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Posts from the ‘Gospel’ Category

Oct 25

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Who is My Neighbour?

Today I went out for a “pastoral visit” to an elderly couple who came to church this past Sunday.  They hadn’t darkened the door of a church in at least a decade, and came now mostly, I think, because they are just really lonely people who don’t have a lot of human contact.  They have no children, no living siblings, no nieces and nephews that they are in contact with, no friends at the senior’s centre, no… anything.  There were no pictures of family on their walls, no mementos, no heirlooms, nothing.  Just two old, frail, lonely people existing in the same space without anyone to care about them in any way. Read more

Oct 15

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Christmas Challenge

Mid-October may be a little early to start thinking about Christmas, but it will be upon us before you know it (and I figured I’d get a jump on the Christmas marketing machine!).  Every Christmas I am simultaneously dismayed by and a somewhat reluctant and hypocritical participant in the orgy of consumption that seems to characterize the season here in North America.  Read more

Jul 26

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When Wouldn’t I Forgive You?

In my previous post I admiringly reflected upon my son’s instinctive willingness to forgive and wondered what the world might look like if more people adopted this strategy. One commenter justifiably inquired as to the limits of forgiveness—if it really ought to be as “reckless” as I was recommending. His challenge to me was as follows: Read more

Jul 10

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Time and Reliability—Reflecting on “A Fine Balance”

I’ve just finished Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance this week and thought I would post a few thoughts provoked along the way (the book was highly recommended independently by two trusted friends so I was able to overcome my customary aversion to reading anything from “Oprah’s Book Club”).  The book is brilliantly written—a really well told story in every way, one that presents you with the full spectrum human experience from the most abject misery and suffering to the heights of joy. Read more

Jun 27

In Praise of Mennonites

As one who was raised in, continues to be nourished by, and will be working within the Mennonite tradition, I couldn’t resist posting a link to Greg Boyd’s latest post. I think Boyd is just a bit too breathless in his praise of Mennonites (two friends are currently writing theses about Mennonites—one examining just how consistently they have historically applied their ethic of nonviolence with each other, and another on Mennonites’ contribution to an overly individualistic approach to faith), but I think that he does point to some genuinely admirable features of the tradition that the rest of the Christian world would profit from paying attention to.

God knows Mennonites aren’t perfect, but I do think that we understand some things well, and, at our best, embody a way of being in the world that seeks to reflect the means by which God has accomplished his redemption of the world.

h/t: Waving or Drowning

Feb 12

Coming to Peace with History

I recently had an interesting conversation about the relationship between history and truth with a group of UBC students with whom I’m going through Lesslie Newbigin’s The Gospel in a Pluralist Society. We arrived yesterday at what is, in my opinion, one of the most important chapters in the book—”The Logic of Election.” In this chapter, Newbigin challenges our assumptions about what election is for, arguing that God never chose a specific group of people—whether the nation of Israel or the church—to be the objects of eternal salvation but rather to be his instruments of extending his redemption to others. According to Newbigin, we do not encounter God as isolated individuals; he has always used other people—both now and across time—to communicate his purposes to us. Read more

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