Nick Cave - The Red Hand Files - Issue #280 - I am finding your religious turn and proselytising difficult. How do you reconcile your faith with the church’s devastating...
theredhandfiles.com
Nick Cave - The Red Hand Files - Issue #280 - I am finding your religious turn and proselytising difficult. How do you reconcile your faith with the church’s devastating...
means not conforming with whatever happens to be the idolatry of the time – and every age has its idols. It means being honest in business, doing justice, treating your employees well, and sharing your blessings (in those days, parts of the harvest) with others.
Jonathan Sacks • Studies in Spirituality (Covenant & Conversation Book 9)
“The more overtly unshakeable someone’s beliefs are, the more diminished they seem to become, because they have stopped questioning, and the not-questioning can sometimes be accompanied by an attitude of moral superiority. The belligerent dogmatism of the current cultural moment is a case in point. A bit of humility wouldn’t go astray.”
― Nick Cave
... See moreEvery week people file into our church services aching for eternity. In our zeal to provide something they may find comfortable and useful and inoffensive, are we offending the God who wishes to offend us in awe of his glory? Are we dismissing our brother Jesus, whose formula for victory includes crucifixion?
Jared C. Wilson , Mike Ayers (Foreword) • The Pastor's Justification
When we conflate faith with passionate commitment, we worry (maybe in unspoken ways) that young people will actually believe us and become fundamentalists, turning on the a-religious with such force that, like Phinehas, they turn to violence or become zealots who are impossible to relate to or defend.
Andrew Root • Faith Formation in a Secular Age : Volume 1 (Ministry in a Secular Age): Responding to the Church's Obsession with Youthfulness
“My theory? I think maybe you just want the social connections back from our childhoods. You don’t want God. You want religion. You don’t want to win Pascal’s wager. You just want to maximize your remaining time, and you know that deep down, your happiest place is in a group of people who all believe the same thing. Secular friend groups are what,
... See moreBryan R Johnson • DON'T DIE
Fundamentalism had glorified the Bible so fully that the personhood of the triune being of God was overtaken by the idea of inerrancy. The litmus test for true Christian faith was conformity to this idea—the idea of the authority of Scripture and of the need to be obedient to the code of pure doctrine. While transcendence was longed for, idealism c
... See moreAndrew Root • Faith Formation in a Secular Age : Volume 1 (Ministry in a Secular Age): Responding to the Church's Obsession with Youthfulness
Thirty years ago, I saw mystery as a country to be vanquished. Today, I see mystery as a place in which to dwell.
If I wanted someone to blame for my early animosity to mystery, there are probably two culprits: fundamentalism and philosophy. I came to the Christian faith, from an unchurched background, by way of a fundamentalism that, now looking ba
... See moreMockingbird • Notes From the Cosmic Sea
In the age of authenticity, of course, sex scandals and money laundering are black eyes, but not because they show that the church serves a false transcendent force or that its leaders have given themselves over to the devil. Rather, it’s because they reveal a deeper problematic for us contemporaries: they expose the church as inauthentic and fake.