von Balthsar ... yep

"What is specifically Christian about Christianity? Never in the history of the Church have Christian thinkers thought it ultimately adequate to answer this question by pointing to a series of mysteries one is required to believe; instead, they have always aimed at a point of unity that would serve to provide a justification for the demand for faith. They sought a logos (read "love") that, however particular it might be, nevertheless had the power to persuade, and indeed overwhelm."

Mmmm ... that's good.

Ummm ... yeah, this is a good quote

"The fatal conceit for Judaism is to believe that the market governs the totality of our lives, when it in fact governs only a limited part of it, that which concerns the goods we think of as being subject to production and exchange. There are things fundamental to being human that we do not produce; instead we receive from those who came before us and from God Himself. And there are things that we may not exchange, however high the price." -- Jonathan Sacks

Jenson on the Church

I still not sure what I think about Robert Jenson's words about the church in the second volume of his systematic theology. Any thoughts?

"Christ is personally the second identity of God, and the totus Christus [total Christ, or whole Christ] is Christ with the church; therefore the church is not in the same way an opus ad extra [something extra as in something other than God] as is the creation, even when it [the creation] is perfected in God."

Does he put the church too close to the divine or is he giving a broader understanding of "Christ?"

Power

Thought this was an interesting piece on what happens when people come to a position of power.

Good quote on language

Okay, so this quote kinda came out of left field for me. I was listening to NPR's weekend edition today and they were interviewing Robyn, the Swedish Pop singer who had a few hits in the US back in the day. She is still way popular in Europe. Anyways, she was asked why she writes her songs in English and what she said blew me away.

"When you know a language really well, it's almost like you stop questioning what you're really doing."

It's likely that Robyn doesn't really know the full weight of what she said. When one thinks about "language" and "question" in a theological or philosophical way, this quote gains some momentum.

My first thoughts turned to the reality of Christian worship because that is where I think language and questioning are most valuable. Christian worship poses the question par excellence in the form of a cross (crux probat omnia). The cross is the language of Christian worship. Most of the time we think that worship is about our words to God. It's not. It's about His words to us, although we do speak. We speak in the form of response. We speak when spoken to, in a sense. The other side of this is to say that language without an end (telos) is mere rhetoric (words for words sake). Christian worship is charged with language that is going somewhere. It has an end and it speaks to it. We speak the language of Christian worship (another language, a Kingdom language) so as to not forget what we really doing.

Hello, Facebook? This is Blogger

So I figured out how to link my blog to my Facebook page. Please, hold your applause. It's yet to be determined if this means anything. I have been discouraged as of late to do any kind of blogging mostly because blogging is fun when people read it and write comments. I've hear theories on how to increase you blogs traffic but to be honest the suggestions sound exhausting. Basically what it comes down to is that I don't blog frequently enough on my own blog, nor do I get my name out there enough on other blogs so that people can track the link back to my site. I told you--exhausting. Blogging is curious animal. I supposed in the end the reason I still blog is because I hope the people who read it find something helpful in it. I suppose that might be why a lot of other people do it as well. At the very least it can be a good discipline to help spread the word on a good thought or raise awareness on this we need to be thinking about. Sometimes you do it for no other reason than that you are hoping somebody is listening.