I didn't deserve a friend like this, who loved me for no reason--- who loved me despite my mistakes. I caught my breath as the thought entered my mind. Could God love me this way too? If Josh was going to jump off this boat and trust in God to save us, couldn't I trust him as well?
cosmopolitan theology that longs for the Kindom of God seeks to recover its revolutionary universalizing ethos in terms of hospitality, neighbor-love, and multiple solidarities that one can see in Jesus' teaching and ministry, without any imperialist, kyriarchcal, hierarchical implications
The more I resist [Christ] and try to live on my own, the more I become dominated by my own heredity and upbringing and surroundings and natural desires. In fact what I so proudly call 'Myself' becomes merely the meeting place for trains of events which I never started and cannot stop.
Good docents often begin by asking the viewer, “What do you see in this work?” The idea that the expert should be allowed to constrain the interpretation of others rightly offends our sensibilities about museums and art. It ought to offend us just as much when applied to Scripture.
Long before there was ever a King James Version of our Bible, there was a gospel truth...and long before doctrines and denominations, the preeminence of the gospel was already ripe to harvest. Before man had ever thought about creating symbols to represent spiritual things...there was a gospel.
This much should be clear by now: the term 'renaissance' can only remain fruitful and demanding as long as it refers to a far-reaching idea: that it is the fate of Europeans to develop life and forms of life according to and alongside the Christian definitions of life and forms of life.
By the time we were knit in our mothers' wombs, our lives were like open books before Him--every sentence read, every paragraph indented, every chapter titled, every page numbered. He knew it all in advance--all the sin, all the selfishness, every weakness. Yet He chose to love us--lavishly.
… when we are talking about 'Christians' and 'Moslems' we must first make sure that we are talking about people who have an idea, which should be more or less correct, as to what the other is supposed to believe and what he is expected to do as a consequence of that belief.
I think this is a very important thing to understand about Christianity. It was from its very beginnings, it seems, a religion of great quarrels and wars, and it wooed the power of temporal authorities, and made them part of itself in the hope of resolving through sheer force its many arguments.
After Hatuey, a fifteenth-century Indian insurrectionist, had been fixed to the stake, his Spanish captors extended him the choice of converting to Christianity and ascending to Heaven of going unrepentantly to Hell. Gathering that his executioners expected to go to heaven, Hatuey chose the othe
God almighty, Franny," he said. "If you're going to say the Jesus Prayer, at least say it to Jesus, and not to St. Francis and Seymour and Heidi's grandfather all wrapped up in one. Keep him in mind if you say it, and him only, and him as he was and not as you'd like him to have been.
You and I live at a moment of history that is simultaneously terrible and wonderful. Terrible because of the condition of the society in which we are destined to live out our lives. Wonderful because of the unprecedented opportunities to make a difference in the destiny of a nation and the world.
Psychiatrists look for twisted molecules and defective genes as the causes of schizophrenia, because schizophrenia is the name of a disease. If Christianity or Communism were called diseases, would they then look for the chemical and genetic “causes” of these “conditions”?
The recognition of a distinct 'national identity' among members of the Body of Christ can keep before us our ties with Christians who live under different secular governments, with whom we have bonds that transcend and override our commitments to governments and groups outside the church.
Quanto ai cristiani, sarebbe stato proprio lo scossone della sconfitta nel referendum sul divorzio a costituire il principio del loro risveglio; più tardi Iddio avrebbe fatto alla sua chiesa l'immenso dono del papa polacco: un papa di nuovo 'pietra' e 'roccia' finalmente
