Marginal Christianity

God's Big Picture Three now widely accepted truths about the creation stories (Gen.1-2) 1 : -they narrate the divine construction of a temple in which God will dwell on earth with his creatures, -God intends the Holy of Holies (where God dwelt in the temple) to extend from its embryonic beginning in the mountain garden of Eden to finally cover the while earth, and -that God intends and commissions his human creatures to be agents of this extension of his creational temple and to serve in it as “royal priests.” This view of God's ultimate purpose in creating us and our world reorients the way we need to think about -what God wants, -what God has done for us, and -who we are and what we're supposed to do here. This “big picture” of God's purposes and intentions allows us a glimpse into God's mind before sin ever enters the picture. That doesn't happen till Gen.3. So what we see in the first two chapters is before and apart fro...

In Greek mythology, Icarus is the son of the master craftsman Daedalus. Icarus and his father attempt to escape from Crete by means of wings that his father constructed from feathers and wax. Icarus' father warns him first of complacency and then of hubris, asking that he fly neither too low nor too high, so the sea's dampness would not clog his wings or the sun's heat melt them. Icarus ignored his father's instructions not to fly too close to the sun; when the wax in his wings melted he tumbled out of the sky and fell into the sea where he drowned. Interestingly, the part about complacency is usually left out and the myth told solely about the dangers of hubris. I take this as a parable about Christian and ecclesial existence. Though the gospel calls us to fly neither to high or too low, but still to fly, most of the time most of the church has taught us to fly too low or to stay on the ground which is where the too low flyers end up anyway. Avoiding hubris, ...

  Fr. Stephen Freeman 1 Comment   In my March lecture in San Francisco, I made an assertion that is worth isolating for an article. That assertion is that we are created in the image of the Crucified Christ, and that this is essential in understanding what it means to be human. I have been asked where I got such an idea. The most simple answer is: the Scriptures.   Arguably, the first reference to the Crucified Christ occurs in Rev. 13:5. All who dwell on the earth will worship [the Beast], whose names have not been written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. (Rev 13:8) The Lamb, slain from the foundation of the cosmos (τοῦ ἐσφαγμένου ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου), is St. John’s reference to the pre-existent Christ. This is easily familiar from his description in the gospel: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.   He was in the beginning with God. All things were made throug...

Joel Green What does it mean to be human? This is not the sort of question that occupies much of our thinking—at least not at an explicit, conscious level. Coffee shop conversations rarely turn to such speculative questions. Nevertheless, we carry out much of our lives with implicit answers to this question. Budget discussions—whether in Washington, D.C., or in our families—often parade different views of what it means to be human. “Feed the Soul or Feed the Hungry?”—this was the headline for a report on budget negotiations in a city council, 1 but could just as easily summarize a congregation’s struggle to allocate its mission dollars. Either way, it divulges certain assumptions about humanity. Slogans sometimes capture deeply held views: “I think, therefore I am.” “She’s only human.” Some toss around the language of “unalienable rights” and “equality,” demonstrating that they have strong (even if not fully developed) views about human beings. The criteria by which we measure succe...

by S.D. Kelly February 5, 2015   I t is a truth universally acknowledged that winter in New England, where I live, can be cold and long and dark. This is why, for the last four Januaries, I have looked forward to the return of  Downton Abbey with the same level of anticipation that I imagine my ancestors brought to the lighting of an oil lamp on winter evenings: a bright spot of warmth and light to ward off the cold, dark night. The misery outside my window is mitigated by the televised images of attractive people in custom-made Edwardian clothes milling about a beautiful—and massive—English country house in Yorkshire. From inside my climate-controlled 21st century house, I peer at the relics of a way of life, now a century past, that have retreated from memory into fantasy.   I’m not alone in my love of costume dramas, generally, and in my fascination with  Downton Abbey,  specifically. The show has b...

With the unveiling of the Apple Watch Tuesday in Cupertino, California, Apple is attempting to put technology somewhere where it’s never been particularly welcome. Like a pushy date, the Apple Watch wants to get intimate with us in a way we’re not entirely used to or prepared for. This isn’t just a new product, this is technology attempting to colonize our bodies.   The Apple Watch is very personal—“personal” and “intimate” were words that Apple CEO Tim Cook and his colleagues used over and over again when presenting it to the public for the first time. That’s where the watch is likely to change things, because it does something computers aren’t generally supposed to: it lives on your body. It perches on your wrist, like one of Cinderella’s helpful bluebirds. It gets closer than we’re used technology getting. It gets inside your personal bubble. We’re used to technology being safely Other, but the Apple Watch wants to snuggle up and become part of your Self.   read...

 “ what are human beings              that you (God) think about them;          what are human beings              that you (God) pay attention to them?”                                                                                                                 ...

Op-Ed Columnist The Moral Diet By DAVID BROOKS Published: June 7, 2012 326 Comments In the 1970s, the gift shop at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was an informal affair. It was staffed by about 300 mostly elderly volunteers, and there were cash drawers instead of registers. The problem was that of the shop’s $400,000 in annual revenue, somebody was stealing $150,000. Dan Weiss, the gift shop manager at the time who is now the president of Lafayette College, investigated. He discovered that there wasn’t one big embezzler. Bunches of people were stealing. Dozens of elderly art lovers were each pilfering a little.   That’s one of the themes of Dan Ariely’s new book “The (Honest) Truth About Dishonesty.” Nearly everybody cheats, but usually only a little. Ariely and his colleagues gave thousands of people 20 number problems. When they tackled the problems and handed in the answer sheet, people got an average of four ...