Photo by Annika Gordon on Unsplash
Until Easter, I will have prayers and songs consistent with Lent.
A Prayer from Deitrich Bonhoeffer: “I Cannot Do This Alone” link
O God, early in the morning I cry to you.
Help me to pray and to concentrate my thoughts on you;
I cannot do this alone.
In me there is darkness, but with you there is light;
I am lonely, but you do not leave me; I am feeble in heart, but with you there is help;
I am restless, but with you there is peace. In me there is bitterness, but with you there is patience;
I do not understand your ways, but you know the way for me….
Restore me to liberty, and enable me to live now hat I may answer before you and before men.
Lord whatever this day may bring, Your name be praised.
Amen.
A Prayer from Augustine of Hippo link
Breathe in me, O Holy Spirit, that my thoughts may all be holy.
Act in me, O Holy Spirit, that my work, too, may be holy.
Draw my heart, O Holy Spirit, that I may love only what is holy.
Strengthen me, O Holy Spirit, that I may defend all that is holy.
Guard me, O Holy Spirit, that I myself may always be holy.
Amen.
Ash Wednesday Collect link
Lord Jesus Christ,
because of your love for humanity
you took on yourself the form of a servant,
although you are our Lord.
You walk like a wounded man,
although you are our Physician.
Raise us from our falls,
enlighten our blindness,
and loosen the chains of sins that have bound us;
you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and forever.
Amen.
Benediction and Commission-based on Matthew 4:1-11, Mark 1:9-15, Luke 4:1-13)
Go now, and live in the spirit of your baptism,
even when you are led into wild and hard places.
With repentance and trust, give yourselves to God,
and with fasting and prayer,
strengthen yourselves against the ways of the tempter.
And may God enfold you in tender and lasting love.
May Christ be beside you in times of struggle.
And may the Spirit guide you back to the path whenever you stray,
that you may keep the covenant.
We go in peace to love and serve the Lord,
In the name of Christ. Amen.
(Copyright © 2000 Nathan Nettleton)
Thanks Dee for the liturgy and theological input from Wright.
Bonhoneffer’s prayer had Davidic qualities in light of a gifted person, who at surface level was independent, expressing his faith and need for God in all things.
There have been two types of men and women that I have noticed and admired throughout life.
Those like David who were highly gifted and resourced yet still recognise their need for God.
And those who contend with one hardship after another and don’t live in the land of denial, yet still maintain faith in God through Christ.
This of course doesn’t mean that such people are immune to periods and degrees of doubt, anxiety and depression.
Blessings
Ian Docker(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Ian Docker,
Thank you for your thoughtful comment. I love the prayers I choose for EChurch. I learn a lot about history when doing so.
dee(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
As always, Wright gives a good talk.
If I understand him correctly, heaven and hell are not as cut-and-dried, as many would have you (generic you) believe.
Muff Potter(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Thankfully, Wright softens some of the usual rhetoric around the afterlife.
I strongly believe that the usual theology around an afterlife is responsible for many abuses within the Church.
If you can swallow earthly authority about details of an afterlife, then you are potentially groomed to swallow anything. People so badly want to believe in heaven and hell that they will sleepwalk into obedience of those who offer it.
Want to see life after death?
Look—it is all around us.
We contain all that is the past, and we will live in all that is the future.
Heaven and Hell are Now.
Sandy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Sandy,
I agree.
We reap in the next life what we sow in this one.
Muff Potter(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
How so?
What is “the next life”?
Just curious.
Sandy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
I will give you part of your point. Heaven has come to earth now but heaven is not fully realized and will not be so long as the world is in the care of imperfect beings. I am not content with the same of, same old. I am lookig for the beautiful, not impacted. by the ugly.
dee(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Sandy,
We still die. Jesus promised the resurrection and dmonstrated that in His own life along with that if His dear friend, Lazarus.
dee(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
dee,
A colleauge of mine, started out in evangeltical/fundy camp, trained at Dallas Theological Seminary, misionary, then Ph.D, in Acient near eastern studies, and taught it for many years with a speciality in the OT, has shown a group of colleauge and I how little the Bible says about allot of thing, including the afterlife.. it is almost shocking how much “orthodox, Christain teachings” is “extra biblical”…
To be honest, I am pretty disgusted about how much has been taught to me over my life is “extra biblical”, and much of the other “other stuff” is just one perspective, that does not like to admit the otherside has significant verses also… sigh, sigh, sigh..
So, there is really very little in the whole Bible about the “afterlife”..
Jeffrey J Chalmers(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
I have come to this view, too.
That doesn’t mean that agnosticism on the subject is obligatory, but I think it implies that one’s views (and, I suspect, the way one interprets passages whose relevance to the question is not crystal clear) will be strongly conditioned by considerations other than the Biblical text.
An example this is in, IIRC, Jobert Jenson’s (RJ was a leading Lutheran theologian of recent decades) Systematic Theology, in which he wrote, IIRC that the manifest injustice of the present life can be reconciled with a high view of God’s goodness if there is an afterlife in which God puts things to rights.
David Bentley Hart (mentioned in the NTW Q&A; Wright does not like the way DBH translates certain texts that may refer to a future life) thinks that because God created the universe out of nothing, He is responsible for everything that happens in it and belief in God’s goodness requires (as a matter of logical coherence; the argument is set out here:
https://afkimel.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/god-creation-and-evil.pdf
) one to believe that God intends good toward all His sentient creatures and that He will ultimately succeed in accomplishing that.
—
There’s an old saying, that believers should “speak where the Scriptures speak, and be silent where the Scriptures are silent.” Of course, there are also shades of grey, and I think that where the Scriptures do not say much, one should reckon that one’s views on those subjects are not as secure as on others where there is abundant unequivocal evidence.
I find Wright’s tentativeness on this subject refreshing.
Samuel Conner(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Watched the N.T.Wright video directly on YouTube.
He’s getting flak in the comment thread. Examples:
1) “Why can’t the questions be answered directly? The answers sound political. I’m left confused.’
2) “At judgement, some will hear “enter into the kingdom.” Others will hear “depart from me.” Sounds like a straightforward description of heaven and hell as equally opposite destinations to me.”
3) “I like NT Wright but I find that he meanders all over the place and never answers the question.”
4) “If you don’t come to the Lord and receive him as savior, you don’t go to heaven Jesus says he’s the only way❤”
5) “JESUS Himself stated, “do not be afraid of those who can kill the body; but Fear the One, Who can destroy BOTH BODY & SOUL in HELL!””
6) “I find his lack of clarity on key theological issues, particularly heaven and hell, frustrating. He seems to vacillate between different views, such as annihilationism and universalism, without offering a concrete position. He leaves the fate of those who reject God somewhat unclear, not fully addressing what Jesus said about eternal punishment.”
7) “There are no good people, just the saved and the unsaved!”
8) “Tom Wright has studied and written a lot. But his inability to teach truth in clear short sentences is a sign of spiritual confusion.”
9) ”
This is why I cannot stand NT Wright. He doesn’t answer questions. He tap dances around them to avoid being unpopular. He is a coward. ”
Headless Unicorn Guy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Headless Unicorn Guy,
Wow…While I could go on and on, that list says so much….. sigh, sigh..
Jeffrey Chalmers(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
No good people?
I beg to differ.
You (generic you) will find good people all over the planet, regardless of race, religion, or national origin.
Muff Potter(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Muff Potter,
FYI, that quote wasn’t me, it was some of the comment thread I was citing.
Headless Unicorn Guy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Years ago, I came to the conclusion that if a lot of Christians were forbidden from talking about Hell (think of it as a ChrisTok Challenge), they wouldn’t know what to do. Threat of Hell and Guilt Manipulation have become so integral to preaching that a lot of Christians don’t know how to preach anything else. Like they can only motivate by Threat of Punishment.
Headless Unicorn Guy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Yeah. Those comments reek of One-Upmanship. All the Screwtape redefinitions of “Judgment” (NOT “a binding decision” but “Someone – THEE, Not MEEE – gets it in the neck). I mean, when someone says “God” and “Judgment” in the same sentence, is it ever a GOOD thing?
Like Judaism’s Coming of Messiah vs Christians’ Second Coming of Christ; the first is a message of Hope, that all that is wrong with us and the cosmos will be Fixed and Renewed; the second is all Death and Destruction, Fear and Terror.
Headless Unicorn Guy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Headless Unicorn Guy,
I gathered that HUG, you were just citing.
Muff Potter(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Wright is called a coward because he is brave enough to admit that he doesn’t know (because he thinks the Scriptures don’t provide sufficient evidence on which to base a claim of ‘knowledge’; I feel confident that Wright’s grasp of the text, in the original languages, far exceeds that of virtually all his critics in that thread). The commenter criticizes Wright for not having the courage of the commenter’s convictions.
Decades ago I had an interaction like this with a YE enthusiast. He urged me to “take a stand” aligned with his views. I responded that he wanted me to courageously believe and advocate a view that I was not confident was supported by adequate evidence.
I chalk that interaction up to the perennial tension in Evangelical thinking in which “faith” takes precedence over “wisdom”. “Faith” gets offended when it encounters others who do not believe the same things about the text. “Wisdom” is more cautious, and wants to understand what the text means, and is open to the possibility that its current understanding may be mistaken.
—
Amusingly, there is a “hell”* boulevard in Jerusalem. Hinnom Valley was Israel’s place of eschatological punishment, where in two sieges of Jerusalem, centuries apart, the bodies of those who had died in the siege were cast over the city walls. This isn’t dispositive, but I personally think Wright is right to see Jesus’ judgment warnings as oriented primarily toward the looming threat of national catastrophe in the threatened war with Rome (a point which, IIRC, is mentioned in the Q&A, in a mention of the Lk 13 warnings).
*gehenna = gei hinnom = Hinnom valley
Samuel Conner(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Pope Francis said much the same thing:
If one has the answers to all the questions – that is the proof that God is not with him. It means that he is a false prophet using religion for himself. The great leaders of the people of God, like Moses, have always left room for doubt. You must leave room for the Lord, not for our certainties; we must be humble.
Headless Unicorn Guy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Headless Unicorn Guy,
Yup
Jeffrey Chalmers(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
When we locate heaven and hell within material reality, much is clarified.
Sandy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
And in-between the valley served as the Jerusalem City Dump.
The image of a Cosmic Discard Pile which you do NOT want to be part of.
Headless Unicorn Guy(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
I don’t think any of us really knows what happens when we die.
Lotsa’ speculation and claims based on ancient writings and ‘church’ traditions though.
I have no desire to go to Christian ‘heaven’.
Streets of gold and jewel encrusted vistas just ain’t my thing.
The Jewish version of an afterlife (Olam-Ha-Ba) makes much more sense to me.
Muff Potter(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)
Muff Potter,
Muff Potter,
I don’t think NT Tom has much humility in front of uncertainty, more like glee about the cover for ignorance that his curated format affords him. He should combine the questions and summarize frankly which would take him one-third of the time (I used the transcript). Spiritually confused yes (he is a dispensationist which appears negatively), and in logic. He’s right that nephesh and psuk mean the whole person.
The Bible is often ambiguous in distinguishing purgatory from heaven or purgatory from hell. The only thing that got discredited was indulgences both paid for and free of charge. The treasury of the saints, which we can contribute to, is true: we benefit from forebears we don’t know about, who paid it forward (the angels hear it and help us).
We’ll still be finite so I think time will feel slower and we’ll notice more things that are going on. There will be some added degree of safety compared with the here and now, for those who get to that.
Guilt tripping about your relatives is rubbish. Assuming there will be a lake of fire phenomenon which He foresees, God wants us to lay precious metal in the souls of others by Holy Spirit (1.5 volt) power as our own “letter of commendation” to pull us through, by exchanging works of mercy of all kinds including by prayers, and not just “evangelism”.
Scripture says nothing specific about a special case of “annihilationism” per se but I feel it isn’t the horse that pulls the cart at least.
There’s no reason protestants can’t believe any of this, except fearing to disobey and free ourselves from codependency with, the mental tyrants – who are the most in danger. Those are the ones NT Tom is nervous of: he gives me the impression (on any subject) that he doesn’t care to genuinely reassure the little guys like I can.
Michael in UK(Reply & quote selected text) (Reply to this comment)