I want to describe the Bridge for you. It stretches from heaven to earth by reason of my having joined myself with your humanity which I formed in the earth’s clay. This bridge has three stairs. Two of them were built by my Son on the wood of the most holy cross, and the third even as he tasted the bitterness of the gall and vinegar they gave him to drink. You will recognize in these three stairs three spiritual stages.
The resurrection of the Lord was truly the resurrection of a real body, because no other person was raised than he who had been crucified and died. What else was accomplished during that interval of forty days than to make our faith entire and clear of all darkness? For a while, he spoke with his disciples and remained with them, ate with them and allowed himself to be felt with careful and inquisitive touch by those who were under the influence of doubt.
Ayn Rand was an atheist of a sort that meant that the fiercely individualistic “I” was ultimately self-referential. The element of her conflicted popular philosophy that is mysteriously endearing to the American grassroots psyche is the rugged, no-holds-barred lack of accountability, an amoral construct that is truly all about me.
I have no wit, no words, no tears;
My heart within me like a stone
Is numb’d too much for hopes or fears;
Look right, look left, I dwell alone;
The Resurrection of Christ could not be seen by man, for it was a resurrection into a world which no human senses could follow it. There are many powers in nature to which we can have no immediate outer testimony. We know their existence by their results. So it is with the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. We experience its power because He went into a world beyond our natural gaze. He has entered upon the exercise of powers whose influence we acknowledge, and from whose control none can escape.
Fundamentalism, in this sense, is not a rigorous theology. It is rigid resistance to a rigorous theology. It’s a form of denial and despair. It is rigorous only within a theological structure that does not account for the growth and expansion of human knowledge.
The British press is covering the development of the Ordinariate as though each person who leaves the Church of England for Rome deserves his or her own personal news story. But in the normal course of things, much larger numbers of people go back and forth between denominations all of the time.
Imposing penalties for actions or decisions deemed incompatible with the Covenant is inconsistent with our traditional understanding of covenants, as reflected in the marriage covenant or the baptismal covenant. … The deputation believes that the inclusion of such penalties would be antithetical to any covenantal relationship.
On the heels of our last item about closing small churches, comes this item on saving small churches. Thanks to Sally Hicks at the Duke
Parishioners realized that closing a church would call for a great deal of letting go. They were deeply attached to their building and its contents, for which they had given and worked across the years. They knew the names of people who had given the pews, altar rails, statues, and specific fixtures.