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Voice of the Day: Dietrich Bonhoeffer
No abyss of evil can hide from [Jesus] through whom the world is reconciled with God. But the abyss of God's love encompasses even the most abysmal godlessness of the world.
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Meditations on the Cross
Verse of the Day: 'while we were still weak'
For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person--though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.
- Romans 5:6-8
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N.T. Wright and Bart Ehrman: New Stories and Resurrection (Part 2 of 2 by Melvin Bray)
[Continued from part 1]
I pondered what I might offer to spotlight the significance of such a dialogue and the future it foretells. Then I ran across this exegesis of Luke's account of the evening of Jesus' resurrection. It's by Debbie Blue.
With the wryest of humor, [...]
Verse of the Day: 'scoundrels are found among my people'
For scoundrels are found among my people;
they take over the goods of others.
Like fowlers they set a trap;
they catch human beings.
Like a cage full of birds,
their houses are full of treachery;
therefore they have become great and rich,
they have grown fat and sleek.
They know no limits in deeds of wickedness;
they do not judge with justice
the cause of the orphan, to make it prosper,
and they do not defend the rights of the needy.
- Jeremiah 5:26-28
Voice of the Day: Julian of Norwich
And thus I understood that any man or woman who deliberately chooses God in this life, out of love, may be sure that he or she is loved without end. This endless love produces grace in them. For God wants us to hold trustfully to his: that we be as certain, in home, of the bliss of heaven while we are here as we will be, in fact, when we are there. And always the more delight and joy we take in this certainty, with reverence and meekness, the better it pleases God.
- Julian of [...]
N.T. Wright and Bart Ehrman: New Stories and Resurrection (Part 1 of 2 by Melvin Bray)
As did Brian McLaren, I recently read the conversation between N. T. Wright and Bart Ehrman, hosted by Beliefnet. I must admit my incredible bias upfront. I have a deep appreciation for Tom Wright and was embarrassingly quite ignorant of Bart Ehrman. Wright had given me the language and academic credibility for a narrative theology at which [...]
Verse of the Day: Lie Down In Safety
There are many who say, "O that we might see some good!
Let the light of your face shine on us, O Lord!"
You have put gladness in my heart
more than when their grain and wine abound.
I will both lie down and sleep in peace;
for you alone, O Lord, make me lie down in safety.
- Psalm 4:6-8
Voice of the Day: Henri J.M. Nouwen
Precisely where we feel most present to each other we experience deeply the absence of those we love. And precisely at moments of great loss we can discover a news sense of closeness and intimacy. This is also what the Eucharist is about. We announce the presence of Christ among us until he comes again! There is both presence and absence, closeness, and distance, an experience of at-homeness on the way home.
- Henri J.M. Nouwen
Sabbatical Journey
John Marks' Reasons to Believe (interview by Becky Garrison)
I met John Marks, author of Reasons to Believe during a screening of
Voice of the Day: J. Christian Beker
Because the church is not an elite body separated from a doomed world, but a community placed in the midst of the cosmic community of creation, its task is not merely to win souls but to bear the burdens of creation to which it not only belongs, but to which it must also bear witness.
- J. Christian Beker
Paul, the Apostle
Verse of the Day: No One Might Boast
God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God.
- 1 Corinthians 1:28-29
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A Vision for Freedom in Zimbabwe (interview with Dr. David Kaulemu)
Catholic and Protestant church groups in Zimbabwe have voiced deep alarm about the Mugabe government's organized violence against those perceived to have voted against it, and its refusal to release the results of the March 29 elections. Despite the economic and social disaster Mugabe's government has brought on Zimbabwe in recent [...]
Voice of the Day: Augustine
Ask the loveliness of the earth, ask the loveliness of the sea, ask the loveliness of the wide airy spaces, ask the loveliness of the sky, ask the order of the stars, ask the sun, making daylight with its beams, ask the moon tempering the darkness of the night that follows, ask the living things which move in the waters, which tarry on the land, which fly in the air; ask the souls that are hidden, the bodies that are perceptive; the visible things which most be governed, the invisible things [...]
Verse of the Day: Written On Their Hearts
When Gentiles, who do not possess the law, do instinctively what the law requires, these, though not having the law, are a law to themselves. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, to which their own conscience also bears witness; and their conflicting thoughts will accuse or perhaps excuse them on the day when, according to my gospel, God, through Jesus Christ, will judge the secret thoughts of all.
- Romans 2:14-16
Voice of the Day: Apathetic and Cynical
It is so important not to let ourselves off the hook or to become apathetic or cynical by telling ourselves that nothing works or makes a difference. Every day, light your small candle.... The inaction and actions of many human beings over a long time contributed to the crises our children face, and it is the action and struggle of many human beings over time that will solve them-with God's help. So every day, light your small candle.
- Marian Wright Edelman
Guide My Feet [...]
Verse of the Day: 'Depart from me, all you workers of evil'
Depart from me, all you workers of evil,
for the Lord has heard the sound of my weeping.
The Lord has heard my supplication;
the Lord accepts my prayer.
- Psalm 6:8-9
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Voice of the Day: Marian Wright Edelman
So many people feel so overwhelmed and disempowered by the stresses of modern life that they convince themselves they can't make a difference. So they don't even try. They bury their talents in the ground and let their spirits wither on the vine of life. I hope they will bestir themselves at least to say every day as an anonymous old man did: "I don't have the answers, life is not easy, but my heart is in the right place."
- Marian Wright Edelman
Guide My Feet
Verse of the Day:
We who are strong ought to put up with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Each of us must please our neighbor for the good purpose of building up the neighbor. For Christ did not please himself; but, as it is written, "The insults of those who insult you have fallen on me."
- Romans 15:1-3
Voice of the Day: James Agee
In every child who is born under no matter what circumstances and of no matter what parents, the potentiality of the human race is born again, and in him [or her], too, once more, and each of us, our terrific responsibility toward human life.
- James Agee
Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
Verse of the Day: Slave of Christ
For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave is a freed person belonging to the Lord, just as whoever was free when called is a slave of Christ. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of human masters.
- 1 Corinthians 7:22-23
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