Things that helped this week…
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A couple of things this week that were immensely helpful…
The first was a post by Don Miller on his blog: The Context for Spirituality is not Spirituality
If we think we are going to grow in faith by sitting around at a Bible study, we are wrong. That stuff is fine, but without a story, without diving into something really difficult, something that requires us to look to God for support and wisdom and comfort, it will be more difficult to become a person of great faith.
The second was an old talk by Tim Keller: The New Jerusalem. The stand-out for me in this was his discussion of the statement in Revelation that God is ‘making all things new’. He brought out the distinction – lost in english — between chronological newness and the quality of newness/freshness. That everything that God touches becomes fresh and new; there is endless opening up and discovery. We’re so used to decay and deterioration that we only experience this with chronologically new things, but with God and in the New Creation all that changes…
Desiring the Kingdom
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James K.A Smith’s Desiring the Kingdom is one of the most interesting books that I’ve read this year. I’ve just found an mp3 of a talk based on the book at www.calvin.edu/january/2010/smith.htm. It picks up on a lot of the key points from the book, so makes a great intro if you haven’t read it…
Hauerwas on the Life of a Theologian
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Havel on politicians
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In honour of tomorrow’s events…
It is my profound conviction that the world requires – today more than ever – enlightened, thoughtful politicians who are bold and broad-minded enough to consider things which lie beyond the scope of their immediate influence in both space and time. We need politicians willing and able to rise above their own power interests, or the particular interests of their parties or states, and act in accord with the fundamental interests of today’s humanity — that is, to behave the way everyone should behave, even though most may fail to do so.
Vaclav Havel
Partially quoted by James Sire in Vaclav Havel: The Intellectual Conscience of International Politics and in full on Project Syndicate.
portraits now and then…
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Tags: art
giving and receiving
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Yesterday’s reading in the excellent advent collection Watch for the Light was from William Willimon. Here’s an extract:
Charles Dickens’ story of Scrooge’s transformation has probably done more to form our notions of Christmas than St. Luke’s story of the manger. Whereas Luke tells us of God’s gift to us, Dickens tells us how we can give to others. A Christmas Carol is more congenial to our favorite images of ourselves. Dickens suggests that down deep, even the worst of us can become generous, giving people.Yet I suggest we are better givers than getters, not because we are generous people but because we are proud, arrogant people. The Christmas story – the one according to Luke not Dickens – is not about how blessed it is to be givers but about how essential it is to see ourselves as receivers.We prefer to think of ourselves as givers – powerful, competent, self-sufficient, capable people whose goodness motivates us to employ some of our power, competence and gifts to benefit the less fortunate. Which is a direct contradiction of the biblical account of the first Christmas. There we are portrayed not as the givers we wish we were but as the receivers we are.…This strange story tells us how to be receivers. The first word of the church, a people born out of so odd a nativity, is that we are receivers before we are givers. Discipleship teaches us the art of seeing our lives as gifts. That’s tough, because I would rather see myself as a giver. I want power – to stand on my own, take charge, set things to rights, perhaps to help those who have nothing. I don’t like picturing myself as dependent, needy, empty-handed.…It’s tough to be on the receiving end of love, God’s or anybody else’s. It requires that we see our lives not as our possessions, but as gifts. “Nothing is more repugnant to capable, reasonable people than grace,” wrote John Wesley a long time ago.…This is often the way God loves us: with gifts we thought we didn’t need, which transform us into people we don’t necessarily want to be.
Tags: books, grace, provocations
A random walk over culture, art, christianity, etc. with occasional photographs...