Political Alchemy

The shift with modern political theory, of course, is the abstraction of this universal theory of politics from any actual catholic political body. Modern political thought is left with the tension between universal ideal theories and the actual traditions and structures of particular nations. By what alchemy of abstraction does an argument for the supremacy of the Council over the Pope in the catholic church become a general argument for constitutionalism?

The Rev’d Dr. Peter Leithart

Pick your poison

All the reformers (Luther, Calvin, Bucer, Cranmer, & Zwingli) agreed that the visible church was wherever the word of God was purely preached, the sacraments rightly administered (and for Calvin, church discipline rightly applied).

However, if you were to ask any one of them what they MEAN by that definition you would get 5 DIFFERENT answers…

And so it is…

How Sweet and Awful

‎”How sweet and awful is the place with Christ within the doors; while everlasting love displays the choicest of her stores. While all our hearts and all our songs join to admire the feast, each of us cry, with thankful tongues, “Lord, why was I a guest? Why was I made to hear thy voice, and enter while there’s room, when thousands make a wretched choice, and rather starve than come?

“‘Twas the same love that spread the feast that sweetly drew us in; else we had still refused to taste, and perished in our sin. Pity the nations, O our God, constrain the earth to come; send thy victorious Word abroad, and bring the strangers home. We long to see thy churches full, that all the chosen race May, with one voice and heart and soul, sing thy redeeming grace”

~Isaac Watts, How Sweet and Awful is the Place

Happy Reformation Sunday

may God heal the divisions in his Church by the same Spirit that sweetly drew us in In the words of the Jewish tradition, in the Amidah, Heal us O Lord and we shall be healed, save us and we shall be saved, for You are our praise.

Man in Revolt

‎”THE pessimist is commonly spoken of as the man in revolt. He is not. Firstly, because it requires some cheerfulness to continue in revolt, and secondly, because pessimism appeals to the weaker side of everybody, and the pessimist, therefore, drives as roaring a trade as the publican. The person who is really in revolt is the optimist, who generally lives and dies in a desperate and suicidal effort to persuade all the other people how good they are. It has been proved a hundred times over that if you really wish to enrage people and make them angry, even unto death, the right way to do it is to tell them that they are all the sons of God.”

~GK Chesterton: ‘The Defendant.’

City demands Christians get permit for Bible study

“Chuck and Stephanie Fromm already have been fined $300 for holding Bible studies for their friends at their home, and they face the potential for additional fines of $500 for each study held, according to a legal team taking their case to court.

The newest conflict over Bible studies in homes in America arose in SanJuan Capistrano, Calif., where city officials say city code section 9-3.301 prohibits religious organizations in residential neighborhoods without a conditional-use permit, a sometimes very expensive procedure.

The code cites churches, temples, synagogues, monasteries, religious retreats, and other places of religious worship and other fraternal and community service organizations.”

 

Read more:City demands Christians get permit for Bible studyhttp://www.wnd.com/?pageId=345073#ixzz1YEe09NiG