Venerating Past Saints

Martin Luther preached, Wednesday March 12th 1522,  saying:

Therefore I must admit that images are are neither here nor there, neither evil nor good, we may have them or not, as we please.¹

Pre-reformation, all church buildings would have had images of saints of the past and of course, many Anglican churches still have them in stained-glass form. Indeed, it’s part of every day life in the Orthodox tradition to venerate the odd past saint or two. And Luther says that in and of themselves these images of saints don’t matter.

What is Church?

If you look up “cool” in Xzibit’s (Presenter of Pimp My Ride and well known Hip-Hop superstar) thesaurus, one word he would have as a synonym is “church”. So when he sees a cool car he says, “That’s church” generally with an appropriate hand gesture. So what is church?

I’m planning a extensive series on The proGnosis that defines church. But I’ve never read anyone elses treatise on ecclesiology (the study of the church) so I don’t know what to include. And so before I post on proGnosis (probably in the new year) I thought I’d open things up and ask you, what topics need to be covered in an ecclesiology, in a series that looks at “what is church”? Answers in the comments box please!

The Screwtape Letters

by C. S. Lewis

This book is a classic. There’s no doubting that. It’s been regularly published since the Second World War, which the book makes some reference to. And it’s no wonder that it has been read throughout its 66 year history.

Our protagonists (main characters) are a young demon called Wormwood and his uncle, Screwtape. Screwtape is sharing his wealth of experience with his young nephew. The idea is that each demon is assigned a ‘patient’ of whom it is there responsibility to ensure that he/she ends up in hell, or at least does as little as possible to help the enemy (God) and his kingdom as possible. Wormwood’s patient becomes a Christian and so the focus is on how can he be tempted away or at very least tempted into lazy or nominal Christianity.

Newport Prayer

Last night I barely slept. Going off to sleep I felt burned to pray for Newport as a whole, as that’s where I’m considering the possibility of planting. Now, I’ve been praying occasionally for Newport recently using the map below which lists all the electoral wards. So from memory I prayed through as many of them as I could remember. The particular wards I’m considering for planting are #4 The Gaer, #20 Victoria and #3 Caerleon. Other wards that are particularly deprived and needy are #8 Pillgwenlly, #13 Alway, #18 Ringland and #2 Bettws. I’ve decided to pray for a month every day for all the wards in Newport. I wonder if you’ll join me in prayer even if only the one time that you read this post. If you wish you can click on the image below to get a larger HQ map that you can print off.

Two Reasons Why Today, I Am God

Since the arrival of that great and reason fuelled ”I am” statement, no not by YHWH but by Descartes, “I think therefore I am”, we’ve been coming up with various different manifestations of me, the individual, supplanting the one true “I am”, God. Here are two examples in today’s culture: