glorycloud's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- the civic project of American Christianity has come to an end It is in the flow 9:37 AM Wednesday morning. It is a cold sunny day here in West Michigan. There was frost on the ground this morning. I hope the frost did not kill the fruit trees and flowers. I got up this morning around 5:55 AM. When I got up I made a pot of coffee and then messed with our main computer. After messing with our main computer I wrote in my paper diary and then I read for awhile from a book titled, "The Lord Of History: Reflections on the Inner Meaning of History" by Jean Danielou (Translated by Nigel Abercrombie). When Carol my wife got up around 8:30 AM I made a pot of oatmeal for breakfast. After breakfast I messed once again with our main computer. After messing with our main computer I went outside and put clean water in the bird bath and threw out cracked corn for our birds. I also filled the bird feeder with oiled sunflower seeds. Now I am writing in my blogs. Existence keeps speeding by. We will soon all be dead. Last night I sat in my study and read "The Lord Of History" by Danielou and went to bed early. I slept poorly due to a sore body and intense dreams. Now it is another day to count our blessings one by one. Carol just left to walk our dog around our neighborhood. It is a blessing having a neighborhood that is not bombed out. I have no plans for the day ahead of me. I should mow our lawn again, but I am not really in the mood to cut grass. There is nothing pressing on my mind this morning. I am tired which is not unusual for me. The other day I was thinking that I can not think of one good thing to say about myself. Do I have self worth. I suppose I see myself as nothing. I am alive because it is God's will. I exist by faith. I live each day as it would be my last. I am living a dying life. I have been raised with Christ and am now seated in heavenly places. I suppose I will close to drift. I need to find something to keep myself awake. "The point is not that these putatively Christian young people disagree with Christian orthodoxy on homosexuality. The point is that despite the radicalism of gay liberation, especially within the Christian community, they don’t even see this as a legitimate debate. And why should they? According to the tenets of moralistic therapeutic deism, which emphasizes personal happiness and well-being, there is no reason why Christianity should object to same-sex marriage. The summum bonum of our American civil religion is maximizing the opportunities for individuals to express and satisfy their desires—a belief that orthodox Christianity by nature opposes but that Christian moralistic therapeutic deism embraces and baptizes. As Smith told an audience at Princeton Theological Seminary,it is not so much that Christianity in the United States is being secularized. Rather more subtly, either Christianity is at least degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious faith. Some of us will live to see the day when orthodox Christians will be considered exotic antiques at best—I think of the benign indifference with which many Europeans regard Christianity today—and threats to decency at worst, potentially harmful individuals who must be driven out of public life. In either case, Hanby is correct: The civic project of American Christianity has come to an end, for how can we produce Christian civic life when we are not producing authentic Christians? This is not to endorse quietism. I don’t think we can afford to be disengaged from public and political life. But it is to advocate for a realistic understanding of where we stand as Christians in twenty-first-century America. Our prospects for living and acting in the public square as Christians are now quite limited." https://www.firstthings.com/article/2015/02/christian-and-countercultural 9:57 a.m. - 2015-05-20 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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