I’ve just read Halden’s entry, “The Ethics of Complicity,” which treats the problem of Christian responsibility in and to a capitalistic and militaristic state. Many Christians, both in the academy and the church, call for a radical break with the “world,” and decry all forms of compromise with the “gods of this age.” However, Hadlen insistes that there’s no “outside” to [...]
Archive for February, 2008
Only Slightly-Less Complicit than Before: Some Reflections on Christian Worldly Responsibility
Posted in Christian life, Consumerism, Ethics, Politics, Reinhold Niebuhr on February 28, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Timothy Keller on Characteristics of Missional Church
Posted in Ecclesiology, Evangelism, Missionality, The Other, Timothy Keller on February 26, 2008 | 4 Comments »
Timothy Keller, pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian in NYC, characterizes missionality, explaining how it differs from what most of us have known as “evangelism.”
Theology of the Last Judgment & the Final State: Avery Cardinal Dulles
Posted in Eschatology, Hell, Jesus on February 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
At First Things, you can read Avery Cardinal Dulles’ response to the question, “Who Can Be Saved?” I want to quote only the concluding paragraph.
Who, then, can be saved? Catholics can be saved if they believe the Word of God as taught by the Church and if they obey the commandments. Other Christians can be [...]
“Thee, God, I”: What Hopkins Knew that We Have to Learn
Posted in Christian life, Gerard Manley Hopkins, God on February 24, 2008 | Leave a Comment »
I keep coming back to the poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins. Recently, I’ve been reading “Spring and Fall,” and “Carrion Comfort.” Today, I found his “Thee, God, I come from, to thee go,” which I had read several times before. It isn’t one of Hopkins’ better poems, but I’m nonetheless mesmerized by the lines,
“What I [...]
How Many Christians Does it Take to Change an Empire: Thinking about the Demography and Sociology of the Early Christian Communities
Posted in Christian life, Ecclesiology, Missionality, Primitive Christianity, Worship on February 21, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Recently, I wanted to discover what the scholarship says about the size and makeup of the early Christian communities. In my searching, I found and read a provocative article by Keith Hopkins (”Christian Number and Its Implications,” published in The Journal of Early Christian Studies, Summer 1998), which did provide some helpful specifics, though Hopkins [...]
