All tagged words
"God is love" is not nearly as thick or rich as saying, "God is three persons in one essence." My point? Our words about God matter more, not less, than our words about other realities. But God as a Trinity crucifies the human intellect! So what to do? Then, what terms did the ancient Church give us that still inform us today? Why do those words matter? What is the essence of God? I also do a bit of processing the recent death of a family member.
In the West there are two churches and they are growing apart. Significantly, this has to do with their understanding of work. One side embraces Gospel work, the other side embraces Kingdom work. What characterizes these two kinds of work? What are their goals? How might we address the growing bifurcation of these two emphases?
500 years ago the Reformation took a big billy club to beauty, nearly eliminating beauty from the Christian way of life. Why did that happen? Was it justified? Was it a good thing? Oh, and, what are the effects of the Reformation on our practice of Christianity today? What should we take, and what should we reject, from the Reformation? Lacking art in our churches, are we contemporary believers any less guilty of idolatry than ages past? This is part 3 in my 4-part series on Beauty.
What was Jesus about? How did eschatology define both he and his ministry? If Christianity is about going to heaven when we die, why does morality even matter? Jesus was stunningly oriented to eschatology (end-life, after-life) and eschatological themes. These themes still matter today for those of us who follow the risen one. Christian morality is inseparable from eschatological underpinnings.
