Attack With Love

The Early Fathers
As with many issues, the first three centuries of the Christian church do not give us great insight on this question. In the absence of any doctrinal controversy about it, the position of the early church is hard to pin down. There are many references to election, and to free will.
The Pelagian Controversy
The […]

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“The drama of the book of Job is a vigorous, artistic invitation in Israel to rethink in radical ways the theodicy explanations that over time were undoubtedly reduced to moralistic clichés. Over times Israel had become too familiar with God, too much able to predict and control, so that ethics was programmed into a series […]

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“About the hair, the following seems right. Let the head of men be shaven, unless it has curly hair. But let the chin have the hair. But let not twisted locks hang down from the head, gliding into womanish ringlets. For an ample beard suffices for men. And if one, too, shave a part of […]

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Though the fig tree does not bud, and the vines are without grapes;
Though the olive trees disappoint, and the fields produce no food;
Though the flock is removed from the fold, and the cattle disappear;
Yet I will rejoice in YHWH! I will rejoice in the God who saves me!
YHWH, O Adonai, is my strength! He has […]

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“Akiva ben Joseph was born in the Judean lowlands in 50 C.E. He was illiterate and despised scholarship; he worked herding sheep. Then he fell in love with a rich man’s daughter. She agreed to marry him only when he vowed to devote his life to studying the Torah. So he did. He learned to […]

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“The Protestant cleric who used to look down on the manipulation and forced emotionalism of the old-time tent revivalist does not shrink from using modern liturgical gimmickry such as balloons, dance, clowns, drama, and contrived gestures of intimacy to induce various emotional states in his own congregation. ‘Anything to shake them up a bit’ was […]

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“Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God” - Karl Barth

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Our bodies return to dust.
Gen. 3:19; Acts 13:36
Our souls return to God.
Luke 23:43; Eccl. 12:7
The souls of the righteous are received into glory and wait for the redemption of all things (including their bodies).
Heb. 12:23; 2 Cor. 5:1-8; Phil. 1:23; Acts 3:21; Eph. 4:10
The souls of the wicked are cast into hell and wait for […]

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FROM THE VOICE PROJECT

Psalm 77
[According to Jeduthun]
A psalm of Asaph; For the Choir Director.
1 My voice called to God;
he heard my voice and listened.
2 In my dark days, I sought Adonai.
At night, my hands were stretched to get his attention.
My soul grew numb and refused to be comforted.
3 Then I remembered God and I groaned.
I […]

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“Thy look is Thy being… I am, because Thou dost look at me… if Thou didst turn Thy glance from me, I should cease to be.” – Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464). Quoted from C. Taliaferro’s Contemporary Philosophy of Religion (Oxford, UK: Blackwell, 1998), 106.

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Augustine said to a group of people, “We are talking about God. What wonder is it that you do not understand. If you do understand, then it is not God.” - Quoted from Annie Dillard’s wonderful book, For the Time Being (New York, New York: Vintage Books, 1999), 47
Buy this book… everyone should.

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“Men and women are mysteries known only to themselves until they speak a word that opens up that mystery… The words people speak have their life in them as surely as they have their breath in them… Words people speak have dynamite in them and that word may be all it takes to set somebody’s […]

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“The wound does not heal though the bow be slack.” - Petrarch, Rerum Vulgarium Fragmenta, 90

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“The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the worshiper’s inability to forget himself in the rite, and the readiness to spoil for everyone else the proper place of ritual.” - C. S. Lewis, Preface to Paradise Lost (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1942), 52

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