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Reuters reports that Pope Benedict XIV and Archbishop of Canterbury, the Most Rev. Rowan Williams, are set to meet today.
I am not a farmer, much less a subsistence farmer. At the same time, I know what effort I put in. I know how often I bark my knuckles in the process; and so I know some of my sweat and blood feeds the roots of the peppers. I know what it means to put in two hours in the hot sun; and if I don’t know what it means to put in twelve hours, I do know that my life would be very different if I had no choice.
So, time to ask a question. How will church unity happen? What will it take to draw us together? Answer: Jesus Christ. . . .Our only loyalty is to Jesus Christ, who died so that something new might happen in the world. We are called to follow him all the way to the cross, willing to die as denominations for God’s future.
As with his other works, Wright has encouraged his many fans on both sides of the Atlantic even as he has provoked some critics. He wants to hold out the gospel for a largely post-Christian United Kingdom, in part by refuting the faulty scholarship of biblical critics. But he also wants to challenge Christians to see the gospel in a new way. Thus, he takes issue with Luther’s view on justification by faith alone. He also worries that many Christians have unbiblically privatized the gospel, stripping the Good News of its public imperative.
Episode 8 of the PBS series Carrier this week focused on faith. The major religious groups on board are Catholic and Protestant, but there also is a coven of Wiccans, as well as a Pentecostal group whose newest member is challenged by the duality of his beliefs and the temptations of liberty as the ship drops anchor in Perth, Australia.
Dr. Cone, a founding father of black liberation theology, allowed himself a chuckle. “You might say we took our Christianity from Martin and our emphasis on blackness from Malcolm,” he said.
Over at the Catholic group blog Vox Nova, M.Z. Forrest is trying to compile a list of great Catholic fictional literature, which he defines to include “Catholic, Orthodox, and high Anglican authors.” To get the discussion going, his initial list includes four authorss, one of whom was an Anglican.
It is precisely the point of the liturgy to take people out of their worlds and usher them into a strange, new world—to show them that, despite appearances, the last thing in the world they need is more of the world out of which they’ve come. The world the liturgy reveals does not seem relevant at first glance, but it turns out that the world it reveals is more real than the one we inhabit day by day.
The good news of God is trapped in competitive Christianity. Yes, we know we are supposed to reach out with the gospel. And surely we are meant to spread Christ’s love throughout the earth. But, there are too many steeples to keep painted. Too many church lawns to be mowed.