I've been thinking about exactly this question a lot lately... I think naming antichrist as "an effort" is a really good approach. I think even Hans Urs von Balthasar tacitly (and I think Ratzinger actually does this explicitly) names "antichrist" as a *specific capacity* of the church. Its inevitable "dark side". One cannot be antichrist without first seeing themselves as "in Christ" and then abusing that position/association. It's the worst kind of oversight about oneself.
Anyway, ao much for keeping our eyes peeled for a blonde, blue-eyed Romanian atheist.
"One cannot be antichrist without first seeing themselves as "in Christ" and then abusing that position/association." That's a helpful saying. Thank you!
Thanks for sharing the link to your article that got you dropped from coffee dates. The Blake quote that stsrts with also appears in Charles Williams' The New Christian Year alongside another Blake quote. And your wife's admonition of keep your ministry to yourself is also similar to a quote in the same volume,
Antichrist alone is enemy enough, but never carry this consideration beyond thyself.
--John Donne: Sermons.
I like the way you refuse to label anyone as the one and only Anti-Christ but note the spirit of "A.C" is among us, and your insistence that our faith communities require introspection and confession just as much as individuals are asked to search their own hearts.
Thank you for handing me a copy of All Hallows Eve some 25 years ago. I'm still drinking the Kool Ade that is Charles Williams because his theology speaks to the kind of situation that we are in. Here is the Blake quote he parted with the one above from the reading for the 4th Friday in Lent. It imagines a society that actually functions in repentance and in the details:
England! awake! awake! awake!
Jerusalem thy sister calls!
Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death,
And close her from thy ancient walls?
Thy hills and valleys felt her feet,
Gently upon their bosoms move:
Thy gates beheld sweet Zion’s ways;
Then was a time of joy and love.
And now the time returns again:
Our souls exult, and London’s towers
Receive the Lamb of God to dwell
In England’s green and pleasant bowers.
--Blake: Jerusalem.
He who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars.
This is all a gust of fresh air to me this morning, my brother. Thank *you* for reminding me of what's possible with your art, your love, and your friendship across the centuries. If I knew how to paste people in Hee-Haw saying "Salute!"...I'd do it right now. Love from a few blocks away.
And, today's quote from The New Chistian Year (1941):
2nd Monday after Trinity
What is 'spirit'? (for Christ is spirit, his religion that of the spirit). Spirit is: to live as though dead (dead to the world).
This way of life is so entirely foreign to man that to him it is quite literally worse than death.
Very carefully introduced for an hour or so in the distance of the imagination, natural man can bear it, it even pleases him. But if it is brought nearer him, so near that it becomes, in all seriousness, something required of him: the natural instinct of self-protection rises up so powerfully in him that a regular uproar follows, as with drink . . . And in that condition, in which he is beside himself, he demands the death of the man of spirit, or rushes upon him to put him to death.
Facebook just removed the link to the essay you referred to above from contributing author Mark Wingfield of Baptist News Global ... it was up for 3 seconds before they nixed it for violating "Community Standards"!! What is up with that???
David, there are so many who neither read your scintillating essays nor listen to my forgivable sermons, and who might be the kind of people you (or I) might even highlight as a person of regard in their diverse backgrounds and expressions of regard for others and other communities....and who will also likely vote for the former president. I understand your longstanding and relentless project aiming toward private and public virtue. Who can argue with it? I do not. But you do not account for the aforementioned constituencies. Unless I have elsewhere missed it you do not steel man their point(s) of view. (I intentionally apply the plural, because they are not one, I surmise.) I suspect among them are those who find him barely less repugnant as you do. But even with your qualification here, stepping back from the Tim Lahaye precipice of fingering the Ancient Foe, you successfully lop those I mention into a homogeneity you in other moments and matters display an aversion to. If there's anyone who could manifest the kind of curiosity for understanding of the "other" it is you. If there's anyone who could ascertain that way of thinking and have a kind of respect for it without having to concede the point(s) of view, it would be you. I believe it would only burnish your Project.
I live in hope.
[Even as I close here I realize you may have undertaken in your latest work, which I have not yet consulted but will, the very demonstration of curiosity I mention. In that case, apologies in advance. Carry on...nothing to see here.]
This is absolutely brilliant so I am going to quote the Bible on this.
"Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that Antichrist cometh, even now there are become many Antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last hour." - 1 John 2:18 DRT
"And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world." - 1 John 4:3 KJV
So you are in complete conformity with the Bible here, congrats!!
I thank you! I'm not sure what complete conformity with something like the Bible would look like (or if it would be desirable), but I sense that you're paying me a compliment. For this, I am grateful.
I've been thinking about exactly this question a lot lately... I think naming antichrist as "an effort" is a really good approach. I think even Hans Urs von Balthasar tacitly (and I think Ratzinger actually does this explicitly) names "antichrist" as a *specific capacity* of the church. Its inevitable "dark side". One cannot be antichrist without first seeing themselves as "in Christ" and then abusing that position/association. It's the worst kind of oversight about oneself.
Anyway, ao much for keeping our eyes peeled for a blonde, blue-eyed Romanian atheist.
"One cannot be antichrist without first seeing themselves as "in Christ" and then abusing that position/association." That's a helpful saying. Thank you!
Theology is a contact sport
It is!
Thanks for sharing the link to your article that got you dropped from coffee dates. The Blake quote that stsrts with also appears in Charles Williams' The New Christian Year alongside another Blake quote. And your wife's admonition of keep your ministry to yourself is also similar to a quote in the same volume,
Antichrist alone is enemy enough, but never carry this consideration beyond thyself.
--John Donne: Sermons.
I like the way you refuse to label anyone as the one and only Anti-Christ but note the spirit of "A.C" is among us, and your insistence that our faith communities require introspection and confession just as much as individuals are asked to search their own hearts.
Thank you for handing me a copy of All Hallows Eve some 25 years ago. I'm still drinking the Kool Ade that is Charles Williams because his theology speaks to the kind of situation that we are in. Here is the Blake quote he parted with the one above from the reading for the 4th Friday in Lent. It imagines a society that actually functions in repentance and in the details:
England! awake! awake! awake!
Jerusalem thy sister calls!
Why wilt thou sleep the sleep of death,
And close her from thy ancient walls?
Thy hills and valleys felt her feet,
Gently upon their bosoms move:
Thy gates beheld sweet Zion’s ways;
Then was a time of joy and love.
And now the time returns again:
Our souls exult, and London’s towers
Receive the Lamb of God to dwell
In England’s green and pleasant bowers.
--Blake: Jerusalem.
He who would do good to another must do it in minute particulars.
-- Blake: Jerusalem.
This is all a gust of fresh air to me this morning, my brother. Thank *you* for reminding me of what's possible with your art, your love, and your friendship across the centuries. If I knew how to paste people in Hee-Haw saying "Salute!"...I'd do it right now. Love from a few blocks away.
And, today's quote from The New Chistian Year (1941):
2nd Monday after Trinity
What is 'spirit'? (for Christ is spirit, his religion that of the spirit). Spirit is: to live as though dead (dead to the world).
This way of life is so entirely foreign to man that to him it is quite literally worse than death.
Very carefully introduced for an hour or so in the distance of the imagination, natural man can bear it, it even pleases him. But if it is brought nearer him, so near that it becomes, in all seriousness, something required of him: the natural instinct of self-protection rises up so powerfully in him that a regular uproar follows, as with drink . . . And in that condition, in which he is beside himself, he demands the death of the man of spirit, or rushes upon him to put him to death.
Søren Kierkegaard: Journals.
If only Art Bell were here too...
Maybe he is, Tom. *pregnant pause* Maybe he is.
Facebook just removed the link to the essay you referred to above from contributing author Mark Wingfield of Baptist News Global ... it was up for 3 seconds before they nixed it for violating "Community Standards"!! What is up with that???
It doesn't fit their business model.
David, there are so many who neither read your scintillating essays nor listen to my forgivable sermons, and who might be the kind of people you (or I) might even highlight as a person of regard in their diverse backgrounds and expressions of regard for others and other communities....and who will also likely vote for the former president. I understand your longstanding and relentless project aiming toward private and public virtue. Who can argue with it? I do not. But you do not account for the aforementioned constituencies. Unless I have elsewhere missed it you do not steel man their point(s) of view. (I intentionally apply the plural, because they are not one, I surmise.) I suspect among them are those who find him barely less repugnant as you do. But even with your qualification here, stepping back from the Tim Lahaye precipice of fingering the Ancient Foe, you successfully lop those I mention into a homogeneity you in other moments and matters display an aversion to. If there's anyone who could manifest the kind of curiosity for understanding of the "other" it is you. If there's anyone who could ascertain that way of thinking and have a kind of respect for it without having to concede the point(s) of view, it would be you. I believe it would only burnish your Project.
I live in hope.
[Even as I close here I realize you may have undertaken in your latest work, which I have not yet consulted but will, the very demonstration of curiosity I mention. In that case, apologies in advance. Carry on...nothing to see here.]
Thank you, Patrick. When you say that I find someone repugnant, are you referring to Public Servant 45?
This is absolutely brilliant so I am going to quote the Bible on this.
"Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that Antichrist cometh, even now there are become many Antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last hour." - 1 John 2:18 DRT
"And every spirit that confesseth not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh is not of God: and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard that it should come; and even now already is it in the world." - 1 John 4:3 KJV
So you are in complete conformity with the Bible here, congrats!!
I thank you! I'm not sure what complete conformity with something like the Bible would look like (or if it would be desirable), but I sense that you're paying me a compliment. For this, I am grateful.
Yes I am; you nailed it and the Bible is saying this exact thing you just posted. Most definitely a compliment!