Reading
Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot—
Yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root.
— Isaiah 11:1
InterVarsity's Emerging Scholars Network
The Cross and Gendercide: A Theological Response to Global Violence Against Women and Girls
By Elizabeth Gerhardt
My rating:Â 4 of 5 stars
There is a war going on that knows no national borders or physical territories. It is a war that occurs in clinics, ritual ceremonies, sweatshops and brothels, college campuses and religious homes. It is a war against half of the planet’s population. It is the war against women. One manifestation of this war is that there is not a woman I know who feels safe walking alone at night. Sometimes the warfare is expressed “merely†in leering looks or harassing comments. But the war is far more serious in many parts of the world. [Read more…] about Book Review: The Cross and Gendercide
Christianity and humanism have often been portrayed as foes — Christianity being about God and the other-worldly and humanism being about the greatness of human beings. This weighty book explores why this is a false misconception and how the divide being Christianity and humanism has developed.
Jens Zimmermann argues that the basis for Christian humanism is the incarnation of Christ, hence the title Incarnational Humanism: A Philosophy of Culture for the Church in the World (InterVarsity Press, 2012). He goes back to the early church fathers and develops the idea that it is our participation in Christ’s redemptive work that frees us to be mostly truly human as the redeemed image bearers of God, or in Eastern Church terms, as God-like, the idea of theosis. Our participation in Christ, particularly experience in the Eucharist and lived out in the world transforms us to become, in the words of Irenaus, “the glory of God is man fully alive.” [Read more…] about Book Review: Incarnational Humanism
As for me, I am poor and needy, but the Lord takes thought for me. You are my help and my deliverer; do not delay, O my God!. — Psalm 40:17
In Part 1 I asked the question: How do you “read†and/or pray a Psalm as an individual follower of Christ (possibly as a part of your daily practice) AND as a member of a particular Christian tradition (in corporate and/or daily practice)? As an extension of this consideration I offered the “simple” exercise of comparing/contrasting the reading, praying, and reflecting upon Psalm 40 with U2’s performance of 40 (Vertigo Tour Live From Chicago, 2005).
In Part 2 I tied “active”/intentional waiting to Advent and began to explore the Book of Psalms as “the school of prayer” (Life Together, 47), with an emphasis on praying the whole Psalm. It is important to highlight that Bonhoeffer understood daily silent meditation on the whole Psalm as part of a strict Christological “ordering†of the day, i.e., “rule of life”. In my opinion, this daily practice provided a significant element of the complex undergirding for his [Read more…] about Meditation . . . Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible Part 3
I waited patiently for the Lord; he inclined to me and heard my cry. — Psalm 40:1
In Part 1 I asked the question: How do you “read†and/or pray a Psalm as an individual follower of Christ (possibly as a part of your daily practice) AND as a member of a particular Christian tradition (in corporate and/or daily practice)? And I offered the “simple” exercise of reading, praying, and reflecting upon Psalm 40 AND then comparing/contrasting this exercise with U2’s performance of 40 (Vertigo Tour Live From Chicago, 2005).
While practicing an “active”/intentional waiting for the Lord’s coming during the season of Advent, we should not miss Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s theology being “interwoven with the course of his life†(Eberhard Bethge 1997, viii). So it is not just going to the library and/or the bookstore to pick up copies of Bonhoeffer’s books (or those about him) and imagining what we would have done if we were him. But it is asking and living out our response to the question How shall we then live? (Daily Bible Study based on Ecclesiastes 11:1-12:8. InterVarsity Press). And this is not just what we “do”, e.g., Pastor, martyr, prophet, spy (Note: part of the title of a 2011 book by Eric Metaxas), but who we are in relationship to God. Yes, we must embrace The Cost of Discipleship (1937). [Read more…] about Active Waiting . . . Psalms: The Prayer Book of the Bible Part 2