Sublime

When belief went into decline in north-western Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century, many commentators wondered where humanity would – in an increasingly secular future – find the guidance that religions had once provided. Where would ethical counsel come from? How would self-understanding be achieved? What would determine our sense of pu

Yet Taylor has taught us that the good life (whether subjective or objective, personal or cultural) demands narrative. You need a story about what makes life good to have an identity.

But as we’ll see, both needed to take on particular visions of divine action next to their pastoral practice, embedding their own personhood in these visions to clearly lead their people into divine action.

The pastor somehow needs to take a fifty-person church with few resources, in a denomination of depleted assets, and speed things up to create a five-thousand-member church. Her first step is to make it relevant to fast people living in a compressed present, seeking the good of multiple lifetimes. Retention with these fast-paced people is won by gi

Theology mattered greatly in the substantive moral systems the church once offered. We needed to think deeply about what certain practices do to us, both in time and in eternity. We needed to be concerned about which forms, virtues, and character traits draw us near to the divine or toward damnation.

This demand for universal access to the Divine teachings seems to be a polemic against other ancient cultures in which only a small circle of priests had access to sacred knowledge.

Today, the pastor’s education is not to discipline the will but to qualify her for the profession.

Christ clarifies and specifies the nature, aim, and trustworthiness of all God’s dealings with us because Christ is where those dealings with us come to ultimate fruition.