Thinking After

Category: Quotes

  • Performance of Identity

    I had a wonderful week last week with the Doctor of Ministry cohort at Providence Theological Seminary teaching a course called, “Thinking and Interpreting Theologically.”  The students read several insightful texts in preparation for our time together.  The one that seemed to generate the most conversation was Andrew Root’s The Congregation in a Secular Age: Keeping Sacred Time against the Speed of Modern Life (Baker, 2021).  It is the third volume in Root’s Ministry in a Secular Age trilogy.  In the trilogy Root is dialoguing with the work of the Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor, in particular Taylor’s seminal A Secular Age.  At the heart of Root’s project is the concern for developing ways for Christians to speak about and recognize the presence of divine action within the midst of a “social imaginary” that has reduced its vision to the “immanent frame.”[1.  These are terms Taylor introduces in A Secular Age.  I briefly engage with Taylor around some of these themes in For the Life of the World (215-216).] (more…)

  • Living within the Mystery of God

    An arresting passage from Fritz Bauerschmidt’s sermon for the Baptism of the Lord entitled, “Hope for Everything,” found in his book How Beautiful the World Could Be: Christian Reflections on the Everyday. (more…)

  • Speaking Christian

    My Homiletics students are reading Stanley Hauerwas’s essay “Speaking Christian” for our next class on Wednesday.  It contains the following prescient gem of a quote.  Keep in mind the address was published over twelve years ago. (more…)

  • Some Social Media Posts from My Visit to CACVOC Winnipeg

    Christ Apostolic Church, Vineyard of Comfort have highlighted the following quotes from my sermon this past Sunday on their social media.  It was a blessing to share in ministry with Pastor Fela and in fellowship with the congregation. (more…)

  • Pope Benedict on the Innermost Simplicity of Christianity

    “Here we have reached a point at which the innermost unity and simplicity of Christianity show themselves for what they are.  I may declare that the heart of Christianity is the Paschal mystery of death and resurrection.  Or I may say that this midpoint really consists in justification by faith.  Or, again, I may affirm that the center of it all is the triune God, and therefore, love as the alpha and omega of the world.  These three statements are, in fact, identical.  In all three the self-same truth is indicated: sharing in the martyria of Jesus by that dying which is faith and love.  Such faith and love are simultaneously God’s acceptance of my life and my will to embrace the divine acceptance.  And all this is from the God who can be love only as the triune God and who, in thus being love, makes the world bearable after all.”

    •  Joseph Ratzinger, Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life (Washington: The Catholic University of America Press, 1988), 100.

  • Boersma on How Not to Read Scripture

    “I have chosen this passage from Origen because it illustrates that he regards metaphysics and biblical interpretation as closely connected.  The way we think about the relationship between God and the world is immediately tied up with the way we read Scripture.  This is something easily lost sight of, yet of crucial significance.  I suspect we often treat biblical interpretation as a relatively value-free endeavor, as something we’re equipped to do once we’ve acquired both the proper tools (biblical languages, an understanding of how grammar and syntax work, the ability to navigate concordances and computer programs, etc.) and a solid understanding of the right method (establishing the original text and translating it, determining authorship and original audience, studying historical and cultural context, figuring out the literary genre of the passage, and looking for themes and applicability).  Such an approach, even when it does recognize the interpreter’s dependence upon the Spirit’s guidance, treats the process of interpretation as patterned on the hard sciences.  In other words, the assumption is that the way to read the Bible is by following certain exegetical rules, which in turn are not affected by the way we think of how God and the world relate to each other.  Metaphysics, on this assumption, doesn’t affect interpretation.  In fact, many will see in the way Origen links metaphysics and exegesis the root cause of why his exegesis is wrongheaded: the Bible ought to be read on its own terms, without an alien, philosophically derived metaphysical scheme being imposed upon it.”[1. Hans Boersma, Scripture as Real Presence: Sacramental Exegesis in the Early Church (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 5-6.]

  • Douglas Harink on “Messianic Anarchy”

    A provocative quote from Douglas Harink for Canada Day from his insightful discussion of Romans 13 in his recent book Resurrecting Justice:

    “What do messianics owe political authorities and institutions?  Not obedience.  Not loyalty.  Not flag-waving, anthem-singing devotion.  Not military service.  Not participation in their ministries of punishment and death.  But also, not violent resistance or revolution (Rom. 13:2).  Messianics are neither for nor against worldly political authority.  In this sense, they might truly be called anarchists, because for them justice and life do not depend on the “archys” – the ruling powers of this age.  Nothing truly messianic hinges on whether the ruling powers are for or against them.  Messianics are conscientious unbelievers in worldly politics (syneidesin = “conscience” in Rom. 13:5).  They practice holy, peaceable anarchy because they refuse to believe in and dedicate their bodies and souls to the political systems of this age.”[1. Douglas Harink, Resurrecting Justice: Reading Romans for the Life of the World (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 200), 184.]

  • Barth on the Simplicity of the Gospel

    “Basically, the gospel is a very simple thing.  The gospel is no system of this or that truth, no theory on life in time and eternity, no metaphysics or the like, but simply the sign that God has blessed the world, this poor world in which we live, with all its difficulties, with all its misery, with this whole ocean of death.  And in this world we dare to live in the knowledge that God loves us, but not only us Christians who believe that God loves the whole world [cf. John 3:16].  Every person, even the most miserable, the most evil, is loved by God.  This is the privilege: to be commissioned and enabled as a Christian to proclaim that.”[1. Karl Barth, Barth in Conversation: Volume 2, 1963, ed. Eberhard Busch (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2018, 216.]

  • Gregory of Nyssa on Prayer

    “In prayer, a person is present with God, for the person who prays is separated from the enemy.  Prayer safeguards self-control, controls the temper, restrains pride, cleanses us of malice, overthrows envy, destroys injustice, and corrects impiety.  Prayer is the strength of bodies, the prosperity of the home, the good will of the city, the strength of the kingdom, the victory in war, the security of peace, the bringing together of enemies, the preserver of allies.  Prayer is the seal of virgnity, the pledge of marriage, the shield of the traveler, the guard of those who sleep, the courage of those who keep watch, the productivity of farmers, the deliverance of sailors. . . . Prayer is conversation with God, the contemplation of unseen things, the fulfillment of things desired, equal in honor with angels, the progress of good things, the overthrow of evils, the correction of sinners, the enjoyment of the present, and the substance of things hoped for.” [1. Gregory of Nyssa, On the Lord’s Prayer, quoted in Christopher A. Hall, Worshiping with the Church Fathers (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2009), 142.]

  • Easter Encounters

    “For the Church does not exist just to transmit a message across the centuries through a duly constituted hierarchy that arbitrarily lays down what people must believe; it exists so that people in this and every century may encounter Jesus of Nazareth as a living contemporary.  This sacrament of Holy Communion that we gather to perform here is not the memorial of a dead leader, conducted by one of his duly authorized successors who controls access to his legacy; it is an event where we are invited to meet the living Jesus as surely as did his disciples on the first Easter Day.  And the Bible is not an authorized code of a society managed by priests and preachers for their private purposes, but the set of human words through which the call of God is still uniquely immediate to human beings today, human words with divine energy behind them.  Easter should be the moment to recover each year that sense of being contemporary with God’s action in Jesus.  Everything the church does – celebrating Holy Communion, reading the Bible, ordaining priests and bishops – is meant to be in the service of this contemporary encounter.  It all ought to be transparent to Jesus, not holding back or veiling his presence.” – Rowan Williams, Choose Life: Christmas and Easter Sermons in Canterbury Cathedral (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 145-46.