Damaris Zehner: The Perspicuity of Scripture? Hmm.

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The Perspicuity of Scripture?  Hmm.
By Damaris Zehner

I teach English at a community college campus in rural Indiana.  This semester I have a remedial reading and writing class, required for those students who did not score high enough to take freshman composition.  At one extreme are the students who are competent but bad at tests; at the other extreme are two groups:  the most abject victims of educational malpractice and those whose gifts lie in areas for which college is inappropriate.  I like them all and have respect for their determination and good humor.

Recently, as part of my lesson plan to expose the students to different genres of writing, we read a short story by Rudyard Kipling.  It’s called “A Bank Fraud,” and it shows the relationship between two men, one a playboy and party-goer who humbly hides his good deeds, the other a self-righteous incompetent who despises the playboy.  My students read and discussed the story; they understood it pretty well by the time we were done.  For a writing assignment, I asked them to read Luke 18:9-14 and find similarities between the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector and “A Bank Fraud.”  I defined terms, then I let them at it.

Seventy percent of the class had no understanding of the meaning of the parable.  They thought the Pharisee was the good person, while the tax collector was hated – well, yes, but what was the purpose of a parable involving those people?  They didn’t know.  They did not understand the concept of being “justified” (it was not one of the words I defined for them, but they were free to look it up if they felt they needed to).  They ignored or didn’t understand the explanatory introduction in verse 9.  They could not extract from the parable what goodness and wickedness were.  They were not aware of the challenge Jesus was offering to conventional definitions of goodness and wickedness.

Continue reading “Damaris Zehner: The Perspicuity of Scripture? Hmm.”

Peter Enns: Is there payoff for the church in reading the Bible critically?

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Note from CM: In October, we reviewed Peter Enns’s excellent book, The Bible Tells Me So: Why Defending Scripture Has Made Us Unable to Read It. In that review I wrote, “Enns repeatedly encourages us to stop defending the Bible as something we want it to be so that we might read and benefit from the actual book we have before us.” This, writes Jay Michaelson, is part of “the task of religious adulthood.” A grown-up openness to truth with regard to the Bible involves taking seriously the kinds of critical scholarship that has shown genuine light on the sacred Book and its teachings.

A great deal of my time in the world of Christian fundamentalism and conservative evangelicalism, on the other hand, was spent learning why we should NOT expose ourselves to such scholarship for fear of shipwrecking our faith. The story Pete tells at the beginning of today’s post resonates perfectly with my experience. In today’s post, Pete talks about why those who love Jesus and the Bible should not be afraid of critical scholarship. Indeed, it has the potential to open new vistas of truth and wisdom for all members of the Church.

Thanks to Pete for letting us re-post this piece today. He blogs at Rethinking Biblical Christianity.

Continue reading “Peter Enns: Is there payoff for the church in reading the Bible critically?”

Advent with Christina Rossetti (1)

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On Advent Sundays this year, we will encourage contemplation using some of the seasonal poems of Christina Rossetti.

For years now, a favorite book in my library has been an old worn copy of The Poetical Works of Christina Georgina Rossetti, published in 1904. A brief note in fountain pen ink inside the cover says that it was given as a Christmas gift in 1908, and a sticker in the back identifies the vendor as a bookshop in Belfast.

Christina Rossetti (1830-1894), was one of the most important women poets in Victorian England. A devout evangelical Anglican, she spurned one offer of marriage because her suitor converted to Roman Catholicism, and another because she “enquired into his creed and found he was not a Christian.” She never married or left home.

Her father was Italian and her mother English. Her godmother was Napoleon’s niece. Though she had wide exposure to a variety of people and cultures, her family was relatively poor and she spent most of her life involved in activities at home, with parents and siblings. In the memoir included in the book, her brother wrote, “…the life of Christina Rossetti presents hardly any incident.”

Christina was a scrupulous adherent of her faith. It is said she gave up playing chess because she found she enjoyed winning too much! Though she mixed with many prominent authors and artists in her day, she did not uniformly approve of their works. She pasted strips of paper over certain passages in Swinburne’s Atalanta in Calydon because she considered them anti-religious and offensive, and after doing so, she found herself able to enjoy the poem. After the death of her beloved brother Dante Gabriel, Rossetti became a recluse and stayed home, concentrating on her own religious life. Her older sister Maria, likewise observant, became an Anglican nun.

Christina_Rossetti_3After age fifteen, Christina Rossetti endured a life of poor health. As her brother describes it,

…any one who did not understand that Christina was an almost constant and often a sadly-smitten invalid, seeing at times the countenance of Death very close to her own, would form an extremely incorrect notion of her corporal, and thus in some sense of her spiritual, condition. She was compelled, even if not naturally disposed, to regard this world as a ‘valley of the shadow of death,’ and to make near acquaintance with promises, and also with threatenings, applicable to a different world.

Her faith was simple, submissive and passionate. She practiced religion as a true devotee with rigorous attention to fulfilling her duties. Rossetti’s scrupulosity provoked within her a constant spirit of despondency and led her to focus unremittingly upon her deficiencies and shortcomings. Critics have criticized her poetry as being “morbid,” with its emphasis on sin, death, and longing for the life beyond. Some of this must certainly be attributed to her physical condition, as well, perhaps, to early disappointment in love. Despite the dark themes that often marked her writings, Christina Rossetti’s poems give evidence of a vibrant and vivid inner life.

At this time of year, I pull my book of Rossetti poems off the shelf and read them as a regular part of my seasonal devotions. Her Christmas poems are treasures. They evoke both the darkness and light of Advent and Incarnation as few writings can. Who has painted a better picture of the cheerless chill of a world without Christ?

• • •

We see Rossetti’s capacity to describe the bleak side of life in the following Advent poem she wrote before 1886. It will be our meditation today on this first Sunday in Advent.

9670924922Earth grown old, yet still so green,
Deep beneath her crust of cold
Nurses fire unfelt, unseen:
Earth grown cold.

We who live are quickly told:
Millions more lie hid between
Inner swathings of her fold.

When will fire break up her screen?
When will life burst thro’ her mould?
Earth, earth, earth, thy cold is keen,
Earth grown cold.

Saturday Ramblings — Nov. 29, 2014

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Many of you spoke last week, pining for the Saturday Ramblings of old, full of opinion, controversy, and bite.

Okay then. We’ll do our best. You will note that the Rambler wagon is back this week, gassed up and ready to take us over the river and through the woods to our various seasonal and holiday gatherings. Come on, pile in, and let’s go rambling through some of the events and articles that got our attention in recent days.

Here on the edge of December, the upper Midwest seems like a good, wintry place to begin.

• • •

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Black Friday in Wisconsin . . .
At Lakefront Brewery in Milwaukee, people arrived early on Black Friday for a unique sale: on beer. The brewery was offering a limited edition of 5,000 22 oz. bottles of Imperial Stout Aged in Bourbon Barrels. They were gone within 3½ hours.

In Wisconsin, people pay no mind to the weather. Though it was snowing and about 15°F, about 800 were in line when the doors opened at 8 a.m. They were treated not only to the opportunity to buy the special brew, but also to breakfast, a DJ providing music, and beer to drink on tap.

Now there’s a Black Friday a Lutheran could love. Or as Homer Simpson would say, “Beer for breakfast? Ummm!”

Continue reading “Saturday Ramblings — Nov. 29, 2014”

How I Became a… Fan of the Church Fathers

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Tertullian

This week we continue my “How I Became a…” series. Today I wanted to tell the story of how I became a fan of the Church Fathers, more specifically, the Ante-Nicene Fathers. This is a collection of writings from the early leaders of the church, writing in the first three centuries and before (ante) the Council of Nicea.

I had grown up in a church that billed itself as a “New Testament” church. The prevailing attitude was that all was great in the way things were done in the early church up until Emperor Constantine made Christianity an official religion of the Roman Empire. In their opinion, things kind of went down hill from there, with all kinds of non biblical traditions being introduced.

I was in my twenties when I left this group, and not long after that I met my first Jehovah’s Witness, a young University Student named Clarence. Rather surprisingly, Clarence had similar views about Constantine. We found however that we had big differences when it came to our understanding of the deity of Christ. We started meeting weekly: I would bring in information that I had gleaned from Walter Martin’s book, “The Kingdom of the Cults”, and he would present information that he had gathered from his local chapter.

One frustration that I had was that I had no real way to evaluate many of the arguments that were being presented, by either Walter Martin or the Jehovah’s Witnesses. This was one of the factors (there were many others) that led me to decide to go to seminary. By this time I had developed a real interest in studying the deity of Christ, and was gathering up as much material as I could about the subject.

Continue reading “How I Became a… Fan of the Church Fathers”

Creation Is a Many-Splendored Thing (5): Delighting in Creation’s Goodness

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O Lord, how manifold are your works!
In wisdom you have made them all;
the earth is full of your creatures.

• Psalm 104: 24, NRSV

• • •

It has been awhile since we’ve returned to our series from William P. Brown’s fascinating book on the many ways the Bible teaches about creation: The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science, and the Ecology of Wonder. But Thanksgiving Day here in the U.S. seems like a perfect day to look at the most extensive creation psalm in Scripture, Psalm 104, for as Brown says, in this psalm “creation is seen not from the creator’s perspective but from the creature’s, specifically from the standpoint of Homo laudans, ‘the praising human.'”

As with many psalms, Psalm 104 does not readily divulge its historical context. It is pure poetry, setting its focus on the world of nature, not on Israel’s history, and in a strikingly novel way. It offers an unabashedly positive view of the natural world that includes the wilderness, traditionally considered dangerous and chaotic. Instead of “Lions and tigers and bears, O my!” we have “Lions and tigers and bears, Amen!” (along with the coneys, onagers, and mountain goats). The psalmist celebrates the world of the wild and the God who sustains it all. (p. 144).

This psalm is an extended meditation about God’s repeated pronouncements in Genesis 1: “And God saw that it was good.” The psalmist agrees.

  • Verses 1-4 — the transcendent glory of the heavens: good
  • Verse 5 — the eternal stability of the earth: good
  • Verses 6-9 — the seas that fill the places God appointed for them: good
  • Verses 10-13 — the fresh waters that satisfy the thirst of God’s wild creatures: good
  • Verses 14-15 — the abundant food that God brings from the earth to feed his creatures: good
  • Verses 16-23 — the many and varied earthscapes in which God’s creatures find a home: good

The world so conceived by the psalmist is not so much a free range as a spacious home, and its inhabitants all share the earth as their common habitat. Psalm 104, in short, is a fanfare for the common creature. (p. 147).

. . . Place and provision, according to Psalm 104, are the fundamental features of creation that ensure the continuance of life. (p. 151).

Continue reading “Creation Is a Many-Splendored Thing (5): Delighting in Creation’s Goodness”

Randy Thompson: Alone with Good Luck?

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Alone with Good Luck? (A Thanksgiving Meditation)
by Randy Thompson

It’s a simple point, really, but one that needs to be made often, and that is, there’s a huge difference between giving thanks and having a good lucky feeling about life.

Having a good lucky feeling about our achievements and about our possessions, which define our achievements, is to be aware that life has gone well, that we are comfortable, and that life is pleasant.  It is to be aware, in a vague sort of way, of all the good things in life. Since the question of why these things were there in the first place hasn’t been raised, they are chalked up to “good luck.”  There are other ways of describing this attitude, of course. There’s “Life’s a bowl of cherries.” Or, “I’m blessed.”  Or, “I’m fortunate.” This attitude can be deeply felt, but it is an attitude where we are left alone in our own, private universes.

The problem is, feeling lucky is not the same thing as giving thanks.  Feeling lucky or fortunate doesn’t relate us to anyone outside ourselves.  Giving thanks joins us to others; it recognizes we live our lives in a web of relationships, that we live giving thanks and receiving thanks.  At the center of this vast web of relationship is the One who created us, God. We are not alone in our own personal universe of well-being.  Gratitude connects us with others, and especially so with God.

This feeling of being lucky is the attitude of a character in one of Jesus’ parables, one whom Jesus called a fool. In fact, the parable is commonly referred to as “The Parable of the Rich Fool” (You’ll find it in Luke 12:13-23).  In it, a rich farmer has had a very good year–a very good year indeed. His harvest has been successful beyond his wildest dreams. So, he decides that what he needs is bigger barns to store his harvest–or, to give it a contemporary spin–to store all his “stuff.”  He feels very lucky indeed; maybe even, somehow, “blessed.”  He says, pointedly, to himself, “You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink, and be merry.”

Raising-a-glass-with-friends-and-family-to-welcome-2010This rich farmer is enjoying his good fortune to the hilt. He is lucky indeed. “Blessed” even! Yet, if you know the story, it all goes south quickly. He is not alone in his universe of good luck. Unfortunately for him, he lives in God’s universe, and he’s oblivious to God, and to the many wonderful gifts that God gives, gifts such as good harvests.  The story ends with God getting the last word, and it turns out this rich farmer wasn’t as lucky as he thought he was: “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?”

The point of the parable, of course, is that God intends for harvests–possessions–to be shared.  Ultimately, you will lose all your earthly blessings when you die; why not share them with others before them? Instead of hoarding them in your own private universe, live in God’s universe instead, and expand your heart by transforming your earthly blessings into gifts and blessings for others? Why not invest your heart in loving God by thanking him, and loving your neighbors by sharing with them?

However, for our purposes, the point of the parable isn’t the point that Jesus made here. Rather, we’re looking not at God’s judgment, but at the Rich Fool’s attitude that provoked God’s judgment.

The rich man here sees his goods, his success, and his wealth in relation to himself and not in relation to God. We don’t know whether he was literally fat or not – the Lord doesn’t provide that detail – but poetically, we can think of him as “fat and happy.”  All is well in his little universe of good luck, at least temporarily. But, “luck” is as stable as a Hollywood marriage; it doesn’t last. And if you don’t see your life in relation to God, that’s all you’re left with

Late November, of course, is when we celebrate Thanksgiving. (Corporate sponsors:  Butterball, Ocean Spray, and the NFL). Sadly, for many, it will not be a time of giving thanks, but a time of merely feeling lucky or fortunate—and luck doesn’t owe thanks to anyone; it just “happens,” or so it is thought.

The word we use to describe our autumnal foray into gluttony is “Thanksgiving.” But, it is a nonsense word unless there is Someone to thank. We thank people when they give us gifts at Christmas or on our birthday. (At least, we’re supposed to.) We thank people for their help and encouragement. We thank people who have taught us needed skills or given us helpful wisdom. (Again, at least we’re supposed to!)   We’re supposed to thank our Creator, too, for the universe we live in was created by Him, and us along with it. And, if we’re at all honest, His creation is quite a piece of work, despite what we’ve done with it. For that matter, each of our lives is quite a piece of work too, as the Psalmist suggests. We, each of us, are “fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14). Each one of us gifted by God with skills, aptitudes, and interests.

It is no great mystery and no new spiritual wisdom to note that the One to whom we owe thanks most of all is God.  It is God who gave us the skills and abilities to create wealth. It is God who put other people in our lives at just the right time so that we could begin a new, better chapter in life.  It is God who turned our painful dead ends into super highways of promise. And, of course, supremely, it is God who came to earth and gave us an eternal feast of bread and wine that bears the body and blood of His Son, where thanks-giving is fulfilled in communion that is eternal in nature.

Biblical Marriage: BEYOND Traditional

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Song of Songs (1974), Chagall

In last Saturday’s Ramblings we had a story about Rick Warren turning the Vatican into a revival meeting in support of Biblical, traditional marriage. He did so with a scintillating 8-point sermon that followed the alphabet . . . . Well, he followed the alphabet until he got to the last point, and then it seems that Warren just couldn’t remember what follows “G”. (That’s ok, heat of the moment and all, believe me I understand.)

Anyway, Bishop Warren gave an eminently Power-Pointable list of action steps for Christian leaders and churches wanting to promote “Biblical marriage.” This is necessary, he said, because we live in a world in which “marriage is ridiculed, resented, rejected and redefined” (nailed the alliteration, didn’t he?). One of his action steps to solve this problem was that Christians should:

Develop small group courses to support marriage

Now I know Rick Warren is a busy man, so in the spirit of Christian love and cooperation, I thought I’d help him out by writing an explicitly Biblical small group course for him. I call it, “Biblical Marriage: BEYOND Traditional,” because as you’ll see, traditional marriage as many of us see it ain’t got nothin’ on what the Bible actually portrays.

Here are some sample lessons. I’m sure you’ll see how practical and helpful they will be in advancing the cause of Biblical marriage that goes BEYOND merely traditional:

iBooks logoLesson One: Garden delights (Genesis 2-3)

Let’s start where the Bible does: with husband and wife frolicking about naked in a garden. If you want your marriage to be Biblical, outdoors nudity is essential. This lesson will give practical suggestions for creating your own private, outdoor retreat where the neighbors can’t spy on you, where you can play au natural to your hearts’ delight. Nothing will free you to express love, devotion, and commitment like walking, talking, eating fruit and gardening with each other in the altogether. Don’t be ashamed. Forsake those fig leaves that have kept your marriage from being all that it can be, and go BEYOND!

iBooks logoLesson Two: But what if I married a Nephilim? (Genesis 6)

No marriage is perfect, but sometimes you wake up and wonder if the person lying next to you is actually some fallen angel with demonic intentions. The Bible affirms that this is indeed possible. Perhaps you think you missed God’s will. You never found your “Noah” even though you dreamed of a righteous and blameless life partner with whom you could weather the storms of life. So you settled for someone who called himself “a son of God,” but now you realize he was really an alien giant with a heart as dark as the depths of the sea. This lesson explores how you can manage those pesky human/alien incompatibility issues. It will also reveal how God wants to flood your life with blessings in spite of the bad match you made.

Boaz wakes and sees Ruth at his feet, Chagall
Boaz wakes and sees Ruth at his feet, Chagall

iBooks logoLesson Three: Creative ways to pass on your heritage (Genesis, Ruth)

God designed marriage to be his chosen method of producing a godly line of descendents. This can challenge a marriage, and sometimes, we have to work extra hard to make that happen. We want to encourage you to get creative, and go BEYOND!

We’ll study Lot, for example, and discuss the daughter-father connection. And then we will look at Tamar, who illustrates the more complex but explicitly commended Biblical principle of “my husband’s dead and my brother-in-law won’t sleep with me and I don’t have kids so I guess I’ll become a prostitute and seduce my father-in-law so I can become a mother.” As a bonus, we’ll discover how we as parents can be like Naomi, and encourage our daughters to go lay naked at the feet of drunk wealthy landowners until they wake up, fear the worst, and agree to marry them. The possibilities are endless!

iBooks logoLesson Four: Developing a way with words (Song of Solomon)

Ladies, ever wish your husband would speak more lovingly to you? That, for example, he would tell you your hair is like a flock of goats, your breasts like towers, your belly like a heap of wheat? Or at least that your feet look great in sandals? And men, wouldn’t you love to hear your wife compliment you for those ivory abs, those alabaster pillar legs you have? Wouldn’t you just love her to praise you as a gay gazelle, leaping over the mountains? Then you won’t want to miss this lesson. We’ll divide up into couples and challenge you to find creative ways of describing your partner’s body parts. Then we’ll come back together and share what we’ve come up with! It’s loads of fun and not embarrassing in the least. Then we’ll send you home to practice naked in your garden.

iBooks logoLesson Five: Marriage as Evangelism (Hosea, Esther)

God may sometimes call you to marry someone you would never naturally consider, just so that you can win them to the Lord and be an example to others. This was Hosea’s calling, and in this lesson we’ll help you men learn how to identify which broken, fallen women are just right for you. We’ll discuss strategies for the ladies too, taking our cues from Queen Esther. You’ll learn how to work up the perfect erotic dance moves so that you can capture the heart of the evil monster you’re eager to reach. Who knows whether some of us will be called to this kind of marriage in “such a time as this”? This is the time to go BEYOND!

• • •

Our crack staff will be hard at work developing other Biblical lessons too. We’ll suggest survival tips for concubines and demonstrate the best use of mandrakes to foil your sister-wife from sleeping with your husband tonight. We’ll show you how to keep a Levitical calendar and checklist to make sure your sex life doesn’t break God’s rules. For those of you forced to live with contentious spouses, we’ll show you how to make a corner of your attic into a proper place where you can hide, as Proverbs instructs. We’ll also study the prophets to see when it is appropriate to talk dirty and examine why Paul would rather stay single than go through all this hassle.

In every way possible, we want to encourage you to go BEYOND in your marriage! So watch for this ground-breaking study at Saddleback Resources in early 2015.

Take a stand for marriages that are BEYOND traditional — Be thoroughly BIBLICAL!

To Be Well-Spoken

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 Is not my word like fire, says the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?

• Jeremiah 23:29, NRSV

• • •

One of my personal goals in life is to be well-spoken.

I am tired of “lingo.”

I reject group-imposed boundaries around how to express what I’m thinking, what I’m feeling, what I’m considering. I want to find a way to say it so that it grabs, sticks, bites, hurts, heals. First, in my own heart. Then, if anyone should listen, in theirs.

Hell is being trapped in a world of clichés. Nothing is real. Nothing has weight or substance. Nothing penetrates. Nothing wounds or nourishes. I want words that bring the dead to life.

Bounded, insider language is a Christian problem.

Words create worlds. We live in those worlds and they define us. Someone using different words doesn’t fit in our world. We can’t listen to them. We find it hard to take in their foreign phrases, to translate them into something we can grasp. We summon the auto-immune response and reject them out of concern for safety. We watch, we listen to, we read those whose language fits the preconceived notion. We deem them “safe.” They will not disturb our world.

In this world, we get together day after day, week after week, year after year, and say the same damn things to each other! Imaginations atrophy as we sit there safe, sipping our iced tea.

These gated worlds!

I want words that shatter worlds! And speak new ones into being! Let there be light!

A coworker recently gave me information about a new patient and his family. Baptists, of the independent, fundamental variety. King James Only. White shirt, dark tie. Nothing but the blood Baptists. Straight as an arrow. Locked in a narrow world.

“I can speak that language, ” I said.

I made the visit. I asked the standard introductory questions, using their terms. I inquired. I listened. I showed respect. They allowed me to enter their world because I could verify the passcode. I knew the secret handshake.

bleeding-heartBut once inside, the conversation shifted. I sat in silence where one might have expected a platitude. Then I spoke a single turn of phrase that caught them off guard. Tears welled up. For a brief moment, a slice of raw humanity appeared through a crack in the gate. Their pain bled out a little. I’d like to think a bit of healing took place.

In that moment, no shibboleth was spoken. No Christianese. No lingo. Just a human heart bleeding and a wordless moan.

Many of us are not ready for that. I wasn’t, not for years. Even today, there are times when the reality is too sharp, too uncomfortable, and I blurt out some cliché. And my mouth tastes like dust.

The authors and speakers and friends I love rarely if ever fall into this trap. I never know what they’re going to say or how they’re going to say it. They speak epiphanies. They build metaphorical worlds that carry me away and I am along for the ride: rising and falling on an open sea inhaling sharp salt air one moment, feet sinking into a spongy forest floor the next. It’s fairies and rabbit holes, wardrobes and windswept plains, ball yards and small town backyards, hobbits and desert saints and boarding school wizards, slums and palaces and log cabins and creaky old Victorian mansions.

But it’s not just the pictures they paint, the metaphorical worlds they create, it’s the medicine they give: words fitly spoken. Words that turn my head, that cause my jaw to drop. Words that make me stop and turn around. That make me shiver. That wrap me in a warm sherpa throw. That make my heart bleed ’til it’s whole again.

Not the same old lingo. Not tired trade language. If ever they use such words, they do so only as a foil for that which is clearly genuine.

Don’t let me settle for it, Lord. Put fire and hammers and balm and blankets in my mouth. Heal the sick, raise the dead, comfort the brokenhearted. Make the story real and build a new world.

What a gift is language!

Oh, to be well-spoken!

Preparing for the New Church Year (4)

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For our final post on preparing for the new Church Year, we will talk about some suggestions for further reading and practice. I’ve divided them into three categories. Some are my own suggestions, others have come from IM readers.

  1. Books that give an overview of the Church Year to help individuals, families, and churches grasp its basic concepts and begin participating in Church Year spirituality.
  2. Books that can aid believers in conforming their daily prayer and devotional lives to the framework of the seasons of the Church Year.
  3. Books and resources that focus specifically on the upcoming Advent season, so that we can get a good start this year.

What criteria did I use in selecting these resources? First, I am recommending books that I myself have found useful. Second, others are on my own “Wish List” because I have seen them and they look intriguing to me. Third, I am suggesting links to other resources because I have used some related materials (but not all) and have found them helpful. These may enable those in different seasons of life (for example, with young children) to find additional resources to meet specific needs.

Each of us is unique, so you will have your favorites and some of mine may not resonate as deeply with you. If any in our iMonk community would like to make additional suggestions, please feel free to do so.

My best recommendation for you would be to join a faith community that practices Church Year spirituality. As I will argue in my next post, this pattern is designed to enable Christians to experience his life, death, and resurrection not only as individuals, but also together with one another in God’s family. If you are part of such a community now, you should take your first counsel from the ministers and mentors in your own tradition, for each stream of the Christian faith has its own emphases and detailed practices. Your local church or denominational publishing house may be able to guide you more specifically than I can here.

Short of that, I recommend starting with incorporating a few simple Advent practices in your personal devotional life and/or with your family. Using an Advent calendar or lighting Advent candles along with prayers for the season has helped many believers enter into the practices of the Church Year.

THE CHURCH YEAR (Overview)

Ancient-Future Time: Forming Spirituality through the Christian Year, by Robert Webber

The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life – The Ancient Practices Series, by Joan Chittister

The Circle of Seasons: Meeting God in the Church Year, by Kimberlee Conway Ireton

The New Handbook of the Christian Year: Based on the Revised Common Lectionary, by Hoyt Hickman, et al

The Services of the Christian Year (Complete Library of Christian Worship, Vol 5), Robert Webber, editor
Copies available through Amazon links to other vendors

Children’s Activities for the Christian Year, by Delia Halverson

Anglican/Episcopal resources:

Book of Common Prayer online

Find other resources at Anglicans Online

Roman Catholic resources from Liturgical Training Publications:

Orthodox resources:

DAILY PRAYER/DEVOTIONS (arranged according to the Church Year)

Treasury of Daily Prayer, by Scot A. Kinnaman

The Divine Hours, by Phyllis Tickle
Various editions available for seasons of the year and occasions.

Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, by Shane Claiborne

Living the Christian Year: Time to Inhabit the Story of God, by Bobby Gross

Eternal Seasons: A Spiritual Journey Through the Church’s Year, by Henri Nouwen

Celtic daily prayer (online)

ADVENT

The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas, by Madeline L’Engle

We Light the Candles: Devotions Related to Family Use of the Advent Wreath, by Catharine Brandt

The Advent Jesse Tree: Devotions for Children and Adults to Prepare for the Coming of the Christ Child at Christmas, by Dean Lambert Smith

Preparing for Jesus: Meditations on the Coming of Christ, Advent, Christmas and the Kingdom, by Walter Wangerin

Advent Conspiracy: Can Christmas Still Change the World?, by Rick McKinley
Various resources for churches wanting to follow this approach to keeping Advent/Christmas are available at the Advent Conspiracy website.

The Winter Pascha, by Fr. Thomas Hopko.

From Holidays to Holy Days: A Benedictine Walk Through Advent – Albert Holtz

Living With Hope: A Scientist Looks at Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany – John Polkinghorne

Watch For The Light: Readings For Advent And Christmas

Sermons to the People: Advent, Christmas, New Year’s, Epiphany – St. Augustine

A Coming Christ in Advent: Essays on the Gospel Narratives Preparing for the Birth of Jesus : Matthew 1 and Luke 1 – Raymond Brown

No Trace of Christmas ? : Discovering Advent in the Old Testament – Christoph Domen

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I hope these resources will give us all a good start at going deeper into understanding and practicing Church Year spirituality.