Sublime

the second distinct shape of Henry’s new mold of being pastor. If Edwards operated at the speed of learning and discipline, Henry downshifted completely, casting the pastor as no different—living at no different speed—from any other man or woman.

Faith receives the divine action that comes in the weakness of ministry. Ministry has the power to share in negation, attending as new life comes to negation, so that negation itself becomes the location of divine action. To have faith is to allow your life to be bent into the shape of Jesus’s own narrative arc of cross and resurrection.

Put bluntly, the American church today accepts grace in theory but denies it in practice. We say we believe that the fundamental structure of reality is grace, not works—but our lives refute our faith. By and large, the gospel of grace is neither proclaimed, understood, nor lived. Too many Christians are living in the house of fear and not in the h

the rejection of the concept of martyrdom had brought with it the abandonment of the church’s understanding of suffering, and meant that the gospel of the cross had lost its meaning and ultimately that established Christianity was bound to lose its eschatological hope. The assimilation of Christianity to bourgeois society always means that the cros

Jesus was offering a different way of liberation, a way which affirmed the humanness of the national enemy as well as the destiny of Israel, and hence also affirmed the destiny of Israel as the bringer of light to the world, not as the one who would crush the world with military zeal.

We may see the revival of genuine Christian faith and discipleship, and the renewal of the church of Jesus Christ in the United States.

The Roman world was full of plagues. Epidemics regularly decimated cities and regions. Though ancient people did not understand the germ theory of disease, they knew enough to flee cities, if they had the means to d

“Evangelicalism appealed to hippies,” says Axel Schäfer, “because it condoned the expressive styles and anti-establishment message of the counterculture.”

(A major issue that conservatives even today have yet to solve is how, in opposing the reductions of the immanent frame, they can avoid the perception of being against justice and mercy and can support all humans flourishing.)