Sublime

The theologian Paul Tillich declared that faith is “the state of being ultimately concerned.” He argued that because each person has something of ultimate concern that defines their life and identity, all people are religious—even the atheist. Every person has something in their life that functions as their god. For some, this god-function is occup

the

The Christian gospel, it is often said, is designed to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.

black insurrection in Detroit in the summer of 1967. I had moved the year before to teach in Adrian, Michigan, just seventy miles from Detroit. I remember the feeling of dread and absurdity as I asked myself, What has all this to do with Jesus Christ—his birth in Bethlehem, his baptism with and life among the poor, and his death and resurrection? I

receiving the ministry of divine action and experiencing the very being of God through the unveiling of God’s ministerial being, we can only respond with gratitude.

We might summarize these four major points like this: God, man, Christ, and response.

waters. Religious commitment, or even God, hasn’t simply been subtracted from our culture, like taking one picket out of the backyard fence; with a little action and persistence, we think, the picket can be replaced in the whole. Rather, the whole of our social imaginary has shifted. Charles Taylor says it this way: “Modernity is defined not just b

The therapeutic—that God wants to endorse my life and keep me happy—is contrasted with kenosis, which makes life not about the therapeutic but about the ministerial.