One of the first things which struck me about the Qur’an the first time I read it was how it can suddenly and jarringly jump to a completely different scene,
I’ve often been told that the Torah and the Injil were only for the Jews. However, two problems: The Pickthall translation doesn’t hide it: He hath revealed unto thee (Muhammad)
John Fontain recently debated David Wood on the Islamic Dilemma, which points out that the Qu’ran both affirms the Torah and Gospel while contradicting them. John has a rather different
Those who attempt to say that the Qur’an teaches the corruption of the earlier scriptures, often appeal to Qur’an 5:48, but this argument turns on the translation of the word
I’m reading through the Qu’ran one last time this year and wanted to follow along with a Tafsir. I discovered Quran Garden which was just the sort of thing I
The Qur’an claims that if it were not from God, there would be many contradictions in it. However, there is one Qur’anic verse which presents an inherent contradiction! In chapter
The sun sets in muddy spring (18:86) Semen comes from between backbone & ribs (86:6-7) Stars are missiles to shoot devils (67:5) If a fly lands in your drink, one
The Qur’an speaks about Allah helping the followers of Jesus and keeping them “uppermost”, but this presents a dilemma since, historically, this has to refer to Trinitarian Christians… which is
* “Memento Mori” is a phrase in Latin which means “Remember Death”
* If you were wondering where Whidbey Island is, it’s here.
* The book I referenced was “Something Other Than God” by Jennifer Fulwiler:
“The Catechism explained that praying for the souls of the dead is a tradition going back to the first Christians and to the Jews before them… The living sent their love for the deceased into the spiritual world, like adding water to a stream that would eventually float their lost friends home“
* Don’t believe me about the ninja boots? Here they are.
* The Psalm I quoted was Psalm 84:6
Blessed are the men whose strength is in [the Lord]… As they go through the Valley of Baca [weeping] they make it a place of springs; the early rain also covers it with pools.
* The poem I quoted at the end was “As Kingfishers Catch Fire” by Gerard Manly Hopkins:
…for Christ plays in ten thousand places, Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not His To the Father through the features of men’s faces.
At last we come to the final chapter of “Mere Christianity” completing my notes for the book.
1. Christ came to transform
“…Christ’s work…is not mere improvement but Transformation. The nearest parallel to it in the world of nature is to be found in the remarkable transformations we can make in insects by applying certain rays to them. Some people think this is how Evolution worked”
(a) We are used to transformation through evolution
“…Everyone now knows about Evolution (though, of course, some educated people disbelieve it): everyone has been told that man has evolved from lower types of life. Consequently, people often wonder ‘What is the next step? When is the thing beyond man going to appear?'”
(b) People have constantly been incorrectly predicting the next step
“…I cannot help thinking that the Next Step will be really new; it will go off in a direction you could never have dreamed of. It would hardly be worth calling a New Step unless it did. I should expect not merely difference but a new kind of difference. I should expect not merely change but a new method of producing the change…. And finally, I should not be surprised if, when the thing happened, very few people noticed that it was happening”
(c) The Next Step is here
“Now, if you care to talk in these terms, the Christian view is precisely that the Next Step has already appeared. And it is really new. It is not a change from brainy men to brainier men: it is a change that goes off in a totally different direction – a change from being creatures of God to being sons of God. The first instance appeared in Palestine two thousand years ago”
This step has some differences in relation to the past…
“And in fact this New Step differs from all previous ones not only in coming from outside nature but in several other ways as well”
Champions are made by doing the little things, and the war is won in the small battles of life. Being faithful and committed in the small things leads to heroic virtue when it truly counts. Indeed, it is in doing the little things now that you develop the character to become that husband and father you hope to be someday
Picking back up my notes for C.S. Lewis’ “Mere Christianity”…
1. If Christianity is true, why are all Christians not obviously nicer than all non-Christians?
(a) Part of this question is very reasonable
“If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man’s outward actions… I think we must suspect that his ‘conversion’ was largely imaginary…”
(i) Jesus told us to judge by results
“Fine feelings, new insights, greater interest in ‘religion’ mean nothing unless they make our actual behaviour better; just as in an illness ‘feeling better’ is not much good if the thermometer shows that your temperature is still going up… Christ told us to judge by results”
(ii) When we fail to live up to our calling, we make Christianity harder to believe for others
“When we Christians behave badly, or fail to behave well, we are making Christianity unbelievable to the outside world… Our careless lives set the outer world talking; and we give them grounds for talking in a way that throws doubt on the truth of Christianity itself”
(b) Part of this question is very unreasonable
But there is another way of demanding results in which the outer world may be quite illogical…. they should see the whole world neatly divided into two camps -Christian and non-Christian – and that all the people in the first camp at any given moment should be obviously nicer than all the people in the second.
There are several flaws with this kind of thinking…
A rather different entry this week, the rather delicate and thoughtful “Make me new” with Pat D’Angelo:
I’ve played the game before chasing after fame and needing more
Don’t you know you showed me that I need you?
I need you, you’re making me new…
I don’t know what to do but trust in you, trust in you alone You make me more than I could ever make myself More than I could make myself, you make me new…
Your love for me is greater than I’ve ever known
Your presence fills my heart and makes me fill I’m not alone
I need you, you’re making me new…
In this week’s episode, we return to the Early Church and discuss the successors to the Apostles, known as the Early Church Fathers. Somehow Nessa manages to talk about relationships… :-/
* I mentioned my article I’ve written called “Before 300” where I outline 21 documented beliefs of Christians prior to the rise of the Emperor Constantine:
Part #1: The Church
1. The Church is Catholic
2. The Church has a three-fold structure of leadership
3. There is unity through episcopal authority and schism is evil
4. Sacred Tradition is authoritative
5. Worship is liturgical
6. There is Apostolic Succession
7. Peter has Primacy
Part #2: Salvation & Sacraments
1. The Eucharist is a Sacrifice
2. Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist
3. The Eucharist is taken to the sick
4. Infants are to be baptized
5. Baptism actually washes away sin
6. Priests forgive sins
7. Works are involved in salvation
Part #3: The Saints and Our Lady
1. Prayers are said for the dead
2. There is purgation after death
3. Relics are venerated and Saints are celebrated
4. Mary is the New Eve
5. Mary was a perpetual virgin
6. Mary is the Mother of God
7. Prayers are made and songs are sung to Mary
1. Antiquity Did this person live sometime between the time of Christ and the end of the 8th Century? This span of time is called the “Patristic Era” (“Patristic” simply means relating to the Early Church Fathers).
2. Sanctity Did this person live a life of outstanding holiness? Is this person a canonized Saint?
3. Orthodoxy
Did this person hold heretical views? Tertullian and Origen are two early Christians who are typically disqualified here due to some of their erroneous beliefs. We therefore instead give them the title of “Early Ecclesiastical Writers”.
4. Church Recognition and Approval Has the Church and Christians throughout history generally referred to this person as a Father of the Church?
* There were about one hundred Early Church Fathers.
* The Early Church Fathers of the 1st and 2nd Centuries are usually called the “Apostolic Fathers” since they were born during the era of the Apostles.
* We then briefly spoke about three Apostolic Fathers:
1. St. Clement of Rome
* A successor to St. Peter as Bishop of Rome
* He wrote a letter to the Church at Corinth (AD ~96) in response to the ejection of their clergy
* In the letter he gives many Old Testament examples of those who flaunted God-given authority and who suffered the consequences
* In a particularly beautiful passage reminiscent of 1 Corinthians 13, Clement exhorts the Corinthians to love. I had a small rant about 1 Corinthians 13, pointing out that Paul is speaking of “agape” love rather than “eros” love.
2. St. Ignatius of Antioch
* A successor to St. Peter as Bishop of Antioch
* Taken to Rome in chains (AD ~107) to be thrown to wild animals
* Wrote seven letters, one to St. Polycarp (see below), several to nearby Churches and one to the Church in Rome
* In his letter to the Roman Church he begs them to not interfere with his coming martyrdom: “I beseech of you not to show an unseasonable goodwill towards me. Suffer me to become food for the wild beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to attain to God. I am the wheat of God, and am ground by the teeth of the wild beasts, that I may be found the pure bread of God”
* In the account of his martyrdom, the Governor tells Polycarp to say “Caesar is Lord”, but Polycarp knew that “Christ/Jesus is Lord”. He was told to “revile Christ”, but he responded: “Eighty-six years have I served Him, and He never did me any wrong: how then dare I blaspheme my King and my Saviour?”
* Prior to being burned alive, Polycarp gives a prayer which sounds an awful lot like a Eucharistic Prayer.
* As he was burned, people reported the smell of baking bread.
* Some Jews claimed that the Christians might start worshipping Polycarp after his death. The author of the Martyrdom account says the following: “They did not realize that we could never abandon Christ, He who suffered for our salvation – the blameless one for sinners! – or worship any other. Him we worship as being the Son of God, the martyrs we love as being disciples and imitators of the Lord; and deservedly so, because of their unsurpassable devotion to their King and Teacher. May it be our good fortune, too, to be their companions and fellow disciples!”
* After his death, the Christians gathered Polycarp’s relics and and interred them in a fitting place: “There the Lord will permit us, as far as possible, to assemble in rapturous joy and celebrate his martyrdom – his birthday – both in order to commemorate the heroes that have gone before, and to train the heroes yet to come…”
* In last week’s episode, we spoke about another Early Church Father, St. Basil of Caesarea.
* If you would like to read what the different Fathers wrote about the Sunday Gospel, you can look it up using the Catena Aurea (“Golden Chain”), a collection of patristic commentary which was assembled by St. Thomas Aquinas. You can also get it on your mobile!
Yeah, about right… 😉
A rather different entry this week, the rather delicate and thoughtful “Make me new” with 
