The Gospel is not about being saved from an offended deity. It is a revelation of the infinitely extreme lengths that God will go to to demonstrate His love for us–in order to save us from ourselves.
Monthly Archives: May 2024
FWIW these are 21 of the writers/thinkers that have been the most helpful to me on the journey for the past 12 years.
1. Henri Nouwen
A Dutch Catholic priest, professor, writer, and theologian known for his work on spirituality, social justice, and community life.
2. Rowan Williams
The former Archbishop of Canterbury, theologian, and poet, notable for his deep scholarly work and efforts to bridge gaps within the Anglican Communion.
3. Ignatius of Loyola
The Spanish priest and theologian who founded the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and authored the influential “Spiritual Exercises.”
4. Louis Evely
A Belgian priest and author known for his accessible and inspirational spiritual writings.
5. Thomas Hopko
An Orthodox Christian priest, theologian, and dean of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary, known for his extensive teaching and writing.
6. Marsha Linehan
A psychologist and creator of Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), integrating behavioral science with mindfulness and acceptance strategies.
7. Karl Rahner
A German Jesuit priest and theologian, one of the most influential Catholic theologians of the 20th century, known for his work on existential theology.
8. St. Maria Faustina Kowalska
A Polish nun and mystic whose visions and diary led to the Divine Mercy devotion in the Catholic Church.
9. Jacques Philippe
A Catholic priest and author specializing in spiritual life, prayer, and interior peace.
10. Fr. Stephen Freeman
An Orthodox Christian priest, author, and blogger, known for his writings on faith and culture.
11. Dr. Sr. Vassa Larin
A Russian Orthodox nun and scholar, known for her online catechetical programs and liturgical studies.
12. Howard Thurman
An influential African-American author, philosopher, theologian, and civil rights leader, known for his emphasis on the spiritual basis for social activism.
13. St. Joseph and the Holy Family
St. Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, and the Holy Family represent the ideal model of Christian family life and virtues.
14. Martin Luther
A German theologian and monk whose writings sparked the Protestant Reformation, emphasizing justification by faith.
15. Søren Kierkegaard
A Danish philosopher, theologian, and poet, considered the father of existentialism, focusing on Christian ethics and the individual’s relationship with God.
16. John Henry Newman
A 19th-century theologian and poet, originally an Anglican priest who converted to Catholicism and became a cardinal, known for his works on theology and education.
17. Lev Shestov
A Russian existentialist philosopher known for his critiques of rationalism and advocacy of religious faith as a response to life’s uncertainties.
18. James Cone
An American theologian, known as the founder of Black Liberation Theology, emphasizing the role of the church in addressing racial and social injustices.
19. Anthony De Mello
An Indian Jesuit priest and psychotherapist, known for his writings on spirituality and his approach to integrating Eastern and Western spiritual traditions.
20. Gil Fronsdal
A Buddhist teacher and scholar, known for his teachings on mindfulness and the application of Buddhist principles to daily life.
21. Tara Brach
A psychologist and teacher of Buddhist meditation, known for her work on emotional healing through mindfulness and compassion practices.
drive-by non-scholarly incomplete mediation of how the gospel of John IS contiguous with the synoptics
I’ve been noodling tonight on the old topic about the relationship of the Gospel of John to the synoptic gospels. Somewhere along the way I stole that idea about “The Gospel” as the crashing of eternity into flesh-and-blood everyday contingent existence–and that those contingent events (narrative discrepancies notwithstanding) are the key to understanding Reality (vs. abstract speculation, for example). So my thought is that (and this is doubtless an oversimplification) the synoptics describe the contingent events themselves, including Jesus’ teaching of the Kingdom, while the gospel of John places those contingent events (again oversimplifying) or at least a theologization of those events into an Eternal perspective/context–not to ignore the everyday day-to-day practical teachings of the synoptic gospels, but rather to zoom out (or maybe zoom in/go even deeper?) into the eternal significance, the transcendent significance of Jesus’ life (which is a culmination/walking-the-walk of those teachings). And in a way gives the Church a way to think about those contingent events and to enter an experience of what the World would feel like/be like if all of humanity would follow the Way of Jesus. (But even as I write this, I’m reminded of the dualism in John’s gospel, as well as the my-way-or-the-highway revelation/description of reality delivered by Jesus–in, for example, the parable of the sheep and the goats.) So, at the end of the day, I can rely on this short document from Pope Francis that tells me that I’m not an orphan. That I’m a child of the Father. That I have access to the Father: “And so Jesus promises: “I will ask the Father and He will give you another Paraclete” (v. 16). Jesus says, “I am going away, but someone else will come who will teach you how to access the Father. He will remind you how to access the Father”. The Holy Spirit does not come to “make us His clients”; He comes to point out how to access the Father, to remind us how to access the Father. That is what Jesus opened, what Jesus showed us. A spirituality of the Son alone or the Holy Spirit alone does not exist: the center is the Father. The Son is sent by the Father and returns to the Father. The Holy Spirit is sent by the Father to remind us and to teach us how to access the Father.” I can claim these promises. I don’t have to dismiss them as wishful warm-and-fuzzy thinking detached from the narratives in the synoptics. In fact, I can trust that the gospel of John goes even deeper into Christ’s teachings and Christ’s life which is a summation/embodiment of those teachings in a way that could not be fully appreciated at the time that those contingent events took place.
double take
Joy and pain are comingled at the root of our reality. There is always a fly in the ointment. There is always an interruption. Always something that doesn’t go according to plan. This is most fully revealed on the cross where the worst possible evil reveals the best possible good. h/t Henri Nouwen
What does the term “biblical” mean?
What exactly does the term “biblical” mean?
If memory serves, the Roman Catholic theologian Karl Rahner wrote about the closing of the canon as an “event” vs. the Eastern Orthodox having a much more fluid understanding…
But in day-to-day discussions I hear this term “biblical” thrown around a lot, and I don’t find it very helpful.
Though almost always by good and faithful people of goodwill.
I’m thinking back to my youth. I remember going to a summer camp (NOT run by the Boy Scouts) where I was leaning on my faith while sharing a cabin with some other young men who were not a good influence.
I was from a small town–and this was before the internet became a thing. These other boys had been exposed to more of the world than I had, and in my relative innocence their suggestions had a tinge of trauma.
I had packed a little New Testament with me, which included Psalms and Proverbs. I remember sitting on the top bunk of my bunk bed looking through that little red leatherette Bible, which, as was the custom, had my name embossed in gold on the front cover. That was the first time that I encountered Psalm 18:
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David the servant of the Lord, who addressed the words of this song to the Lord on the day when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul. He said:
18 I love thee, O Lord, my strength.
2 The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer,
my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
3 I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised,
and I am saved from my enemies.
4 The cords of death encompassed me,
the torrents of perdition assailed me;
5 the cords of Sheol entangled me,
the snares of death confronted me.
6 In my distress I called upon the Lord;
to my God I cried for help.
From his temple he heard my voice,
and my cry to him reached his ears.
7 Then the earth reeled and rocked;
the foundations also of the mountains trembled
and quaked, because he was angry.
8 Smoke went up from his nostrils,
and devouring fire from his mouth;
glowing coals flamed forth from him.
9 He bowed the heavens, and came down;
thick darkness was under his feet.
10 He rode on a cherub, and flew;
he came swiftly upon the wings of the wind.
11 He made darkness his covering around him,
his canopy thick clouds dark with water.
12 Out of the brightness before him
there broke through his clouds
hailstones and coals of fire.
13 The Lord also thundered in the heavens,
and the Most High uttered his voice,
hailstones and coals of fire.
14 And he sent out his arrows, and scattered them;
he flashed forth lightnings, and routed them.
15 Then the channels of the sea were seen,
and the foundations of the world were laid bare,
at thy rebuke, O Lord,
at the blast of the breath of thy nostrils.
16 He reached from on high, he took me,
he drew me out of many waters.
17 He delivered me from my strong enemy,
and from those who hated me;
for they were too mighty for me.
18 They came upon me in the day of my calamity;
but the Lord was my stay.
19 He brought me forth into a broad place;
he delivered me, because he delighted in me.
20 The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness;
according to the cleanness of my hands he recompensed me.
21 For I have kept the ways of the Lord,
and have not wickedly departed from my God.
22 For all his ordinances were before me,
and his statutes I did not put away from me.
23 I was blameless before him,
and I kept myself from guilt.
24 Therefore the Lord has recompensed me according to my righteousness,
according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.
25 With the loyal thou dost show thyself loyal;
with the blameless man thou dost show thyself blameless;
26 with the pure thou dost show thyself pure;
and with the crooked thou dost show thyself perverse.
27 For thou dost deliver a humble people;
but the haughty eyes thou dost bring down.
28 Yea, thou dost light my lamp;
the Lord my God lightens my darkness.
29 Yea, by thee I can crush a troop;
and by my God I can leap over a wall.
30 This God—his way is perfect;
the promise of the Lord proves true;
he is a shield for all those who take refuge in him.
31 For who is God, but the Lord?
And who is a rock, except our God?—
32 the God who girded me with strength,
and made my way safe.
33 He made my feet like hinds’ feet,
and set me secure on the heights.
34 He trains my hands for war,
so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.
35 Thou hast given me the shield of thy salvation,
and thy right hand supported me,
and thy help[a] made me great.
36 Thou didst give a wide place for my steps under me,
and my feet did not slip.
37 I pursued my enemies and overtook them;
and did not turn back till they were consumed.
38 I thrust them through, so that they were not able to rise;
they fell under my feet.
39 For thou didst gird me with strength for the battle;
thou didst make my assailants sink under me.
40 Thou didst make my enemies turn their backs to me,
and those who hated me I destroyed.
41 They cried for help, but there was none to save,
they cried to the Lord, but he did not answer them.
42 I beat them fine as dust before the wind;
I cast them out like the mire of the streets.
43 Thou didst deliver me from strife with the peoples;[b]
thou didst make me the head of the nations;
people whom I had not known served me.
44 As soon as they heard of me they obeyed me;
foreigners came cringing to me.
45 Foreigners lost heart,
and came trembling out of their fastnesses.
46 The Lord lives; and blessed be my rock,
and exalted be the God of my salvation,
47 the God who gave me vengeance
and subdued peoples under me;
48 who delivered me from my enemies;
yea, thou didst exalt me above my adversaries;
thou didst deliver me from men of violence.
49 For this I will extol thee, O Lord, among the nations,
and sing praises to thy name.
50 Great triumphs he gives to his king,
and shows steadfast love to his anointed,
to David and his descendants for ever.
When I read that scripture I had an encounter with God. It was an emotional tonic. I knew God had my back and that I could ignore those other boys from a place of strength. I even made a new friend. He had made a walking stick for his father that had (providentially I think) rendered John 14:6 as: I am the way, the truth, and the “light.” He told me that he didn’t catch the discrepancy until after the varnish had been put on. But we tacitly agreed, I think, that this was a good thing, because the light of Christ had indeed come into the darkness of our cabin. He didn’t much like the environment either.
To me, that is what the scriptures are all about. Way back when, David had an encounter with God, and he wrote about it, and through his words I had my own encounter with God.
That’s why I try to read a snippet of Psalms from the lectionary sometime in the morning as best as I can–not to “be a good Christian,” but because I want to have–however brief and muddled and distracted–an encounter with God that comes to me from the outside. Just like the incarnation was the eternal God crashing into finite contingent reality in order to heal it, I need the Psalms to crash into my brain, and hopefully my heart, so that I can have at least some stability as I start the day in a house with young children.
Now is any of this “biblical”? I have no idea. To me, it is a meaningless question.
Reality check.
Jesus’ Lordship IS Reality. It *does not* need to be “enforced” or “promoted” any more than *gravity* needs to be enforced or promoted. What WE need is for it to be *revealed*—as Jesus did on his throne a.k.a the cross.
Only love is stronger than the death penalty.
If the bogus “deterrence” argument for the death penalty is sound, why not make executions public for all to see? Wouldn’t that create more “deterrence”? Wouldn’t that be “transparent”?
Ahh, but that would expose this demonic cruelty for what it is–a taxpayer-funded snuff film powered by semi-conscious generic vengeance embedded deep in the collective psyche of a wounded, exploited, resentful body politic.
And then the cycle repeats–with the devil laughing all the way to the bank.
Only love is stronger than death. And that is most clearly seen on a crucifix–God didn’t retaliate against us. He did the opposite.
And the only way to get out of the hell of life in this world, is to do the same.
nowhere to hang our hat
Faced with the extent of antisemitism in the Christian tradition, I cannot see how anyone can assert any claim of infallibility for either the New Testament or the Church.
We are broken from the get-go and our institutions and our documents reflect that brokenness—to put it mildly.
We are lost sheep. We are wounded, and all of our responses to G-d reflect that.
We need healing individually and corporately.
The “truth” that Christians have to share is what WE did to Truth Incarnate—and continue to do—despite any clever casuistry or scapegoating that tries to get us off the hook.
Boyd Camak 