Friday, January 10, 2020

Colleagues List, January 12th, 2020

Vol XV. No. 23

Archive - Dec 2009 - Oct 2018                                                                                                               http://colleagueslist.blogspot.ca/ http://colleagueslistii.blogspot.com/


GLOBAL AND ECUMENICAL IN SCOPE
CANADIAN IN PERSPECTIVE

Wayne A. Holst, Editor

My E-Mail Address: waholst@telus.net 

This email is sent only to a voluntary subscriber list.

If you no longer wish to receive these weekly columns,
write to me personally - waholst@telus.net

*****

Dear Friends:

Happy New Year!

My Special Item for this issue is an introduction to
a book written by colleague John Badertscher of
Winnipeg. I consider it a privilege to share this
new title with you at the beginning of 2020.

I hope you will find other parts of this letter of
interest and help to you as well.

Wayne

***

SPECIAL ITEM

Book Notice -

TEN STEPS ON FREEDOM ROAD
Why the Commandments are Good News
by Colleague John Badertscher

Resource Publications,
Wipf and Stock Publishers,
Eugene, OR. 2019. 97 pages.
$14.70 CAD paper. $3.90 CAD Kindle
ISBN #978-1-5326-9395-3


Publisher's Promo:

The purpose of this book is to help those engaged in 
Christian formation, or those who are exploring faith 
perspectives for themselves, to consider the Ten 
Commandments in a positive and liberating, rather 
than a restrictive, sense. Seen in the context of Israel's 
story, the commandments are guidance toward a life 
of freedom in community. Commonly held meanings 
of faith, freedom, and love are challenged as social 
and political dimensions of this journey toward freedom 
are developed.

--

Author's Words:

My testimony is a way of sharing what it means to me
to "love God with all your heart, and soul, and mind,
and strength and love your neighbour as yourself."

Love demands verbal expression as well as actions,
and are my love letter to life...

The set of laws I intend to explore here are usually
called the Ten Commandments, or in a Jewish context,
the Ten Words. In what follows, I will be giving 
testimony to how I have come to knowledge the Ten
Commandments as offering us a better, truer path to
freedom... I will try to make clear a different...
understanding of freedom as we go...

(These understandings) are by no means original
with me and (I use the insights gained from a number
of expert biblical scholars like Walter Harrelson and
Krister Stendahl)...

We begin by showing how the Ten Commandments 
offers genuine freedom to those who would take 
them seriously, how each of them gives us a path 
can walk joyfully.

- quoted from earlier editions of  the preface and
   of chapter one "The Shape of Freedom."

--

Author's bio:

John Badertscher has been a Methodist minister, the 
circulation manager of the Chicago Journalism Review, 
an Associate Professor of Religious Studies at the 
University of Winnipeg, and a member of the General 
Council of the United Church of Canada. In retirement, 
he is a volunteer at the drop-in center of the West 
Broadway Community Ministry, Winnipeg, a husband 
to Lynn, and a father, stepfather, and grandfather.

--

My Thoughts:

This is how my promotional paragraph appears on 
the back cover of the book:

"With insight gained through almost nine decades, 
John Badertscher demonstrates experience in 
journalism, religious and biblical studies, broad 
ecumenical and interfaith awareness in teaching, 
and local congregational and community service. 

"The result is Ten Steps on Freedom Road, a 
contemporary reflection on the meaning of the 
Ten Commandments. It is the product of long 
and thoughtful integration of ancient wisdom 
and modern challenges; offering riches to 
thoughtful fellow-pilgrims on the road to freedom." 

--

The author views the Ten Commandments not
as a transcendent, but an organic, body of laws
that did not arrive from God on a mountain, but
evolved as God's people struggled to understand
right and good ways to live in real time.

The commandments cannot be understood except
as part of a story and as a Christian, the author 
sees that story leading to Jesus of Nazareth. He
creates a short, explanatory chapter on each of 
them and links Christ with the Commandments.


Badertscher does not view the Decalogue as "stolen"
from the Hebrew Bible tradition. But at the same time 
he views that tradition as indispensable to the
Christian faith and to an understanding of universal 
human experience.

In a concluding chapter the author attempts to unpack
the relationship between "faith" and "belief" - which I
found helpful. Like John, I have emerged from a theological 
tradition that emphasized beliefs - many of which I
subsequently questioned. He helps me to move past
previous dichotomies into a more mature and higher 
spirituality that respects all of my theological journey.

Because John and I have been friends for more than
forty years I sense in his writing a deep grounding
in Lutheran theology and the practical application
of his faith in the real world. This he has authentically
inherited from his experience in American Methodism
and the United Church of Canada.

In addition to being a study that is "intra-faith" in
nature therefore, this book also reflects considerable 
"inter-faith" exposure.

True freedom, the author affirms, results from our
living in the spirit of the Ten Commandments. This
spirit he carries with him through his many efforts
in community service with others not Christian.

We, his readers, benefit from a rich integration of the 
author's ministry, teaching and service through the 
reading of this book. This integration of ancient wisdom 
with modern challenges offers a perspective that is 
quite meaningful; even though the book itself is a mere
97 pages.

Please consider securing a copy for yourself.
____

Buy the book from Amazon.ca:
https://tinyurl.com/ssduh4m

*****

COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS

Jim Taylor,
Okanagan, BC.

Personal Web Log,
January 2nd, 2020

"The Yin and Yang of Winter Months"
  https://tinyurl.com/unbkgph

--

Mark Whittall,
Ottawa, On.

Sermons and Blog
January 3rd, 2020

"Overwhelmed With Joy"
  https://tinyurl.com/tvfwhyh

--

Ron Rolheiser,
San Antonio, TX

Personal Web Site
December 30th, 2019

"The Ten Best Books That Found Me in 2019"
  https://tinyurl.com/tkav3c5

-

John G. Stackhouse, Jr.
Moncton, NB

Context With Lorna Dueck
December 31st, 2019

"The Best Year Ever? Yes! and Also ... No"
  https://tinyurl.com/r9vznp9

*****

NET NOTES

POPE FRANCIS LISTS CRISES FOR 2020
Possible and Probable Challenges

Washington Post,
January 9th, 2020

https://tinyurl.com/wefup2o


--

TWO POPES AND THREE KINGS
The Papacy and the Magi

Religion News Service
January 6th, 2020

https://tinyurl.com/wvbt26v

--


7 TOP LATTER DAY SAINTS
NEWS STORIES FOR 2019
Church Sees Growing Profile

Religion News Service,
December 31st, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/usqbwuh

--


EVANGELICALS USING RELIGION
FOR POLITICAL GAIN IS NOT NEW
It's an American Tradition

Guardian, UK
January 8th, 2020


--

CANADIANS UNEASY ABOUT
MIXING FAITH AND POLITICS
Survey Reflects Caution About
Church and State Connections

Christian Week
December 18th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/tdnf8yl

--

BIBLICAL ARCHEOLOGY -
TEN TOP 2019 DISCOVERIES

An Evangelical Christian Perspective

Christianity Today
December 27th, 2019 


https://tinyurl.com/yx22lj8p

--

ANGLICAN PRIMATE'S GUIDANCE
FOLLOWING DISCOURAGING NEWS
Nicholls Focuses on the Essentials by
"Keeping Our Eyes Fixed on Jesus"

Anglican Journal
January 7th, 2020

https://tinyurl.com/rxbcsxx

--

REMEMBERING THE ASSASSINATION
OF ISRAELI PM YITZAK RABIN
A Turning Point in Israel's History

The Christian Century,
January 4th, 2020


https://tinyurl.com/v39srhr


*****

WISDOM OF THE WEEK

From Sojourners and the Bruderhof online -


Indifferentism is the worst disease that can affect people.


- B.R Ambedkar


--


The greatest challenge of the day is: how to bring about a revolution of the heart, a revolution which has to start with each one of us?


- Dorothy Day


--


Spite does not pay. It goes around and misses the object that you aim and comes back and zaps you. And you're the one who pays for it.


- Isabel Wilkerson


--


Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just 
show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. 
wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.


- Anne Lamott

--

When we are violent to our enemies, we do violence to ourselves. When we brutalize others, we brutalize ourselves. And eventually we run the risk of becoming our oppressors.

- Arundhati Roy


--


Reconciliation should be accompanied by justice,otherwise it will not last. While we all hope for peace it shouldn't be peace at any cost but peace based on principle, on justice.


- Corazon C. Aquino


--


Peace is the alternative to war, and nonviolence should be seen as the antidote to violence, not simply as its opposite. Nonviolence is more concerned with saving life than with saving face.


- Jesse Jackson


--


The terrible trials of internal and international conflicts, often aggravated by ruthless acts of violence, have an enduring effect on the body and soul of humanity. Every war is a form of fratricide that destroys the human family’s innate vocation to brotherhood.


- Pope Francis


--


God has created each person for a purpose. He has his plan of love for you, for me, for everyone. The problem is that we make our own plans. We want them to be realized in a certain way and at a particular time. Then we get resentful when our plans don’t materialize. Yet, you have to come to a place in your life where you can say, “You, O Lord, you choose for me.”


- Alice von Hildebrand


--


I am glad, brothers and sisters, that our church is persecuted 
precisely for its preferential option for the poor and for trying 
to become incarnate in the interest of the poor and for saying 
to all the people, to rulers, to the rich and powerful: unless 
you become poor, unless you have a concern for the poverty 
of our people as though they were your own family, you will 
not be able to save society.

- Oscar Romero 


--

Jesus calls us to recognize that gladness and sadness are never separate, that joy and sorrow really belong together, and that mourning and dancing are part of the same movement. That is why Jesus calls us to be grateful for every moment that we have lived, and to claim our unique journey as God’s way to mold our hearts to greater conformity with God’s own. The cross is the main symbol of our faith, and it invites us to find hope where we see pain, and to reaffirm the resurrection where we see death. The call to be grateful is a call to trust that every moment of our life can be claimed as the way of the cross that leads us to new life. 

- Henri J.M. Nouwen

*****

MOMENT IN TIME

Stephen Hawkins is Born

Globe and Mail
January 8th, 2019

Jan. 8, 1942: Like Einstein, Stephen Hawking started out 

as a poor student. At his first year at Oxford, he found the 
physics syllabus “ridiculously easy.” He would get his PhD 
with a career goal of unifying the general theory of relativity 
and quantum mechanics. He said it would be “the ultimate 
triumph of human reason, for then we should know the 
mind of God.”

His bestselling book, A Brief History of Time, sold 10 million 

copies;despite its attempt to bring cosmology to the masses, 
it was dubbed“the most popular book never read.” 

His greatest accomplishment could be that he did all this 
after being diagnosed at 21 with ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s 
disease, and given only two years to live.

He survived another 55 years. Despite being confined 

to a wheel chair and unable to speak, he became a pop-
culture icon with his computer-generated voice and 
appearances on The Simpsons and The Big Bang Theory. 

To show the potential of people with disabilities, he took 
a zero-gravity flight to experience weightlessness, and, 
in one of his last interviews, said, “we must all do what 
we can in whatever situation we are in. Never give up.” 


– Graeme Harris

*****

CLOSING THOUGHT - T.S. Eliot

For last year's words belong to last year's language.                           And next year's words await another voice...


... to make an end is to make a beginning.

    
(end)


*****



For those interested:

ST. DAVID'S ACTS  WINTER MONDAY NIGHT BOOK STUDY

A Ten Week Series January 13th - March 23rd, 2020
(Family Weekend exempted)
Monday Evenings, TM Room 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

"FUTURE FAITH - Ten Challenges Reshaping 
                              Christianity in the 21st Century"

Author: Wesley Granberg-Michaelson

Registration/Hospitality and Book: $60.00.
Book only: $25.00


37 copies of the book were made available for sale.
All but 3 are now sold. Total on-site registrations: 32
(plus 3 on-line participants). Grand Total: 35 to date.

Book Description - https://tinyurl.com/tybpxvd

Study Notes - https://tinyurl.com/wh5jbwq

***

ST. DAVID'S ACTS THURSDAY MORNING BIBLE STUDY
Our theme this winter: To be determined at our first 
gathering, January 16th, 2020

Ten Sessions - January 23rd-March 26th, 2020

Gathering at 9:30 AM in the St. David's TM Room
and meeting 10:00 - 11:00 AM.

No charge

Study resource -

"The DK Complete Bible Handbook"
  Edited by John Bowker


http://tinyurl.com/odxlv7q
 

***** 

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Colleagues List, July 24th, 2022

  Vol. XVIII. No. 1 Archive - Dec 2009 - Oct 2019                                            http://colleagueslist.blogspot / .ca           ...