Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Horror in Haiti.


First, respond. Mercy Corps gets my money because it does good, and not well.


I do not believe we Christians are obliged -- or even allowed -- to look upon the devastation visited upon the coasts of the Indian Ocean and to console ourselves with vacuous cant about the mysterious course taken by God’s goodness in this world, or to assure others that some ultimate meaning or purpose resides in so much misery. Ours is, after all, a religion of salvation; our faith is in a God who has come to rescue His creation from the absurdity of sin and the emptiness of death, and so we are permitted to hate these things with a perfect hatred. For while Christ takes the suffering of his creatures up into his own, it is not because he or they had need of suffering, but because he would not abandon his creatures to the grave. And while we know that the victory over evil and death has been won, we know also that it is a victory yet to come, and that creation therefore, as Paul says, groans in expectation of the glory that will one day be revealed. Until then, the world remains a place of struggle between light and darkness, truth and falsehood, life and death; and, in such a world, our portion is charity.

As for comfort, when we seek it, I can imagine none greater than the happy knowledge that when I see the death of a child I do not see the face of God, but the face of His enemy. It is not a faith that would necessarily satisfy Ivan Karamazov, but neither is it one that his arguments can defeat: for it has set us free from optimism, and taught us hope instead. We can rejoice that we are saved not through the immanent mechanisms of history and nature, but by grace; that God will not unite all of history’s many strands in one great synthesis, but will judge much of history false and damnable; that He will not simply reveal the sublime logic of fallen nature, but will strike off the fetters in which creation languishes; and that, rather than showing us how the tears of a small girl suffering in the dark were necessary for the building of the Kingdom, He will instead raise her up and wipe away all tears from her eyes -- and there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, nor any more pain, for the former things will have passed away, and He that sits upon the throne will say, “Behold, I make all things new.”

Still trying to figure out what to blog.

Not whether, but what. A course change might be in order. Tacking into the wind, and what not.

IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII'MMMMMM SAILING AWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYY....

Oh, and I'm waxing wroth with the new commenting system, which is supposed to work (since, you know, I paid for it). The dashboard pretends not to know that I have, you know, paid for it.

Tuesday, January 05, 2010

A disturbing story.

A more accurate description would be "one evangelical," because the case for Mr. Lively's foreknowledge of the scope of the law looks pretty solid.

Any advocacy of the death penalty for homosexuals is horrific. It should go without saying, you'd think.

Monday, January 04, 2010

Experiencing techical difficulties.

As some of you may know, Haloscan was acquired by another company. As all of you know, all free things come to an end. Still, the new owners had a reasonable price, so I ponied up for the new comments. That, and I hated to lose the old archives.

The transition to the new commenting software should be completed in a few days, so be patient. Hope you and yours had a blessed Christmas (which continues through Saturday, not so BTW) and a good New Year's celebration.

New digs for ponderings about Levantine Christianity.

   The interior of Saint Paul Melkite Greek Catholic Church, Harissa, Lebanon. I have decided to set up a Substack exploring Eastern Christi...