The secret, of course, of the ministry of Jesus, was that God was at the center of it. Jesus chose to marinate in the God who is always greater than our tiny conception, the God who “loves without measure and without regret.” To anchor yourself in this, to keep always before your eyes this God is to choose to be intoxicated, marinated in the fullness of God.
— Gregory Boyle, Tattoos on the Heart, p. 22
[Photo: Kilchurn Castle, Scotland, July 14, 2004]
Inspiration is better than magic, for as any artist will tell you, true inspiration comes not to the lucky or the charmed but to the faithful — to the writer who shows up at her keyboard each morning, even when she’s far too tired, to the guitarist whose fingers bleed after hours of practice, to the dancer who must first learn the traditional steps before she can freestyle with integrity. Inspiration is not about some disembodied ethereal voice dictating words or notes to a catatonic host. It’s a collaborative process, a holy give-and-take, a partnership between Creator and creator.
While Christians believe the Bible to be uniquely revelatory and authoritative to the faith, we have no reason to think its many authors were exempt from the mistakes, edits, rewrites, and dry spells of everyday creative work. Nor should we, as readers, expect every encounter with the text to leave us happily awestruck and enlightened. Inspiration, on both the giving and receiving end, takes practice and patience. It means showing up even when you don’t feel like it, even when it seems as if no one else is there. It means waiting for wind to stir.
God is still breathing. The Bible is both inspired and inspiring. Our job is to ready the sails and gather the embers, to discuss and debate, and like the biblical character Jacob, to wrestle with the mystery until God gives us a blessing.
If you’re curious, you will never leave the text without learning something new. If you’re persistent, you just might leave inspired.
— Rachel Held Evans, Inspired, p. xxiii-xxiv
[Photo: From ferry to the Isle of Mull, Scotland, July 12, 2003]
The cross is not a picture of payment; the cross is a picture of forgiveness. Good Friday is not about divine wrath; Good Friday is about divine love. Calvary is not where we see how violent God is; Calvary is where we see how violent our civilization is. The justice of God is not retributive; the justice of God is restorative. Justice that is purely retributive changes nothing. The cross is not where God finds a whipping boy to vent his rage upon; the cross is where God saves the world through self-sacrificing love. The only thing God will call justice is setting the world right, not punishing an innocent substitute for the petty sake of appeasement.
— Brian Zahnd, Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God, p. 86
[Photo: Keukenhof, Holland, April 17, 2004]
This, then, is what I mean by ‘unwrathing of the atonement.’ Yes, every human being on the planet was destined for wrath (Eph. 2:3). Wrath, not the vengeance of an angry God, but as the process of perishing under the curse and decay of sin. And what did God do? He unwrathed us! He freed us from sin’s slavery and unwrapped us from death. How? By wrathing Jesus in our place? No! By becoming one of us and, as Jesus, overcoming wrath by his great mercy!
— Bradley Jersak, A More Christlike God, p. 262-263
[Photo: Ladies’ View, Ireland, July 2001]
There is no more important question in Christian theology today than coming to terms with the doctrine of hell. While that may seem like a bit of an overstatement, regardless of what is said and preached about God being merciful and loving, if the doctrine of hell is not brought into the affirmation in a truly integrated way, then it will leave people wondering if God really is merciful and loving. If we cannot preach and teach about hell in a way that is coherent with the biblical affirmation that God is love, then the lingering image of a vengeful and angry God will get in the way of our proclamation. Here is what I have discovered: Our vision of how things will end is actually what determines what we really think about who God is and what God is like. To put it in words that would make my seminary professors proud, our eschatology determines our theology. This means our exploration of hell is actually nothing less than an exploration into the very heart and character of God.
— Heath Bradley, Flames of Love, p. 29
[Photo: Hug Point, Oregon, November 10, 2015]
Richard Rohr says that the people who’ve truly experienced grace — meaning they’re not worthy of it and they still get it — are no longer in a position of being able to decide who “the deserving poor” are. When you realize that no one’s worthy and yet everyone receives (the practice of the church that illuminates this idea is the open table at the Eucharist), where’s the moral high ground that you stand on anymore? The only ground you get to stand on is the ground at the foot of the cross, with all the rest of us sinners. But it’s holy ground. It’s a position of standing in and among, and in solidarity with everyone, and singing praise to God. It’s a very different way of seeing Christianity, I think.
— Nadia Bolz-Weber, Accidental Saints, p. 211
[Photo: Glenveagh, Ireland, July 2001]
God loves not sorrow, yet rejoices to see a man sorrowful, for in his sorrow man leaves his heavenward door on the latch, and God can enter to help him.
— George MacDonald, The Hope of the Gospel, p. 98
[Photo: Loch Ness, Scotland, July 10, 2003]
This should not put us off. A world full of people who read and pray the Sermon on the Mount, or even a world with only a few such people in it, will always be a better place than a world without such people. Church history reminds us of the radical difference that can be made, that has been made, and that please God will be made. But the point is that once the revolution was launched on Good Friday, the vital work was already done. We do not have to win that essential victory all over again. What we have to do is to respond to the love poured out on the cross with love of our own: love for the one who died, yes, but also love for those around us, especially those in particular need. And part of the challenge of putting that into practice is that the powers, in whatever form, will be angry. They want to keep the world in their own grip. They will fight back.
N. T. Wright, The Day the Revolution Began, p. 365-366
[Photo: Hug Point, Oregon, November 10, 2015]
In all this subject of death, there is an extraordinary narrowness in the views held generally, as though the fact of dying could change God’s unchanging purpose; as though his never-failing love were extinguished because we pass into a new state of existence; as though the power of Christ’s cross were exhausted in the brief span of our earthly life.
— Thomas Allin, Christ Triumphant, p. 213-214
I really hate that Jesus’ Gospel is so much about death. I hate it. I wish that Jesus’ message was, Follow me and all your dreams of cash and prizes will come true; follow me and you’ll have free liposuction and winning lotto tickets for life. But obviously he’s not like that. Jesus says, “Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me.” He says, “The first shall be last and the last shall be first,” and infuriating things like “if you seek to find your life you will lose it but those who lose their life will find it.” And every single time I die to something — my notions of my own specialness, my plans and desires for something to be a very particular way — every single time I fight it and yet every single time I discover more life and more freedom than if I had gotten what I wanted.
— Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix, p. 186-187
[Photo: Hug Point, Oregon, November 10, 2015]