Marginal Christianity

Theological Journal – May 11 Moltmann Monday “But the ultimate reason for our hope is not to be found at all in what we want, wish for and wait for; the ultimate reason is that we are wanted and wished for and waited for. What is it that awaits us? Does anything await us at all, or are we alone? Whenever we base our hope on trust in the divine mystery, we feel deep down in our hearts: there is someone who is waiting for you, who is hoping for you, who believes in you. We are ... waited for as the prodigal son in the parable is waited for by his father. We are accepted and received, as a mother takes her children into her arms and comforts them. God is our last hope because we are God's first love.” Hope is not wish fulfilment. We cannot define or determine what awaits us. The “mystery” we are caught up in in Christ is one that remains beyond our powers and insight to penetrate.  What we do realize is not what awaits us but that someone waits, hopes, and believes in us. A “f...

From Moltmann’s The Ethics of Hope (Kindle loc.72) we read: “The principle behind this ethics of hope is: -not to turn swords into Christian swords -not to retreat from the swords to the ploughshares -but to make ploughshares out of swords.” I take from this description of ethics that its sharp edge, its interface with the reality of the world we know, love, and anticipate is -to know it well enough not to be trapped in its reality (“not to turn swords into Christian swords”), -to love it deeply enough not to leave it to suffer, despair, and die from that reality (“not to retreat from the swords to the ploughshares”), but -to counter its reality with the strange but true hope of the transformation of the world through the Crucified but Risen Jesus Christ (“to make ploughshares out of swords). Reflecting on Moltmann’s insight in light of my experience as an American Christian, they say to me that: -culture wars (of the right or left) are wr...

“ That is why faith, wherever it develops into hope, causes not rest but unrest, not patience but impatience. It does not calm the unquiet heart, but is itself this unquiet heart in man. Those who hope in Christ can no longer put up with reality as it is, but begin to suffer under it, to contradict it. Peace with God means conflict with the world, for the goad of the promised future stabs inexorably into the flesh of every unfulfilled present. ” ( Theology of Hope) An inadequate understanding of faith has plagued American Christianity more than anything else except the American Exceptionalism/white supremacist nationalism conflation of church and state. Intellectualistic and propositional views of faith lack the organic connection with hope Moltmann asserts here. And that lack allows apathy/quietism, on the one hand, and accommodation to our culture, on the other hand, to grow and flourish in the church. Let us take these words to heart this Moltmann Monday.    ...

We inevitably associate hope and New Years. Ever optimistic we pine for and pin our hopes for some change in our lives or nation or world on the mere flip of a calendar page. Even many in the church buy into this version of pagan mysticism. I believe, however, that this version of hope is -more optimism than hope -more Western than biblical -focused on big victories, large accomplishments worthy of grand celebrations -beset by expectations galore -accomplished by a few but never many Biblical hope, however, cuts much deeper than such optimism-laced expectations. It garners little fanfare and breeds few large-scale parties. People like Debie Thomas know and practice such hope ( The Christian Century (December 4, 2019). She’s the mother of a child with debilitating chronic pain. Caring for him is time-consuming, exhausting, and expensive with no hope of a respite. It won’t change with a flip of a calendar page. The stories of hope she inclines to in her situ...

Exposition Zechariah is at his appointed duty to offer incense in the temple. This is the Tamid service (1: 8– 10), at which sacrifice for the forgiveness of the people were offered twice each day. The “whole assembly” is gathered in prayer outside. Luke pictures the chosen people acting in obedience to the Lord (vv.8-10). While at his service an angel, Gabriel as it turns out (v.19), appears announcing to him the birth of a son through his up-till-now barren wife Elizabeth. As is usual in these kinds of appearances, fear is the (appropriate) human response. But the angel’s news is good news. A son is coming to this couple! Zechariah’s prayers have been answered (like Isaac, Gen.25:21). The angelic announcement is also similar to that made to Abraham (Gen.17:19). This puts this episode within the story-line Luke is tracing for his readers. As Garland put it: “Divine intervention in the lives of this couple is divine intervention for Israel. Their personal prayers have meshed...

Herma and Herman Neutics on Biblical Interpretation This statement is at the heart of one's capacity to hear and heed God's Word: “I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.” (Robert Fulghum, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts On Common Things)

Luke BrethertonABC Religion and Ethics 25 Jun 2016 When the world is out of control, the absurd can begin to feel like common sense to those who have the absurd notion that the world should be controlled for their benefit alone. Trump and Brexit are the result. They are responses to the sense of precariousness and disorder we experience now. This sense of disorder is no illusion. We are in a moment when we are beset by foundational and basic questions about what human flourishing consists of, in every area of life. Among the many questions being asked in our present moment some are these: Read more at http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2016/06/25/4488887.htm

December 14, 2015 J. R. Daniel Kirk Advent is a time of waiting. And it is the time leading up to the celebration of Jesus’ birth. This might create the mistaken impression that Advent is time when we sit around waiting for the Messiah to be born. That’s not it. Though we are waiting for the Messiah. Advent is a time when we sit between the first and second comings of the Messiah. It’s the time that we look forward to the time when every tear will be dried, every wound healed, every prisoner set free–because we remember that the Messiah has already appeared as the tear-drier, the wound-healer, the liberator of the oppressed. Read more at http://www.jrdkirk.com/2015/12/14/waiting-for-the-messiah/

Living in the Tragic Gap September 2, 2015 by Sylvia Keesmaat A sermon on Romans 8 preached at Wine Before Beer 21 July, 2015 How did they hear it those early followers of Jesus? The ones who lived in Rome, as slaves to the wealthy. The destitute stoneworkers, prostitutes, bathstokers, tile workers, women and men, some homeless, some housed, just. Jews from the ghettos. the few Greeks from the hillsides, with slaves of their own. How did they hear the gospel of Jesus? The words of new life, life in the Spirit? Read more at http://www.empireremixed.com/2015/09/02/living-in-the-tragic-gap/

I believe in the church; I believe in the church in America. Yet, I also believe that Stanley Hauerwas is correct to claim that “God is killing the mainline church in America, and we g$%d*#n well deserve it. I believe he is right about non-mainline churches as well. I believe in the church though we have little more than a few glimmers of it here. You have to look hard to find it. Yet I believe in the church, even here in America, because I believe God raised Jesus from the dead. And some have already surrendered to the death of church as we have known it opening themselves to resurrection and new life. For God will not leave himself without a witness. And that witness shines most genuinely when a people of God live in simple solidarity with the desperate and downtrodden, those who hunger and thirst for the bread of life and the word of God, those who are fearful of and hopeless in this world. When cathedrals become shelters and feeding centers for the...

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/our_mania_for_hope_is_a_curse_20150524/ Posted on May 24, 2015 By Chris Hedges   The naive belief that history is linear, that moral progress accompanies technical progress, is a form of collective self-delusion. It cripples our capacity for radical action and lulls us into a false sense of security. Those who cling to the myth of human progress, who believe that the world inevitably moves toward a higher material and moral state, are held captive by power. Only those who accept the very real possibility of dystopia, of the rise of a ruthless corporate totalitarianism, buttressed by the most terrifying security and surveillance apparatus in human history, are likely to carry out the self-sacrifice necessary for revolt.  The yearning for positivism that pervades our corporate culture ignores human nature and human history. But to challenge it, to state the obvious fact that things are getting worse, and may soon get much wo...

                  Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Google Plus Share via Email More Options Share on Pinterest By Alissa Wilkinson May 15 at 10:01 AM Theatergoers will flock this weekend to an imagined story set in a steampunky dystopian hellscape. Or will they just be looking in a mirror? We’re all about the apocalypse and its aftermath these days, from “The Walking Dead” to “The Last Man on Earth.” So it’s not surprising that the 1980s dystopian “Mad Max” franchise has been revived, this time with actor Tom Hardy swapped in for Mel Gibson as the wandering eponymous hero. “Mad Max: Fury Road,” which releases this weekend, is the rare blockbuster that will likely please critics and action-loving audiences alike. It is  a little surprising that we spend so much time and money on watching stories about all the horrible ways our civilization will end. But the preoccupation is not new....

Isaiah 63:16b-17, 19b, 64:2-7 Psalm 80:2-3, 15-16, 18-19 1 Corinthians 1:3-9 Mark 13:33-37 Advent’s familiar themes of waiting and hopeful expectation have a different ring this year. “Waiting” works if you live in a world where you know that a little more patience generally would do you good. “Hopeful expectation” has a pleasant enough sound if your life is going reasonably well at the moment. But how do these admonitions sound–“wait!” “be patient!”–in a context of violence and despair, of deprivation and gross inequality? What does “hopeful expectation” sound like, look like in places where justice has long been delayed, meaning, of course, that justice has been denied? What if you’re sick of waiting? What if your patience has run out? What if you have no hope? Is it possible that affluent churches in nice neighborhoods (or even churches of modest means in safe communities) often make of Advent an aesthetic :   a ...

5 Therefore, since we have been made righteous through his faithfulness, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand through him, and we boast in the hope of God’s glory. 3 But not only that! We even take pride in our problems, because we know that trouble produces endurance, 4 endurance produces character, and character produces hope. 5 This hope doesn’t put us to shame, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.   You only really know a person, heir character, when you know what they’ve suffered.   So goes a popular aphorism.   And I think it’s true.   More importantly the apostle Paul seems to think it’s true as well.   In Romans 5:3-5 he explains why. As we saw in the last post in this series Christians can “boast” in their sufferings for Christ’s sake because these kinds of distress assure us we are standing w...

By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 12th November 2014 “It’s like we’ve forgotten who we are,” the hero of Interstellar complains. “Explorers, pioneers, not caretakers … We’re not meant to save the world. We’re meant to leave it.” It could be the epigraph of our age. Don’t get me wrong. Interstellar is a magnificent film, true to the richest traditions of science fiction, visually and auditorally astounding. See past the necessary silliness and you will find a moving exploration of parenthood, separation and ageing. It is also a classic exposition of two of the great themes of our age: technological optimism and political defeatism. The Earth and its inhabitants are facing planetary catastrophe, caused by “six billion people, and every one of them trying to have it all”, which weirdly translates into a succession of blights, trashing the world’s crops and sucking the oxygen out of the atmosphere. (When your major receipts are in the US, you can’t afford to earn the hatr...

From prison in Germany during World War II Dietrich Bonhoeffer mused on the fall of “Christian civilization” in his home country and with it the power and credibility of its religious language. He spoke of the need for a non-religious language and way of life if Christianity were ever to recover its role of speaking faithfully for God to its world. The church in America is, IMHO, in a similar place. Christian platitudes no longer engage our culture. Truth be told, they don’t even engage much of the church any more either. The church has been marginalized and with it its language and credibility. We too need to find a way to speak the truth of our faith in language that no longer trades on outworn and unintelligible platitudes. The musical group Gungor has a beautiful song about Christian hope. The language is simple, direct, and powerful. There is nothing overtly Christian here. The language “We will shine like stars bright, brighter” does allude to biblical passages like...