MrKlingon's Rambles

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Mon May 28

“ People sometimes suggest, indeed, that the process of canonization is the sign that the church itself was the final authority. This proposal is sometimes made by Catholic traditionalists asserting the supremacy of the church over the Bible, and sometimes by postmodern skeptics asserting that the canon itself, and hence the books included in it, were all part of a power play for control within the church and social respectability in the world. This makes a rather obvious logical mistake analogous to that of a soldier who, receiving orders through the mail, concludes that the letter carrier is his commanding officer. Those who transmit, collect and distribute the message are not in the same league as those who write it in the first place. Scripture and the Authority of God: How to Read the Bible Today by N. T. Wright (via Findings.com)

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“ Jesus said, “My Kingdom transcends all worldly political structures” (my paraphrase of John 18:36). The kingdom of God is neither blue nor red, tea nor coffee! The church must stand in prophetic tension with Constantinian political systems and never underwrite or accommodate itself to a partisan political world order, including American democracy. Hijacked: Responding to the Partisan Church Divide by Michael Slaughter, Charles Gutenson (via Findings.com)

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Wed May 9

“ So for [furniture maker Harrison] Higgins, there is no simplistic opposition between nature and culture, between a pristine creation and human artifice—the creative “work of our hands” that gives birth to artifacts, to cultural goods. To the contrary, good artifice is its own kind of grace: to make is to serve, is to bear God’s image to and for the creation. A Christian theology of creation is not the same as Mother Earth mythologies of ‘the natural’ that ultimately end up lamenting humanity’s presence as a blight on creation. No, we worship the Maker of all, the Artificer we come to know in Jesus of Nazareth, the son of a carpenter. A Christian affirmation of the goodness of creation is also an affirmation of artifice — redeeming the very word, we might say, from its association with the fake and the faux. In an older sense, artifice attests to creativity and craft. Jamie Smith, “Artificial Grace: Why the Creation Needs Human Creativity.” I might add that when we say Jesus was a carpenter, the Greek word there is tekton: maker, builder. (via ayjay)

(via ayjay)

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“ After all, to the well-organized mind, death is but the next great adventure. MrKlingon’s Kindle notes (via Findings.com)

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Thu May 3

As Open as the Outstretched Arms of Christ on the Cross: Moltmann on Open Communion

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Wed May 2

“ Do not be deceived, Wormwood. Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemys will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys. from The Screwtape Letters MrKlingon’s Kindle notes (via Findings.com)

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Tue May 1

“

Fear is unChristian, says Robinson. Calvinists—Robinson identifies herself as such—have been said to “fear God and nothing else.” Yet Americans—and perhaps especially, religious Americans—can’t seem to get over the idea that we are under attack. “We’re stuck in psycho-emotional bomb shelters,” says Robinson, when, in fact, we Westerners are more free, safe, and stable than most people throughout the world and throughout history have ever hoped to be. “Why not enjoy it?” said Robinson with the hint of a chuckle. More soberly, she argued that fear—and people feeling “justified in fear”—leads to violence in the form of “preemptive self-defense.” Perhaps this kind of statement is what leads some people—not least, her most recent New York Times reviewer—to label her a “liberal Christian.” But Robinson’s argument is at least as theological as it is political:

“Read the Bible and Calvin end to end. You will never find the suggestion that every person is not made in the image of God.”

Her.meneutics: Why Marilynne Robinson, Narrative Calvinist, Doesn’t Fear Fox News by Rachel Stone (via Findings.com)

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Wow!

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Mon Apr 30

“ in the winter, seeing a tree stripped of its leaves, and considering that within a little time the leaves would be renewed and after that the flowers and fruit appear, he received a high view of the Providence and Power of GOD, which has never since been effaced from his soul. That this view had perfectly set him loose from the world, and kindled in him such a love for GOD, that he could not tell whether it had increased during the more than forty years he had lived since. The Practice of the Presence of God the Best Rule of a Holy Life by Brother Lawrence (via Findings.com)

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Tue Apr 24

“ We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and privacy, and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship. ..from ..Membership. (The Weight of Glory) MrKlingon’s Kindle notes (via Findings.com)