“Until people have had some mystical, inner spiritual experience, there is no point in asking them to follow the ethical ideals of Jesus or to really understand religious beliefs beyond the level of formula. At most, such moral ideals and doctrinal affirmations are only a source of deeper anxiety because we don’t have the power to follow any of Jesus’ major teachings about forgiveness, love of enemies, nonviolence, humble use of power, and so on, except in and through radical union with God. Further, doctrines like the Trinity, the Real Presence, and the significance of Incarnation itself have little active power. They are just “believed” at the rational level, but never experienced” (Richard Rohr in Daily Meditation for September, 24, 2017).

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“God is a spiritual, indivisible, and infinite being.  He is not made up of various parts, with the mercy bit on the left side of him and the justice bit to the right. When we talk about God’s holiness, then, or his wisdom, we’re not thinking of some piece of God, but the incomparably unique fullness of God from a unique angle. With God is not a matter of love or justice, King or Father, but of  one God in his fullness acting in perfect consistency with all that he is” (Derek Rishmawy in Christianity Today, July/August, 2017),

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“In each of our lives, grace tries to intrude continually, attempting to shape our story into an infinitesimal but uniquely valuable part of God’s story.  God can certainly do very well without any one of us. . . . But God also delights in each one of us.  When we ask what to do about Jesus, we are invited into an inner, transformative journey that allows the unique combination of DNA that shapes our being to be joined with the foundational movement of God’s love. This seeks to shape the world into the home of God’s glory. And for any one of us, that is a story worth telling” (Wesley Granberg-Michaelson in Unexpected Destinations, an Evangelical Pilgrimage to World Christianity).

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“I share Mark Galli’s [Editor in chief of Christianity Today] puzzlement at white evangelicals support of Trumpism. I wonder if the cause goes deeper than a lack of preaching about helping the alien and sojourner.  We conservative Christians were rocked by post-’60’s cultural change. Yet our response, four decades of politicization, has drawn us into one of the oldest and subtlest forms of idolatry. The Israelites grew impatient with trusting God. Ignoring the warnings of Samuel, they cried, “Give us a king! Similarly, evangelicals left off praying and went to politicking. Yet the way of politics is the way of power, by its very nature coercive. If we couldn’t persuade people to change their behavior, we would compel them, by force rather than love, by law rather than grace . . . .  We got our king. Too bad he’s more Herod than David” (Tom Griffith in a letter to the editor of Christianity Today, September, 2017).

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