Simon Barrow writes for The Guardian Let’s reclaim the jubilee.
Kristin M Swenson writes for The Huffington Post about The Inspiration of Chagall’s Mystical Stained Glass.
Savi Hensman writes for Ekklesia about Ordaining women bishops: safeguards and tangles.
Mark Goodacre asks How would Jesus have proved his own existence?
The assumption in Mark Goodacre’s piece is that if we were confronted with incontrovertible evidence, it would be human nature to not only accept it as fact, but to change one’s life accordingly. That approach questions the historicity of the apostolic record (which may be valid), but does very little to question our own motives in doing so, e.g. moral inertia. The Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus, at least, rings true with what we know of human nature. ‘Neither will they believe, though one should rise from the dead’ 1. We know what goodness is, especially because we… Read more »
Here endeth the First (but not the last) Lesson!
Moral inertia? Well, yes, it exists, of that there’s no doubt, but I have a feeling that to focus on same is to miss something faintly important. I think it’s Bunyan who observes that morality and Christianity are not at all the same – Pilgrim is encouraged to go and dwell in the village of Morality ‘to be sure there thou shalt live by honest neighbours, in credit and good fashion.’ Morality wholly fails to pick up the concept of metanoia, restricting it to something which largely concerns the regions between knee and navel, and therefore subverts the Gospel. Christianity… Read more »
David, You’re absolutely right. The rich young ruler exclaimed that he had kept the law from childhood. Following the external observances of morality was easy for him. ‘If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’ exposed the darling idol of his soul, his wealth. It was a call to lose the life that he loved for a greater promise beyond the life that he knew. That involves reliance on an unrealized hope and that’s one large step beyond the worldly reassurances with… Read more »
It is a bit like the professor Richard Dawkins gospel: we must rule out the supernatural because science only deals with the material world and then go on to conclude that science proves that God does not exist. So in this case, we discount the best sources of Jesus because of the – ” its supernatural therefore it must be myth” – and then write “historical” accounts based on conjecture and very thin references outside scripture – and the few facts were are willing to permit from scripture. Of course it is a good source of income for some academics… Read more »