Psalms 130. De profundis. OUT of the deep have I called unto thee, O LORD; Lord, hear my voice. O let thine ears consider well the voice of my complaint. If thou, LORD, wilt be extreme to mark what is done amiss, O Lord, who may abide it? For there is mercy with thee; therefore shalt thou be feared. I look for the LORD; my soul doth wait for him; in his word is my trust. My soul fleeth unto the Lord before the morning watch; I say, before the morning watch. O Israel, trust in the LORD; for with the LORD there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption. And he shall redeem Israel from all his sins.
Patria o muerte! [Homeland or death] Che Guevara, December 11, 1964, 19th General Assembly of the United Nations in New York.
“Executions?” Guevara told the UN General Assembly in 1964. “We execute! And we will continue executing as long as it is necessary.”
“Guevara was a man whose interest in justice is best summed up in his own words, as quoted by Fontova: “To send men to the firing squad, judicial proof is unnecessary. These procedures are an archaic bourgeois detail. This is a revolution. And a revolutionary must become a cold killing machine motivated by pure hate.” –The bitter truth about Che Guevara
Che Guevara: “Judicial evidence is an archaic bourgeois detail. We execute from revolutionary conviction.”
Fidel Castro: “Legal proof is impossible to obtain against war criminals so we sentence them based on moral conviction.”
Castro's legacy after 57 years. You can see that a civilization was there once, as in Machu Picchu or Angkor Wat. Marxism laid waste to it. pic.twitter.com/QBYeqpHGbU
“The terrible damage that Castro has done will long outlive him and his regime. Untold billions of capital will be needed to restore Havana; legal problems about ownership and rights of residence will be costly, bitter, and interminable; and the need to balance commercial, social, and aesthetic considerations in the reconstruction of Cuba will require the highest regulatory wisdom. In the meantime, Havana stands as a dreadful warning to the world—if one were any longer needed—against the dangers of monomaniacs who believe themselves to be in possession of a theory that explains everything, including the future.”
“So don’t worry away with your ‘What’ll we eat?’ and “What’ll we drink?’ and ‘What’ll we wear?’ Those are all the things the Gentiles fuss about, and your heavenly father knows you need them all. Instead, make your top priority God’s kingdom and his way of life, and all these things will be given to you as well. So don’t worry about tomorrow…” – Jesus as recorded in Matthew’s gospel 6: 31-34
“Yes, the gospels affirm Jesus’s divine identity. Yes, they affirm his death on the cross as the climax of God’s age-old plan of salvation. But the purpose of God coming incognito in and as Jesus and the purpose of this Jesus dying on the cross was – so the gospels are telling us – in order to establish God’s kingdom, his justice, on earth as in heaven.” – from N.T. Wright’s “How God Became King”
righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.
Fire goes before him,
and consumes his adversaries on every side.
His lightnings light up the world;
the earth sees and trembles.
The mountains melt like wax before the Lord,
before the Lord of all the earth.
The heavens proclaim his righteousness;
and all the peoples behold his glory.
All worshippers of images are put to shame,
those who make their boast in worthless idols;
all gods bow down before him. Zion hears and is glad,
and the towns of Judah rejoice,
because of your judgements, O God.
For you, O Lord, are most high over all the earth;
you are exalted far above all gods.
The Lord loves those who hate evil;
he guards the lives of his faithful;
he rescues them from the hand of the wicked.
Light dawns for the righteous,
and joy for the upright in heart.
Rejoice in the Lord, O you righteous,
and give thanks to his holy name!
~~~~~
The Day The Revolution began…
“The modern world has displaced the Christian narrative; it isn’t just that most of our contemporaries profess not to believe in God or Jesus, but that they have in their heads a world narrative in which world history arrived at its redemptive moment in the eighteenth century with the rise of science and technology and banishing of God to a distant realm, to be visited by the pious few like a kind family calling on an elderly relative every Sunday. The western churches have regularly colluded with this absurd diminishment of the Bible and the gospel. But the cross, told as the climax of all four gospels and particularly John’s on which I have focused this evening, leaves us no choice. ‘Now is the judgement of this world; now is the ruler of the world cast out; and if I am lifted up from the earth I will draw all people to myself.’ This is what it means that the Messiah died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures.”
The early Christian creeds – the Apostle’s Creed and the Nicene creed – donot speak of the most important elements of why Christ came to earth. It’s as if the creeds were written for man’s purposes and not for God’s purposes.
The kingdom life of Jesus, between his birth and crucifixion, is missing from the creeds. And, as recorded in the gospels, Jesus came to inaugurate his kingdom on earth as in heaven and not to impart the four spiritual laws and get off earth as soon as possible.
So, then, this is the gospel:
That now at the name of Jesus
every knee within heaven shall bow-
On earth, too, and under the earth;
And every tongue shall confess
That Jesus, Messiah, is Lord,
To the glory of God, the father.
The Lord is King, Let the Earth Rejoice This Thanksgiving!
On January 17th, 2017, the world will witness a peaceful transition of power in the United States of America. And though our country is deeply divided by partisan conflicts there will be not be a violent overthrow of the government or a military takeover such as a coup d’etat. There will not be a slaughter of the innocents by those who embody the Satan. At least, that has been my experience.
~~~
Just over 2000 years ago there was another peaceful transition of power and one not brought about by a popular vote of Jews, Greeks or Romans. Instead, the “electoral college” of Father, Son and Holy Spirit decided that a king would be born. The Creator Word would become a flesh tabernacle and dwell among his creation for some thirty years to inaugurate his Kingdom – a kingdom where heaven and earth would be forever co-joined.
Like the workings of dominions and powers throughout history, much of politics today is about gaining power and control over others and then maintaining power and control over others.
But how did the King of the Glory display his power and control?
In this day of the ubiquitous media’s hyperbolic promotion of self-promoting individuals and ego polishing and reality TV narcissism and take-it-to-the-streets identity politics there is One who has transitioned from power and glory… to washing the feet of others.
No one, especially the Jews in Jesus’ time expected a foot washer Messiah. They expected a takeover guy who would abolish Roman rule by force. That was what Judas the revolutionary wanted and thought he “had” in Jesus. But instead, Jesus washed Judas’ feet along with the other disciples. That act was certainly not the macho response expected by angry unsettled Jews like Judas.
Jesus, as a witness of all that his father is and does, revealed to the world God’s “definition” of power and of love and of truth. In a peaceful transition of power, the holy and invisible Creator God became visible in Christ by emptying himself of his glory and power. Jesus submitted himself to the father and to his creation by taking on the form of a servant. This transition is not something anyone on earth expected to happen. Consider this:
Remember what God said to Moses: “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” -Pentateuch, Exodus 3:5
Fast Forward: “Jesus knew that the Father had given everything into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going to God. So, he got up from the supper-table, took off his clothes, and wrapped a towel around himself. Then he poured water into a bowl and began to wash the disciples’ feet and to wipe them with the towel he was wrapped in.” -The Gospel of John 13
~~~
Followers of the Way:
“This is how you should think among yourselves – with the mind that you have because you belong to the Messiah, Jesus:
Who, though in God’s form, did not
Regard his equality with God
As something he ought to exploit.
Instead, he emptied himself,
And received the form of a slave,
Being born in the likeness of humans.
And then, having human appearance,
He humbled himself, and became
Obedient to death,
Yes, even the death of the cross.
And so God has greatly exalted him,
And to him in his favor has given
The name which is over all names:
That now at the name of Jesus
Ever knee within heaven shall bow –
On earth, too, and under heaven;
And every tongue confess
That Jesus, Messiah, is Lord,
To the glory of God, the father.”
Ancient church hymn as recorded in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Philippian church, chapter 2
The Anglican church I attend will be celebrating one-hundred and fifty years of Kingdom Life in 2018. Preparations are being made by the rectors and vestry to tell the narrative of this faith community. A cloud of witnesses will oversee the events.
Reflecting on the Kingdom of God several years ago I came to the understanding, with the help of the writings of Pauline Scholar N.T. Wright, that the Kingdom of God on earth is here and now. The Kingdom was inaugurated by Jesus when he walked this earth. Why mention this?
As I walk around on Resurrection ground I am reminded that I walk on the same earth as all the saints from all nations who have gone on before me. Their lives and their faith in God’s covenant faithfulness have made it possible for me to have faith in 2016. The organism of their faith now lives in me.
Now, I could consider myself an Enlightened person who needs nothing and no one but reason and self but then I would shrink myself into a private rather than a public form of consciousness – a community of one, isolated and where the sacred is eschewed and nihilism offers nothing. Rather, I chose this continuum of faith and have identified myself with it. This continuum has, in turn, given me an identity, through baptism. I placed myself in the waters of the Kingdom Continuum.
Our faith community’s coming together to participate in ages old ritual is with the knowledge that we are under judgement. We must recite what we know to be true about God and about ourselves.
We come together in the liturgy. The Celebrant starts…
“Blessed be God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit…Almighty God, unto all hearts are open…Hear what the Lord Jesus Christ said: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind…Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
Our Kingdom community, in worship of the One True God, recites The Gloria. Together we hear sacred texts read. Together we recite the ancient Nicene Creed. Together we participate in the Prayers of the People. Together we kneel accepting judgement. Together we confess – say the same thing about our sin as God does – and then hear the words of absolution. We rise to extend God’s Kingdom peace through a handshake or an embrace of the other.
The Eucharist – the Feast of Thanksgiving – is a rite commanded by The One who said “Do this…” and “I’m telling you a solemn truth. If you don’t eat the flesh of the son of man, and drink his blood, you have no life in yourselves. Anyone who feasts upon my flesh and drinks my blood has the life of God’s coming age, and I will raise them up on the last day. My flesh is true drink and my blood true drink. Anyone who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me, and I remain in him. Just as the living father sent me, and I live because of the father, so the one who eats me will live because of me. This is the bread which came down from heaven; it isn’t like bread which the ancestors ate, and died. The one who eats this bread will share the life of God’s new age.” The Word became flesh and the Kingdom Continuum becomes sustainable.
We come together knowing that we stand under judgement but also knowing that there is One of us whose sacrificial death pronounces us restored. This inversion, our Lord’s sacrifice into sacrament, is a gift that reminds us that we are redeemed: from fallen to restored. The judgement of many has been answered by the One Death. And like a Greek tragedy, this our tragedy is reenacted over and over in the hearts and souls and minds of the one-hundred and fifty-year-old faith community that is built on Resurrection ground.
“It is an easy thing to argue from precedent because it makes everything simple, but it is a risky thing to do. Give God “elbow room”; let Him come into His universe as He pleases. If we confine God in His working to religious people or to certain ways, we place ourselves on an equality with God.” Oswald Chambers, Baffled to Fight Better, 51 L
“For the first time, scientists have observed ripples in the fabric of spacetime called gravitational waves, arriving at the earth from a cataclysmic event in the distant universe. This confirms a major prediction of Albert Einstein’s 1915 general theory of relativity and opens an unprecedented new window onto the cosmos.”
Fellow spacetime travelers, as mentioned last time, the game is afoot!
This week, another substantial mind boggling cosmological clue!
Be reminded: Truth-seeking the not-so-obvious five-sigma answers to your questions takes…spacetime, “elbow room” and the right lab equipment (spectrograph, interferometer, Sola Scriptura, to name a few)
“…for the first time, physicists detected the waves, fulfilling a 4-decade quest and opening new eyes on the heavens….”
“It is the prospect of the science that might be done with gravitational waves that really excites physicists. For example, says Kamionkowski, the theorist at Johns Hopkins, the first LIGO result shows the power of such radiation to reveal unseen astrophysical objects like the two ill-fated black holes. “This opens a new window on this vast population of stellar remnants that we know are out there but of which we have seen only a tiny fraction,” he says…
With the black hole merger, general relativity has passed the first such test, says Rainer Weiss, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge, who came up with the original idea for LIGO. “The things you calculate from Einstein’s theory look exactly like the signal,” he says. “To me, that’s a miracle.”” (emphasis added)
LIGO my Eggo: the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) measures waffling gravitational fields created by black holes merging into a dancing embrace.
“LIGO watches for a minuscule stretching of space with what amounts to ultraprecise rulers: two L-shaped contraptions called interferometers with arms 4 kilometers long. Mirrors at the ends of each arm form a long “resonant cavity,” in which laser light of a precise wavelength bounces back and forth, resonating just as sound of a specific pitch rings in an organ pipe.”
The alpha omega a priori LIGO, the dancing embrace of the Trinity, is aware of every ripple in your spacetime, your prayers, your knocking on His door in the middle of the night, your pinging. Become a “resonant cavity” and you will hear the Trinity moving the universe to answer you. Like Paul…
“I am persuaded, you see, that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor the present, nor the future, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature will be able to separate us from the love of God in King Jesus our Lord.” The apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Rome.
Another in the Quantum Theology and the Dispensation of Synchronicity Series
_____________________________________________________________________________________ As your bright and tiny spark Lights the traveler in the dark, Though I know not what you are, Twinkle, twinkle, little star.
From the English Lullaby Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
William Shakespeare, Hamlet Act 1, scene 5
~~~
So you want to know if God is game? It’s elementary dear reader. It’s in the stars and a spectrograph is required. “But I’m into relationships, not science!” Snap out of it, kid! Put on your thinking cap.
Prism break. In 1814 Joseph von Fraunhofer, a Bavarian lens maker, invented the spectrograph, a device which separates white light into a rainbow of colors. With a lab spectrometer the fingerprints of atoms and their Creator are uncovered.
“The white-hot surface of the sun emits light of all wavelengths, but this light then passes through the relatively cooler gases of the earth’s atmosphere (the “corona”). Here the atoms might absorb just those same wavelengths they like to emit. This absorption accounts for the curious dark lines observed by Faunhofer. Bit by bit, spectroscopy in the post-Fraunhofer era revealed that each element, when heated, produced a characteristic set of “spectral lines,” some prominent (like the brilliant lines of neon gas that are so familiar in neon signs), and some faint (like the dimmer blue of mercury vapor lamps). These lines were the fingerprints of the chemical elements, the first clues to the tiny “tuning forks” within atoms, or whatever the mysterious structures vibrating inside the atom must be.” (emphasis added) from Quantum Physics for Poets by Leon Lederman and Christopher Hill
“The game is afoot!”. What game? This game is kind of like Hide and Seek, the kid’s game. But in this game someone hides and the rest must seek out the hider. Like the kid’s game, no one seeking believes that the person hiding is unreal and not there, unless a person enters the game after the person hid. This person then has to believe the other seekers. But this person may think that the others may be tricking him and walk away. That’s his or her choice.
The seekers all must have a well-motivated belief that the hider is there and can be found to win the game. See. I am starting to build relationships.
“Spectroscopy’s second major achievement was a more philosophical. In the sun’s signature of dark lines scientists could read its chemical composition, and lo and behold, they found hydrogen, helium, lithium and the other elements of matter that compose our planet Earth. Since then, we have analyzed the light from the stars in extremely distant galaxies, always finding our own familiar elements: hydrogen, helium and so on. The universe everywhere has the same composition and the same laws of nature, all of which hints at a common origin in some incomprehensible act of physical creation.” from Quantum Physics for Poets by Leon Lederman and Christopher Hill
“How I wonder what you are.” Information sourced from a twinkling star spectrum includes:
Our distance from a star.
The temperature of the star
The size of a star.
The mass of a star.
The elements of a star
The motion of a star.
Using a star’s spectral lines we can measure its gas pressure and the strength of a star’s magnetism at the surface.
And you thought those little white dots in the night sky were there just for romantic reasons? They certainly are! The Creator is engaging his creation. So, “Make a Spectrograph of Yourself”.
[spek-truh-graf, -grahf], noun
1. a spectroscope for photographing or producing a representation of a spectrum.
Like it or not you are taking in the Light of Christ. His Cosmic photons are constantly bombarding us. With it we can see familiar elements and, more closely, the fingerprints of God. And though the Light source seems off hiding somewhere in a distant galaxy there is considerable information for us to take in. We can analyze the Light from Christ and find the familiar incredibly romantic, like the red Valentines rose.
Under light a rose absorbs most colored light of the rainbow and emits red light.
What are you absorbing and what are you emitting? We tend to hunker down with some OTC Christian book that tries to explain God to us in proxy fashion. We ask God about something specific and we expect God to answer us in specific Voodoo-like fashion. “There will be a wet fleece on your doorstep tomorrow. That’s how you will know.” Look around. Adjust your spectrograph and see the full spectrum of answers God has already provided. And, if you ask for wisdom (light), have you used the wisdom God has already given you to find your way?
“The game is on!” Personally and very briefly, I joined the game of Hide and Seek when I started to read and think outside the “Christian” cave. I rid myself of the myopia of single point of light thinking – Sola Scriptura – and I stepped outside. To accomplish the move into the sunlight with a well-motivated belief of greater illumination, over the last several years I began studying science books. This path for me has made all the difference. And this path has shed enormous light back onto Sola Scriptura. God has been found ever since. Yes, he likes to keep hiding and being found. But, is God uncooperative when it comes to me? No!
The Hider is there and His Light is supernal. He wants to be found. Such Light gives itself away!
~~~
When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, O LORD, I shall seek.” Psalm 27:8
May the light of Christ remain with you always…
A brief history of your universe, Hamlets Moderne:
Modern man, what a piece of work. Wired framed with thick strands of Epicureanism, a 3rd century BC philosophy that sees God as remote, man now considers himself the centerpiece of the universe and without need for a Potter’s hands. So what if the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old and you are an of late attendee!
The Roman poet Lucretius, a disciple of Epicurus’s teachings and someone who lived about 70 years before Jesus, promoted the “god is angry” meme along with Epicurean atomism, the original theory of evolution. And so today, even when a person finally comes to believe in God, they do so through Epicurus’ eyes and ears. What then do we mean when we say God is silent? Perhaps, “Why, God must be angry.” “God must be off somewhere.” “God is just like us and not easy to get along with.”
Plastered onto modern man’s Epicurean wire frame is chewed-paper papier-mâché reason. The paper, formed into the shape of the Thinker, became The Enlightenment. And, with man in a newly acquired coat of shellac – solipsistic authority – God was no longer deemed incommunicado but rather God was deemed dead. As such modern man would soon decide that truth-seeking should be divided up into natural science and natural science. Faith was sent to purgatory to wait its turn.
“Indeed, the Enlightenment was, as a whole, one long determination to get rid of the big, bad boss upstairs. That is why one of the main drivers was the Lisbon earthquake of 1755. Had there been a god who was running the show, he certainly wouldn’t have allowed such a thing, on All saint’s Day in particular, when everyone was inside the collapsing churches. So, with Voltaire and others, Europe pushed God upstairs out of sight, and many in America followed suit.” N.T. Wright, Surprised by Scripture.
Then came German psychology: “God must be like your father and you hated your father ergo you will likely trend lesbian.”
And French intellectuals: Michel Foucault (1926-84) “was driven by an intense desire to find a substitute for communion with God.” Foucalt saw truth as a “regime” of beliefs and values linked to systems of political and economic power, a scientific, non-universal apparatus feeding into majority opinions.” For Foucalt truth was never objective and eternal but rather truth was seen as subjective and based on regimes of power (what my friends let me get away with saying) and changeable over time.
Democracy and your mind on self: “Freedom of thought and freedom of speech were proposed in theory, and in the practice of serious political reformers, in order encourage the still small voice of reason in a world that had always been dominated by fanaticism and special interests. How freedom of thought and speech came to mean the special encouragement and protection of fanaticism and interests is another of those miracles connected with the decay of the rational political order. Allan Bloom, The Closing of the American Mind
Then, there’s Deconstructionism in all its chewed-paper on-the-floor glory: Interpreted truth with its suppression of reason through ‘creative means’ has replaced objective truth – more papier-mâché thinking. Subjectivity has become prominent, removing true context or history – and redefines knowing as “I thought it therefore it must be true.”
Speaking of subjectivity: Moral relativism deconstructs truth to form a synthesis of good and evil. Subjectivism now rules. The only thing allowed to be absolute are no absolutes, except as science dictates absolutes.
In bed with the American Dream: Academia has morphed from being a generator of intellectual pursuit into an assembly line for vocation. Student loans have been taken out with the expectation that a job will be handed out (for any area of study) along with a diploma at graduation. But, with no job forthcoming one is ‘left’ with no recourse other than to make others pay for my education. “I was promised one thing and didn’t get it. And, God, if there was a God, would be just like the system.”
Take me to the American Dream on time: Evangelical churches have pushed the gospel of the American dream (education, marriage, children, house, family, success in life, freedom, etc.) and not the Kingdom of God. “Didn’t God promise me success if I played by the rules I voted for?”
That, my friends is a very brief (and not all-inclusive) history of your universe. Hopefully you have begun to see why your modern thoughts might be projected onto God as doubts. Your brain’s debit card has been preloaded with many debits.
“They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.” Emily Dickinson
Is God silent? I do not think so. I believe that man has tuned out God on his every channel. Mankind has stopped looking for bread crumbs under the table. The bombarded hints are there. Or, as Oswald Chamber posited:
“Do not look for God to come in a particular way, but do look for Him. The way to make room for Him is to expect Him to come, but not in a certain way. No matter how well we may know God, the great lesson to learn is that He may break in at any minute. We tend to overlook this element of surprise, yet God never works in any other way. Suddenly—God meets our life “…when it pleased God….”’
“Keep your life so constantly in touch with God that His surprising power can break through at any point. Live in a constant state of expectancy, and leave room for God to come in as He decides.” Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest, Leave Room for God
~~~
Is this true? I wonder: the only time, the only time that God has been utterly silent towards a member of the human race was in reply to Jesus when he cried, “My God, My God why have you forsaken me.”
~~~
Upcoming post: Quantum Theology and The Dispensation of Synchronicity
“The one thing for which we are all being disciplined is to know that God is real. As soon as God becomes real, other people become shadows. Nothing that other saints can do or say can ever perturb the one who is built on God.” Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
~~~
In the scheme of things, it was just another day. I had gone to work. After eight hours I got in my car and sailed away. Traveling the four-lane, bored and looking for love in all the wrong radio frequencies, I came across a Chicago radio program.
The station emanating the program is the largest Christian radio station around. How did I know? I attended the school of which campus the station is located. Back in the day I attended the school that housed the station that broadcasts the Bible 24/7.
The afternoon host was pumped. She excitedly promoted her next guest: “He’s a well-schooled PhD theologian – Oxford, I’ll have you know – who had just written a fine book.” I gathered that we earthlings were supposed to take note of this highfalutin academic.
The question compendium, as described by the host, addressed the thousand and one questions people had asked the theologian during his ministry. The talk show host who, unbelievably, had not fallen off her chair from complete exhaustion after highlighting the guest’s CV wanted to delve into some of the “begging-to-be-answered” queries with callers.
David, the first caller: “Hi.” “Hi David, what is your question?” “Well, when God seems silent what do we make of it?” “That is a great question and one that I’m sure most of our listeners have.” I turned the volume up in case divine wisdom would be transmitted to earth via the FM station that broadcasts the Bible 24/7 and is located on the campus of the school that I attended.
After clearing his throat, the PhD’s response went something like… “I have experienced this…my wife and I wanted kids and there was silence in response to our joint prayer requests…we waited… we finally had a child… (then, a 3 point alliterated teaching summation per the school’s standard) … God is not punishing us when He is silent.” Phew! I wiped my brow. I turned off the radio and drove the rest of the way home puzzled and in silence…
You see, I was somewhat put off by the PhD’s answer. It seemed to be a rather thin hidebound response to what the host was calling a deep and universal question. I supposed that, in fairness to the PhD, on-the-clock radio programs are not the best format for the broadest of answers. And I knew that, in fairness to the caller, the Bible school campus which housed the station is a strict Sola Scriptura guardian of the text of the faith once delivered, outside reference points being held suspect until canonized by afternoon radio hosts and guest theologians.
As I thought about the radio conversation, the question that I wanted to ask the caller was “How do you know when God is speaking to you?” (Would it be when things are going just fine and without a hitch and God’s presumed ‘passivity’ is deemed as a silent knowing affirmation?) I wondered what the caller would say. And, is God truly silent? I didn’t think so. That has not been my experience. As a student of the Bible and curious dabbler that I am, I wondered how I could call in one day to 24/7 Bible radio and tell the world what I have witnessed? Thump. Thump. Thump….
I have spent most of my life dealing with Classical Dispensational nuts-and-bolts Theology, a theology which seeks to order the past, present and future and supplies the canned responses of its proponents. Later, thankfully, I realized that there also exists a Quantum Theology, a way of knowing, a new way of looking at things – there is more than meets the eye or ear, for that matter. There, I said it.
“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton
*****
“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
*****
“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
*****
“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
*****
To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
*****
“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
*****
Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
*****
If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
*****
“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
*****
“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
*****
Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
*****
“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
*****
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
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“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
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“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
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“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
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God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
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From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
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“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
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One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
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“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
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God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
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“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
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“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
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“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
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“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
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“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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This is what the LORD says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
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“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
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Cindy Wity 