Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice

Spiritual Strokes and Heavenly Physio -- by Fiona Calder

    Hebrews 12:10-12

    “… God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in His holiness.  No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained in it. Therefore, strengthen your feeble arms and weak knees!  ‘Make level paths for your feet’, so that the lame may not be disabled, but rather healed.”

Over and over since the beginning of the year I’ve felt the call to pray for God to strengthen and help us where we are weak and immature.

He shows me the ‘great’ men and women of the faith; those we all look up to because of their special gifts and anointings, and then He says ‘now pray for them where they are weak, stunted and foolish.’

Train Silence Breakers -- by Jonathan Asher Gilbert

Recently I’ve been reading about modern Christian marketing techniques. I’ve been told they suck and aren’t good enough. A bad imitation at best, not enough effort at worst. Apparently people think the church’s communication efforts are a joke.

It made me realize how much Jesus-loving faith communities (and their critics) have missed the point. Have we invested too much worth in reaching the world with the world…? It got me wondering, were we ever supposed to ‘market’ God like the world markets gods?

"Those the Father Gave Me" - Message by Brad Jersak

Message given at Fresh Wind, Jan. 14, 2008

Scripture: John 17:6-26 [NIV]

Jesus Prays for those the Father had given him

6"I have revealed you to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 7Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. 9I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours.

Poling the Great River of Suffering: Social Justice and Pastoring by Andy MacPherson

Nothing can be farther from the truth than the facile belief that God only manifests himself in progress, in the improvement of standards of living, in the spread of medicine and the reform of abuses, in the diffusion of organized Christianity. The reaction from this type of theistic dilution, which a few years ago had almost completely supplanted the faith of Moses and Elijah and Jesus among modern Christians, both Protestant and Catholic, is now sweeping multitudes from their religious moorings. Real spiritual progress can only be achieved through catastrophe and suffering, reaching new levels after the profound catharsis which accompanies major upheavals. Every such period of mental and physical agony, while the old is being swept away and the new is still unborn, yields different social patterns and deeper spiritual insights. (W.F. Albright)

It has become glaringly obvious in my own experience that I cannot seem to attach myself to any one social cause or endeavor. As a pastor who wants to live with eyes wide open, I see things that prod my compassion into fight mode. Yet even though I often take steps onto various battlefields, I find myself once again poling my boat out into the great river of suffering looking for that one beachhead upon which I am supposed to sacrifice myself.

 

L’Abri, William Farel and Erasmus by Ron Dart

L’Abri, William Farel and Erasmus:
Different Paths Hiked, Different Destinations                

Erasmus is a chameleon and a pernicious enemy of
the gospel.                                       William Farel

He who destroys Erasmus will destroy a bug which
will stink worse dead than alive.       Martin Luther

I will put it in my Testament and I take you all as
witnesses that I consider Erasmus the greatest enemy
of Christ, greater than all those who have been born
in the last thousand years.              Martin Luther

I order you, at the command of God, to be enemies
of Erasmus and to be on guard against his books. I
will write against him, even if he should die and perish
from it.                                          Martin Luther

The name of Erasmus will never perish.
                                                         John Colet

Erasmus has published volumes more full of wisdom
than any which Europe has seen for ages.
                                                        Thomas More

THE ENGLISH REFORMATION: A TALE FOR SUCH A TIME AS THIS by Ron S. Dart

But there are remnants left around me… very strange remnants… in this case the Anglican Church which has in it some of the ancient truth and therefore I will live within it. - George Grant

The English Reformation took more than a century from beginning to end, and when the end was reached, the Anglican Tradition had both a solid and sane Prayer Book, and a sensible and sound theological grounding. The Anglican Church of Canada and the Anglican Communion, I suspect, can learn much from the English Reformation.

The 1st phase of the English Reformation began when John Colet lectured on Romans in 1496 at Oxford University. The Oxford Reformers (Colet, Erasmus, More) saw deeper than most the need for reform, and how a wise notion of reform could and would take place. The publication of the Enchiridion (1501), by Erasmus, pointed the way, in both a theological and political sense, to the meaning of reform. The Oxford Reformers were, in many ways, the morning stars of the English Reformation.

Song of Faith (United Church 2006)

We find God made known in Jesus of Nazareth,
and so we sing of God the Christ, the Holy One embodied.

We sing of Jesus,
   a Jew,
   born to a woman in poverty
   in a time of social upheaval
   and political oppression.
He knew human joy and sorrow.
So filled with the Holy Spirit was he
that in him people experienced the presence of God among them.
We sing praise to God incarnate.

Isolation and Belonging by Heidi Greiner-Miller

A good two years ago, when God was walking me through a lot of my healing and restoring me back into his church, I always had a longing to be known and valued in a community. But I continually fought feelings of not being worthy or good enough. I had a ton of internal strife, wanting so much to be a part, an important part, but I felt so far from that and it left me thinking most of the time, why bother?

I know that my church has really stressed the "no hierarchy" thing and has been void of labels and the whole pedestal idea, inviting everyone to the table. But in truth I don't think you can avoid the fact that church leaders are seen as the ones who belong and who set the guage for belonging (especially through the eyes of a broken soul), even while they stress that all belong.

Welcome Versus Inclusion: Interview with Rowan Williams - Nederlands Dagblad

TEXT OF THE INTERVIEW WITH THE ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY
Source - NEDERLANDS DAGBLAD
Aug. 12, 2006 / Wim Houtman - Editor

The Church is Not Inclusive

Since February 2003, Rowan Williams has been Archbishop of Canterbury, the highest leader of the Anglican Church. He is unlikely to have expected to preside over a split in the Church. He doesn't want that, but the controversies seem to spiral out of his control. How does he see the future and what makes him tick, what does he believe in?"

Diverging or Converging: Nuancing the Emerging Church by Brad Jersak

In response and as a follow-up to Ron Dart's article on the Emerging Church, I would like to add the perspective of someone who rubs shoulders with, and is occasionally labelled as, "emerging church." First, thanks to Ron for your excellent article on the "emerging church" movement. I'd like to respond by nuancing some of their ecclesial trajectory and the challenges they face.

As a champion of the historic church, you tend naturally to assess the emerging church as it evolves relative to the stability of the great streams of Christian faith (Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Anglican). You correctly note that much of the emerging church movement continues to be a further fragmentation in the long history of schism wrought by the sixteenth century reformers. The splintering ad nauseum is absolutely a sign and symptom of rotten concrete in the foundations (termites in the hull, no doubt). And so, to an observer such as yourself who deems the great ships of faith to be more reliable in the face of history's spiritual storms, the tiny independent churches that continue to multiply must appear very fragile and hardly sea-worthy.