Pray without words!
I have written nine short readings, in Norwegian, on how to use your body to pray. Delivered from print today!
The context is #Lutheran, where words have had a too important role throughout Protestant history. I want to reclaim body language as prayer language, but not only in the traditional kneeling and folding hands way. #theology#prayer@theology
An active, outward-facing Universalism is the only kind worth keeping around. A Universalism that's satisfied to only look inward and then stop at "I am good" is inert and lifeless. Universalism must love or it does no good to anyone.
I can understand the pious bromide of folks who say that God wants everyone to be saved, BUT God respects human free will too much to save us. I understand it, reject it, and judge it as unfaithful to the God of the Gospel. #Theology
The Gods are ends in themselves, no promise either of earthly success or eternal life is necessary to make them worthy of respect. There is no hierarchy in the universe, no being fundamentally "deserves" or "doesn't deserve" worship, because moral categories are socially emergent. Ultimately the category of "God" is a social relation between two beings.
In the City of God, Augustine goes on and on about how only the god who made the world and promises eternal life is "worthy" of worship and it's like, why? The only people who should be worshipping Jesus are people who have an edifying relationship either with him as a god, with one of his saints or with his church. Eternal life and his identification with the logos or the demiurge or whatever don't enter into it.
Reading Pope Francis' Apostolic Exhortation "Laudate Deum" on Climate Change outside on a unusually warm 27 degree Celsius (80 degree Fahrenheit) day in Chicago. I can hear the busy sounds of Dan Ryan Expressway behind me.
Here is some Saturday morning #Theology that aligns with your post: The vast majority of people mentioned in the Bible were just normal people that the bible tells us basically nothing about.
We know they lived, we know they had some kids, we know they died. And that's it. That's all we know about them.
You don't have to be special to be a part of God's plan.
I wrote a new short blog post about cybernetics, feedback loops, and the prevalence of evil. Basically, I use theories from cybernetics as analogies to talk about evil works in the world. You can read it here: https://write.as/nathaniel-metz/feedback-loops-and-evil
I think coming into the right pantheon of Gods can feel like a homecoming because you have finally arrived at a mythopoetic vantage point in the cosmos that most completely resembles your experience of reality and its divine Stewards speak to you in the language of your own mind and body.
Violet Mary Firth, later known as Dion Fortune, was one of the most formidable occultists of her day. Her work was an important influence on many Neo Pagans, most notably Gerald Gardener, but also on others later such as Druids Isaac Bonewits and John Michael Greer. She was an interesting mix of clairvoyant medium and university trained psychologist and, I argue, much of her work was remarkably shamanistic in character.
Just saw a post claiming that if Christianity is progressive then it is heretical because God doesn't change.
While it's true God doesn't change, that doesn't mean his people have been good at following his commands. A Christian people who are not progressing the cause of the widow, orphan, immigrant, and unheard are not living a biblically defined Christianity. And as Christianity has failed to do that for millennia, it might look progressive to follow God's commands now (at least in some areas).
It isn't conspiracy to commit a crime when the plan is to do it legally elsewhere. For example, gambling is illegal may places, but it isn't a conspiracy to plan a trip to Las Vegas.
The “party of personal freedom” is all about control and overreach. They want fascist rule. It’s not an exaggeration.
#WritersCoffeeClub 1 Intro: Shameless Self Promotion. Tell us about yourself, your published work or WIP
I write in multiple genres: fiction, mainly sapphic romance books set in prehistory; nonfiction, mainly about Quakers; and academic work about religion and philosophy.
So far there are eight books in the world with my name on the cover.
Between Boat & Shore was my first novel (and it's on sale at the moment as part of Monday's Queer Your Bookshelf promotions): https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0B3VSCHNC/
I've also written three books in the Quaker Quicks series. Telling the Truth about God is about Quakers and the quest to express spiritual experience. Quakers Do What! Why? provides short answers to common questions. Hearing the Light explores what might be the core of liberal Quaker theology. Find them all on the publisher's website: https://www.collectiveinkbooks.com/christian-alternative-books/authors/rhiannon-grant
In chapter one of my new blog, featuring my PhD thesis work, I recount my experiences with ritual in cyberspace, describing sacred virtual space, and its relationship to sacred meatspace from a Pagan perspective. I compare two initiation rituals, and describe how one produced the perception of sacred space, in both meatspace and the virtual world, while the other remained only a role play.
“God will not entertain the poor in heaven. You will not go there. I will also stand at the entrance to stop you from going there. We have misunderstood the gospel."
Well, somebody's misunderstood the gospel, that's for sure.