by Andrew Stephens-Rennie
Light and life. Darkness and strife. Who was there to see it?
In the beginning, or so the story goes, God created the heavens and the earth.
In the beginning, or so the story goes, there was a word.
But what kind of word? What kind of word would it be? And what would this word do? Was there more than word, in the beginning with God? Was there more than one?
Perhaps not just one solitary word, but a couple, a few. Not one, but two or three.
by Brian Walsh
A meditation on Isaiah 2.5-22
I’m pretty sure that my former colleague, Calvin Seerveld, coined that phrase.
Culture is not optional because there is no such thing as human life together that is not at heart a culture-forming enterprise. Human language, family structures, gender relations, economies, agriculture and creative expression is all culturally founded and culturally formative.
And for ancient Israel, culture making is at the very foundation of human identity. We are mandated to be fruitful, to multiply and to “fill” the earth. Read the rest of this entry »
by Brian Walsh
Republished with permission from www.huffingtonpost.com
Sunset is an angel weeping
Holding out a bloody sword
No matter how I squint I cannot
Make out what it’s pointing toward
These lines, from Bruce Cockburn’s hauntingly beautiful song “Pacing the Cage,” have been my constant companions as I have been reflecting on the year that was and the year that is to come. As the sun sets on another year of violence on the battlefields of war and urban conflict, another year of ecological despoliation coupled with economic greed, another year of political duplicity and media distraction, you can see the blood everywhere.
Maybe you can see an angel weeping, holding out a bloody sword. Weeping over the blood stained year that has passed. Weeping over that sword of judgment still gripped in his hand. There is blood on that sword, but it has not finished its violent judgment. There is more to come and no matter how the artist squints, he cannot discern where that sword is now pointing. Maybe he doesn’t want to know. But whatever the reason, Cockburn then sings,
Sometimes you feel like you’ve lived too long
Days drip slowly on the page
You catch yourself
Pacing the cage
On December 10th, post-Christian Shock Jock Drew Marshall interviewed Brian about his latest offering, Kicking at the Darkness. It’s a great far-ranging conversation about the book, the music, and what exactly is “Christian.”
Keep giving us Christians a hard time. We desperately need it.
Here’s the link.
by Dion Oxford
Imagine a day when everyone was a part of a caring community of people who loved each other.
Consider a day when everyone shared their stuff; in fact, no one believed anything was ‘their stuff’ but that it belonged to the whole community.
Imagine a time when no one felt the need to abuse the people in their community by taking advantage of people’s kindness.
Imagine a time when everyone had someone to love and knew that someone loved them.
Just imagine!
Come Lord Jesus. Come quickly!
by Jake Aikenhead
The Sabbatical Year and the Year of Jubilee are impressive institutions in the socio-economic life of Israel, but they aren’t regular topics of conversation during Advent. And this is, ostensibly, with good reason. It would seem that even the most creative theologians might be hard pressed to establish a connection between Israel’s socio-economic life and our expectant awaiting of the birth of Jesus.
But a faithful reading of the Gospel of Luke – the gospel we turn to for an in depth account of our Saviour’s unorthodox birth – suggests otherwise. In fact, in the Gospel of Luke we find that there is a very precise connection between the laws of Sabbath and jubilee and the child for whom there was no room at the inn. Luke tells us that Jesus is the agent of a new kind of jubilee.
For us to see this connection properly, however, we’ll need to look briefly at the Sabbatical Year and the Year of Jubilee. Read the rest of this entry »
by Dion Oxford
Imagine a day when everyone had meaningful work for meaningful pay.
Consider a time when people didn’t have to take a job that was degrading, humiliating and went against their own personal values just so they could pay the bills and feed their children.
Imagine a world where there was no such thing as a power hungry, greedy employer who didn’t care about anything but her/his profit margin.
Just imagine!
Come Lord Jesus. Come quickly!
by Dion Oxford
Imagine a world where when someone asks “are you ready for Christmas?” it didn’t mean “have you braved the frantic masses of bargain hunters in malls so that you can buy all the useless presents for the people you care for so you can prove you love them?”
Imagine a day when getting ready for Christmas meant preparing our hearts, our homes, our families for the coming of the Saviour of the world.
Just imagine!
Come Lord Jesus. Come quickly!
by Dion Oxford
Imagine a world where no one felt lonely.
Imagine a day when no one ever felt isolated, left out, misunderstood, abandoned or marginalized.
Consider a time when no one ever again found themselves feeling completely alone while in a crowd of people who were having seemingly stimulating conversations and joy filled laughter.
Imagine a world where no one ever felt so disconnected from everyone around them that they considered running away or even taking their own life.
Just imagine!
Come Lord Jesus. Come quickly!
by Dion Oxford
Imagine a world without anyone who was depressed.
Imagine a time when no one was schizophrenic, bipolar, psychotic, or had a personality disorder.
Consider a day when people weren’t imprisoned because they did something outside of their control; a day when jails weren’t over populated with folks who were mentally ill because prison was society’s best response to this severe health issue.
Even better, imagine this wasn’t an issue to have to deal with because no one was mentally ill in the first place.
Just imagine!
Come Lord Jesus. Come quickly!
