Daily Archives: May 22, 2026

(Church Times) J. Tyler Brown reviews Tom Wright’s new book “God’s Homecoming: The forgotten promise of future renewal”

Unlike the earlier book, God’s Homecoming answers with a sweeping, if necessarily whistle-stop, biblical theology. “The Bible speaks with one voice of God coming to live with humans. Of God coming to be at home with us humans” (emphasis original). These pages are saturated with quotations of scripture, and particularly the Old Testament, something that those familiar with the styles of both Tom and his alter ego N. T. Wright will recognise and appreciate. Readers are borne along on the currents of prophecy and promise, gathering steam as the story of Israel’s God coming to dwell with his people rolls toward a climactic fulfilment.

The book’s primary thesis is that this fulfilment has now taken place in the “coming home” of God in Jesus, the human face of God, and the Holy Spirit, the pledge of the world’s suffusion with divine presence. The Kingdom does not merely wait for a future return of Christ, but has already been powerfully inaugurated.

Thus, the arrival of God on earth and not the soul’s arrival in heaven is central; living with God in a renewed creation…

Read it all.

Posted in Books, Christology, Eschatology, Theology, Theology: Scripture

(WSJ Houses of Worship) Robert Orlando–The Gospel According to Karl Marx

As the historian Leszek Kołakowski observed, Marxism functioned for many as “the greatest fantasy of our century”—a promise that history itself would bring final justice.

G.K. Chesterton captured the problem: Marx simply replaces one abstraction with another. But abstractions such as “historical inevitability” can’t produce justice on their own, because justice depends on the moral character of the persons who act within those systems.

The deep question for our own moment is whether modern politics can resist the temptation to which Marxists surrender. Every generation is drawn to the hope that history itself will resolve its deepest conflicts. Marx gave that hope its most powerful modern expression by translating theological categories into the language of political economy. But as Eric Voegelin once warned, attempts to “immanentize the eschaton”—to force heaven into history—have repeatedly produced political disasters.

Marx didn’t abolish the Christian structure of redemption. He relocated it within history—and that relocation continues to shape the political imagination of the modern world.

Read it all.

Posted in Anthropology, Atheism, Ethics / Moral Theology, Germany, Globalization, History, Other Faiths, Religion & Culture, Russia, Secularism, Theology

(CFR) A New Ebola Outbreak Spreads Through Conflict and a Weak U.S. Response

Central Africa has extensive experience dealing with Ebola. Both Uganda and the DRC have faced multiple localized outbreaks in the past decade and have successfully contained and ended them. Medical professionals on the ground are familiar with these situations and have real expertise in responding.

But politics play a role in infectious disease response, as was evident during the COVID-19 pandemic. The DRC is no different, and public confidence in governing authorities is particularly fragile right now, as President Félix Tshisekedi flirts with a third term in office; large swaths of eastern territory remain under the control of M23, a Rwandan-backed Congolese insurgent group; and murky security-for-minerals deals fuel uncertainty and suspicion.

On social media, conspiracy theories abound, suggesting the outbreak is a distraction, a hoax, a money-making scheme, or a pretext for some other nefarious agenda. The profound mistrust of authorities and of outsiders that permeates Congolese society after generations of exploitation creates a particularly difficult backdrop for this Ebola response.

All of this is unfolding in the context of profound insecurity. Eastern Congo has been plagued by conflict for decades, and scores of armed groups operate in the region, as do foreign military forces from Burundi, Rwanda, and Uganda. Nearly one million people in Ituri, where the outbreak is worst, are displaced. Transportation and communications infrastructure is poor. It is not an environment in which it is easy to quickly establish new facilities, distribute health-care supplies, or even obtain accurate, timely information about what is happening in different communities.

Read it all.

Posted in America/U.S.A., Foreign Relations, Health & Medicine, Republic of Congo

(CT) In Sudan’s Brutal War, Churches Can’t Provide Sanctuary

When fighting between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) began in April 2023, Sefain Nagy took shelter at St. George Coptic Orthodox Church in the Masalma area of Omdurman, a city in east central Sudan.

At least 25 other Christians huddled there with Nagy, including 15 orphaned girls ages 10 to 25 already living at the church, several middle-aged women, and six elderly men. At night, the frightened group gathered in the church’s sanctuary to sing hymns and pray. They rarely had enough food to eat or access to drinking water, but a group of young Christian men arranged for low-cost meals from community kitchens, locally called takkiyas, to be delivered to them despite constant shelling.

Then a month later, at about 10:30 p.m., Nagy heard the roar of a car carrying five members of the paramilitary group RSF pulling up to the church. The militia shot at the church’s walls, smashed the front door, and forced their way into the building.

“They asked us, ‘What are you here for?’” Nagy recalled. “I told [them] we had prayer. We were praying.”

The RSF soldiers then beat the Christians, grabbed jewelry from the women, and attempted to take away the orphaned girls. When Nagy resisted them by trying to block them from entering the girls’ rooms and leaving the church, one of the soldiers hit his head from behind with a gun and shot him in the right leg. Then the RSF tried to drive off with the girls in one of the cars parked at the church, but the engine failed.

“Thank God the car wouldn’t start, and they couldn’t take the orphan girls,” Nagy said…

Read it all.

Posted in Death / Burial / Funerals, Military / Armed Forces, Sudan, Violence

A Prayer for the Feast Day of Saint Helena of Constantinople

Most Merciful God, who didst vouchsafe to bless thy servant Helena with such grace and devotion to thee that she didst venerate the very footsteps of our Savior; Grant unto us the same grace that, aided by her prayers and example, we too may evermore behold thy glory in the cross of thy Son. Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord; who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Posted in Church History, Spirituality/Prayer

A prayer for the day from the Prayer Manual

Almighty God, who after thy Son had ascended on high didst send forth thy Spirit in the Church to draw all men unto thee; Fulfill, we beseech thee, this thy gracious purpose, and in the fullness of time gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth; even in him, who is the head over all things in the Church which is his body, Jesus Christ our Lord.

–Frederick B. Macnutt, The prayer manual for private devotions or public use on divers occasions: Compiled from all sources ancient, medieval, and modern (A.R. Mowbray, 1951)

Posted in Easter, Spirituality/Prayer

From the Morning Bible Readings

As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax office; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he rose and followed him. And as he sat at table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But when he heard it, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.” Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come, when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. And no one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; if it is, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.”

–Matthew 9:9-17

Posted in Theology: Scripture