Posts tagged "Jesus Christ"
Now Available! The Merciful Impasse: The Sermon on the Mount for People Who’ve Crashed (and Burned)
Bible / Grace in Practice / Law / Religion / Sermons / Theology

Now Available! The Merciful Impasse: The Sermon on the Mount for People Who’ve Crashed (and Burned)

by Mockingbird on Nov 4, 2011 • 7 Comments

“I’m telling you, that the demand actually is higher than you know, and that allows you to go on your knees more quickly.”

Life demands many things from us – a successful career, a stable marriage, perfect children, a certain quality of life. More often than not, we respond with determination and a fierce will.

Jesus Christ brought a fresh and radical insight to the endless human struggle with demand, associating it with weakness rather than with strength, with failure rather than success. He believed that we only begin to meet the requirements of life when we despair of our ability to…

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Why I Am Coming to NYC
Conferences / Testimony / Theology

Why I Am Coming to NYC

by Jeff Hual on Mar 14, 2011 • 3 Comments

Each year it seems like such an undertaking: spending money on travel for myself that could have been used for a family vacation; enduring crowded flights and dreary layovers; trudging to and fro on subway lines and unfamiliar avenues, a stranger in a strange land – all to spend a few fleeting days at a religious conference. Is it worth it, you may ask? Well, I wrote what follows after last year’s conference, and it sums up the reason why I intend to make this annual pilgrimage to New York City as long as there is a Mockingbird…

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Ideas or the Human Heart?
Church / News / Religion / Suffering

Ideas or the Human Heart?

by Stampdawg on Mar 4, 2011 • 4 Comments

From a BBC news flash yesterday:

Pope Benedict has rejected the idea of collective Jewish guilt for Jesus Christ’s death, in a new book to be published next week.

Tackling an issue that has led to centuries of persecution, the Pope argues there is no basis in scripture for the Jewish people to be blamed.

It’s a good thing for the Pope to say this, of course. But the BBC article (read it here) is misleading in that it repeatedly gives the casual reader the impression that this idea is the result of groundbreaking exegetical research. That’s of course always going to be…

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Against This, I Cannot Fight
Addiction / Music / Theology

Against This, I Cannot Fight

by L.R.E. Larkin on Feb 18, 2011 • 2 Comments

I love classical music. It calms me, it always has. So, when my little Q man was born and all he did was SCREAM (okay, unfair…maybe 2% of the time he ‘tried’ to sleep), I quickly developed a habit of turning on the classical music…for me, really. So, more often then not, if you stop by our house in the middle of the day you will typically hear classical music (and, maybe, me yelling over the top of it…).

However, when I work out, it’s a whole different story in music genre. Out goes Bach and in goes Rage Against the…

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Jesus and the Myth of the Super-Christian
Books / Theology

Jesus and the Myth of the Super-Christian

by DPotter on Jan 21, 2011 • No Comments

From Craig Barnes’ must-read The Pastor As Minor Poet:

We do not peddle images of the super-Christian and tell our parishioners to try harder to attain this goal. That’s just another false image. And it will also leave us only with more judgment by tossing the not-good-enough Christian onto our heap of failures….So, with poetic irony, pastors help people to change not by talking about them, but by talking about the God revealed in Christ. As an irritated woman once said to me at the door following worship, ‘Jesus, Jesus, Jesus. Is that all you know?’ Had I been thinking…

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One Last Jab at New Year’s Resolutions
Bible / Humor / News / Psychology

One Last Jab at New Year’s Resolutions

by Bryan J. on Jan 4, 2011 • No Comments

Just one more quick good-natured jab at New Year’s resolutions: a crowd-sourced New Year’s Resolution Generator. Users sent in their personal resolutions, which were added to a randomized display of things we all should be doing in 2011. Some are fun and good natured, like the Vanilla Ice inspired “Stop. Collaborate (and Listen).” Others revealed a deep sense of guilt and shame about how off track their lives were.

Some more poignant examples of guilt-inspired New Year’s Resolutions: Forgive her (also: Forgive him), Carpool, Learn to Cope, De-Clutter, Learn to Commit, Avoid Drama, Be Spontaneous (ironic?),…

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‘Tis Better to Give Than to Receive…Or So They Say!
Christmas / Psychology / Science / Theology

‘Tis Better to Give Than to Receive…Or So They Say!

by Andrew Pearson on Dec 23, 2010 • No Comments

During this time of year I am always reminded that it is better to give then to receive. Not because it’s what we’re supposed to do, but because I feel good when I give and I have a hard time receiving. For years my family and friends have thought my giving/receiving theory was neurotic, but now science has proven me right.

A recent study from Harvard University found that when one gives a gift to another, the brain releases dopamine, (the same response your body has to eating a piece of chocolate cake or being intimate), eliciting a feeling of satisfaction…

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The Timeless God, an excerpt from T.S. Eliot
Literature / Poetry / Theology

The Timeless God, an excerpt from T.S. Eliot

by Todd Brewer on Dec 16, 2010 • 1 Comment

An excerpt taken from T.S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets“, “Dry Salvages”:

To communicate with Mars, converse with spirits, To report the behaviour of the sea monster,Describe the horoscope, haruspicate or scry,Observe disease in signatures, evokeBiography from the wrinkles of the palmAnd tragedy from fingers; release omensBy sortilege, or tea leaves, riddle the inevitableWith playing cards, fiddle with pentagramsOr barbituric acids, or dissectThe recurrent image into pre-conscious terrors—To explore the womb, or tomb, or dreams; all these are usualPastimes and drugs, and features of the press:And always will be, some of them especiallyWhen there is distress of nations and perplexityWhether on the…

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“Wake me up inside…” (part 6): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58) **final**
Theology

“Wake me up inside…” (part 6): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58) **final**

by L.R.E. Larkin on Dec 15, 2010 • No Comments

(iv.1.58.4 cont.) In a final turn, Barth deals with the dependence of the individual on community and the community on individuals; of the Christian on the Church and the Church on the Christian. For, “there cannot be one without the other”. The Holy Spirit assembles and sustains the Church, Christianity, not as a heap of individuals functioning autonomously, but as a collective of confessing persons proclaiming the same truths each cognizant of their individual calls; this is the delicate tension between the “objective ascription” and the “subjective appropriation” of salvation. “Salvation is ascribed to the individual in…

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“Wake me up inside…” (part 5c): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)
Theology

“Wake me up inside…” (part 5c): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)

by L.R.E. Larkin on Dec 9, 2010 • No Comments

(iv.1.58.4 cont.) *There are three forms to Sin. 1. Sin negates the first form of grace of God: that “God gives Himself to us, He makes Himself responsible for our cause, He takes it into His own hand”. Sin transgresses the great first commandment: Love the Lord your God with all your soul, mind, body, and strength. Sin negates that Jesus, very God, humbled Himself to become human in order to take humanity to Himself; thus, it negates Jesus’ High-priestly office; this is the sin of pride. 2. Sin negates the second form of the…

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“Wake me up inside…” (part 5b): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)
Theology

“Wake me up inside…” (part 5b): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)

by L.R.E. Larkin on Dec 3, 2010 • 1 Comment

(iv.1.58.4 cont.) In the doctrine of reconciliation humanity is not only confronted with the positive side of the truths in Jesus Christ, but also the negative side of the truth of sin in the world initiated by humanity and its victim. By Jesus’ atoning work, God reconciles covenant breaking humanity to Himself by Himself. Consequently, the doctrine of sin is dealt with simultaneously and in conjunction to the doctrine of reconciliation. It is not of its own ontological identity as something that “exist[s] in and for itself” as a part of God’s creation; rather it…

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White as Snow…
Bible / Christmas / Prayer / Theology

White as Snow…

by L.R.E. Larkin on Dec 2, 2010 • 2 Comments

The following is a piece I did for my school’s Advent Devotional. It is based off of the readings for this past Monday (according to the 1979 BCP), specifically Isaiah 1:10-20.

Isaiah’s words are a fitting opening for this season of Advent. In the first nine verses of chapter 1, Isaiah describes the rebellion and iniquity of God’s chosen people; they have not only strayed, they have rejected their God the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and His commandments (v.4). Isaiah (vv. 10-15) describes the disgust God has over their many sacrifices, vain…

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“Wake me up inside…” (part 5a): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)
Theology

“Wake me up inside…” (part 5a): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)

by L.R.E. Larkin on Nov 19, 2010 • No Comments

iv.1.58.4 Barth works out the threefold form of the Christological aspect of the doctrine of the reconciliation*. In and by Jesus, humanity is confronted with God. In Jesus, God—by becoming man—actively intervenes and takes up His cause—the covenant—“with and against and for man”. Jesus “is the authentic revealer of God as Himself God”. By Jesus one understands the Godhead because Jesus defines it and it does not define Jesus. “[Jesus] is God as he takes part in the event which constitutes the divine being” and He does this by becoming man. In this becoming…

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“Wake me up inside…” (part 4): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)
Theology

“Wake me up inside…” (part 4): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)

by L.R.E. Larkin on Nov 5, 2010 • 11 Comments

iv.1.58.3 In the short (!!) third section of section 58, Barth continues by discussing the “middle” point—“which both differentiates and comprehends [reconciliation]”—between looking up toward the reconciling grace (part 1) and down to the being of man in reconciliation (part 2): the atonement made in and by Jesus Christ. The atonement is “…the middle point the one thing from which neither the God who turns to man nor man converted to God can be abstracted, in which and by which both are what they are, in which and to which they stand in that mutual relationship”.…

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“Wake me up inside…” (part 3c): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)
Theology

“Wake me up inside…” (part 3c): Karl Barth’s Doctrine of Reconciliation (iv.1.58)

by L.R.E. Larkin on Oct 21, 2010 • No Comments

(iv.1.58.2 cont.) * Thirdly, Hope: The tertiary form of the being of humanity in Jesus Christ is “the positing and equipping of man as the bearer of the divine promise”, which constitutes Christian hope. And it is Christian hope which is the teleological** determination for humanity and the Christian in Christ. Christian hope is more than Christian vocation (the traditional protestant/Lutheran understanding of the result of justification and sanctification), it is the moment that the person is given the promise of God in Jesus Christ. The person is called along side their justification and sanctification, and…

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