Gnosce Te Ipse

I find I do like the interactive nature of the discussion; it helps me collect my thoughts and of course feels less isolating: so I am posting on EMC in this blog but also here: http://readingforchange.wordpress.com/ It's a good beginning discussion. Check it out if you can :) t

another sitting in my office quickie post. I am taking my time with Brian for good reasons (and now will be watching and maybe participating in another online discussion of the book; see the comment below). When I was young(er) I was the quickest parrot in the birdcage. I had a fast response, usually wrong and borrowed from someone else, for every theological question. Brian's book has introduced me to the emergent church; that diverse movement, and his representation of it, deserves time. In the meantime and as I think about my response, I am rereading the gospels, especially Luke and John; rereading Wright, especially his section on Judgement in JVG . For there he finalizes the leap he began in NTPG: a highly realized eschatology. I know he does not like that term, prefers "ignaural" eschatology, and discusses that in both books; fair enough. But it must be admitted, so many verses Christians have taken to refer to hell fire and a final day of judgement after deat...

The three readings for today's service, if they were all we had, would almost be enough. (Isaiah 58: 1-12; II Corinthians 5:20-6:10; Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21) And lest anyone think Brian is fabricating his emphasis on caring for the poor in EMC , or that I am making it up in agreeing with him, let me include today's reading from Isaiah. It is all I want to put up today. Let it stand on its own: Shout out, do not hold back! Lift up your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. Yet day after day they seek me and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God; they ask of me righteous judgments, they delight to draw near to God. "Why do we fast, but you do not see? Why humble ourselves, but you do not notice?" Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and oppress all your workers. Look, you fast only to quarrel and to fight and to s...