Deus Misereatur

The Church in Exile: Living in Hope After Christendom by Lee J Beach My rating: 4 of 5 stars It regularly worries me when I hear Christians panicking and clanging the alarm, "We're being persecuted! Everyone is out to get us! Woe!" So it was refreshing to read "The Church in Exile: Living in Hope After Christendom" by Lee Beach, assistant professor of Christian ministry, director of ministry formation, and Garbutt F. Smith Chair of Ministry Formation at McMaster Divinity College in Hamilton, Ontario. In this 240 page softback, Beach's premise is not that Christians are being targeted and persecuted in the West, but that after centuries of being the privileged religion, we have now only become one of many. We have been pushed out of, or slipped out of, the limelight and set off to the margins. And our task in the present is to rethink what it means to be the church in exile, and how we do our tasks from the margin. In Beach's words, "I will attem...

The Habit of Being by Flannery O'Connor My rating: 5 of 5 stars I didn't know how well I'd do plodding through seventeen years of letters. But the compilation of Flannery O'Connor's correspondence in "The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor" ended up being an enjoyable read, and a voyage of discovery. This volume, compiled, selected and edited by her long time friend, Sally Fitzgerald, brought out aspects of O'Connor that are not easily divined from her novellas and short stories. If a reader wants to know the details of the content of "The Habit of Being," I'll refer them to the other reviews. I will simply point out four items that stand out to me above the numerous other characteristics I sighted. First, O'Connor was truly a child of her time and her place. Most of her life was spent in Georgia, with only a few small stints in Iowa, Connecticut, and shorter stays in a couple of other places. So her language and r...

Frontier Women: An Authentic History Of The Courage And Trials Of The Pioneer Heroines Of Our American Frontier by William Worthington Fowler My rating: 4 of 5 stars A longish piece that is a child of its age. Originally written around 1876 under the title "Woman on the American Frontier," it exhibits much of the perception of that era with regard to Native Americans and African Americans. Yet it was likely before its time with regard to the role and attitude toward women. From the coming of the Plymouth Pilgrims to the centenary, Fowler recounts the feats of women on the frontier, in harried and horrifying circumstances. The material brings one to recognize that life was nothing like it is today. One can only imagine how our forebearers survived such perils, whether man or woman, girl or boy! Some of the Victorian romantic with regard to womanhood unfortunately gushes in at times. If a reader can accept the book for when it was written, and as a product of its era, withou...

During Lent 2018 I put forward a series of sermons on "Biology, Brokenness, Bodies, and Beauty". I addressed these questions (and more): Is our biology important?  Do our bodies matter? Why am I male? Why am I female? What does any of this say about us as humans made in God's image? My plan in this series was not only to answer these questions, but to pass on a far more stunning and splendid perspective of our human sexuality than is being masterminded and marketed in our society today.  Here are the sermon titles, in order, that are linked to the audio files: Beginnings and Biological Sex Biological Sex and Embodiment Broken Sex and Broken Sin Broken Loves and Broken Limitations Body Matters and Bodies Matter Body Ravaged and Bodies Redeemed Body Broken (Good Friday) Blight and Beauty (Easter) The following is a (sample) list of resources for those who desire to go deeper and get the other side of the story: Why Gender-Specific Medicine Matters...

(The first line in the picture is Arabic: Al Massihu Qam! Haqqan Qam! The third line is Greek: Christos Anesti! Aletheos Avesti! Both declare the middle line) Our Father, who has told us to cast our burden on you and promised that you will sustain us, and that you shall never permit the righteous to be shaken (Psalm 55.22); we confidently lift up to you our petitions and supplications, because Christ is risen; he is risen indeed! We remember those who find themselves fraught with specific hardships, fears, worries and perplexities, and others who have been fractured by these adversities…raise them up in new-found hope; comforting, healing, restoring, and defending them where most needed; since Christ is risen; he is risen indeed! Guide the nations of the earth, the U.S.A., Liberia, Libya, and Liechtenstein, in the practices that foster peace and tranquility, and in proper ways so that all may prosper and your people may be safe. We pray for the greater Oklahoma City region ...