writing in the dust

“

What, then, is the nature of petitionary prayer? lt is, in essence, rebellion—rebellion against the world in its fallenness, the absolute and undying refusal to accept as normal what is pervasively abnormal. It is, in this its negative aspect, the refusal of every agenda, every scheme, every interpretation that is at odds with the norm as originally established by God. As such, it is itself an expression of the unbridgeable chasm that separates Good from Evil, the declaration that Evil is not a variation on Good but its antithesis.

Or, to put it the other way around, to come to an acceptance of life “as it is,” to accept it on its own terms—which means acknowledging the inevitability of the way it works—is to surrender a Christian view of God. This resignation to what is abnormal has within it the hidden and unrecognized assumption that the power of God to change the world, to overcome Evil by Good, will not be actualized. Nothing destroys petitionary prayer (and with it, a Christian view of God) as quickly as resignation. “At all times,” Jesus declared, “we should pray” and not “lose heart,” thereby acquiescing to what is (Luke 18:1).

”

— David Wells, in an essay that influenced me greatly when I read it several years ago

“… our emotional educations are much more important [than our scholastic educations] to our long-term happiness and the quality of our lives.”

— David Brooks, qtd. here

“It is the curious mark of zealous Calvinism to proclaim salvation by faith alone while simultaneously attributing salvation to one’s ability to construct the very best diagram of reality according to Calvinist theories… Sola fide = Salvation by correct doctrine. A very curious form of doublethink.”

— Mark Shea. I don’t think that’s fair, but still, it’s worth pondering.

“Human love, *amor hominis*, chooses what is attractive and present. Luther emphasized this clearly when, recalling Augustine, he stated: ‘The love of man comes into being through that which is pleasing to it’. The *amor crucis*, on the other hand, God’s love revealed in the cross of Jesus, discovers nothing attractive, only sin, so that God’s love first creates what is attractive by the act of love: ‘The love of God does not find, but creates that which is pleasing to it’ (Luther). The love of God, the *amor Dei*, is directed to the unlovable and the ugly and by the act of creative love makes them lovable and beautiful (‘sinners are attractive because they are loved, they are not loved because they are attractive’, Luther).”

—

Eberhard Jüngel

(thanks, J)

“Father in heaven! Hold not our sins up against us but hold us up against our sins, so that the thought of thee, when it wakens, should not remind us of what we have committed but of what thou didst forgive, not of how we went astray but of how thou didst save us!”

— Kierkegaard (via)

“I have the same letter from about six different people. One from Australia, one from Germany, one from England, but they all said the same thing. They said, “I started reading your book after dinner and I finished it 3:45 the next morning, and I got up and went upstairs and I got my kids up and I just sat there in the bed and held them.”

— Cormac McCarthy, answering the question of what sort of responses his novel The Road has received from fathers (via @epjohnson)