Tag / Christianity
CHAD TAYLOR·TUESDAY, JANUARY 31, 2017–Prophecy–Bill Johnson: My Beloved is Mine
Pope Francis: You can’t defend Christianity by being ‘against refugees and other religions’ – CatholicHerald.co.uk
How much will Jack’s faith cost him?
Every American’s freedom could be threatened if the State of Colorado succeeds in punishing Jack Phillips for living his faith. Here’s how you can double your year-end gift to stop the state and protect your religious freedom, too.
Christians, then, believe… — C.S. Lewis
Christians, then, believe that an evil power has made himself for the present the Prince of this World. And, of course, that raises problems. Is this state of affairs in accordance with God’s will, or not? If it is, He is a strange God, you will say: and if it is not, how can anything happen contrary to the will of a being with absolute power? But anyone who has been in authority knows how a thing can be in accordance with your will in one way and not in another. It may be quite sensible for a mother to say to the children, ‘I’m not going to go and make you tidy the schoolroom every night. You’ve got to learn to keep it tidy on your own.’ Then she goes up one night and finds the Teddy bear and the ink and the French Grammar all lying in the grate. That is against her will. She would prefer the children to be tidy. But on the other hand, it is her will which has left the children free to be untidy. The same thing arises in any regiment, or trade union, or school. You make a thing voluntary and then half the people do not do it. That is not what you willed, but your will has made it possible. It is probably the same in the universe. God created things which had free will. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right. Some people think they can imagine a creature which was free but had no possibility of going wrong; I cannot. If a thing is free to be good it is also free to be bad. And free will is what has made evil possible. Why, then, did God give them free will? Because free will, though it makes evil possible, is also the only thing that makes possible any love or goodness or joy worth having. A world of automata—of creatures that worked like machines—would hardly be worth creating. The happiness which God designs for His higher creatures is the happiness of being freely, voluntarily united to Him and to each other in an ecstasy of love and delight compared with which the most rapturous love between a man and a woman on this earth is mere milk and water. And for that they must be free.
Lewis, C. S. (2009-05-28). Mere Christianity (pp. 47-48). Harper Collins, Inc.. Kindle Edition.
Ellen Davis — The Poetry of Creatures
Part of Us Always has to Die –Richard Rohr
Richard Rohr
Whenever we’re led out of normalcy into sacred space, it’s going to feel like suffering. It’s letting go of what we’re used to. That causes suffering. Part of us always has to die. If that readiness isn’t there, we won’t enter into sacred space. The prophet leads us into sacred space by showing us the insufficiency of the old order; the role of the priest is to teach us how to live in the new realm. Unfortunately, the priest too often operates separately from prophet. He talks of a new realm but never leads us out of the old order where we are still largely trapped. Such priesthood is commonly ineffective, although quite popular. In this new realm, everything belongs. The awareness is often called a second naiveté. It is a return to simple consciousness. The first awareness is a dangerous naiveté. It doesn’t know but thinks it does. In second naiveté the darkness and light coexist, paradox is revealed, and we are finally at home in the only world that ever existed. This is true knowing. Here death is a part of life, and failure is a part of victory. Opposites collide and unite, and everything belongs.
Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: the Gift of Contemplative Prayer
Ancestors and Pilgrimages (52 min) – Dialogues with Bishop Marc Andrus at Grace Cathedral
Rupert Sheldrake
Source: Ancestors and Pilgrimages (52 min) – Dialogues with Bishop Marc Andrus at Grace Cathedral
The Real Story Behind Genesis
The first chapters of Genesis were not written to communicate history or science. Creation stories had an entirely different purpose in the Ancient Near East.
Source: The Real Story Behind Genesis
Dispensationalism: A Doctrine More Dangerous Than Hell Itself
It is high time we abandon this plainly stupid (for lack of a better word) doctrine, as it has done more than enough damage already.
Source: Dispensationalism: A Doctrine More Dangerous Than Hell Itself
St. John One: One 