Are there spiritual habits or practices that the church should do a better job of teaching us to live inside of—practices or habits that we have avoided that we would do well to return to?

Williams: It’s rhythm again, isn’t it? We’ve lost the sense of creating rhythm in our daily encounter with God. We think sometimes that real encounter with God has to be exceptional, exciting, different, dramatic, and we don’t think of it as simply turning up—and simply turning up in the sense of opening the Bible, reciting a psalm. Simply turning up in the quiet we give to God. We need formation in those things. We need encouragement to develop those habits, but they’re painfully simple.

Robinson: I find that a lot of Protestant churches are embarrassed by things that are traditional. There’s a sense that as things become generationally older, they lose relevance. The chaos that has been caused in a lot of churches by this anxiety is pretty well known.

One of the most important things that churches have to tell people is that you’re a part of the stream of humankind—that if you listen carefully, you can hear something that was said 500 years ago that you will feel as true in the marrow of your bones. We don’t have to scrap the brilliant hymns and the brilliant articulations. It’s not only the fact that there’s a great deal of loss entailed in that, but also a kind of misrepresentation of what we are, which is what any of us is, which is a member of a generation that will have a history and pass away and be displaced by other generations of whom all the same things are true.

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“A great deal of what people need to do is enjoy themselves. Enjoy being themselves, enjoy finding out what capacities they have, what they love to look at it, what they love to taste.” – Faith, imagination, and the glory of ordinary life https://t.co/286vzeBS01

— Lou Huesmann (@LouHuesmann) March 27, 2019

The manifesto concisely summarizes the Catholic conception of eternal life in a lapidary paragraph:

Every human being has an immortal soul, which in death is separated from the body, hoping for the resurrection of the dead. Death makes the human person’s decision for or against God definitive. Everyone has to face the particular judgment immediately after death. Either a purification is necessary, or the person goes directly to heavenly bliss and is allowed to see God face to face. There is also the dreadful possibility that a person will remain opposed to God to the very end…. The punishment of hell is a terrible reality.

This reiteration of the Catholic belief in heaven, hell and purgatory might appear a recitation of the obvious, a reminder of simple truths learned in grade-school catechism classes. But it is no longer obvious in the contemporary approach to death and judgment operative in American Catholicism and elsewhere.

Catholic funeral services increasingly have little to say of the judgment the human person faces at the moment of death and at the end of time. It is as if the free choices we make in this life no longer have eternal consequences.

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‘Catholic funeral services increasingly have little to say of the #judgment the human person faces at the moment of #death+at the end of time. It is as if the free choices we make in this life no longer have eternal consequences’ https://t.co/HBXPoGD1W6 true also of othr churches

— Kendall Harmon (@KendallHarmon6) March 27, 2019

Let’s start with the first point. In this scientific age, we think it’s silly to believe that an actual devil, demons, and hell exist. But Jesus is old-school. He spoke of a literal Adam and Eve, Noah’s Ark, Jonah in the belly of the great fish, and the destruction of Sodom—all as actual fact. He talks quite often in the Gospels about Satan and demonic possession. Doing exorcisms was all in a day’s work. He once dropped a bomb on a group of everyday folks, declaring that they were not the children of Abraham, but “of your father the devil.” That’s rough stuff, telling folks they’re sons of the devil. He spoke this way because He believed it.

Second, Jesus believed in the reality of sin, the need for repentance, and a real hell where people weep and gnash their teeth. He spoke of these things regularly, and not conceptually or metaphorically. He personalized this bad news for actual people in vibrant ways. He likened some folks to weeds and said He would “send His angels, and they will gather out of His kingdom all causes of sin and all law-breakers, and throw them into the fiery furnace,” where “there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

He explains how the final judgment will work. One group, those who do His will, will be welcomed into His Kingdom. To the other, He will say, “Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” If we were Jesus’s tour manager, we might be inclined to remind Him that honey attracts more flies. He would remind us that He’s got this, only doing what His Father does.

Jesus is not shy about telling us that He can be a harsh judge. He came into the world to judge and is eager (eager!) to cast fire upon the earth. It wasn’t only the hypocritical religious leaders of the day who received this message. He warned some everyday folks that if they didn’t repent, they would all perish in unspeakable ways.

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It is important that we know and appreciate the not-just-meek-and-mild Jesus as we sojourn through Lent this year. From the archives:https://t.co/edqP57mwuh

— First Things (@firstthingsmag) March 27, 2019

Ron Brinson often fields questions about recycling when he’s making his Saturday morning rounds through the neighborhoods he represents on North Charleston City Council.

“They know that most, if not all, of this stuff ends up in a landfill, but for so many of our neighbors, recycling is instinctive,” Brinson said. “It’s a great ‘habit’ and we were all sorry North Charleston’s pickups in Dorchester County had to be suspended.”

The end of recycling in Brinson’s council district wasn’t unusual. In fact, it represents the current reality for the waste industry: It’s tough to find anyone to buy salvaged paper, glass and plastic these days.

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There’s still plenty of uses for recycled materials in the United States, and demand is expected to grow, but much of what’s collected still finds its way into landfills.https://t.co/FmVqIMDH6t

— The Post and Courier (@postandcourier) March 27, 2019

Sarah Teather, Director of the Jesuit Refugee Service in the UK said: “This is a particularly outrageous example of the reckless and facetious approach of the Home Office to determining life and death asylum cases – they appear willing to distort any aspect of reality in order to turn down a claim.

“This case demonstrates the shocking illiteracy of Christianity within the Home Office. But the distortion of logic and reckless approach to asylum seeker’s lives is a common feature. Here at JRS, we routinely encounter cases where asylum has been refused on spurious grounds. Some of these cases require more legal knowledge to recognise than this bizarre misquoting of the Bible.

“As this instance gains public attention, we need to remember it reflects a systematic problem and a deeper mindset of disbelief within the Home Office, and is not just an anomaly that can be explained away.”

Mr Stevens said that the Home Office subsequently agreed to withdraw their refusal and to reconsider the man’s asylum application. He later released details of a second case, in which a Christian woman who fled Iran fearing execution had her asylum claim rejected because the Home Office considered her belief in Jesus to be “half-hearted”.

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The devastating impact of oil spills is widely recognised. The past decade has witnessed the destruction caused to human life and the environment from spills including the Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 and the Montara spill in Australia in 2009.

On each occasion the global community has reacted with horror, demanding the oil industry clean up local ecosystems and communities. Yet in Nigeria, and particularly in Bayelsa state in the Niger Delta, these calls are ignored.

Oil spills are a persistent feature of life in Bayelsa. While 4m litres of oil are spilled annually in the US, 40m litres are spilled in the Niger Delta.

Oil has poisoned the land and water. The contamination of fish and crops has destroyed livelihoods, decimated local employment opportunities and pushed many into militancy. Life expectancy in the Niger Delta is 10 years below the national average.

Multinational oil companies operate to severe double standards. While efforts are made to clean up spills in the US, Scotland or Norway, oil is left to flow unabated in Nigeria.

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Something is rotten in the state of academic theology.

That, at least, is the bold claim that Miroslav Volf and Matthew Croasmun advance in their compelling new book, For the Life of the World: Theology That Makes a Difference. Volf and Croasmun fear that academic theology has lost its way, in part by positioning itself in opposition or even hostility to the church and its ordinary believers. Rigorous research and scholarly writing may not lead inevitably toward an unhealthy detachment, but the reality of that detachment both from church life and the most fundamental questions of human existence is all too common. As a result, regular churchgoers have grown skeptical of academic theology, and non-Christians simply dismiss it as a relic of the past with no legitimate space in the public square. Theology, the authors argue, used to be about the “Big Questions,” but now it contents itself pursuing in-house debates about obscure historical figures and formulations, all while neglecting to make connections with contemporary audiences.

While Volf and Croasmun are certainly not the first to worry that the discipline of theology has moved much closer to the margins over the last century, they describe the situation with new urgency. Academic theology, they argue, has been too willing to seek legitimacy by operating within the “great edifice of science,” which entails submitting to a foreign set of expectations and methodologies. Because of this surrender, they fear it will lose the very thing that makes it unique and meaningful: its capacity to point to the living triune God and articulate the kind of life we should live in response to his revelation.

The authors argue that theology, rather than playing by a set of imposed rules from the outside, should instead stand on its own two feet, confident that it has answers to life’s most pressing questions. The purpose of theology, they argue, is “to discern, articulate, and commend visions and paths to flourishing life in light of the self-revelation of God in the life, death, resurrection, exaltation, and coming in glory of Jesus Christ, with this entire story, its lows and its highs, bearing witness to a truly flourishing life.” There is plenty of talk about human “flourishing” these days, but Volf and Croasmun offer something better than generic self-help schemes, pointing instead toward a distinctly Christ-centered vision.

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Has Academic Theology Lost Its Way?

Two theologians ask how their discipline can start mattering to ordinary believers again.

Something is rotten in the state of academic theology.

That, at least, is the bold claim that Miroslav Volf and Matthew Croasmun advance in their … pic.twitter.com/aq4uLIJfIN

— Lagrimas DeMadonna (@lagrimasshop) March 22, 2019

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Five Christian denominations associated with the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification are discussing how to take the text further.#AnglicanNews #Anglican #Anglicans #Ecumenicalhttps://t.co/AN34j0WiaP

— Anglican Communion News Service (@AnglicanNews) March 27, 2019

O almighty Father, giver of every good and perfect gift, who hast made the light of thy truth to shine in our hearts: Make us to walk as children of light in all goodness and righteousness, that we may have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in our hope of sharing the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us.

While we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Why, one will hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for a good man one will dare even to die. But God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us. Since, therefore, we are now justified by his blood, much more shall we be saved by him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life. Not only so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received our reconciliation.

–Romans 5:1-11