Tag: religion

“Adonai has compassion,” sang the psalmist, “for he understands how we are made, he remembers that we are dust.” Perhaps in our dust of grief, we see clearly for the first time.

If an invisible world is a reality, then a creator is probable, as the deists suggest, and perhaps even plausible. God may well be really real, just as I had supposed in my childhood years. I believe so.

Man must face the reality of his own existence and his ultimate fate. To stare into the abyss of eternity, to examine and grasp the meaning of life, is a necessity.

In this piece, I turn from the abstract idea of the marriage between the outer world of work and the inner world of the spirit to centers of education that are midwifing this renaissance of theologically-informed labor.

He does not conflate attendance with salvation or sanctification. But empty pews can neither be saved nor sanctified. They never serve in the nursery or children’s services. They never teach Sunday school or tithe. They bring no food for potluck. They do not pray. They do not worship.

Mr. McNabb recognizes the central passion of Fr. Vincent: his deep love for Christ, expressed through a severe asceticism, a total devotion to traditional Catholic doctrine and social teaching, a commitment to love and serve the poor, a tireless effort to preach and teach the Gospel—all aimed at personal holiness in pursuit of heaven.

What comes out is a story of a small group of Reformed Canadian Baptists who are rural, hardworking, self-educated (largely by reading the Bible), and persistent in becoming holy, but not without earning some dry humor along the way. Jeffrey excels at the hard task of publishing the culture of his upbringing, as well as some of the best of his private life, with both charity and clarity.

They know their neighbors; and their neighbors, after all, are probably their kinsmen too, though it might take a careful genealogist to trace two neighboring streams back to their originating source.

Instead of opposing one religion to another, we need the conscience and that humorous raised eyebrow, which Powys described, with feminine overtones, as “that withdrawn, quizzical look which conscience, that tough customer, regards as an invasion of its preserves,” to rend the veil in all of our religious temples: cultural/educational, economic and political.

I’m struck at the vanity of those impious folks infatuated with their ability to improve the situation without having first served a long apprenticeship...