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We are now in the season of Advent —a season where we both (1) remember the waiting that happened before Jesus’ Incarnation (his first Advent) even as we (2) wait for his promised Second Coming. Both of these features shape how the Church has historically approached the days leading-up to the celebration of Christ’s birth on Dec. 25.
This year we enter into Advent amidst many great shakings that have rocked the Anglican world. A short list runs as follows…
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…A deeply missional impulse calls us to inhabit eternity. We want to avoid forever gazing at a historical golden age of gospel advancement (“oh man, to be a Christian in Hawaii back then”). We also want to avoid an idolatrous futuristic outlook (“once this happens [insert blank] then we’ll truly be [insert blank] and missionally effective”). We want, thirdly, to avoid a social-clubbishness that comes from focusing only on the immediate contexts in which we live (“these are the golden days” or “we’ve arrived”)…
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p/c Francesco Alberti via unsplash
…The whole scene is a torpor of movement and action: swords drawn, Malchus’ ear being severed, torches being raised, arms lifted, hands gripping bodies in the background, two men wave cudgels, and everyone’s legs and cloaks seem in a tangle. Two frightened on-lookers peer from behind a rock face —have they just woken from slumber?
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p/c Yoav Aziz via unsplash
This week we have a guest post from one of our vestry members, Alli Evans, who got to visit the GAFCON church-plant in Japan with whom we are developing a missional relationship: OMSA….
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p/c Wilhelm Gunkel via unsplash
…“Give baby a kiss for me….”
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p/c 🇸🇮 Janko Ferlič via unsplash
“When you were born, you were caught as you came out of the chute, so to speak —caught and embraced in the arms of your mother […] You were held face to face, there at the beginning […] and if not your birth mother, some other had to catch you and care for you. Or you would not have survived. Mother’s gaze was one of freely offered delight and welcome. Hello! Here you are! I’m so glad you are here! We’ve been waiting so long for you, and your being here is endlessly wonderful. Welcome to the world!” (p.9)
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p/c Viktor Talashuk via unsplash
…Halloween is a remnant of a series of three days on which the Church celebrated the victory of Jesus’ Kingdom over the powers of the world, the flesh and the devil; Hallow’s Eve, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day…
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p/c Storebror9689 via wikimedia commons, public domain
Users can communicate over great distances with one another and particularly power operators of the master-stone can bend the other stones to their will and utilize the whole web of palantiri as a kind of surveillance network to cast their minds across vast stretches of Middle Earth.
…It is such stones that allow Sauron and Saruman to communicate with one another. It is another such stone that allows Denethor to spy on Sauron.
Here’s where things get real: ‘Palantir’ is the name that venture-capitalist-turned-apocalyptic-theologian Peter Thiel gave to his surveillance firm…
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p/c White House Butlers Pantry via Wikimedia Commons, 2002; public domain
…to their request Jesus gives what I call a “broken parable” —a parable that begins with reference to the way things are right now and then, by implication, suggests that if this is true of things in a broken system how much better are your fortunes in God’s jovial kingdom (e.g. the parable of the persistent widow in Lk. 18:1-8)…
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p/c Mateus Campos Felipe via unsplash
There’s a question I get from time to time which runs something, amidst all its variations, like: “Why are you called a ‘priest’ when Jesus alone is the final priest between God and man?” quoting verses like 1 Tim. 2:5 or Heb. 4:14-16. It’s sometimes also asked relatedly of me that “the New Testament churches were lead by Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons —why don’t we use those terms?”
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