming for novelty. There is a rhythm of Being between object and subject, not an ontological division. This rhythm powers the creative growth of the universe from one occasion of experience to the next. This is the Whiteheadian mantra: “The many become one and are increased by one.” - Matthew Segall

Without Love there is no Truth. And True Truth is always Loving. There is no dichotomy between these terms but only seamless integration. This is the premier centering focus of a Processual Theology of Love. - R.E. Slater

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Note: Generally I do not respond to commentary. I may read the comments but wish to reserve my time to write (or write from the comments I read). Instead, I'd like to see our community help one another and in the helping encourage and exhort each of us towards Christian love in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior. - re slater

Monday, December 3, 2012

Celebrating Advent, It's Timeless Meaning and Discovery

 
 

People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived,
reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone- Anon
 
 
Advent season begins each year on the fourth Sunday before December 25. By its name "advent" means coming and refers to Christ's first coming (or First Advent) as the baby Jesus beheld by the church as God in Incarnate Deity. Advent then progresses towards Lent and Easter where Jesus becomes man's atoning sacrifice for our sins and God's sealing promise of redemption to all repentant through His resurrection.
 
Jesus' Second Advent (known as His Second Coming) will be at a day and an hour that no man knows when He shall return to rule and reign to establish His Kingdom among men. Until that time we live within the tension of the already/not yet (known as the upside-down Kingdom) empowered by the Holy Spirit to testify of Christ Jesus' redemption by hearts and tongues, through deeds and acts, until He returns in final deliverance and completing redemptive promise.

As such, Advent is held during the Christmas season and is similar to a mnemonic practice placed into the Christian liturgy of annualized observance and worship. It began in the early church under the Church Fathers and has progressed into a rich tapestry of Christian interpretative religious practice found throughout the branches of Eastern Orthodoxy, Catholicism, Scandinavian, German, Dutch, Latino, Hispanic, and and American churches, to name but a few.

Accordingly, each Christian faith has appealed to the Christmas story of the Gospel of Jesus in some manner to appropriate some element of faith, or practice of belief, that has become meaningful to the journey of the follower of Christ by liturgical observance or confessional creed, by hallowed deed or truant prayer. Why? To reflect the deeper meaning of Christ's birth and the preparedness of the God's people Israel for His coming (as evidenced by John the Baptist's parents found in Luke 1) to the long-awaited divine event of salvation that led to Jesus' Cross of Atonement and the empowerment of the Church for ministry in place of His abstinence (Acts 1-3). Hence, on the Day of Pentecost, 50 days after Christ's resurrection, came God's Holy Spirit to empower the Church to bear witness to Jesus' life, passion, death and resurrection until He returns in His Second Advent to rule and to reign as King and Lord over a new heavens and new earth (Rev 1-18; specifically, Rev 19-22).
 
Until that time, the church is to minister to all men everywhere - to reclaim faith to the lost; to help in works of grace and salutation; to seek a living faith that is found in the substance of works and deeds and not simply on the lips of merciless hearts and faithless men; to refuse sinful temptations; to deny the idolatrous practices of fleshly worship (as found in the extremes of self-denial on the one hand, and the excesses of hedonism on the other); to bind the wounds of the heart and body; to care for the needs of the sick, the dying, the impoverished, and despised; to preach a gospel of love and good will, peace and assurance that are founded on the promises and testimonies of God in both the Old and New Testaments. These are but some of the ministries of the church until Christ returns again.

Into the rich traditions of the Church has come the integration of the Jewish-Christian calendars of observance to the liturgical practices and observations of Christian churches. But rather than refuse our Jewish brethren's desire to behold their Lord and Savior within their own Jewish Calendar year (which is unlike the Gentile/Julian Calendar (*sic the Roman calendar we use today) of Advent-Lent-Easter), the orthodox Church is learning to embrace and appreciate its earlier Jewish roots that may enliven previously set practices and traditions perhaps become historically mundane or exhausted. Originally, because of its nearness to both time and location of the Middle East, the early Church followed the Hebrew calendar until it grew beyond its Jewishness into the Gentile practices of the Romans and then worldwide.

To God, the Christian practice of faith is transcultural, transnational, and transtemporal.  That is, Christianity does not need to be centralized within one cultural distinctive or another. It was ever meant to be global. To be all, and one, and more, as the nations worshipped God with one another. That is, there is no religious advantage (or biblical advantage) of worshipping God as a Jew or as a Gentile where all are one in Christ Jesus. True, Judaism has the advantage of prior OT customs and traditions, but as we know from reading the OT, they were little observed and oftentimes were desecrated by Israel in continuing cycles of failure and judgment. As well, were the early Church customs initially based in Jewish traditions but over time leavened out within the customs and traditions of other lands and cultures. But the gospel of Jesus allows this. Jesus saw it coming when speaking of wineskins, mustard seeds, and mountains. That all would change in Him.

Thus, the church is at liberty to revision and repurpose its faith in Jesus through a variety of worship styles, liturgies, calendars, practices of austerity or non-austerity (such is found at Lent), and on and on. It may adapt previous pagan practices and customs by Christianizing them (as we do in America with the idea of Christmas; or the Druids did in England; or the Scandinavians did with their Norse Mythologies). Or the church may backfill Jewish traditions within its practices where it might make sense to the land and people (sic, perhaps mid-Eastern cultures, for instance). These adaptations are allowable according to the Apostle Paul who preached the freedom of faith observance everywhere. Or the church may use some combination of the above. But whether by Jesus or by Paul, the church was understood to be free to create - that there is no wrong way to worship God nor His blessings of redemption. That all is sanctified in Christ Jesus.

And so, with the idea of "more" in mind, we are free in Christ to set forth any kind of Christianized version that comes to our hearts and souls. Ideally, it would hearken back to Scriptural precedent... but in hindsight, the only precedent the early church had in the New Testament was that of its Jewish precursors. Consequently, just as new wine requires new wineskins, so the Gospel of Jesus is free to transform and develop into variant traditions and customs meaningful to the receiving people group. Be it Hispanic or Latino, Asian or Indonesian, South Pacific or Korean, Muslim and African, or even within polyglot nations like America. The Gospel is wide enough - and deep enough - to embrace all the customs and traditions of mankind.

It is but left to us to root those same customs and traditions into the understanding of God's grace and redemption, and not necessarily towards the Jewish customs of the time (for they too were ever rooted in the grace and redemption of the Almighty God of Heaven and Earth!). This is the freedom that the Gospel brings with it. That the faith of Jesus can be trans-national, trans-cultural, and even trans-temporal, by which is meant "from age-to-age ever the same but ever changing, transforming, renewing, and enlivening." ... Not surprisingly, the gospel of Jesus does that you know.

As such, we might chose topics of hope, peace, joy, and love as pictured in the Advent candles of Christmas-time by some faiths. Or, we might seek releasing forms of worship, prayer, assembly and enactment together as practiced by other faiths. Or, we might take aspects of Jesus' life that epitomize His grace, mercy, ministry and sacrifice. As can be seen, there are many ways to regard this season of Advent. It may be in the spirit of Christmas which observes the spirit of our Lord wrapped around gifts of generosity, thoughtfulness, good will, and humor with one another. Or through the simple symbols of Santa Claus, elves, reindeer, Christmas trees, bright and coloured lights, singing and charitable giving.

It is a powerful statement that Christ Jesus has touched all things human - from our holidays, to our community life, to our governance with one another. There is no such thing as either secular or sacred in Christ. In God all are one lest we become too religious for our own good, and that of the world around us, whom we as Christians of faith should be ministering to and reaching out to. To debate a Christianized form of Christmas by saying we observe only its Advent form is to make a finer distinction that seems to be unwarranted within the spirit of the gospel (and of the Bible itself as we've shown). And perhaps in the statement discover its only appeal is to that of our flesh, our religious pride, and spirit of human insolence (for isn't the base of sin man's pride of legalism and refusal of Jesus' atoning provision?).

Consequently, every church is free to imagine its own customs and traditions according to its corresponding beliefs in the bible and of God Himself. And it is to this point that we would all do well to appreciate all the customs and traditions of the church, and in doing so learn to appreciate from one another the global beauty of this time of year. Be it in the form of the spirit of Christmas or of that of the Church's Advent observance. Much can be gained when listening to one another. This is the beauty of the gospel. Herein in wisdom.

However, the rhymes and rhythms of this holiday season can never be more poignantly expressed than through the opening lines of this article. That, "People, even more than things, need to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; never throw out anyone." When centering on Jesus we soon discover that He centers all things in our lives around the Story of His birth, life, witness, and sacrifice. That it becomes our larger story of faith relinquishing us from ourselves and from life's haughty demands. That the essence of Christ's First Advent is found in the ideas of restoration to God, renewal in God, revival through God, reclamation by God, and redemption because of God. In all things is God our Redeemer. Our Savior. Our Immanuel come to bring eternal life that begins in our here-and-now. Not later. But today. Reveal in Christ's birth. It was for this reason He came.
 
And because Advent is a time of restoration, renewal, revival, reclamation, and redemption, we now know that it's time has come to us today. Not simply during the Advent season of Christmas, nor that of Lent and Easter, but each and every day of our living faith. This is the great, good joy of our Christian celebration. It is Jesus who is our own advent, epiphany, second coming, and Lord. No wonder the angels sang, and the shepherds rang out the bells on Christmas morn to one and all.

Ring out the Bells!
Ring out the Bells!
Let them Peal,
To One and All!
Sing Out in Hail,
Sing Out in Fellowship!
In Wonder and Awe,
In Beauty and Grace!
The Christ Child Comes,
Christ Comes this Day!

 ...And He has Come to the Heart of every man and woman and child in the swaddling cloths of divine humility and glorified grace. May God's peace be with you this day, as on every advent day of this coming new year. Amen.
 
R.E. Slater
December 3, 2012
 

(click to enlarge any picture)
 
 
 
Sampling Advent Customs & Traditions
 
The Christian Liturgical Calendar - Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Eastern Christians, and traditional Protestant communities frame worship around a liturgical calendar. This includes holy days, such as solemnities which commemorate an event in the life of Jesus or the saints, periods of fasting such as Lent, and other pious events such as memoria or lesser festivals commemorating saints. Christian groups that do not follow a liturgical tradition often retain certain celebrations, such as Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. A few churches make no use of a liturgical calendar. - Wikipedia
 
Catholic Understanding of Advent - http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01165a.htm
Antiochian (Eastern) Orthodoxy Customs - http://www.antiochian.org/1132082814
Greek Orthodoxy Calendar - http://www.goarch.org/chapel/calendar/
German Observance of Advent - http://www.german-way.com/christmasAdv.html
Reformed Church of America - https://www.rca.org/advent
Christian Reformed Advent Devotionals - http://www.crcna.org/pages/osj_adventdevotions.cfm

The Hebrew Calendar - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hebrew_calendar
Jewish Calendar (complete) - http://www.hebcal.com/holidays/2012-2013
Jewish Holidays Cheat Sheet (to understanding all things Jewish) - http://www.interfaithfamily.com/holidays/other_holidays/Jewish_Holidays_Cheat_Sheet.shtml


Comparison of Church Liturgical Calendars

 

Western

Eastern

The Jewish Calendar

Holiday
Hebrew Yr 5773
Description
Rosh HashanaSep 17-18, 2012The Jewish New Year
Yom KippurSep 26, 2012Day of Atonement
SukkotOct 1-2, 2012
Oct 3-7, 2012
Feast of Tabernacles
Shmini AtzeretOct 8, 2012Eighth Day of Assembly
Simchat TorahOct 9, 2012Day of Celebrating the Torah
ChanukahDec 9-16, 2012The Jewish festival of rededication, also known as the Festival of Lights
PurimFeb 24, 2013Purim is one of the most joyous and fun holidays on the Jewish calendar
PesachMar 26-27, 2013
Mar 28-31, 2013
Apr 1-2, 2013
Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread
ShavuotMay 15-16, 2013Festival of Weeks, commemorates the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai
Tish'a B'AvJul 16, 2013The Ninth of Av, fast commemorating the destruction of the two Temples


The Origins of Advent
 
Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon
 
In the Roman Catholic Church and other Christian churches of the West, the several weeks prior to Christmas are known as Advent, a name from a Latin word meaning "coming." It happens that the beginning of Advent always falls on the Sunday closest to November 30, the ancient feast day (in both East and West) of the Apostle Andrew. Among Christians in the West, this preparatory season, which tends to be slightly less rigorous than Lent and often involves no special fasting at all, always begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas. Thus, from year to year it will vary in length between 3 and 4 weeks, but always with four Sundays.
 
The observance of the season of Advent is fairly late. One finds no sermons for Advent, for instance, among the liturgical homilies of St. Leo the Great in the mid-fifth century. About that time, however, the season was already emerging in Spain and Gaul. A thousand years later, the time of the Reformation, Advent was preserved among the liturgical customs of the Anglicans and Lutherans; in more recent years, other Protestant groups have informally begun to restore it, pretty much as it had originally started--one congregation at a time.
 
In the Eastern Orthodox Church, the corresponding penitential season of preparation for Christmas always begins on November 15, the day after the Feast of the Apostle Philip. For this reason it is popularly known as St. Philip's Fast. A simple count of the days between November 15 and December 25 shows that this special period lasts exactly 40 days, the same as Lent.
 
More recently Christians of the Orthodox Church have begun to call this season by its Latin name, "Advent." One now finds the term standard in publications of the Antiochian Archdiocese, for instance. The adoption of the word "Advent" by Eastern Orthodox Christians is inspired by the same reason that prompted the adoption of other Latin theological terms, such "Sacraments," "Incarnation," and "Trinity." Very simply, these are the recognizable theological terms that have passed into Western languages. They also happen to be theologically accurate! If the Christian West can adopt Greek terms like "Christology," it seems only fair for the Christian East to adopt Latin terms like "Incarnation."
 
(On the other hand, one finds some Orthodox Christians, especially among recent, hyperactive converts from Western churches, who resist the adoption of the word "Advent," preferring to speak of "Winter Lent" or some such anomaly. One is hard pressed to explain this eccentric, lamentable preference for Anglo-Saxon over Latin on a point of theology.)
 
Several other features of Advent deserve some comment:
  • First, in the West the First Sunday of Advent is treated as the beginning of the liturgical year. (In the East, the liturgical year does not begin with Advent but on September 1, which bears the traditional title, "Crown of the Year." Its historical relationship to the Jewish feast of Rosh Hashana is obvious.)
  •  
  • Second, during the twentieth century there arose the lovely custom of the Advent wreath, both in church buildings and in homes. This wreath lies horizontal and is adorned with four candles. The latter, (symbolic of the four millennia covered in Old Testament history), are lit, one at a time, on each Saturday evening preceding the four Sundays of Advent, by way of marking the stages in the season until Christmas. This modern practice has already started in some Orthodox Christian homes, where the longer season requires six candles on the Advent wreath.
  •  
  • Third, because of its emphasis on repentance, Advent is a season of great seriousness, not a time proper for festivity, much less of partying and secular concerns. Advent is not part of the Christmas holidays, and Christians of earlier times would be shocked at the current habit of treating this as a period of jolly good times and "Christmas cheer," complete with office parties, the trimming of Christmas trees and other domestic adornments, the exchange of gifts, caroling, and even the singing of Christmas music in church.
 
All of these festive things are part of the celebration of Christmas itself, which lasts the 12 days from December 25 to January 6.
 
The seasons of the liturgical year involve more than liturgical services. The liturgical seasons is supposed to govern the lives of those who observe them. For this reason, anticipating these properly Christmas activities during Advent considerably lessens the chance of our being properly prepared, by repentance, for the grace of that greater season; it also heightens the likelihood that we will fall prey to the worldly spirit that the commercial world would encourage during this time.

Fr. Patrick Henry Reardon is pastor of All Saints Antiochian Orthodox Church in Chicago, Illinois, and a Senior Editor of Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity.


 

Sunday, December 2, 2012

Worshipping with Irish Band Bluetree

 
Bluetree is a Northern Irish contemporary Christian band. The band is best known for its song "God of This City", which received international exposure when it was covered by Chris Tomlin on the Passion: God of This City and Hello Love albums. As an independent artist, Bluetree signed distribution agreements with Lucid Entertainment in the USA and Kingsway in the UK & Europe for their album, God of this City.
 
  
Bluetree's MySpace Website
 
 
 
 
 
 
God Of This City by Bluetree in HD with Lyrics
 
 
 
 
Bluetree - Jesus Healer (Kingdom)
 
 
 
 
God's Plan Bluetree HQ With Lyrics
 
 
 
 
BlueTree - Burn me up
 
 
 
 
 
Review
 
 
The debut album of Irish worship band Bluetree hit No. 1 on the Christian Retail and Praise & Worship charts this week and No. 125 on the Billboard Top 200 albums chart.
“With the album sales and growing success of the radio single, ‘God Of This City,’ I believe a new breakout band is on the horizon,” reported Greg Lucid, CEO of Lucid Artist, the label under which Bluetree released God Of This City in the United States on Tuesday.
 
“As the lyrics to the album’s title song say, ‘Greater things are yet to come…,’” he added after calling this week’s success an “Irish-invasion.”
 
As an independent band from Belfast, Ireland, Bluetree had recorded their debut album at the Windmill Lane Studios, the preferred studio of Irish rock group U2. The record was eventually released in September 2007 and picked up on January 24, 2008, by Fierce! Records for U.K. distribution.
 
What vaulted the band into international popularity was the hit song “God Of This City,” which was covered by worship leader Chris Tomlin on two albums and became the name and theme for the latest project and world tour of the Passion movement led by Louie Giglio.
 
Today, aside from being sung in church services around the globe, “God Of This City” has become an R&R Most Added hit single in the United States as scores of stations nationally begin playing the song.
 
“Since writing [‘God Of This City’], the band’s momentum has been nothing but fast and furious,” remarked Gospel Music Channel.
 
Though the band's name may not be drawn from Scripture, as many worship groups' tend to be, the name reveals what the band "is all about" and what they believe Christians should be doing - standing out.
 
“If you’re in a forest and there’s nothing but green trees — everything being as you’d normally see it — but then you see a blue tree with blue bark, blue leaves, blue branches, well, it would catch your eye,” explains lead singer Aaron Boyd.
 
“And as Christians we’re called to stand out, to be different—like blue trees,” he adds.
 
The band’s music style has been described as a convergence of worship, rock, and technology that crosses Chris Tomlin, Delirious, and the David Crowder Band with “the alternative aura of Oasis,” as ChristianMusicToday.com put it.
 
Since its inception, Bluetree has desired to create an atmosphere of worship where people could encounter the Spirit of God through music – “a climate where the complete expression was greater than a singular attitude of the heart and music a secondary compliment.”
 
In May 2009 the band plans to launch their charity "Stand Out International," which directly rescues kids out of the sex industry.
 
 
 
 
 

Saturday, December 1, 2012

All Things Christmas: The Rythm of Time, Christian Calendars, Advent, and Christmas Future

 


Here are several stories related by Scot McKnight that I thought well worth the mentioning. I especially liked the first two from City Church and on Advent until the Grinch of Lee Wyatt's last story sadly stole my feeling of awe and wonder quickly away. I'm not into fret and anxiety as a Christian and so, I might encourage a re-reading of stories 1 and 2 this coming Sunday morning to expressly pray and meditate over the tone and temperament that might pervade our spirits within the grace and mercy of our glorious God set around His personage and will. Enjoy.

R.E. Slater
December 1, 2012

* * * * * * * * * *
 

[Selected] Weekly Meanderings
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/12/01/weekly-meanderings-336/

by Scot McKnight
December 1, 2012

Prayer on the First Sunday of Advent:
 
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.


From City Church SF [this you, Fred?]
 
“When I begin seeing the leaves turn, when I smell the turkey roasting in the oven, when the familiar Christmas jingles start playing on every commercial – I know it’s time. My calendar still reads November, which makes it hard to believe that invitations to Christmas parties are already showing up in my Inbox.
 
But Christmas intrudes into our present like an old friend, who reliably shows up time and again with the promise of something new.How do you experience time? I know someone who feels time is an enemy. She’s constantly running out of time. Often, life feels frantic and out-of-control for her. She’s always saying, “So much to do; so little time!”
 
Knowing the inevitably of time’s endless rhythm, a few wise old souls many, many years ago decided to order time in a certain discernible pattern, a pattern that echoed the even more ancient Jewish cycles of worship and prayer, but markedly different. The Christian calendar would become a way of ordering time centering on the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. And its rhythm would hold the very real potential of ordering our lives around His Story, so much so that we might be able to relinquish our need to somehow control time, or relax our fear of running out of time.
 
What if your story was somehow ordered by a larger Story? What if you could relinquish the frantic need to master time, and relax into a more sacred rhythm? What if this season of Advent could mark a renewal in your life, a renewal of your time? This week, the Christian calendar begins with the Season of Advent, the beginning of our Christian calendar year.”
 
 
 
“Advent is all about desire,” an elderly Jesuit in our community used to say every year as November drew to a close. And whenever he said it, I would say, “Huh?” But gradually it dawned on me. Christians desire the coming of Christ into their lives in new ways, a desire that is heightened during Advent.
 
The beautiful readings from the Book of Isaiah, which we hear during Advent, describe how even the earth longs for the presence of God. The wonderful “O antiphons,” sung at evening prayer and during the Gospel acclamations towards the end of Advent, speak of Christ at the “King of Nations and their Desire.” The Gospel readings in the coming weeks tell of John the Baptist expressing Israel’s hope for a Messiah. Mary and Joseph look forward to the upcoming birth of a son.
 
My friend was right. It’s all about desire.”
 
 
Lee Wyatt on what to do about Christmas
 
“I hold in my hands the essential tools for liberating Christmas from its captivity to North American capitalistic, consumeristic culture. The Dr. Seuss tale How the Grinch Stole Christmas; C. S. Lewis’s Narnia story, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; the “Christian Seasons Calendar”; and the Bible.
 
In the U. S. News & World Report a few years ago, Jeffrey Sheler surveyed what he called “the battle for Christmas.” His thesis was: from the time when Christians began celebrating Christ’s birth (which surprisingly seems not to be until the fourth century when the Roman Emperor Constantine made Christianity the religion of the empire), from that beginning the celebration of Christ’s birth was locked in a desperate struggle to “christianize” the midwinter Roman festivals of Saturnalia and various other pagan sun deities.
 
The fascinating history Sheler recounts alerts us to the danger of nostalgia in our present skirmishes over this contested season. There never was a time, it seems (Norman Rockwell notwithstanding!), that Christmas enjoyed a pure, unsullied status, free of the taint of commercialism and excess – a time from whose heights we fell and to which we must return.
 
No, the reality is that we are still groping towards a clearer understanding and proper celebration of the birth of the Savior. If we are going to get free of the dreadfulness of Christmas present it will not be through revisiting Christmas past but rather by boldly pushing ahead into Christmas future.
 
And that’s what I want to do this morning – to envision what Christmas future might be and what kind of people we must become to live out that vision.”
 
 
 
 

Sam Walter Foss: A Christian Poet with an Optimistic Spirit


 
 
Sam Walter Foss is a late 19th century poet with a major Christian message for the 21st century. Certainly part of it is optimism. But self-deprecating humor is also part of his optimistic bent. Many of his poems are straight-forward and easily read but taken as a collection they bear a contemporary message with an overall spirit of hardiness against dark times. For Sam, he observed the affects of the Civil War 30 years hence, and later, the loss of his son to WW1. He is the everyman poet for the common man or woman.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Sam Walter Foss: Minor Poet with a Major Message
by John Hoad
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Amazon Listings
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Friday, November 30, 2012

A Jewish Perspective of the Bible

My Bible – A Jew’s Perspective (RJS)

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2012/11/29/my-bible-a-jews-perspective-rjs/
 
by RJS
November 29, 2012
Comments
 
The first essay in the new book by Marc Zvi Brettler (Brandeis University), Peter Enns (Eastern University) and Daniel J. Harrington (Boston College), The Bible and the Believer: How to Read the Bible Critically & Religiously, is by Brettler. In this essay he reflects on the development and diversity of Jewish engagement with the Scripture and what this means for the believing Jewish scholar.
 
The picture to the right is of a fourth or fifth century synagogue at Bar’am National Park in Israel. It was long thought to date a couple hundred years earlier, but new investigations have demonstrated that it was built later using the remains of an earlier second or third century (probably pagan Roman) structure.
 
I found Brettler’s essay fascinating for several reasons: the sketch of the history of Jewish thought, the similarities and differences in the approach to scripture, and the insight it provides into modern Jewish thinking. Many, perhaps 20%-25%, of my colleagues are Jewish ranging from orthodox through the variations to thoroughly secular. About the only group not represented to the best of my knowledge are the ultra-orthodox.
 
Rather than try to summarize the whole of Brettler’s essay, I will instead point to two of the themes he develops. The first relates to torah or Torah, and the second to the Bible as history and science (a topic of concern in many of my posts).
 
 
[The Bible as] Torah
 
In looking to the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures Brettler chooses to focus on the Torah or Law because this is the central document for the Jewish faith. Brettler builds a case that there was a development through the biblical texts from torah as teachings and laws, lower case, plural (torot), including parts of the Pentateuch, to the view of single divine Torah. The view of a single divine Torah was accepted in the late books of the Old Testament, especially Ezra-Nehemiah and Chronicles.
The absence of this term [the torah of Moses] in earlier prophetic material bolsters the idea that the notion of a Mosaic Torah, identical with the Pentateuch, only developed in the Second Temple period.
 
Once this idea of a Mosaic Torah arose, it stuck. Thus, over a dozen times the Dead Sea Scrolls (second century BCE-first CE) refer to “the Torah of Moses,” alongside less frequent references to “the Torah of God/the LORD.” … The New Testament, written in the same period, also likely assumes in places that the Torah is Mosaic (see, for example, Matt 19:8; Mark 12:26) (p. 30-31)
The notion that parts of the Pentateuch are divine revelations to Moses dates from the earliest documents – the idea of the Torah as a single document of divine revelation developed later.
The knowledge that the Torah was composite in its origin was likely lost shortly after its redaction or compilation into a single document, and, thereafter, there was no prevarication involved in speaking of the Torah, or God’s [Torah], or Moses’ Torah, as a unified document. This belief, developed in the Second Temple period, reached the classical rabbis and through them Maimonides and other theologians. Yet I will suggest that it is constructive to return to this “lost” knowledge about the Torah’s complex composition. (p. 31)
Maimonides (1135-1205) took this general belief in a single unified Mosaic Torah and enshrined it for years to come. His shortened eighth and ninth principles read (p. 25):
 
I believe with perfect faith that the entire Torah we now possess is the one given to Moses our teacher – may he rest in peace.
 
I believe in perfect faith that this Torah will never be changed …
 
The long forms are even clearer stating that the whole Torah was given from God “through Moses who acted like a secretary taking dictation” and “this Torah was precisely transcribed from God.” (p. 34)
 
Brettler suggests however, that tradition aside, a more complex view of the origin of the Torah is warranted both by the internal evidence of the text itself and the external evidence in the earlier rabbis and teachers. This is not to deny either revelation or inspiration. A revelation through a variety of sources complied into a unified document is still a revelation from God. The Torah can be better appreciated, even by the faithful, when it is viewed through the lens of critical study. An alternative view is that “the sanctity of the text derives from the redactor, or from the community as a whole. (p. 39)
 
That the inspiration of scripture derives, at least in part, from the work of the Spirit in the redaction of the text we have received is one that should resonate with Christians. Although the Jewish believer, of course, does not attach the Spirit to the process the way the Christian does.
 
Brettler also notes a bit later when considering the authorship of books in the Hebrew Bible that “canonicity involves authority, not inspiration.” (p. 56) [Consequently,] the Christian view of inspiration, while having roots and parallels in Jewish thought, should not be imposed on the Jewish view of scripture.
 
 
[The Problem of ] Literalism: The Bible as History and as Science.
Jewish tradition is much less concerned with the literal truth and the historical accuracy of the biblical text than is the Protestant tradition. This is true with respect to what would typically be categorized as history and as science. (p. 52)
History proves a somewhat malleable form of truth telling. Chronicles is “a creative revision of Genesis-Kings” and the plague narratives of Exodus are recounted differently in later books. The differences do not discount the work of God in history, but display an attitude that doesn’t assign significance to the precise details.
This is because in ancient Israel, as in other premodern societies, the facts themselves or the historical events were not primary – [but] what could be learned from the stories was primary. (p. 52)
Debates continue about what should and should not be read literally – inside and outside the Torah. But in Jewish thought there is “broad consensus … that the Bible should not always or primarily be read literally.” (p. 53) The book of Genesis was not viewed as “natural history” but as “about morality and our relationship to God.” The primary meaning is not the surface meaning. Within Judaism therefore, even among devout Jews, scientific views of evolution and the age of the earth cause relatively little trouble. The inferences drawn by some (especially those intent on promoting ontological natural or scientific materialism) are at odds with Jewish belief – but the scientific theories themselves are not.
 
Does the history sketched by Brettler surprise you?
 
What authority should we attach to the Second Temple view of the Torah as a unified Mosaic document?
 
Do the references in the New Testament to the books of Moses carry separate authority or could they reflect an (inaccurate) common view of the time?
 
 
If you wish to contact me directly you may do so at rjs4mail[at]att.net
If interested you can subscribe to a full text feed of my posts at Musings on Science and Theology.
 
 
 

How the Early Christians Read the Bible

 
Scot McKnight
November 28, 2012
 
It is not unusual for a first-time Bible reader to encounter a New Testament author quoting an Old Testament author, for the reader to wander back to the Old Testament to read that text too, and discover — “Wow, that’s not quite what the Old Testament author had in mind.”
 
One of my favorites is how Matthew sees Jesus’ parents taking him to Egypt and then back to the Land of Israel (to the Galilee in fact) and to see in that move a “fulfillment” of Hosea where it says “out of Egypt I have called my son.” In Hosea “son” means Israel and refers to the Exodus… well, that’s not quite the same as what Matthew was on about.
 
Have you ever explained to a Bible reader how the New uses the Old? What would you tell that person? What are the major ideas? Which text in the NT would you use first?
 
Which is why we need an introductory book to how the earliest Christians read the Old Testament. Greg Beale, in his book Handbook on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament: Exegesis and Interpretation (Baker Academic, 2012) provides for advanced college students and seminary students such a book. One does not have to know Hebrew, Aramaic or Greek to make use of this book even if it is rich in detail at times.
 
That problem of “non-contextual” readings of the Old Testament (remember, it was the one and only Bible for the earliest Christians) has a number of arguments in its favor though Beale thinks the arguments are often taken too far.
 
Some Proposed Readings of the OT by the early Christians
 
There is the argument which Beale thinks has been overcooked:
 
  • that the earliest Christians were using typical, non-contextual Jewish methods of interpretation,
  • that the early Christians were using a “testimony book” which had quotes and not full contexts of the Bible,
  • that their “christocentric” or “christotelic” approach permitted them to override the Old Testament context,
  • that they were using the OT rhetorically but not contextually,
  • and that postmodernity reveals that those authors were reading their ideas into the OT.
 
The Argument of Typology
 
The issue is also over typology, something that gets abused in the church and therefore gets a bad name, but it’s something the NT authors clearly do — do the NT authors see analogies within their theology that would not have been seen in the original OT? We are drawn back into the salvation-history discussion: once one admits that Christ is the fulfillment, the Old begins to be read toward and in light of Christ. In other words, it is “contextual” exegesis.
 
  • Salvation-History
  • Christological Focus
  • A Contextual Exegesis
 
Some Practical Guidance Then
 
What Beale can do for most any Bible reader is provide some method for anyone wanting know how to begin seeing how the NT appropriates and reads the OT: 
  • Identify the OT reference: is it a quotation or an allusion? (He’s got criteria for determining allusions.)
  •  
  • Analyze the broad NT context where the OT reference occurs.
  •  
  • Analyze the OT context both broadly and immediately, esp thoroughly interpreting the paragraph in which the quotation or allusion occurs.
  •  
  • Survey the use of the OT text in early and late Judaism that might be relevant to the NT appropriation. [Requires some texts and some time.]
  •  
  • Compare the texts carefully, including the textual variants: NT, LXX, Hebrew Bible, targums, early Jewish citations of that text, etc.
  •  
  • Analyze the author’s textual use of the OT (which text does this author use?).
  •  
  • Analyze the author’s interpretive (hermeneutical) use of the OT.
  •  
  • Analyze the author’s theological use of the OT.
  •  
  • Analyze the author’s rhetorical use of the OT.
OK, this takes lots of work — for each text analyzed! But some of you are interested in this sort of thing, and this is a great place to start.
 
Conclusion
 
So, then, how does the NT use the OT?
 
  • To indicate direct fulfillment of prophecy.
  • To indicate indirect fulfillment of typological prophecy.
  • To indicate affirmation that a not-yet-fulfilled OT prophecy will assuredly be fulfilled in the future.
  • To indicate an analogical or illustrative use of the OT.
  • To indicate the symbolic use of the OT.
  • To indicate an abiding authority carried over from the OT.
  • To indicate a proverbial use of the OT.
  • To indicate a rhetorical use of the OT.
  • To indicate the use of an OT segment as a blueprint or prototype of a NT segment.
  • To indicate an alternate textual use of the OT.
  • To indicate an assimilated use of the OT.
  • To indicate an ironic or inverted use of the OT.
 
Complex indeed, but here is what is at work under it all:
 
  • They believe in corporate solidarity or representativeness.
  • Christ is the true Israel and church.
  • History is unified
 
 
 

Book Review - Genesis for Normal People, by Author Jard Byas

Why We Wrote Genesis for Normal People