November 2011
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Why My Thesis is Consuming My Life
Professor: All we're looking for is that you make an original contribution to the study of history.
Me: I think you are expecting far too much from 21-year-olds.
Professor: *Laughs*
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Waiting with Mary: A Meditation on Luke 1:26–38,... →
I liked this so much I decided to post another excerpt.
So where does Christ arrive? Where does Advent take place? Where does God’s new life happen? God comes to us in the mess and waits with us. And what exactly is God waiting for? God is waiting for us to pray with Mary, “Be it done to me according to your word.” Then we can begin to see how God is already at work transforming chaos into new...
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“why does even the best person hold back something from another? why not say...”
– dostoyevsky, white nights. (via swarbles)
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Waiting With Mary: A Meditation on Luke 1:26–38,... →
As hard as we may try, we don’t know how to prepare for God to show up. God happens in ways that we least expect and at times when we feel most unprepared. During Advent we are all like I was at the age of three, waiting to welcome my sister but not knowing how to prepare. Yet, despite my failed attempts at understanding what was going on, she came anyway.
That’s the way God works: Jesus comes...
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“In Christ, God’s “yes” defeats our “no.” Our “no” is a human rejection of God’s...”
– What’s the gospel in seven words? Beverly Roberts Gaventa: “In Christ, God’s ‘yes’ defeats our ‘no’” | The Christian Century (via mshedden)
“Here’s the quote, from von Balthasar: All ancient peoples have their gods. The...”
– God has an Israel | Easter in the Ordinary (via mshedden)
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The catechism on gender roles and marriage
Good info for my Catholic followers. :)
shortbreadsh:
It depresses me when I see Catholics talking about gender roles in a way that is basically… well, evangelical and not Catholic, as if it were the Catholic position. Here are some representative paragraphs on the issue from the catechism.
372 Man and woman were made “for each other” - not that God left them half-made and incomplete: he...
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waterwasntbuilt asked: What are your thoughts on open relational theology? (I know that's an insanely wide category, but you can take it any direction you want. Myself, I'm interested in process folks like Cobb or Keller and social trinitarians like Moltmann.)
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mikegarycole replied to your post: thalescircles replied to your link: Anyone want to…
Add 2 parts angst, and we’re like the same recipe.
Oh I’ve got loads of angst, if that wasn’t clear from my blog.
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thalescircles replied to your link: Anyone want to ask me a question?
What is your church background? (Maybe you’ve answered this, but I haven’t seen it. Personally, I grew up Church of Christ but I have connections with Presbyterian, Lutheran, and Episcopalian churches, and I’ve visited many others.)
Evangelical (nondenominational/Baptist/Reformed), mostly, with some charismatic/Vineyard...
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mshedden asked: Do you have a theologian you love and hate or someone everyone else seems to get but for some reason you never enjoy their work?
“… One day, at the last judgment, he will separate the sheep and the goats and...”
– Dietrich Bonhoeffer, “The Coming of Jesus in Our Midst” (via catechumenate)
“There is something transfigured and blessed in these words [i.e., the words of 1...”
– Kierkegaard, Works of Love. (via wesleyhill)
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“O that you would tear open the heavens and come down!”
– Isaiah 64:1a
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“Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put...”
– Advent Collect
“Our very righteousness, though true in so far as it has respect to the true...”
– Augustine, City of God, xix.27. (via wesleyhill)
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Communion #3
I admit that when I saw you walking up to me as I served communion I hesitated for a split second. You have never been anything but indifferent at best, unfriendly at worst.
But how much of that is my own fault? Was it not I who sat there resentfully when nice Christian people tried to befriend me three years ago?
So, I served you wine, reminding us both that Christ shed his blood for us in the...
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“There’s many a bestseller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.”
– Flannery O’Connor (via doubledaybooks)
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“Our response to life is different if we have been taught only a definition of...”
– Flannery O’Connor, On the Importance of Stories (via desvignettes)
“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude...”
– G.K. Chesterton (via bgable)
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“Hope stands up to its knees in the past and keeps its eyes on the future. There...”
– Frederick Buechner, Secrets in the Dark
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“Human beings may separate things into as many piles as we wish - separating...”
– Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith
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“Your abundant mercy will better obtain my pardon than any fancied righteousness...”
– Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ (via invisibleforeigner)
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“Almighty, everlasting God, Who in Thy beloved Son, King of the whole world, has...”
– Litany to Christ the King (via wreckedsolitaryhere)
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“God’s first and final word is mercy and not wrath, hope and not defeat, grace...”
– Ralph C. Wood, The Comedy of Redemption (via invisibleforeigner)
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“It seems natural for man to experience the world as opaque, and not shot through...”
– Alexander Schmemann, For the Life of the World
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“You can suggest something obvious is going to happen but you cannot have it...”
– Flannery O’Connor (via dailyflanneryoc)
“It is the deep groundswell of social cohesion, the corporately felt commitments...”
– Oliver O’Donovan, on St. Augustine, from his and Joan Lockwood O’Donovan’s survey of early Christian political thought. (via commentmagazine)
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“Evangelicals should believe that pursuing truth and intellectual honesty under...”
– Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible
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“There is nothing so secular that it cannot be sacred, and that is one of the...”
– Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water (via invisibleforeigner)
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“We live under the illusion that if we can acquire complete control, we can...”
– Madeleine L’Engle, Walking on Water
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“Scripture is not worshipped. It is not in scripture that we place our hope. It...”
– Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible
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jarnolf-deactivated20120223 asked: What does this term "Biblicist" mean?
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notadinnerparty replied to your quote: It is inevitable to have a ‘canon within a canon.’…
Love Christian Smith. Was surprised he converted, because I thought he was fairly progressive and egalitarian (not that Catholics can’t be progressive and egalitarian—look at our own shortbreadsh). Anyway, thanks for posting these!
Yeah, I was a little surprised too. I’m going to read his book...
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“Biblicists are often so insistent that the Bible is God’s only complete,...”
– Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible
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“It is inevitable to have a ‘canon within a canon.’ But our...”
– Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible
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“One cannot speak of God simply by speaking of man in a loud voice.”
– Karl Barth
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“Biblicism does nothing to eliminate our precarious positions - it merely hides...”
– Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible
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“Every reader of the Bible in one way or another ends up actively interpreting,...”
– Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible
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“Perhaps, if and once people have really grasped the good news of Jesus Christ -...”
– Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible
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“The Bible is not about offering things like a biblical view of dating - but...”
– Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible
Ngl I stood up and cheered when I read this.
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“I draw the line at any kind of research and even object to looking up words in...”
– Flannery O’Connor (via dailyflanneryoc)
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“It is only Jesus Christ - the real, living Lord, the Creator of all things, the...”
– Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible
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“Biblical unity comes not from an empirically observable, perfect...”
– Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible
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“If believers today want to rightly understand scripture, every narrative, every...”
– Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible
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“Truly believing that Jesus Christ is the real purpose, center, and interpretive...”
– Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible
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“The Bible - however highly it is lauded in theory - easily becomes in biblicism...”
– Christian Smith, The Bible Made Impossible 