There is so much humility, discipline, curiosity and vitality in what the Creator asks of us – anything but monotonous! In the Abrahamic origin story, there are some similarities as it centers Creation first and begins in a garden.
There are certain dynamics taking place today that may remind us of dynamics that took place early in the last century. I suggest that pondering such similarities is not only warranted – but needed.
My thesis is simply this: A comet actually is heading our way. We ourselves set it in motion millennia ago. But only recently have scientists, echoing longstanding indigenous warnings, charted its course and voiced the alarm. Its name is Anthropocentrism and these are the End Times because human-centeredness will prove to be nearly as devastating as the comet in the movie.
When Christians gather for liturgy; when we assemble for saying prayers, singing songs, hearing sermons; when we come together for Eucharist, it is simply assumed …
In my travels and speaking, people often ask me “what do we do with ______?” questions. The blank is most often filled in with a doctrinal issue like hell, creationism, original sin, inerrancy, atonement theory, and the like.
Like progressive Christians today, Simone Weil knew God as love. Not just as warm, fuzzy, romantic, or familial love. Rather as agape love, which embraces all beings and things – and all experiences, including suffering. Communion with the divine was, for her, manifested in attention
Jack experienced God as the source of all life. There is no duality within God, there is only sacred oneness. And so he reminded us that if God is the source of all life, then the best way to worship God is to live fully.
Sometimes, the deeper we dig, the more profoundly aware we become that at the center of reality are dimensions that defy linear and logical analysis. Whether it be in the realm of science, quantum or cosmic, or in the realm of metaphysics, oftentimes mystery is the ultimate order of the day. Leaving science to the scientists, I would like to here consider two theological questions that defy logical analysis, one aspect of the nature of God and one aspect of the nature of human beings.
One of the many ways to read the Bible is to view it as God’s autobiography.
In his Letters and Papers from Prison, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in 1945 that the Western world was on the precipice of a new era, an era without religion. God, as the “answer” to unsolvable questions, was continually being put out of a job as science continually extended the boundaries of human knowledge.