tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post2957652071631817855..comments2024-03-24T11:30:08.199-07:00Comments on Can you believe?: Where our hearts are, and who cares?Johan Maurerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-1132610892096608612006-12-07T14:37:00.000-08:002006-12-07T14:37:00.000-08:00wow! this post touched me in a lot of different p...wow! this post touched me in a lot of different places (in the post and in me). there's a lot for me to think about from it, and i plan to. right now, the only thing i think i could add... not to the post, but... in terms of adding rather than rambling with no point or something... is when i read this part: ". But we can also ask whether the allergic reaction to Christian language is the symptom of a wound that deserves tender attention." i thought so much about symptoms and causes and how so much of what our culture does is about symptoms. and i think our symptoms are easier to touch... and easier to have touched. and so my first thought was "how can that wound be touched?" if it is the cause of the allergy-- and then i started thinking about reactions to attempts to touch the wound and how... we americans today don't do that. have people ever?cubbiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01967417546891684102noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-43180929593208819032006-12-01T17:51:00.000-08:002006-12-01T17:51:00.000-08:00See Jon Pahl's brief essay "Ted Haggard's 'Sin'"--...See Jon Pahl's brief essay "<a href="http://marty-center.uchicago.edu/sightings/archive_2006/1130.shtml">Ted Haggard's 'Sin'</a>"--published in Martin Marty's "Sightings" series.Johan Maurerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-17088157872302288092006-11-30T10:32:00.000-08:002006-11-30T10:32:00.000-08:00Johan -- On a different tack: Thank you for linkin...Johan -- On a different tack: Thank you for linking to Ted Haggard's letter. I appreciate your concern for Friends in our meetings who feel that they must live secret lives.<br /><br />But I was struck by another aspect of the letter. I was surprised at its authentic tone. It sounded to me exactly like such a letter should sound. His confession was unqualified and not in the least self-justifying. It seemed to recognize the depth of the disappointment his conduct had caused. In short, I was moved by it and could feel compassion for him as I hadn't previously.<br /><br />The problem, though, is that he apparently believes that his sin was being homosexual instead of a hypocrite, or, more deeply, his failure to accept his sexuality as a God-given gift that he shares with millions whom he has actively persecuted. He shows no sign of repenting the injuries he has inflicted on gay people.<br /><br />I can imagine this story could end in a Saul of Tarsus kind of conversion, something like David Brock or Mel White.<br /><br />Unfortunately, the bunch he's getting counseling from is unlikely to turn him round in that direction. He needs our prayers.Paul Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03483071863453025925noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-56415127251942519772006-11-28T22:50:00.000-08:002006-11-28T22:50:00.000-08:00Whatever definition of "faith" you prefer, the rea...Whatever definition of "faith" you prefer, the reality of faith can be seen as both internal (an individualistic interpretation, touching on the soul's health or perhaps eternal destiny) and as touching the life of the whole community. In the second case, I doubt either kind of faith carries power to build up the community without some sense of mutual service and support.Johan Maurerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13771067774042071617noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-18345092192244256752006-11-24T13:32:00.000-08:002006-11-24T13:32:00.000-08:00It is not only "works" that has two meanings; "fai...It is not only "works" that has two meanings; "faith" in the NT certainly has at least two meanings: For Paul, "faith" means "deep trust" or even "trusting faithfulness"; for James, "faith" means simply "intellectual belief" -- no wonder he says that faith without works is dead!<br /><br />VailAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-64787608762769886832006-11-23T10:34:00.000-08:002006-11-23T10:34:00.000-08:00In the Spiritual Nurturer Program, we were taught ...In the <a href="http://www.quakerinfo.com/nurturer.shtml">Spiritual Nurturer Program</a>, we were taught that the primary role of elder was spiritual nurturer. I can see that shining forth in a number of the quotes from early Friends that Marshall uses in his long blog essay.<br /><br />Today I wonder if there is so much confusion about the term elder that it might just be better to use the terminology of spiritual nurture. This should involve some accountability, but it does not have the disciplinarian connotation that elder has come to have in many minds.<br /><br />Marshall seeks, as is his custom, to draw sharp lines. But I wonder if that is necessarily helpful as we look at how the Spirit can guide us today, rather than argue about history as if we were meant to ape the institutional mechanisms of our forbears.<br /><br />I think there is value both in recognizing certain people as being particularly equipped to perform well certain types of spiritual nurture, and that we should all be providing nurture to each other. In the spiritual direction models current today, there is the spiritual director model and the group spiritual direction model. The best observers don't view this as either/or.<br /><br />Increasingly Friends have become involved in the larger community's approaches towards spiritual nurture and spiritual direction. I think this is healthy.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7217199.post-21428930028245606982006-11-23T07:21:00.000-08:002006-11-23T07:21:00.000-08:00Dear Johan --
Many thanks for the kind words you ...Dear Johan --<br /><br />Many thanks for the kind words you gave to all sides in the debate on eldering. I especially appreciate the way you have taken my own thinking one important step further, turning it into a question about how we -- every one of us -- make ourselves <I>present</I> to one another. The rôles you explicitly assign to pastor and elder, we in our tiny Conservative meeting here in Omaha give informally to our seasoned Friends. But I wholeheartedly agree with you: they are rôles that <I>must be made available</I> to those who might be seeking them -- for the good of the wounded, the good of the Quaker community, the good of the larger community, and our own good as those who might be required to fill them!<br /><br />On the ancient faith vs. works debate, it may be that <I>modern</I> Friends are among those who say that both sides are correct. But I haven't yet come across ancient Friends who said that. (It really wasn't their style to say, placatingly, "Both of you are right!") When pressed on the matter (as in Barclay's <B><I>Apology</I></B>, Prop. VII, §9) they would repeat James's assertion that faith without works is dead. But when simply speaking from experience and conviction, without reference to the demands of others that they be orthodox, their position seems to have been that the key is neither intellectual faith, emotional faith, nor works, but the experience of the inward Guide, and obedience to what that Guide requires of one. Here was "faith" reinterpreted as "faithfulness" -- <I>pistis</I> as <I>fidelitas</I>.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com