He who was seated on the throne says, “I am making everything new.” In renewal, we are not offered an escape, but an engagement with heaven and earth—the material world where matter and spirit will meet in visible ways. We need to recall and re-affirm that there is already a present aspect of this newness in our lives as Christians. If we are in Christ, we are new creations. However, notice that God’s salvific activity includes the political, social, economic, and the creation itself. John is instructed to write this down as it is trustworthy and true (Revelation 21:5).
Monday, January 31, 2011
Thursday, January 27, 2011
NEW Book OFFER
Living Reflections: Theology, Philosophy, and Hermeneutics
Special OFFER –
FOR the rest of January 2011.
For anyone who buys 2 copies of this book off amazon.com or bookdepository.com (cheapest! w/free shipping) or bookdepository.co.uk (free shipping!) or barnesandnoble.com or anywhere else, and sends proof of purchase to greg dot laughery at gmail dot com along with your name, address, and phone number, I will send you a free copy. Or, if you purchase 5 copies you will receive 2 for free. What to do with extra copies? Practice the economy of gift - give them away to family, friends, and church.
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
Do you think that lovers committing themselves to one another until death is realistic nowadays?
Wednesday, January 26, 2011
Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today
Self-identity is, to some degree, other constructed. There are, and never were, any independent or individualistic hero's or heroine's – no self-made ME or capital ‘I.’ Focus on the latter for a moment. This ‘I’ was and is a chimera. That is, when it comes to self-identity, a foundational modernist ‘I’ does not exist. This should not, however, push us into the notion that all that’s left to self-identity is therefore the shattered post-modern ‘I’, which is notably another fanciful illusion. Neither does this rejection of ‘I’hood require that self-identity be merely a product of systems, structures, and society, resulting in something like a generic self. After the collapse of these false alternatives, there arises another possibility. A recognition that self-identity is connected with createdness and Creator as Other, yet is in need of refiguration because of alienation and de-communityization. To be sure, a new self-identity is connected to being a truer self, an authentic self, shaped and transformed into the image of the Crucified and Risen One, a real self if there ever was one.
Monday, January 24, 2011
Reflection for the Week
When our worldview assumes that everything is headed for destruction we tend to reject the worth and value of God’s creation. It becomes misused and misunderstood, depleted, and torn apart. All manners of disfiguration blot out creation’s capacity to praise God. Some Christians believe that destruction is God’s way with the created, so what does it matter? Go ahead and let it go. It’s all headed for the flames anyway. Yet, this is not the case, for the intensity of redemption burns into transformation already now and then ultimately at the end of the age. In this way, creation will be enabled to give praise to the Infinite personal One who created it, attaining its final and glorious destiny.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
What are some of the similarities and differences between non-Christians and Christians?
Wednesday, January 19, 2011
Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today
Engaging a post-trust culture means meeting people where they are in their suspicions and re-directing them to an ontology of revised trust. Empty appeals made to institutions, politics, or churches, no longer has traction, whereas personal encounter and investment carry significant weight. Sacrificing time and energy therefore should be a mark of Christian love and charity towards others. Hammering out together the validity, or lack thereof, concerning plausible explanations of reality has to take place one step at a time. There are no fast and easy solutions to complex issues. Starting with being human and living in the world is as good a place as any to begin the journey, which leads to Creator and Christ.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Reflections for the Week
The threat of becoming part of the machine is ever growing. A fierce battle of realities invades our daily lives, as we are lured into a mechanistic world of our own making. Facing this powerful force of de-humanization and fabrication, and standing against it is a biblical virtue. The lost relation and distinction between Creator and creature has to be recovered, and lived in imaginative ways that underscore the value of humanity and the world.
Friday, January 14, 2011
Unmasking False Economies
From Sex, Economy, Freedom & Community, W. Berry
“Despite its protests to the contrary, modern Christianity has become willy-nilly the religion of the state and the economic status quo. Because it has been so exclusively dedicated to incanting anemic souls into Heaven, it has been made the tool of much earthly villany.” p114
Thursday, January 13, 2011
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
“Thankfully, this relationship; this decision; this exam; is not in my hands,” says the pious Christian. Do you have any thoughts on this perspective?
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today
Overdoing suspicion will take a challenge as a threat. The reception of the other in hospitality marks a trust in oneself to have a capacity to welcome that which is not one’s own. The fear of violence being done to oneself by the other, while a legitimate concern, all too often initiates a surplus of suspicion that ironically damages the one so desperately seeking protection. A self – other configuration that carefully takes both into consideration leaves us in a tensional perspective, having to work out the dynamics between trust and suspicion; life and death.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Reflections for the Week
We are on the way to becoming fully sanctified—imaging Christ through the power of the Spirit. As we move in this direction, we will find ourselves attaining different degrees of this ultimate destiny. When it comes to sanctification, some of us will be living sanctified lives in lesser degrees, while others are living sanctified lives in greater degrees, and this may fluctuate in different areas. Yet, no one is ever completely sanctified in this life. That awaits a future reality. There’s always room to move ahead toward the goal of more faithfully imaging Christ.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
The ZigZag Café
We will be convening here at the ZigZag café, Suisse, on Thursdays for conversation and dialogue. I invite you to stop by every Thursday for the question of the day. Your thoughts and participation are most welcome. Pull up a stool, avec un café, un thé, ou un chocolat chaud, et un croissant, and join in here on Thursday at the ZZ café.
For today:
In some circles of life and thought self-empowerment is all the rage. What do you see as self-empowerment and is there any place for it in the Christian life?
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Spiritual Rhythms of Life for Today
After the resurrection and Jesus’ earthly departure, the Holy Spirit arrives as a gift and the presence of the Crucified and Risen One himself. The Holy Spirit therefore personally and spiritually integrates us into community with God. I believe that if the Holy Spirit had not come, Christianity would have slowly ground to a halt because there would have been no ongoing and vital connection between Jesus’ followers and God. The arrival of the post-ascension Holy Spirit establishes a holy continuity with what had come previously, thereby affirming the holiness of the Father and the Son. One of the outstanding authorial intentions and communicative actions of the Holy Spirit is that the Spirit writes, not on tablets of stone, but on hearts that come to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. “Written on hearts,” as it were, become sensitive to God’s direction, and seek to live in spiritual ways that manifest life out into the world.
Monday, January 3, 2011
Reflections for the Week
This visceral longing to be cleansed from our own faults, those perpetrated by others against us, and the burdens of the world, leaves us in a state of searching for redemption. These deep etchings scratched into our flesh are like a flow chart leading directly to our battered hearts. Living this way takes its toll. The challenge before us is to continue the dialogue between the “in spite of” and the “because of” that concerns all of reality and truth. We are followers of the Crucified and Risen One, who are suffering, yet committed to a journey of renewal.
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