Marginal Christianity

the seven trumpets 2 (8:2-11:19) Serving Christ un a World Under judgment The following are some thoughts reflecting on the reality that we live and serve Christ in a world under divine judgment. Our task as the church is not to “change the world,” “make the world a better place to live,” or be the “moral guardians” of our time and place. -The first is Christ’s job, and he’s done it. -The second is a pagan preoccupation. -The last is a perversion of the gospel. Christ has changed the world. Period. That’s what the cross and resurrection are all about. Sin has been forgiven. The powers are defeated. New creation has dawned. The old world is passing away. The church lives from and into this new world amid the old wo...

Stations on the Way to Freedom Discipline If you set out to seek freedom, then you must learn above all things                                                                  discipline of your soul and your senses, lest your desires                                                                         ...

The Book of the Twelve for Lent 2016   Divine Parenting - Joel (1) Lent 6           In the construction of the Book of the Twelve Joel sits between Hosea and Amos, serving as a kind of bridge from the one to the other and introducing a major note, “the Day of the Lord,” not present in Hosea. Rendtorff calls Joel “a sort of collection of texts about the ‘Day of the Lord’” ( The Canonical Hebrew Bible, 277). It also includes an account of the national repentance of the people that is now used in many Ash Wednesday services to kick off Lent (1:12; 2:15-17).           The end of Hosea (14:8-9) counsels wisdom so the people can clearly understand why their relationship with their God has been so rocky. In Hosea the answer is unambiguous: spiritual adultery/I-dolatry. Apparently such wisdom has not been heeded. Joel begins with the people under assault from a massive army of locusts....

by Matt Gunter Are you paying attention?    What are you paying attention to?   A monk needed to go for a day-trip to a big city, accompanied by an acquaintance. In the midst of urban’ uproar the monk claimed to have heard a cricket, though his companion did not believe him. Crossing the road and looking carefully under a tree the monk found the cricket, to the astonishment of his companion.    - You must have a superhuman hearing!    - No. My ears aren’t different from yours, said the monk. But everything depends on what you’re used to listening for. - No! I would not be able to hear a cricket in this noise!    - It all depends on what is important to you, reiterated the monk. Let’s make a demonstration. So the monk took out few coins from his packet and dropped them on the pavement. And despite of the loud noise of the city, all the people around them turned their heads thinking that the scattered coins could have fal...

by C. C. Pecknold 11 . 10 . 14     R ecently I attended a seminar on religious liberty at Villanova School of Law. I wanted to learn how the law could help protect the Church as we advance into increasingly difficult cultural waters. Instead, the legal eagles offered a much more pessimistic prognosis: legal protections are eroding fast, and law follows culture, so don’t count on the law to protect the Church for long. While I did not walk away entirely hopeless about what the law can do to protect the Church, it did heighten my sense that we are rapidly running out of options. Christians can no longer rely on a cultural consensus and its legal expression in favor of religious belief, especially religious belief that insists on having a place in the public square. After meeting with the lawyers, I had to ask: Now what? I thought about this question when reading  Dale Coulter and  Bianca Czaderna ’s responses to my “The Dominican Option.” For a number of year...

The Church Year and the Lectionary Commentary – 24th Ordinary (Day 1) Proverbs 1:20-33 20 Wisdom shouts in the street; in the public square she raises her voice. 21 Above the noisy crowd, she calls out. At the entrances of the city gates, she has her say: 22 “How long will you clueless people love your naïveté, mockers hold their mocking dear, and fools hate knowledge? 23 You should respond when I correct you. Look, I’ll pour out my spirit on you. I’ll reveal my words to you. 24 I invited you, but you rejected me; I stretched out my hand to you, but you paid no attention. 25 You ignored all my advice, and you didn’t want me to correct you. 26 So I’ll laugh at your disaster; I’ll make fun of you when dread comes over you, 27 when terror hits you like a hurricane, and your disaster comes in like a tornado, when distress and oppression overcome you. 28 Then they will call me, but I won’t answer; th...