CALLING ALL CATHOLICS & PEOPLE OF GOOD WILL TO FASTING, PENANCE AND PRAYER ON 1ST DECEMBER 2006.
I was alerted to this by Bob’s Beatitudes in Action. Bishop Antony Selvanayagam’s exhortation is worth listening here:
“The words of Jesus come vividly and forcefully “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you” this is not the time for revenge but a time for healing and prayer. In the spirit of Christ and the church I call on all Catholics and all people of good will to observe Friday the 1st of December 2006 as a day of fast, penance and prayer. As far as possible gather in your own churches and chapels and homes at 8.00 pm and pray for:
1. Healing: that the first communion children and the parishioners of Our Lady of Lourdes in Ipoh many be healed for this negative experience and experience peace and tranquillity to the full again in Jesus.
2. Forgiveness: that we forgive the Muslim group sincerely from our hearts as Jesus forgives us and call upon God the Almighty to forgive the group.
3. Dialogue: that the Prime Minister and the Cabinet will seriously work towards establishing structures of Dialogue at various levels, comprising peoples of all races, cultures and religions. “
Article 11
Got a lot of press at one point in Malaysia … “The coalition of NGOs known as Article 11 is committed to embracing, upholding and pursuing the realization of the following principles as guaranteed by the Federal Constitution and Human Rights Conventions”
Sisters In Islam
An amazing group of ladies … “Sisters in Islam (SIS) is an independent non-governmental organisation which believes in an Islam that upholds the principles of equality, justice, freedom and dignity.”
Jesus’ speech, God’s word: an introduction to Eberhard Jungel – part 1 –
I heard Jungel’s name a number of times in Germany so it’s true that “Of all contemporary Protestant thinkers in Germany, he is at once the most invigorating and the most demanding. He is also seriously underappreciated. Unlike his near-contemporaries Jurgen Moltmann and Wolfhart Pannenberg, he is little known in North America, though the work of translators and interpreters in the 1980s has improved the situation. Even in Germany, where students flock to hear him lecture and preach, he remains a somewhat tangential figure in the theological establishment.”.
Loads of food for thought …
“Developing coherent and persuasive Christian answers to those questions, Jungel proposes, commits the theologian to a dual task. The first is to give sustained attention to Jesus. In Jesus, Jungel argues, God “comes to the world,” and in that coming all truth about God and humanity is embodied. It is therefore Jesus and his proclamation (and not religious consciousness, morals or ideas) which must be the imaginative center of theological existence. “I believe, therefore I speak,” Jungel wrote in a summary of his theology. But “not of me and of my faith … I believe, therefore I speak of the God who has come to the world as a human being and who has for our salvation revealed himself as God in the person of Jesus Christ.”
“The second task is responsible critique of the intellectual habits of the modem world which have exercised such authority over Christian thinking since the 17th century. “Human reason’s ideas of God, when reason does not let itself be led on to the path of thought by the God who comes to the world, pass God by. Thus even faith cannot speak of God without thinking about God.” But to speak and think in this way is to be astonished, for, “believing, one experiences God as the inexhaustible mystery of oneself and all things.”
Who God is, who we are: an introduction to Eberhard Jungel – II –
More to chew on … “WE SHOULD BE human and not God. That is the summa.” So Luther in a famous letter to Spalatin in 1530. The aphorism is a favorite of Eberhard Jungel’s, pointing to the heart of his understanding of the gospel. “In the last analysis,” he writes, “the revelation of God which it is the concern of Christian theology to understand means just this: for the good of humanity God himself intends the proper distinction between himself and humanity.” Behind Jungel’s critical reading of modem intellectual and political culture, and behind his own presentation of Christian faith, lies a sense that responsible Christian theology arises in faith’s conviction that “God became human to differentiate savingly between God and humanity.””
Toward the Heart of the Matter
Listening to Eberhard Jungel directly.
Posts on Eberhard Jüngel
A good bonus compilation of posts 🙂
