The liturgy and “feelings”

When the members of his synagogue complained that the words of the liturgy did not express what they felt, Abraham Heschel, the great philosopher of religion, replied wisely and very biblically. He told them that the liturgy wasn’t supposed to express what they felt; they were supposed to feel what the liturgy expressed.  Ben Patterson, God’s Prayer Book.

50 People Every Christian Should Know: Learning from Spiritual Giants of the Faith

This is a book by Warren Wiersbe, an eminently encouraging Bible commentator and sane teacher of God’s Word. I have not yet purchased it, but I will. Of course, like most biographies penned by Protestant evangelicals, only the stories of post-Reformation Christians are told. So the book is useful only in a certain way, but still a real way.

Looking for a reason no longer to believe in Christianity?

Here is one man’s summation of reasons to walk away from Christianity. I wonder why he capitalizes God, even when it is not the first word in the sentence. There were 1,036 responses to his post.

1. God is wrathful, jealous, hateful, and kills nations of people like it is a bodily function. He is certainly not just or “holy” in nature.
2. The act of throwing people into infinite torture and punishment for not believing a Jewish guy from 2,000 years ago was God’s son, or unknowingly worshiping the wrong god, is extremely cruel and sadistic.
3. The statements, “God works in mysterious ways,” or “It will all make sense in heaven,” are little more than irrational cop outs. This God allows horrible atrocities to be committed against innocent men, women and children every day.
4. Bloody animal and human sacrifices are illogical demands by a divine god as payment for petty wrong doings. These actions are no different than the rituals of archaic pagan religions. Not to mention the bizarre ritual of symbolically drinking human blood and eating human flesh.
5. If God loves us and wants us to know and believe in him, why be so completely invisible? What is the purpose of being so illusive to those who believe and worship him?
6. God never manifests himself or performs miracles as he regularly did for the Israelites in Old Testament stories.
7. Prayers are never answered. Certainly not in the way Jesus described. Prayer has absolutely no affect on the world around us.
8. Jesus did not fulfill major Old Testament prophesies or even fulfill his own promises and predictions.
9. The authors of much of the Bible are unknown. And of these unknown authors, the men who wrote the gospels likely never even met Jesus considering they were written 40-70 years after his death. A far cry from reliable testimony.
10. The Bible is repeatedly contradictory with itself, reality, and the laws of morality. Couldn’t God inspire a less poorly written book?
11. The Bible is open to interpretation. Everyone interprets it in the way that suits them best or serves their purposes.
12. Throughout history, Christians have justified horrific actions by the Bible and its teaching.
13. The Bible promotes hate and persecution against women, homosexuals and those who worship other gods or no god at all.
14. According to the Bible, nearly 70% percent of the people in the world will burn in hell because they don’t believe Jesus was the son of God.
15. The only reason I was a Christian was because I was indoctrinated into the religion as a child as a result of the culture and region of the world in which I was born.
16. Christianity has no more rational or factual foundation than any other religion on earth that I openly reject.
17. The Christian church is disjointed and can’t even agree with one another.
18. Christians are not at all ethically or morally different from non-Christians.
19. Today, powerful church leaders steal, lie and molest young children. The church repeatedly attempts to cover up these atrocities, only to reluctantly apologize as a last resort.
20. It is absolutely irrational to continue to believe archaic teaching with the amount of knowledge we’ve gained through science and technology. The Bible reads like a book of primitive folklore, not divinely inspired insight into our true reason for existence.

Miami Priest gives reason for leaving the RC priesthood: “I didn’t stop being a man just because I put on a cassock. There are trousers under this cassock.”

St. Thomas Aquinas defines effeminacy as the tendency among men to not do what is difficult in favor of what they prefer. The reason for leaving the priesthood for a relationship with a woman is not because he is a man but actually because he is not enough of one.

See Athanasius Contra Mundum for further comment.

Scot McKnight’s 13 posts review of NT Wright’s “Justification: God’s Plan and Paul’s Vision ” all in one place

Thanks to Scot McKnight for giving us a grasp of what’s at stake in NT Wright’s new book. He posted 13 times in his series on Wright. I have taken those 13 posts and put them in one place for your review. Enjoy.

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Justification and New Perspective 1

Monday May 4, 2009
We begin today a new series about the new perspective, and we will be discussing Tom Wright’s new book , a book that responds to John Piper’s criticism of Wright and the New Perspective (Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision ). Today I want to begin with two preliminary comments, and I’m open to corrections if my sketch below is not entirely accurate.

Today’s Quote 6/2/09

All that is not eternal is eternally out of date.- C.S. Lewis

Indulgences a medieval idea? Think again.

See this post at Christianity Today.

Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio has announced that parishioners in the Diocese of Brooklyn can receive plenary indulgences for participation in events connected with the 2008-2009 jubilee year of St. Paul the Apostle proclaimed by Pope Benedict XVI in May. The Pauline year began June 28 and will close June 29  to mark the approximately 2,000 anniversary of the saint’s birth.

Complaints about the Supreme Court’s power are almost as old as the Constitution, but they have more merit now than ever.

From Ross Douthat of the NYT

Complaints about the Supreme Court’s power are almost as old as the Constitution, but they have more merit now than ever. According to calculations by the Harvard law professor Jed Shugerman, the Court has gone from overturning roughly one state law every two years in the pre-Civil War era, to roughly four a year in the later 1800’s, to over 10 a year in the last half-century. So too with federal law: Prior to 1954, the Court had struck down just 77 federal statutes in a century-and-a-half of jurisprudence; in the 50-odd years since, it’s overturned more than 80. Under Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist, the Court invalidated federal statutes at an unprecedented rate — and by the barest of majorities, in many cases. In one eight-year period, the University of Michigan’s Evan Caminker has noted, the Court invalidated 16 Congressional statutes by a 5-to-4 vote, something that had happened just 25 times in the previous two centuries.

Young Con Anthem

This video is making the rounds big-time.