Everyone for himself

In 1906 Rudolf Steiner wrote

Nearly everyone lives entirely for himself today, without perceiving anything of the real and all-penetrating common design. That of course is the cause of the dreadful dissatisfaction everywhere.

Today nothing seems to be changed in the better way. People have become even more selfish. Dissatisfaction has grown stronger and people got less patience then some years ago. Everything now has togo as fast as possible. And many people also want to be served first. Often they even have no eye for an other person.

A puzzling text from a prescientific age

 

“The Bible is indeed the greatest book ever written.
It has shaped the cultures of the world in countless ways, and it contains the words of everlasting life.
But for so many today, it is largely opaque, indecipherable – at best
a puzzling text from a prescientific age.”

Bishop Robert Barron, The Word on Fire Bible

Sunday reflection . . . .But he who would be born again indeed,

Purplerays

‘Tis hard for man to rouse his spirit up–
It is the human creative agony,
Though but to hold the heart an empty cup,
Or tighten on the team the rigid rein.
Many will rather lie among the slain
Than creep through narrow ways the light to gain–
Than wake the will, and be born bitterly.

But he who would be born again indeed,
Must wake his soul unnumbered times a day,
And urge himself to life with holy greed;
Now ope his bosom to the Wind’s free play;
And now, with patience forceful, hard, lie still,
Submiss and ready to the making will,
Athirst and empty, for God’s breath to fill.

~ George MacDonald, Diary of an Old Soul

Art: Meg White
Text & image source: _/_Peggy @ ECUMENICUS
https://www.facebook.com/ecumenicus/

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To decide what to do with the time that is given

“All we have to decide is
what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

Dutch version / Nederlandse versie > Beslissen wat we moeten doen met de gegeven tijd

Karen Langton on “What makes a good Biblical Scholar or Theologian?”

Always be willing to see your own weaknesses and strengths and know when to seek help.

Always be willing, hoping, to have your argument proved false, but don’t give up.

Reconsider, redesign, and rediscover.

~Karen Langton, Postgraduate Researcher, University of Birmingham

Socratics and Anti-Socratics: The Status of Expertise

The disciplinary thinker systematizes and delivers received wisdom using institutionally sanctioned techniques. The critical free thinker asks incisive questions that identify the material shortcomings and paradoxes of received wisdom when it’s put into practice. The two constitute a single movement in thinking among a community. A disciplinary approach to understanding the world becomes mainstream and institutionalized, and critics show how those mainstream ideas have become inadequate to the world in which they practice. Yet for all its questions, Socratic philosophy leaves the most important inquiry hanging: Now what?

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Anti-Socratic thinking grounds the legitimacy of expertise in disciplinary knowledge of the academy. Socratic thinking focusses on challenging that disciplinary legitimacy, on grounds that the subject matter expert misses important aspects of reality thanks to its concentration on a limited number of ways of knowing. The expert speaks with self-assured certainty, while the gadfly challenges the expert by identifying important aspects of life that the expert’s disciplinary lens misses. So Tuvel would be an expert, that expertise allowing her article to walk us through a variety of different ways to understand what a genuine transracial identity could be. Her critics would be the gadflies, interrogating the limits of Tuvel’s expertise, showing how her disciplinary approach misses aspects of transgender people’s lived reality that are critical to understanding the material possibilities of trans existence.

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Anti-Socratic thinking grounds the legitimacy of expertise in disciplinary knowledge of the academy. Socratic thinking focusses on challenging that disciplinary legitimacy, on grounds that the subject matter expert misses important aspects of reality thanks to its concentration on a limited number of ways of knowing.

Find some answers on:

Beyond Socrates: The Philosopher as Creative Craftsperson, Adam Riggio

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Frodeman, Robert. “Socratics and Anti-Socratics: The Status of Expertise.” Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 6, no. 5 (2017): 42-44.

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In Defence of Transracialism

Socrates Carnelian Gem Imprint Rome, 1stBCE1stCE. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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The Giant evil and danger for the country

This could be written today and applied in many or our present countries where the rich become richer and the weaker ones poorer.

Material wealth

Rutherford B. Hayes

Rutherford B. Hayes (October 4, 1822—January 17, 1893), 19th President of the United States and 29th and 32nd Governor of Ohio Español: Rutherford B. Hayes (4 de octubre de 1822—17 de enero de 1893), 19 o Presidente de los Estados Unidos y 29 o y 32 o Gobernador de Ohio (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Seniors for a Democratic Society

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A more than Great God to look for

 

 

God is so great, that it is well worth looking for him the whole life.

– Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), Spanish mystic during the Catholic Reformation of 16th and 17th century Spain.

 

Dutch version / Nederlandse versie > Een meer dan Grote God om naar op zoek te gaan

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• Where God Is (simulblog.com)
  God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house.
  +
  God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.
• Questioning God (discoveringandsharinggrace.com)
  Some of my best early morning coffee conversations with God are those with questions. When I ask God a question, there are a variety of answers
• God Sees Hope #InstarationDevo (armansheffey.com)
  God knows that with every misstep there is an opportunity for us to learn and grow. God knows our end from the beginning and knows that our “failings” will be our greatest teachers.
• Don’t Try to Buy God (sanjeetv.wordpress.com)
  For war don’t try GOD
  Almighty is not asking you to kill
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  Keep your humanity alive
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• Broken: Part 1 “God the Comforter” (getreal.typepad.com)
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• God will be your Strength (heartfixxer.wordpress.com)
  There is only one place where we can dip into an everlasting quantity of strength, and that is through God. When our own strength is fleeting and we’re feeling defeated, God will give us the strength.
• God will answer you (yoursuccessinspirer.com)
  If somebody gave you a secret to enable you get all that God has planned for you, how would you feel? Overjoyed, I guess. There is, indeed, such a secret. You can get all that God has planned for you if you know any use this secret.
• God’s Got My Back (brianwilliamsen.wordpress.com)
  God loves people, and when we understand that God loves people it empowers them to go and live this life full of joy, full of peace, full of confidence in who you are, knowing that no matter what happens, God’s with me. God’s got my back.
• What is the image of God? (verityparadox.com)
  We exist in flesh due to God’s miracle of creation. But we also exist in spirit. Like God, there is a part of us that is not bound by the constraints of the physical world, and instead is ordered by the bounds of a different dimension — a different creation, also of God.
• God Will (darealztalk.com)
  God will take care of you no matter what you’re going through. No matter the struggle, no matter the pain.

What Is Sanctification?

 

Sanctification is an immediate work of the Spirit of God on the souls of believers,
purifying and cleansing of their natures from the pollution and uncleanness of sin,
renewing in them the image of God,
and thereby enabling them, from a spiritual and habitual principle of grace,
to yield obedience unto God,
according unto the tenor and terms of the new covenant,
by virtue of the life and death of Jesus Christ.

Or more briefly:

— It is the universal renovation of our natures by the Holy Spirit into the image of God, through Jesus Christ.

The Works of John Owen, ed. William H. Goold, vol. 3: Pneumatologia: A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, n.d.), 386.

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Not to speak is to speak

The reason why we want or are not afraid to speak on this website, and give our thoughts on many ideas, even when necessary, sometimes on political ones.

“Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

“Salvation is free, but discipleship will cost you your life.”

“Whenever Christ calls us, His call leads us to death.”

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“The test of the morality of a society is what it does for its children.”

“It is very easy to overestimate the importance of our own achievements in comparison with what we owe others.”

“One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons.”

“Only he who believes is obedient and only he who is obedient believes.”

― Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German Lutheran pastor, theologian, writer and poet, hanged by the Nazis two weeks before his camp was liberated for his involvement in the Abwehr plot to kill Hitler. He refused the opportunity to escape in order to protect others from retaliation. (rw)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer: “The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.” (Photo credit: elycefeliz)

 

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  Bonhoeffer was indeed among the most interesting theologian of the twentieth century and his experience with so many countries while also being a leader of the Confessional church inside Nazi Germany put him at a whole different level beyond mere academic contribution.
• Day 82: Dietrich Bonhoeffer (February 4, 1906 – April 9, 1945) (civildisobedience100.wordpress.com)
  Apart from his theological writings, Bonhoeffer became known for his staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship. He strongly opposed Hitler’s euthanasia program and genocidal persecution of the Jews. He was also involved in plans by members of the Abwehr (the German Military Intelligence Office) to assassinate Adolf Hitler.
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  How could the church support the anti-semitic propaganda, cast out Jewish-Christians from churches, and support the Nazi’s clear war-policy of aggressive offense? These are great questions that can not, and should not, be swept under the carpet of church history with an “oops”. Robert Ericksen’s essay also discusses similar topics, though with more of a focus on Bonhoeffer.
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  Something Hockenos points out is how many leaders of the German Evangelical Church (post-1945) considered Bonhoeffer’s willingness to engage in a plot to overthrow Hitler should make him be viewed as a traitor rather than a martyr! I know there is some debate over what exactly was Bonhoeffer’s role in the resistance, but assuming that he was directly (rather than indirectly) involved in the planning of an assassination attempt on Hitler’s life (and that he vocally supported the use of such violence to take out Hitler), I can see how that would make one question whether Bonhoeffer was standing on solid theological ground, but to go the next step and say that his actions meant he was only a national traitor and not a Christian martyr seems quite bizarre to me! But, alas, it appears the Confessing Church was not completely divorced from nationalism as it should have been.
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  Hans soon brought on board Bonhoeffer, who was to use his foreign contacts to gather intelligence for the resistance. Together they coordinated a daring rescue operation–brilliantly conceived by Dohnanyi–that allowed more than a dozen Jewish refugees to escape to Switzerland using false papers. Bonhoeffer called on Swiss friends, including Karl Barth, to help secure their passage.
  It wasn’t long, however, before the Gestapo had the pair in its sights, as more and more evidence linked them to the rescue operation and multiple failed attempts on Hitler’s life. After they were arrested in early April 1943, their resistance took another form: withstanding isolation and harsh interrogations and refusing to name names. Both men found sustenance in their Bibles. And their families provided indispensable support, sending letters and packages with hidden messages that helped them coordinate their responses to questioning. Unbowed to the last, they were finally hanged in April 1945.
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer – German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi (deadcitizensrightssociety.wordpress.com)
  +Dietrich Bonhoeffer – German Lutheran pastor, theologian, dissident anti-Nazi
  “It is the fellowship of the Cross to experience the burden of the other. If one does not experience it, the fellowship he belongs to is not Christian. If any member refuses to bear that burden, he denies the law of Christ.”“In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich.”
• Bonhoeffer the Assassin (iheartbarth.wordpress.com)
  here is newly published volume by Baker Academic that is worth checking out for those interested in the theology and life of Bonhoeffer and particularly how he steered the waters of his pacifist declarations (found most clearly in his 1937 Discipleship) and his involvement with the Abwehr‘s conspiracy to assassinate Hitler.
  +“Ethical Foundation for Resistance” – an Excerpt from Bonhoeffer the Assassin?
  Bonhoeffer gives us an “ethical foundation for resistance.” Almost immediately after Hitler assumed power, Bonhoeffer gave his radio address “The Führer and the Individual in the Younger Generation.” A few months later he wrote a prophetic essay, “The Church and the Jewish Question,” which was published in June. But even before these more obvious examples, Bonhoeffer was articulating an ethic for resistance. It was manifest in his life, his commitments, and his writings.
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  About the book: Bonhoeffer the Assassin?
• 138) Cheap Grace (emailmeditations.wordpress.com)
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       Cheap grace means grace as bargain-basement goods, cut-rate forgive­ness, cut-rate comfort, cut-rate sacraments; grace as the church’s inexhaustible pantry, from which it is doled out by careless hands without hesitation or limit.  It is grace without a price, without cost…

• The Dietrich Bonhoeffer Story – podcast (songsofhope883.com)
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• Bonhoeffer – Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy (lindentreelibrary.wordpress.com)
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  Bonhoeffer gives witness to one man’s extraordinary faith and to the tortured fate of the nation he sought to deliver from the curse of Nazism. It brings the reader face to face with a man determined to do the will of God radically, courageously, and joyfully—even to the point of death. Bonhoeffer is the story of a life framed by a passion for truth and a commitment to justice on behalf of those who face implacable evil.