"Not in our day, but at no distant one, we may shake a rod over the heads of all, which may make the stoutest of them tremble. But I hope our wisdom will grow with our power, and teach us, that the less we use our power, the greater it will be,"
"The greatness of Christianity lies in its being hated by the world, not in its being convincing to it."
"The key thing to realize, as in the Old Testament, in Daniel, for example, is that heaven is the control room for what happens on earth... Heaven is basically where earth is run from. And it’s because we haven’t taken seriously the language of Matthew 28, where Jesus says, “All authority is given to me in heaven and on earth,” that we haven’t thought of it like that. We’ve thought of it like, He’s gone away, leaving us to run things. No. He is in heaven. He is in charge. He is the Lord. That’s true right now. Now, how his lordship works out is then through the work of the church. But he is the Lord and is present with and through his church, as we are doing what we are called to do... The Ascension properly allows us to understand the Second Coming. Again, it isn’t a matter of Jesus as a spaceman flying downwards. It’s the screen being removed and his reappearing. When I was working on the lectures that turned into Surprised by Hope, I realized that so many of the key passages speak of “his appearing,” not merely “his coming.” And “coming” is a good way to express the truth, because it appears he is now absent and so then if he appears to us, then it is as though he has come and has arrived. But the Second Coming is more like an unveiling or appearing."
"One of the more interesting sayings of Jesus with equally interesting theological implications is found in Mt. 18.18--" I tell you whatever you (i.e. Peter and the gang) bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." The Greek here is straight forward, and the contrast between the present and future tenses have clear enough implications. One can point out of course the use of ean plus the subjunctive form of verbs, which with the future of the verb 'to be' in this case refers to a 'future more probable' condition, but the point remains the same. If the Evangelist, and/or Jesus before him had wanted to say "whatever is bound on earth, was already bound and determined in heaven" he could certainly have done so, first in Aramaic and then in a Greek rendering of the same. The fact is that Jesus here says the opposite. This saying, which is actually quite typical of early Jewish ways of thinking about such matters, and may reflect an inter-textual echo as well, is of momentous import for understanding Jesus' view of things."
"Of course there are numerous Biblical texts where God takes the initiative and humans respond. I am not for a minute disputing that. But a view of God's sovereignty that does not take into account viable human choice, and the fact that those choices can have heavenly and indeed eternal consequences, has not reckoned with the full scope of what the Bible says about the relationship between God's power and will, and the human response to the same."
"Who would now deny that the political ascendancy of the religious right has been bad for the United States? Its destructive consequences are plain for all to see. It has polarized the nation. It has injected theological certainties into public life. It has led political leaders to invest their aims and their deeds with metaphysical significance. It has made America a laughingstock in the eyes of the educated of the world. And it has encouraged devout believers to think of themselves as agents of the divine, and their political opponents as enemies of God."
"If you believe in God and His final judgement, everyone’s acts and goals have metaphysical significance. Linker has put things rather crudely, since this line does not just strike at Mr. Bush’s gnostic madness, but effectively attacks providential order and transcendent moral order by implying that there is something awry in attributing metaphysical significance to earthly acts. The thing he is really attacking is the revolutionary urge to realise the Kingdom here below, but as so often with secular critics of religious conservatism Linker does not distinguish between fanatics and traditionalists. Again, if you believe in God, everyone is ultimately an instrument of God and everyone is part of His providential order. This is not something concocted by religious conservatives, and in any case it is once again not clear why this is inherently “destructive” or undesirable. When Mr. Bush dresses up his war of aggression as part of some mission to realise God’s plan of liberating the world–a crazier, more destructive form of liberation theology, I dare say, than most of what comes out of Trinity United–that is worthy of condemnation, and, of course, many traditionalists have condemned it."
"To watch is to be prepared for the unexpected. It is to give up the illusions of straight-line extrapolations, the silly assumption that current trends will continue. It is to abandon the calculations of the pundits about the swinging of some invisible pendulum. In this time, particularly, it is to accept the fact that life will not go on as it has. A change is in the offing, but no one knows what direction it will take. History is the realm of contingency, the unexpected. The proper eschatology is watchful expectancy for the Abba's work and will, and a wary guardedness about the rebounding perversity of humankind. The danger is to preempt the future with our own agenda and our own eagerness to be proven right by history."
"It is His breath which is within us; and when he wants to, he will take it away."
"The good laborer accepts the bread he has earned with his head held high; the lazy and negligent workman cannot look his employer in the face."
"... we must preserve our Christian body to its entirety. Each must be subject to his neighbor, according to his special gifts."
"You see, brothers, the more knowledge we are given, the greater risks we run."
"Why is it that you harbor strife, bad temper, dissension, schism, and quarreling? Do we not have noe God, one Christ, one Spirit of grace which was poured out on us? And is there not one calling in Christ? Why do we rend and tear asunder Christ's members and raise a revolt against our own body? Why do we reach such a pitch of insanity that we are oblivious of the fact we are members of each other?... Pick up the letter of the blessed apostle Paul. What was the primary thing he wrote to you, 'when he started preaching the gospel?' To be sure, under the Spirit's guidance, he wrote to you about himself and Cephas and Apollos, because even then you had formed cliques."
"Those, certainly, who live in fear and love would rather suffer outrages themselves than have their neighbors do so... [for rebels who harden their hearts] 'death will be their shepherd.'"
Empty hangers, empty closet, empty clothes.
Empty crib, empty bath.
Empty bottles, empty breasts.
Empty lungs, empty blood, empty heart.
Empty grave.
"And the investigators were now telling me that the plan called for a Phase IV (after combat action) operation that would last twelve to eighteen months.To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I had never seen any approved CENTCOM campaign plan, either conceptual or detailed, for the post-major combat operations phase. When I was on the ground in Iraq and saw what was going on, I assumed they had done zero Phase IV planning. Now, three years later, I was learning for the first time that my assumption was not completely accurate. In fact, CENTCOM had originally called for twelve to eighteen months of Phase IV activity with active troop deployments. But then CENTCOM had completely walked away by simply stating that the war was over and Phase IV was not their job.
That decision set up the United States for a failed first year in Iraq. There is no question about it. And I was supposed to believe that neither the Secretary of Defense nor anybody above him knew anything about it? Impossible! Rumsfeld knew about it. Everybody on the NSC knew about it, including Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, and Colin Powell. Vice President Cheney knew about it. And President Bush knew about it.
There's not a doubt in my mind that they all embraced this decision to some degree. And if it had not been for the moral courage of Gen. John Abizaid to stand up to them all and reverse [Tommy] Franks's troop drawdown order, there's no telling how much more damage would have been done.
In the meantime, hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars were unnecessarily spent, and worse yet, too many of our most precious military resource, our American soldiers, were unnecessarily wounded, maimed, and killed as a result. In my mind, this action by the Bush administration amounts to gross incompetence and dereliction of duty."
