“The object to which God’s purpose of grace is directed is the whole creation and the whole human family, not human souls conceived as billions of separate monads each detached from its place in the whole fabric of the human and natural world.”

– Lesslie Newbigin, The Open Secret

Read this exciting letter from Stan Mattson, founder and president of the C.S. Lewis Foundation:

At long last! It’s difficult to believe, after so extended a journey, but the truth is, we are about to take a major step forward towards the long-awaited goal of establishing C.S. Lewis College.

J. Stanley Mattson
Founder and President
C.S. Lewis Foundation

Death, one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, was photographed earlier today (Monday) in Copenhagen!

“I don’t know how bad dreams get in my head.”

-Sadie, age 4

Frequently I hear folks teasing Rob and Iain about their long sermons at Trinity.

That teasing has reminded me of sage advice from the political activist Morton Blackwell:

“The mind can absorb no more than the seat can endure.”

Admittedly, this is a problem I encounter when I’m teaching students during hour-and-fifteen-minute class periods. I don’t think Rob or Iain has ever given us an hour-and-fifteen minute sermon, but then I might have fallen asleep, and it only seemed short.

But you have to wonder if there was some hard-won wisdom behind ye olde 15-minute homily. For students, as well as parishioners.

So, almost 300 years after Jesus was born, we finally find people observing his birth in midwinter. But how had they settled on the dates December 25 and January 6?

Get the full story in this article from Biblical Archeology Review.

Taylor Marshall, a Catholic convert, writing here:

Today (December Eighth) commemorates the Immaculate Conception – the Catholic teaching that Mary was conceived without original sin. This often begs the question: If Mary is without sin, is Christ the Savior of His Mother Mary? The Catholic Church answers, “Yes, Christ is the Savior of His Mother Mary.”

Later in the same post, Marshall writes,

Saint Augustine stands in this tradition, writing in the early 400s:
“Now with the exception of the holy Virgin Mary in regard to whom, out of respect for the Lord, I do not propose to have a single question raised on the subject of sin – after all, how do we know what greater degree of grace for a complete victory over sin was conferred on her who merited to conceive and bring forth Him who all admit was without sin — to repeat then: with the exception of this Virgin, if we could bring together into one place all those holy men and women, while they lived here, and ask them whether they were without sin, what are we to suppose that they would have replied?”
St. Augustine, De natura et gratia, Patrologia Latina 44:267

I suspect it would be “Trust Yourself” from Empire Burlesque –

Don’t trust me to show you love
When my love may be only lust
If you want somebody you can trust, trust yourself.

The new edition of LiturgicalCredo: Contemporary Stories of Faith & Doubt is now live. Check it out!

“It is unlikely that anything good or just will come about, unless it flows from an abundance of joy and the passion of love.”
– Jurgen Moltmann, writing in The Theology of Play