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Africa Evangelizing Us

Gene Veith has a great post on how the rise of the Christian South (of the equator, that is) is challenging the status quo of old Christendom...and mainline protestantism. Click here to read it.

Leading Evangelical Thinker Converts to Rome

Philosopher (and President of the Evangelical Theological Society), Francis Beckwith, recently shook the evangelical community by stepping down from the presidency of the ETS because of his turn to Rome. Here are a few blogs and articles that are quite interesting on the subject.

Q&A: Francis Beckwith at Christianity Today

Roman Catholicism, Evangelical Protestantism, and the Beckwith Controversy by Sam Storms (thanks to Justin Taylor)

Roman Catholicism, Evangelical Protestantism, and the Beckwith Controversy (2) by Sam Storms (thanks to Justin Taylor)

Top Evangelical Goes Over To Rome by Gene Veith

Thoughts on the Return to Rome of Professor Beckwith By Carl Trueman

The Cross: "Cosmic Child Abuse" or Fitting?

I first heard the atonement referenced as "cosmic child abuse" while attending Candler School of Theology at Emory. I didn't buy into it then...and even less so now. Paul Dean has a pretty good article on some recent incarnations of the idea. Here's an excerpt...

From the more radical wing of the “Emerging Church” has emerged a phrase and/or concept that is not only fashionable in that camp but has been picked up by liberals and secularists alike. It is now in vogue to refer to the cross of Christ as “cosmic child abuse.” While Brian McClaren and Steve Chalke speak freely in such terms, Adrian Warnock has chronicled other examples including Philip Yancey in The Jesus I Never Knew, Eugene Rogers in Sexuality and the Christian Body: Their Way into the Triune God (Challenges in Contemporary Theology), Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore in Let the Children Come : Reimagining Childhood from a Christian Perspective (Families and Faith Series), and Haven Kimmel in The Solace of Leaving Early.

Further, Dr. Peter Jones, author of Spirit Wars: Pagan Renewal in Christian America, warns against the pagan agenda of radical feminism that has been embraced by much of the church and connects that agenda with environmental activism propelled by Gaia worship. Numerous so-called Christians in that society refer to the cross of Christ as “cosmic child abuse.”

Click here to read the whole article.

Other good blogs on the subject are...

The Logic of Penal Substitution by Al Mohler

The Atonement: Understanding the Meaning of the Cross by Al Mohler

Is the Apostolic Preaching of the Cross "Insane?" by Al Mohler

Penal Substitution by Gene Veith

The Gospel without the Atonement? by Gene Veith

God's Treasure

God’s Treasure

Deuteronomy 14:2

…for you are a people holy to the Lord your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the Lord has chosen you to be his treasured possession.

Israel was not the largest, richest, or most powerful group of people on the planet when God chose them. Nor were they the most righteous and obedient. And yet, God chose them. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 1 that this is God’s usual mode of operation. He manifests his wisdom and power by choosing and then raising up the unwise and weak to serve him. It’s been a fairly effective plan thus far. There was a fairly well known empire that was turned upside-down by the “dregs of society” a couple thousand years ago. It seems to still be working.

What is also striking about this verse is that Israel is referred to as God’s “treasured possession.” What a wonderful way to see oneself – as a treasured possession – something incredibly valuable to God.

When we think of ourselves as such, our first impulse is to attribute such worth to ourselves. “Of course I’m treasured by God,” we think. “I have so much raw talent, drive, character, etc. Why wouldn’t I be invaluable to God?” And yet, this sort of thinking is antithetical to biblical truth. There is nothing in ourselves, which compels God to choose us. Instead, it is his own good, perfect, and pleasing will that leads him to first love us.

But to think that those who are in Christ are God’s treasured possessions is amazing. For that’s what we are as heirs of the new covenant.

How ought we respond to such news? Humility comes first to mind. There is no room for pride in the biblical worldview. How about gratitude and joy? Yes, there should be plenty of both to be sure. There’s also obedience. We mustn’t forget that. Lives lived in humble, grateful, joyful, and obedient response to the God who first loved us is essential…and should be natural. It should register as an “of course” response from us.

But does it? Does your life reflect that sense of chosen-ness in which God regards you as his treasured possession? If not, why not make today the day that you begin living in humble, grateful, joyful, and obedient response to who God is and what he has done on your behalf.

Stand Firm,
Dale

Purpose-Driven Israelites

Purpose-Driven Israelites

Selected verses from Deuteronomy 11

“Love the Lord your God and keep his requirements, his decrees, his laws and his commands always.” With these words of the first verse of Deuteronomy 11, God, through Moses, gave Israel a purpose. Her purpose was to “keep his requirements.” Keep “his decrees, his laws and his commands…always.” That’s a pretty clear purpose.

But there’s more to it. It also included a “what that looks like” portion. If the Israelites would be obedient to God, they would take the land – the Promised Land – which God had set before them. Obedience would be tough, but God also let them know that it would be well worth their efforts. In verses 11-12 we read:

But the land you are crossing the Jordan to take possession of is a land of mountains and valleys that drinks rain from heaven. [12] It is a land the Lord your God cares for; the eyes of the Lord your God are continually on it from the beginning of the year to its end.

The blessing of obedience to the covenant is that Israel would get all this and more. The curse of disobedience of the covenant was that she wouldn’t…and more.

Obedience is an essential part of purpose. What would be the point of knowing your purpose – what you were created for – if you didn’t pursue it? It’s only as we obey God, follow Christ, die to self, count others better than ourselves by serving them, extending God’s Kingdom into every sphere of life, etc., that we discover God’s blessing for our lives – which may take on different manifestations in our lives.

But can any of us hope for more than the knowledge that the eyes of the Lord our God are continually on it [our purpose] from the beginning to the end?

Stand Firm,
Dale

Titans

Heavy Heroes

1874-1965
1874-1936
1837-1920
1834-1892
1858-1919

Do you know who these titans are?

Honorable Mention...

1898-1963

Bible Sponges

Scripture Saturation
To achieve holiness, believed the early monks, you must soak in the moral sense of the Word.
by Patrick Henry Reardon

Here's an excerpt...

The history of monasticism owes most to one of these four senses: the moral. When church fathers and medieval interpreters spoke of the Bible's "moral sense," they expressed a conviction that God's unfailing word, precisely because it is fulfilled in Christ the Lord, is intended by the Holy Spirit to address the practical moral lives of those who are "in Christ." It is especially the Christian believer, they argued, who can most truly tell his heavenly Father, "Your word is a lamp unto my feet and a light to my path" (Ps. 119:105), because the Christian has been given, in the person and work of Christ, the Bible's true interpretive key.

Thus, whether in the pulpit or in other forms of pastoral teaching, teachers of the Bible continued for over a millennium to present the Bible, correctly understood in the light of Christ, as the ready and reliable source of moral guidance for those striving to live godly lives. Indeed, they discovered this interpretive principle explicit in the Bible itself, as when the apostle Paul taught that "whatever things were written before were written for our learning" (Rom. 15:4).

Certainly, this approach to Scripture was always understood to be valid for all Christians. But not surprisingly, we find a greater concentration of interest on this subject in the writings of monks, nuns, and other ascetics. These were Christians who felt called to a more intense life of prayer and virtuous striving, and their ancient monastic rules show how thoroughly biblical that quest was for them.

The preeminent example is the Rule of St. Benedict of Nursia (d. 547), which became the dominant monastic code of the entire western half of Christendom. In Benedict's rule the monk's entire waking day, roughly seventeen hours, was divided among three activities: manual labor, the prayerful reading of Holy Scripture (lectio divina), and choral prayer, especially the praying of the Psalms. Even while the monk ate his sparse meals each day, he listened to one of his brothers reading Holy Scripture.

The monks and nuns pursued their goals—purity of heart and the gift of constant prayer—by ingesting massive daily dosages of Scripture. They gave themselves totally to God not only by denying themselves and serving others, but by allowing themselves to become saturated in and absorbed by the power of God's Word. Monks took seriously that principle of Jerome of Bethlehem (347-419), who said, "To be ignorant of the Scriptures is to be ignorant of Christ."

Consequently, those men and women who centered their entire existence on the study of Holy Scripture, prayer, and ascetic effort, were bound to reflect more closely, and in greater detail, on the internal theological relationship between the understanding of Holy Scripture and ascetical striving for purity of heart. From both East and West, the treatment of this theme in monastic literature, though daunting in its sheer mass, remains instructive for Christians today.

Click here to read the whole article.

Worldview Church, April 2007...is available

Worldview Church
April 2007

Not Your Most Popular Topic

By T.M. Moore
4/30/2007

The Need to Heed Conviction

After our evening worship one night, my wife looked up from the couch and said, “Your sermons are always so convicting.” I had that momentary “uh-oh” feeling as I waited for the other shoe to drop. “Which is why I love them so much.”

How do you spell “relief”?

What Susie was saying was that she—and all of us—needs a good dose of reality every so often. And worship seems to be just the place to get it. Part of that reality is the reminder that we are all full of sin, and desperately in need of conviction, correction, and renewal in the Lord. Psalm 50 captures this well. In this psalm the worship of God’s people is portrayed as a kind of “review of the troops.” God calls His people to assemble for worship, sizes up what they’re doing, then dresses them down for the shallowness of their faith and the presence of hypocrites and half-believers in their midst. (You gotta love Asaph: a worship leader with some real teeth, as all his twelve psalms indicate so well.)

What a relief to be able to acknowledge that, yes, we are full of sin, but loved nonetheless. We can admit our sin, even to one another, without fear of annihilation or judgment because of what Jesus has accomplished for us. The knowledge that we are sinners should keep us humble before one another and the Lord. The availability of confession and repentance should keep us eager. The assurance of forgiveness should allow us to maintain joy in the midst of brokenness, hope in the midst of repeated failures and missteps. And the fact of Christ’s victory over sin should spur us on to greater heights of renewal and advance in seeking the Kingdom of God and His righteousness.

Our focus in this issue is on the facts and effects of sin. Sin makes us think that being merely “half-Christian” is being Christian enough. Sin makes us proud and boastful, rather than humble and loving. Sin blinds us even to the historical origins of sin and the very reality of it, though poets like William Cowper help us to see how we can overcome the reality of sin through the grace of Jesus.

In today’s churches sin is not the most popular topic. Indeed, in some churches it is scarcely ever broached—wouldn’t want to judge anybody, after all, now, would we? But sin is the one universal reality that we will have to deal with all the days of our lives. It captivates and blinds us before we come to faith in Christ, and it stalks and harasses us every day thereafter. We’ll never be completely rid of it in this life, but we can learn to be increasingly free of it. By learning to be full Christians, humble and seeking the grace of the Lord in all things, we can overcome the power of sin to rob us of our salvation, and can press on to greater heights of joy and gladness in the Lord.

We hope this month’s exercise in conviction will leave you loving our sin-destroying Lord more and more.

T. M. Moore
Editor

Worldview Church, April 2007

Half-Christians: Finding a Full Faith
Rev. Robert Lynn
"Half-Christian" -- there's an interesting idea to roll around in your brain for a while, as if it was a matter of DNA. Imagine the kinds of conversations we'll have now.

One of the Great Rarities of Our Time
Dr. John Armstrong
Humility seems to be the one Christian virtue that is almost entirely missing in modern Christian thought and practice. We don't even talk about it these days.

William Cowper, the Big Questions, and Worldview: Rediscovering the Forgotten Poet Laureate of a Christian Worldview (Part 3)
Dr. David Naugle
Why the evil and brokenness? Because, as Genesis 3 informs us, we errantly sought autonomy and self-determination, if not self-deification, by an act of insubordination against God and His rightful authority.

Book Reviews

Renewal as a Way of Life: A Guidebook for Spiritual Growth
Reviewed by Jimmy Davis

Fire in the City: Savonarola and the Struggle for the Soul of Florence
Reviewed by T.M. Moore

Christian Guidelines for Blogging

The good folks over at Pulpit Magazine offer their thoughts on how a Christian can aspire to godliness in his or her blogging efforts. I thought there were some good ideas here.

1. The Blog in Our Own Eye, Part 1 by Nathan Busenitz


2. The Blog in Our Own Eye, Part 2 by Nathan Busenitz


3. The Blog in Our Own Eye, Part 3 by Nathan Busenitz


4. The Blog in Our Own Eye, Part 4 by Nathan Busenitz

Does anyone know of any other good articles focusing on how we can think Christianly about the blogosphere?

Woody Allen's Philosophy of Life

A Biblical View of Economics???

The name of this blog is, Every Sphere. My purpose in naming it that was to make the point that because Jesus Christ is Lord over every sphere of life, there is, therefore, no area of life about which Christ is unconcerned (a poor paraphrase of Abraham Kuyper). In other words, the Christian faith applies to every sphere of life...not just the "religious" or the "sacred." Biblically speaking, there is no sacred/secular distinction. Our faith applies to everything from Church on Sunday morning to praying to serving the poor to science to marriage to leisure to art to music to economics. Even economics.

Now, to be sure, just because someone writes a paper and says, "This is what God says about economics" doesn't necessarily make it so. But can we say that some economic systems and philosophies come closer than others to what God's Word teaches? I think so.

Therefore, on that note, I have linked a few articles below to stimulate your/my thinking on the subject. Let the field of economics be one more area of thought that is taken captive to the Lordship of Christ.

A Biblical View of Economics by Kerby Anderson

Introduction to Christian Economics by Gary North

"Christian" Economics by Francis Woehrling

Christianity's Free-Market Tradition by Stephen Carson

A Christian Speaks Up for Capitalism By James D. Gwartney

The Shame of the Church By Norman S. Ream

The Economic Way of Thinking: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7, Part 8 By Ronald Nash

Book Review: Free Enterprise: A Judeo-Christian Defense by Harold Lindsell and Social Justice and the Christian Church by Ronald H. Nash By Buddy Matthews

Book Review: Poverty and Wealth: The Christian Debate Over Capitalism by Ronald H. Nash By Richard A. White

Christian Economics Reconsidered by Mark Ahlseen

More responses to Hitchens

Below is another review of Hitchens' latest book, God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Just a few posts down on this page there is another review on Hitchens' book by Doug Wilson that I have posted.

Christopher Hitchens Explains It All for You

Move over, Sam Harris; another atheist wants the pulpit.

Reviewed by Preston Jones

Here's a snippet...

A look through the newspapers might persuade one that the "anti-theist" Christopher Hitchens is on to something. A quarter of the articles, it seems, could be summarized under the single headline "Muslims Kill Selves and Others—Again." A story on page three suggests that yet another well-known TV preacher has, at the least, failed to avoid the appearance of wrongdoing. A third article exhorts us to rejoice that Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland have decided to stop maiming one another, even if their key leaders still decline to shake hands. It's easy to envision the coffee-shop philosopher pushing the papers aside and wondering if it really isn't true that religion poisons everything.

But then, what does Hitchens mean by religion? Under the same umbrella he groups Mother Teresa, voodoo, the pope, "fear-ridden peasants of antiquity," Muslim suicide bombers, animists, "arid monotheism," the archbishop of Canterbury, séances, Thomas Aquinas, an evangelical huckster "dressed in a Little Lord Fauntleroy suit," Muhammad, the "tawdry myths of Bethlehem," the "vapid and annoying holiday known as 'Hanukah,'" Mormons, "hysterical Jewish congregations," the "sordid" theology of Pascal, Martin Luther King, rednecks, "cobbled-together ancient Jewish books" (i.e., the Bible), WWII-era Japanese emperor worship, and male circumcision (which Hitchens describes as "mutilation of a powerless infant with the aim of ruining its future sex life").

Click here to read the whole review.

Updates

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For The Pilgrim's Progress

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The Covenant Home

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The Pastor's Study

Accountability and Accountability Questions

Visit my other blog, For The Pilgrim's Progress, for some great resources on accountability.

A faithful saint steps down

from Justin Taylor...

John Stott would like his many friends around the world to know that, having reached the age of 86 in April, he has taken the decision finally to retire from public ministry after fulfilling one final speaking engagement at the upcoming Keswick Convention in July.

He will be moving from his flat in central London where he has lived for more than 30 years, to a retirement community for Anglican clergy in the south of England, which will be able to provide more fully for his present and future needs. Dr Stott has made this decision with the strong belief that it is God's provision for him at this stage.

What a faithful ministry this man has had for decades. God has used him mightily. Praise be to God for the person, life, and ministry of John R.W. Stott.

United Methodist Seminary Event Ponders "Queering the Church" - and Silencing IRD

by Ray Nothstine

from the story...

The United Methodist-affiliated Boston University School of
Theology hosted and sponsored an April 18-19 conference on "Queering the Church: Changing Ecclesial Structures." Speakers at the event on the Boston University campus delved into discussions of "hardcore queer theology," "triadic unions," "erotic relation with the divine," and the "queerness of God."

The term "queer," often used as an insult against homosexuals, has more recently been taken up by some radical gay and lesbian theorists as a badge of honor flaunting their non-conformity with social and sexual norms. This kind of delight in transgressing traditional boundaries was the prevailing spirit at "Queering the Church." Speakers almost seemed to compete against one another to see who could utter the most outrageous sentiments furthest from Christian orthodoxy.

The United Methodist Book of Discipline lifts up for candidates and ministers "the highest standards of holy living in the world," including "fidelity in marriage and celibacy in singleness." The Discipline specifies, "The practice of homosexuality is inconsistent with Christian teaching" (¶304, 2-3). But none of the speakers at the Boston University conference espoused or explained that teaching to the pastors, seminary students, theologians, and others in attendance. The only message heard at the United Methodist-related seminary event was a relentless and radical attack on the denomination's own standards of doctrine and behavior.

There was only one exception to the message of limitless tolerance. Conference organizer Alexander Hivoltze-Jimenez attempted to silence this reporter (and the IRD) with acts of theft, deceit, and attempted bribery.

Click here to read the whole article.

from the Institute of Religion and Democracy

Personal Jesus

John Shelby Spong’s “nontheistic” Christianity.

By Jason Lee Steorts

What’s a religion good for, anyway?

That is the question retired Episcopal bishop John Shelby Spong never gets around to asking, let alone answering, in his new book, Jesus for the Non-Religious. His title suggests an answer, and he has tried to lob his book like a hand grenade into the institutions of Christendom. The idea is to explode two millennia of traditional belief on which these institutions rest, thereby making room for a new Christianity based on a conception of Jesus that is palatable to “a twenty-first century person.” What actually crawls out of the rubble is a Jesus for John Shelby Spong.

This Jesus would be unrecognizable to most Christians. The largest section of the book is an attack on “the supernatural forms of yesterday’s Christianity.” Spong executes this attack by means of a lengthy textual criticism of the Gospels, sprinkled with occasional undeveloped thoughts on the incompatibility of traditional belief with a modern worldview. (“The ability of anyone to walk on water exists in our world not in reality, but only in very bad golf jokes.”) Along the way, he jettisons the following claims, among others: that Mary was a virgin at the time of Jesus’s birth; that Jesus
performed miracles; that Jesus atoned for the sins of mankind; that Jesus was resurrected; and that the resurrected Jesus ascended to Heaven.

Click here to read the whole article.

Thanks to Orthodoxy Today and National Review Online

The Fall of Rome: Season Two

by GERALD J. RUSSELLO

Rome, the hit series that has just completed its second (and for now final) season on the cable channel HBO, turned out to be a surprising affirmation of the Western religious tradition. While it is packed with sex and violence, its message — intended or not — is that the Roman world was desperate for Christianity.

Neo-pagan life before Christianity does not come off well. Against a Gibbon-centered historical approach that placed primary responsibility for the decline of the classical world at Christianity’s rise and the concomitant loss of traditional Roman virtues, historians such as Christopher Dawson argued earlier in the last century that Christianity had a revolutionary, and positive, effect on the pagan Roman world. It turned slaves into serfs, wedding contracts into sacramental marriages, and placed limits on the unjust use of authority. The show’s depiction of the commonplaces of Roman life — even if a bit exaggerated at times, in keeping with the Rome-as-soap-opera marketing — gives us the reasons why.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

from Catholic Educator's Resource Center

Methodist Liberal Flagship Sets Course at 100th Anniversary Conference

from the Institute of Religion and Democracy

Below is a snippet of what is a pretty long report of The Methodist Federation for Social Action's recent 100 year celebration.

by Rebekah Sharpe

Several participants touched awkwardly on the fact that the growing regions of the United Methodist Church are the overseas "central conferences" that are much more conservative theologically and socially. One participant stated that "outside of the United States we have central conferences that don't have similar rights…" and asked how "we're supposed to be speaking on global issues if we're not a global church?" Another attendee lamented, "People in the Third World are being used … in ways that … particularly make it hard for progressive Christians…. Some of the central conferences will have more power … more jurisdiction than us in the [liberal]Western Conference [of the United States]!"

Later in the MFSA event, Bruce Rogers of the Minnesota Conference suggested vaguely that changes in United Methodist structure might be necessary to address the growing power of the central conferences. "Central conference issues have not been on our agenda here [at MFSA]," Rogers admitted. "Believe me friends, they're important. Everyone agrees that our present structures are unfair…. The fact is, in my opinion, the current structure cannot become fair…."

On the morning of April 14, the Rev. Dr. Traci West, Ethics and African-American Studies professor at the United Methodist-affiliated Drew University Theological School, preached a sermon based on the text of the Magnificat (Luke 1:47-55). Mary's message, Dr. West maintained, "is a message that requires us to realize the inequalities and the injustices among us…. It requires us to look at all the benefits of superiority that we cling to.…"

Within the church, West called on United Methodists to "… stop this blasphemous worship of heterosexuality, and to require systemic change…." She criticized the church's ban on ordinations of unrepentant practicing homosexuals, charging that "the primary criteria for our church to confirm that [the call to ordination] is heterosexuality." She also rejected Judicial Council ruling 1032, which she characterized as allowing a pastor to "decide whether to accept a gay or lesbian person to membership in the church" In reference to these supposed inequalities, West questioned "the cost of this justice stuff" and what it would require to effect a "kind of radical systemic shift of bringing the powerful down from their thrones, of sending the rich away empty…."

Click here to read the whole report.

And while you're here...

• Report to UMAction Steering Committee

Rowan Williams' Wrong Reading of Romans ( ... and John 14:6)

Robert Gagnon decimates Rowan Williams' reading of Romans 1:18-32. It represents the difference between good exegesis on the one hand and irresponsible posturing on the other. Here's a snippet...

Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury and titular head of the Anglican Communion, delivered a lecture on Apr. 16, 2007 in which he suggested that the "conservative" case against homosexual practice, based significantly on Romans 1:24-27, has failed to give due weight to the fact that Paul in context is primarily critical of the judgmental attitude of those in the covenant community. Reuters has picked up Williams' remarks--which constitute only 424 words out of a 6358-word text entitled "The Bible Today: Reading and Hearing"--and has formulated a screaming headline out of it entitled, "Anglican head Williams says anti-gays misread Bible" (http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL1767470620070417).

Click here to read the article.

Thanks to OrthodoxyToday.org

Wilson responds to Hitchens

On April 11, I posted this about Doug Wilson's book/response to Sam Harris' book, Letter To A Christian Nation. It seems a few influential folk are concerned about theocracy in America (click here for my post on theocracy). Would that they understood what theocracy is and is not. Would that they had a clue about what "the religious right" truly wanted and how they proposed to achieve it. And would that they exercised the same amount of concern about Islamic goals of theocracy in Europe.

Of course, I'm sure there is anecdotal evidence that some on the right want to change the course of our country via political power. But the intellectuals on the Christian right whom I've read clearly do not. And that's who folk such as Hitchens and Harris ought to respond to.

At any rate, Doug Wilson more than adequately responds to Christopher Hitchens' new book, God Is Not Great. Click here to read Wilson's response.

Should I give money to people on the street who ask for it?

This has been an issue I have answered in a variety of ways over the years. I'm presently defaulting on giving folks money (under the premise that regardless of what they do with it...I'm giving to Christ). There are a few exceptions of course (such as if the person appears drunk or high).

This present position is one that appears pious, makes me feel good...but the weakness is that it may not always (or even often) be responsible on my part... or helpful to the person to whom I give the money. That's why I'm always looking for wisdom from others.

Of course, my preference is to support our church's mercy ministries...and point the person in need in those directions. But still...I'm sometimes asked for help when I don't have time, resources, etc.

Here's a post from someone who has clearly thought about it. I'm going to reread it and then reread it again to gain some perspective on my own perspective. I would value your wisdom.

Thanks to Justin Taylor

Church Growth

Book Review: A Far Country

Longing for We Know Not What
A powerful second novel from the author of The Piano Tuner.

Reviewed by Elissa Elliott posted 04/23/07

The magazine Poets & Writers contains a section called Page One, which offers the first sentences of new books. Good first sentences should pack a wallop and make you catch your breath. Remember Gabriel García Márquez's famous first line in One Hundred Years of Solitude? "Many years later, as he faced the firing squad, Colonel Aureliano Buendía was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to discover ice." Who could stop reading after that tantalizing opening?

The first sentence of Daniel Mason's second novel, A Far Country (his first was the highly acclaimed The Piano Tuner), reminded me of García Márquez's, not because it's as flamboyantly arresting but because it succinctly captures the haunting, bare-bones longing that threads through the book. Here it is: "In the valley of the village they would one day name Saint Michael in the Cane, the men and women waited, turning the November soil and watching the sky." They're waiting for rain.

But perhaps this makes the book sound tedious, which it isn't. The story revolves around Isabel, a charmingly melancholy girl who lives with her extended family in Saint Michael, a city of dusty streets, whitewashed houses, and one decrepit statue. Isabel has a brother, Isaias, who is seven years her senior. They spend all their time together. Isaias takes her on long walks in the hills. He points out fish fossils in the rock and picks pink flowers for her hair. He reads stories to her and plays his fiddle. Isabel adores him, and she has an uncanny ability of always finding him, no matter where he is.

Click here to read the whole review.

Inclusivity or Catholicity?

By Bishop Timothy W. Whitaker

“Inclusivity” is probably the one word that is employed more than any other in the discussions about the identity and mission of the church today.

For some, inclusivity is simply the expression of the church’s evangelical hospitality to all peoples. The risen Lord does command us to “make disciples of all nations” (Matthew 22:19), and the apostles never tire of telling us to “extend hospitality to strangers” (Romans 12:13).

Yet for others, “inclusivity” has become something more than an evangelical imperative expressed by a practice of hospitality. It has become an ideology, a reduction of the thickness of the Gospel to the thinness of a slogan. The message of the church becomes “inclusivity” rather than the Gospel itself, or the Gospel itself is reduced to a totalizing demand for inclusivity.

What is required is a better understanding of the identity and mission of the church in light of the Gospel. In the Christian tradition there is a concept that both affirms what is right in the concern for inclusivity and corrects what is mistaken when inclusivity is turned into an ideology. The Christian tradition conceives the true identity and mission of the church as “catholicity,” not inclusivity. In the ecumenical creeds, the word “catholic,” which was first employed by Ignatius of Antioch (d.A.D. 107), is one of the marks of the church of Jesus Christ.

Click here to read the whole article.