Marginal Christianity

  How to face evil?   The SS commander, who rounded up Edith Stein to send her to her death, “greeted her with the words ‘Heil Hitler’, and she greeted him with what she said to her sister every morning of her life: ‘Laudatur Jesus Christus’ (‘Jesus Christ be praised’).”   What Stein said was a quiet rebellion: Christ is the Savior, not Hitler, power belongs to him. That's naming and inhabiting an alternative world.  

  II  From the Gospel We’ve Never Heard  The “Gospel” of a "Defeated" God The “gospel” is believed to be a known quantity in North American society.  Friend and foe alike would agree that what follows is the “default” for “gospel” in our culture. -God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.                                                         -However, you are a sinner and your sin has separated you fro   -But Jesus came and died on the cross for your sins.                                                                                    -If you accept his death for you, you will be forgiven and accepted by to God.                                                                                                                             -Thus, you are assured that you will spend eternity with God in heaven. This is the “gospel” Billy Graham preached.  It’s the “gospel” of the well-known “Four Spiritual Laws” from Campus Crusade for Christ.  The widely used

 Describing the shape of a new era helps us find our own way of responding and acting in our local setting. We believe that the concept and practice of covenant will be important in the relationships that we seek to build locally so we offer you this letter, a follow-up to The Plague and the Parish: Dear Friends in Christ, fellow travellers in these challenging times, we are wanting to follow up with you after so many of you responded to the publication of  The Plague and the Parish . It was written just as the Covid-19 pandemic entered our worlds, in part, as a call for our churches to bring their vocation in Christ to the re- weaving of a torn social fabric. Since then the consequences of the pandemic have intensified. Uncertain, anxious times will continue for months to come, presenting us all with the challenge of caring for one another and reimagining how to live faithfully. The pandemic has elicited a number of immediate responses. Our energy has been on understanding and manag

  I The Jesus We’ve Never Known   (with apologies to Philip Yancey)  Reading fiction requires what literary scholars call a “willing suspension of disbelief.” We must enter the world and characters the author has crafted “as if” it is the world we inhabit. Only then can we feel the impact of the story that unfolds and have our imaginations stirred by what we read. I need to ask you to hear my presentation with that same attitude. What I say is not fiction, to be sure. But it will seem like it to you, at least at first glance. Indeed, my lengthy title claims that those of us in North America have not really known Jesus, heard the gospel, read the Bible or experienced the church! If this seems to you as untrue or far-fetched I beg you to exercise “willing suspension of disbelief” and entertain the possibility that it may just be true and there just may be something you might want or need to see. My theology is orthodox. I believe in the reliability and unique authority of Holy Scri