Zionism & Bigotry..
01 Jun 2012 Leave a Comment
in Christology, Church, Revelation, Theology Tags: Zionism
British journalist, Melanie Phillips, in an article entitled, Zionism and Bigotry said: “I have been brooding over the fact that Zionism has become a dirty word. … This is as grotesque as it is terrifying. Zionism is no more nor less than the self-determination of the Jewish people — as a people, and not just as adherents of the Jewish religion. Jews are in fact the only people – as a people — for whom Israel (ancient Judea and Samaria) was ever their national homeland. Those who deny Zionism thus deny Jewish peoplehood and the fundamental right of Jews to live as a people in their own ancestral homeland, Israel. … But far worse even than this is the assumption underlying this lazy defamation, that Zionism is a creed that is itself a particularly aggressive kind of racism or colonialism. This vicious prejudice has turned truth, reason and decency inside out. The right of the Jews to their own historic national homeland has been recast, entirely falsely, as a usurpation of the ‘right’ to that land of ‘Palestinians’ – who never actually existed as a discrete people in the first place. Those Jews who are Zionists now find themselves as a result cast as racists and social pariahs – merely for asserting the right of the Jewish people to self-determination in their own historic homeland.”
‘Recapitulation of all things in Christ’ …
31 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Christology, Church, Revelation, Theology Tags: Tertullian, Recapitulation
“While recapitulation of all things in Christ, which dominated the theology of Tertullian, Irenaeus and the early Athanasius, gave way in the fourth century, to christology and trinity, the question could never be held apart. The first question and answer were ‘Is there one God?’ and the ‘Only if the creator has acted to redeem the world in Christ.’ The second question ‘How can one God be both father and son?’ is necessary if God is to be credible. The divine economy has to be within God; it cannot be the detachable plan of a changeable being. The economy of the mystery had been hidden from all ages in the God who made all things (Eph. 3.9).
. . . .
Simplicity and recapitulation, which dominated early Christian theology, in- cluding that of Tertullian, found their place in one God, father, son and spirit. Tertullian’s ideas persist into the fourth century and indeed into the twentieth century, where a metaphysical poem ends:
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.
T.S. Eliot, Four Quarlets (London, 1944), 44. Note also p. 33:
Here the impossible union
Of spheres of existence is actual,
Here the past and the future
Are conquered, and reconciled.
(Tertullian, first theologian of the West, by Eric Osborn, Cambridge University Press, first paperback edition, 2003)
F.F. Bruce - The Free Grace of God
31 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Uncategorized
Reblogged from The Cross Quoter:
The free grace of God which Paul proclaimed is free grace in more sense than one – free in the sense that it is sovereign and unfettered, free in the sense that it is held forth to men and women for their acceptance by faith alone, and free in the sense that it is the source and principle of their liberation from all kinds of inward and spiritual bondage, including the bondage of legalism and the bondage of moral anarchy.
Lectio Divina (Latin) for divine reading…and the Man of God.
30 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Christology, Church, Revelation, Theology Tags: Lectio Divina, The Man of God
Lectio Divina was an early “Catholic” devotion and practice for reading Holy Scripture. There are traditionally four aspects here in Lectio Divina: to read, meditate, pray and contemplate. This goes back also to at least great Christian men, like Tertullian, Origen, Ambrose, and Augustine, etc. And it was of course put forward in the monastic practice and community in the life of the Benedictines (6th century).
There is a great need today, and always in the life of the Christian community for such reading! It is much more than “theology”, but that is also inclusive somewhat. We can note too, that Origen considered Christ was the key to reading and understanding (interpreting) Holy Scripture. As too perhaps Tertullian, though he very much liked the reality of paradox in God. And here St. Paul is foremost, with the great Doctrine of God! Though Paul does not really grapple totally with the Mystery of God, but simply states it, but profoundly!
The Man of God must “read”, “meditate” and “take heed”…”unto thyself, and unto the doctrine, continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee.” (1 Tim. 4:13-16)
Calvin, The Simplicity of the Lord’s Supper
30 May 2012 1 Comment
in Christology, Church, Revelation, Theology Tags: Calvin, Sacraments, The Simplicity of the Lord's Supper
“Under the apostles the Lord’s Supper was administered with great simplicity. Their immediate successors added something to enhance the dignity of the mystery which was not to be condemned. But afterward they were replaced by those foolish imitators, who by patching pieces from time to time, contrived for us these priestly vestments that we see in thee Mass, these altar ornaments, these gesticulations, and the apparatus of useless things.” (Calvin, Inst. IV, x, 19)
While I would surely agree with Calvin’s basic thought here on simplicity and spirituality in the Eucharist, I would say that Calvin missed the central nature of this celebration, at least in not pressing more his own desire and conviction of weekly celebration. It is known that he could not, or did not, press again wholeheartedly for this in Geneva. Certainly a great loss in the early Reformed Church!
Obama’s Church to divest from Israel. (J. Post)
29 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Christology, Church, Hatred of Israel, Revelation, Theology
http://www.thejerusalemconnection.us/blog/2012/05/28/obamas-church-to-divest-from-israel.html
Hilary Mantel, On the R. Catholic Church
29 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Christology, Church, Revelation, Theology Tags: Roman Catholicism
Hilary Mantel, English novelist & writer, born English Roman Catholic. It is sad to see the damage she feels and expresses from the RCC! Whether this is real or not, this is her perception. Again very sad!
Nicene Council, 325 A.D.
26 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Christology, Church, Revelation, Theology Tags: Nicene Council
Peter Leithart, ‘Too Catholic-to-be-Catholic’.
24 May 2012 Leave a Comment
in Christology, Church, Revelation, Theology Tags: Catholic Christianity
http://www.leithart.com/2012/05/21/too-catholic-to-be-catholic/
With the Ordinariate flood, this piece by Leithart should be read, there are still many of us Anglicans, who somewhat like Leithart, don’t consider going to Rome an option. Though we should agree to disagree, and stand as close as we can together.
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