Pray for us, our church has the bends

Where do we go from here?
The words are coming out all weird
Where are you now when I need you?
Alone on an aeroplane
Falling asleep against the window pane
My blood will THICKEN.

I need to wash myself again to hide all the dirt and pain
'cause I'd be scared that there's nothing underneath
And who are my real friends?
Have they all got the bends?
Am I really sinking this low?

My baby's got the bends - Oh no
We don't have any real friends - No no no
Just lying in a bar with my drip feed on
talking to my girlfriend waiting for something to happen
I wish it was the sixties
I wish I could be happy
I wish, I wish, I wish that something would happen.

Where do we go from here?
The planet is a gunboat in a sea of fear
And Where are you?
They brought in the C.I.A.
The tanks, and the whole marines to blow me away
To blow me sky high.

My baby's got the bends
We don't have any real friends
Just lying in a bar with my drip feed on
talking to my girlfriend waiting for something to happen
I wish it was the sixties
I wish I could be happy
I wish, I wish, I wish that something would happen.

I want to live and breathe
I want to be part of the human race.

I want to live and breathe
I want to be part of the human race.

Where do we go from here?
The words are coming out all weird

Where are you now when I need you?

Easter is about Grace

I'd be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I'd be in deep sh@$. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity. I love the idea of the Sacrificial Lamb. I love the idea that God says, "Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there's mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and, let's face it, you're not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions." The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That's the point. It should keep us humbled. It's not our own good works that get us through the gates of heaven.

- Bono (Michka Assayas, Bono in Conversation with Michka Assayas [New York: Riverhead, 2005] 204).

HT: Tyler F. Williams at Codex

Faith seeking Understanding

Check out this wonderful little dandy by Dan, it really made take acount of some things, hope it does the same for you. Thanks Dan!

Faithfulness

In talking about what God's gifts oblige of us, Volf speaks of a posture of receptivity. We are receivers of God's gifts and receivers only, we don't bring anything to the table, and we don't have any favors to return. We practice being receivers and receivers only by relating to God in faith.

This seems funny to say that we are obliged to receive; Volf explains it this way:

To want to earn benefits from God or to receive them as payback gifts is to say three wrong things at once: (1) God is a negotiator God; (2) we can give something to God in exchange for something we want; and (3) we are agents independent of God who can relate to God any way we find to our liking. None of these things is true, however. God is not a negotiator but a pure giver. We can give nothing to God but have received everything from God. Finally, we are not independent of God but are living on a given breath. To fail to recognize these three things is to live blindly and to claim God's gifts as our own achievements. To recognize these truths is to understand ourselves as who we truly are, fundamentally receivers.

Faith is then the way we as receivers relate appropriately to God as a giver. Faith is empty hands open for God to fill. Faith makes us beggars, and to be a beggar and not an achiever is shameful in our day and age. Faith thus underscores our inability rather than our power. It thus celebrates what we most properly are -- God's empowered creatures.

Faith is the first part of the bridge from self-centeredness to generosity.

The question that I have been mulling over is this: How does this notion of faith mesh with the narrative (subjective genitive) reading of Pistis Christou?

My initial reaction is pretty well, but I will have a think about it.