Posted on by Kurt Bodling

just talk together, already

“First of all, we have to listen to one another and sit down and talk together in a civil spirit. I regret the way in which some go off in a sectarian way within the church and make their own little home in one wing or the other and become either liberal Catholic reformist types or truly adamant conservatives. Then they just tend to shoot across at one another from their trenches. This is not a healthy thing within the church. We have to cultivate the spirit of unity among Catholics and to try to understand one another’s point of view and learn from one another. This would be my hope.”

Avery Cardinal Dulles. “Reason, Faith and Theology.” Interviewer: James Martin, SJ.  America. 5 March 2001 issue. Viewed online 12 December 2015 at http://americamagazine.org/issue/338/article/reason-faith-and-theology

Note: There has to be a better way to live together, says Cardinal Dulles, than in constant sniping, argument, and disagreement. Especially within the Church. You’d think this would be obvious to people whose Leader once prayed to His heavenly Father “that they may be one, as we are one.”

On the other hand, if your first move is to define the other folk out of the Church because they think/say/do something you think they shouldn’t, then I guess you feel like you aren’t violating the Savior’s prayer intention. Not a smart strategy. And you’ll have further to go to get to the point I want to see: cultivating the spirit of unity among all Christians (and not just the Catholics).

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

creation care among Christians

Quote:
“So what might we take away from the document? I would suggest several things. First, Francis provides a way of engaging those who do not share our beliefs in a post-Christian world. Second, the document provides some helpful lines of direction toward a more robust theology of creation and its use within the church. Finally, Francis encourages us to expand our horizons and embrace a comprehensive vision of the world. He challenges the church to take a global perspective in which a practical commitment to human beings and the environment take priority over a commitment to nationalities, ideologies, economic theories, and politics.”

Charles P. Arand, “Tending Our Common Home: Reflections on Laudato Si’.” Concordia Journal Fall 2015, vol. 41, no. 4, page 308.

Note:
LCMS seminary prof Charles Arand highlights things that Lutherans can pick up from Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato Si’. I’m not sure, however, whether any Lutherans really have taken up the 2015 encyclical. I certainly don’t see a lot of Lutheran focus on the issues of creation care. We do talk a lot about “life issues” but I just can’t say that I’ve seen much that uses the phrase to include preservation and enrichment of all life on earth. And, yes, I’m talking about the scourge of climate change.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

irreconcilable differences? hope not!

Quote:
“We have irreconcilable differences with Rome on the second and third articles related to the work of Christ and justification by faith alone that date back to the sixteenth century. But we share a number of common convictions regarding the first article of the creed as it relates to the moral issues of society and God’s continuing work in creation (creatio continua).”

Note:
As a respected seminary professor in the LCMS, Arand knows of what he speaks, but I sure wish he hadn’t called the differences “irreconcilable.” That troubles me. At one time it wouldn’t have. Still, I guess it’s good there’s something we agree on.

Charles P. Arand, “Tending Our Common Home: Reflections on Laudato Si’.” Concordia Journal Fall 2015, vol. 41, no. 4, page 308.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

comparing apples to tricycles

“When we set Christianity and Buddhism side by side, we must try to find the points where a genuinely common ground between the two exists. At the present moment, this is no easy task. In fact it is practically impossible. ….

“The immense variety of forms taken by thought, experience, worship, moral practice, in both Buddhism and Christianity make all comparisons haphazard….”

Merton, Thomas. “A Christian Looks at Zen.” (1967) in Selected Essays. Edited with an introduction by Patrick F. O’Connell. (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013), page 349.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

linked in a unity

“Those with a passionate sense of the divine milieu cannot bear to find things about them obscure, tepid, and empty, things which should be full and vibrant with God. They are paralyzed by the thought of the innumerable spirits which are linked to theirs in the unity of the same world, but are not yet fully kindled by the flame of the divine presence.”

Teilhard de Chardin, Pierre. The Divine Milieu. Translated by Siôn Cowell. (Portland, OR: Sussex Academic Press, 2012), page 107.