Marginal Christianity

A Absolution – though it has become a rite in various churches enacted through various actions and regulations, its stunning primal truth is that in and through Jesus Christ we have been freed from the guilt and power of our lives formerly held in a death grip by the power of sin (our hearts curved in upon themselves, as Luther put it)!   Jesus has given you and me the unfathomable privilege and authority of announcing and enacting this freedom to one another in Jesus’ name.   Advent – a time of waiting, expectation, examination, and repentance; the four weeks and Sundays prior to Christmas; reveals God as “a God who calls.”   Bonhoeffer: “A prison cell, in which one waits, hopes - and is completely dependent on the fact that the door of freedom has to be opened from the outside, is not a bad picture of Advent.”   Affinity – what is our point of unity and community?   It’s not an idea, or a program or cause, not a feeling or sentiment, as im...

I'm beginning a theological alphabet. Some brief ruminations on some important theological realities. Help me by adding your own. I've listed three words (two German, one English) under "A."    A Anfectung – Luther’s wrenching daily experience of Satan’s unbridled, vicious assault on him. At times, it seemed as if the whole world was against him, as well as the flesh and the devil. It was prayer that sustained him: “We know that our defense lies in prayer. We are too weak to resist the devil and his vassals. Let us hold fast to the weapons of the Christian; they enable us to combat the devil… our enemies may mock at us. But we shall oppose both men and the devil if we maintain ourselves in prayer and if we persist in it.” (Larger Catechism) Auferstehung – German for “resurrection.” Thomas Torrance relates the Barth once ended a conversation they had about Jesus’ resurrection saying, “Wohl verstanden, leibliche Auferstehung!” – “Mark well, bo...