Marginal Christianity

Ch.3: Is God in Control? Why Predestination Does Not Have to be Depress-tination What Do You Mean By “Control”? Is God in control of the direction and actions of history? Yes? No? Maybe? It all depends on what you mean by control. -if you mean total control via a pre-scripted invariant plan drawn up by God before history began, No. -if you mean that God is directing history to a preordained end through the real and responsible actions of creatures he has enabled to make their own actions and decisions, Yes. The first is not love. Love creates new possibilities, growth, and futures. God’s love is both the expansive power of our growth toward new futures and that new future itself which brings each of us individually and as a whole to the fulness that is in Christ. Thus, the second option seems preferable. God establishes a good end for his creation and creatures and journeys with them in real relationships (in all their ups and downs) trusting his love to bring all things ...

President Trump disembarking from Air Force One as he returns from Florida on Feb. 12. Al Drago / The New York Times February 14, 2017 Thomas L. Friedman Thank God for the resignation in shame by Mike Flynn, President Trump’s national security adviser. And not just because he misled the vice president and engaged in deeply malignant behavior with Russia, but, more important, because maybe it will finally get the United States government, Congress and the news media to demand a proper answer to what is still the biggest national security question staring us in the face today: What is going on between Donald Trump and the Russians? Sorry, Kellyanne Conway, I am not ready to just “move on.” Every action, tweet and declaration by Trump throughout this campaign, his transition and his early presidency screams that he is compromised when it comes to the Russians. I don’t know whether Russian oligarchs own him financially or whether Russian spies own him pers...

 11/28/2016 01:19 pm ET Stephen R. Haynes   Professor, Rhodes College Not too long ago, political events in our country led a sector of the American population to conclude that a cultural apocalypse was looming. The nation these men and women knew and loved was endangered by cultural shifts they neither approved of nor understood. As faithful Christians, they scrambled to discern the times. Naturally they summoned to memory Christian heroes who had courageously kept the faith when facing similar crises. I’m referring, of course, to the summer of 2015. As it became likely that the U. S. Supreme Court would overturn legal barriers to same-sex marriage in  Obergefell v. Hodges , these Christians were convinced the time had come for bold resistance. If the apocalyptic character of this historical moment tended not to register with moderates and liberals, it’s because this was not  our  apocalypse. I took note, if only because a handful of Christian leader...

The book of Revelation is much misunderstood. Duh! It's the nature of that misunderstanding we must get hold of. We westerners think linearly. So we expect Revelation to be telling us history (present or future). Let's call it calendarizing. The genre of Revelation's vision is apocalyptic. That's why it has all the weird imagery and bizarre characters. As strange as this is to us it was familiar to its first readers. Though apocalyptic literature does sketch the broad path of history at times, its most vital function is not calendarizing but characterizing. More like a x-ray apocalyptic unveils was is at the heart of what is going on. The Roman Empire is clearly the "bad" guy in Revelation, the beast who is persecuting and oppressing the church. Yet an ordinary citizen of the empire would not have seen it that way. Yes, the empire was authoritarian and could be brutal to those who stepped out line. But think of all the benefits: the wonderful...

By MARK LILLA NOV. 18, 2016 It is a truism that America has become a more diverse country. It is also a beautiful thing to watch. Visitors from other countries, particularly those having trouble incorporating different ethnic groups and faiths, are amazed that we manage to pull it off. Not perfectly, of course, but certainly better than any European or Asian nation today. It’s an extraordinary success story. But how should this diversity shape our politics? The standard liberal answer for nearly a generation now has been that we should become aware of and “celebrate” our differences. Which is a splendid principle of moral pedagogy — but disastrous as a foundation for democratic politics in our ideological age. In recent years American liberalism has slipped into a kind of moral panic about racial, gender and sexual identity that has distorted liberalism’s message and prevented it from becoming a unifying force capable of governing. One of the many lessons of the recent pre...

Cornel West T he most frightening feature of the civic melancholia in present-day America is the relative collapse of integrity, honesty, and decency — an undeniable spiritual blackout of grand proportions. The sad spectacle of the presidential election is no surprise. Rather, the neofascist catastrophe called Donald Trump and the neoliberal disaster named Hillary Clinton are predictable symbols of our spiritual blackout. Trump dislodged an inert conservative establishment by unleashing an ugly contempt for liberal elites and vulnerable citizens of color — and the mainstream media followed every performance (even his tweets!) for financial gain. Clinton laid bare a dishonest liberal establishment that was unfair to Bernie Sanders and obsessed with winning at any cost — and the mainstream media selectively weighed in for pecuniary ends. Read more at http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/2016/11/03/spiritual-blackout-america-election/v7lWSybxux1OPoBg56dgsL/story.html?event=event25...

1.      Voting is the least significant act of citizenship. 2.      If voting is your only form of active citizenship, you are likely a poser. (Voting alone does not make you an active citizen any more than church attendance makes one a Christian) 3.      Only if voting is a symbol of actual involvement in seeking the well-being of your community are you an active citizen. 4.      Only if voting is a sacrament of your life broken and poured out for the world is it a Christian act. 5.      Only if voting is a sign of your solidarity with the last and the least and reflects their needs and interests is it in line with the Gospel. 6.      Only if voting is bathed in prayer and reflection with a community of faith is it an act of God’s love for the world.  

By Andrew J. Bacevich / TomDispatch My earliest recollection of national politics dates back exactly 60 years to the moment, in the summer of 1956, when I watched the political conventions in the company of that wondrous new addition to our family, television.  My parents were supporting President Dwight D. Eisenhower for a second term and that was good enough for me.  Even as a youngster, I sensed that Ike, the former supreme commander of allied forces in Europe in World War II, was someone of real stature.  In a troubled time, he exuded authority and self-confidence.  By comparison, Democratic candidate Adlai Stevenson came across as vaguely suspect.  Next to the five-star incumbent, he seemed soft, even foppish, and therefore not up to the job.  So at least it appeared to a nine-year-old living in Chicagoland. Of the seamy underside of politics I knew nothing, of course.  On the surface, all seemed reassuring.  As if by divine mandate...

by Gabriel Rockhill by Millions of people around the country—and around the world—are asking themselves the same simple question: how could such a blathering dummy be in a position to become the next president of the United States? There is no need to mention any names here, of course, because the dimwit is all too well known. This, in fact, is precisely one of the problems. As Amy Goodman, an unrivaled torchbearer for alternative media, has recently reminded us : the simpleton’s name has been one of the most oft repeated on all mass media platforms in this election cycle. Let us not, then, utter the dummy’s name but instead call for a general moratorium on it. It is time to recognize it for what it is—a product of the media-money complex—and talk only of productrump, or more simply product rump. The term ‘dummy,’ like its synonyms, might sound disparaging to some, but I use it here in a purely technical sense. I am referring to the mindless puppet used by ventriloquis...

David Brooks APRIL 29, 2016 Donald Trump now looks set to be the Republican presidential nominee. So for those of us appalled by this prospect — what are we supposed to do? Well, not what the leaders of the Republican Party are doing. They’re going down meekly and hoping for a quiet convention. They seem blithely unaware that this is a Joe McCarthy moment. People will be judged by where they stood at this time. Those who walked with Trump will be tainted forever after for the degradation of standards and the general election slaughter. The better course for all of us — Republican, Democrat and independent — is to step back and take the long view, and to begin building for that . . .  Read more at http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/29/opinion/if-not-trump-what.html?smid=nytcore-ipad-share&smprod=nytcore-ipad&_r=0

The Book of the Twelve for Lent 2016 A Posture for Lent – Habakkuk (2) In Habakkuk 2:1 we read: “I will stand at my watchpost,     and station myself on the rampart; I will keep watch to see what he will say to me,     and what he will answer concerning my complaint.”             The prophet’s complaint is about the chaos he perceives swirling around the people (1:2-40. “O Lord , how long shall I cry for help,     and you will not listen? Or cry to you “Violence!”     and you will not save?                                                           ...