Talk Less, Listen More
Christian spirituality does not begin with us talking about our experience; it begins with listening to God call us, heal us, forgive us.
—Eugene H. Peterson in Subversive Spirituality
Where Jesus Isn’t Lord
Non-Christians will insist that we should keep our religion out of the way of their politics. But the reason for that is not that Jesus has nothing to do with the public realm; it is that they want nothing to do with Jesus as Lord.
—John Howard Yoder in The Death Penalty Debate
Devine Chains
As a Christian, I am a prisoner of hope.
—Cornel West, quoted in The Other Side (July & Aug. 1998)
—Elton Trueblood in The Book of Jesus, Calvin Miller, ed.
Seeing with God’s Eyes
Here lies hidden the great call to conversion: to look not with the eyes of my own low self-esteem, but with the eyes of God’s love. As long as I keep looking at God as a landowner, as a father who wants to get the most out of me for the least cost, I cannot but become jealous, bitter, and resentful toward my fellow workers or my brothers and sisters. But if I am able to look at the world with the eyes of God’s love and discover that God’s vision is not that of a stereotypical landowner or patriarch but rather that of an all-giving and forgiving father who does not measure out his love to his children according to how well they behave, then I quickly see that my only true response can be deep gratitude.
—Henri J. Nouwen in The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming
The Creator Is Preeminent
“What is the object of my love?” I asked the earth and it said: “It is not I.” I asked all that is in it; they made the same confession. … I asked the sea, the deeps, the living creatures that creep, and they responded: “We are not your God, look beyond us.” I asked the breezes which blow and the entire air with its inhabitants … heaven, sun, moon, and stars; they said: “Nor are we the God whom you seek.” And I said to all these things in my external environment: “Tell me of my God who you are not, tell me something about him.” And with a great voice they cried out: “He made us. … We are not God” and “He made us.”
—Augustine in Confessions, Book X
Making the Awesome Adorable
After centuries of technological striving, we finally got to Earth’s strange sere sibling Mars—and found rocks named Yogi, Scooby Doo, and Barnacle Bill. Someone high up in nasa must have issued a firm directive: “Keep it cuddly, guys. We don’t want Mars to seem like, you know, outer space.”
We do it all the time, of course. Watch one of our shlockier televangelists, and you’ll be introduced to an affable deity eager to be enlisted as your personal genie. … At least the ancient Hebrews had the good sense to make Yahweh unnameable and unseeable except in the flames of a burning bush—a permanent Mystery . …
We are insisting, in our pathetic provincialism, that there is nothing out there—either in the mythic past or the distant reaches of space—that can’t be labled, depicted and potentially marketed by the late 20th century American entertainment culture.
—Barbara Ehrenreich in Time (Aug. 25, 1997)
Cosmic View
Congregations are not just places to be reminded of what one ought to do. They are spaces where “ought” is put in cosmic perspective.
—Nancy Tatom Ammerman in Congregation and Community
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