Merton on how to love another...

Merton on how to love another...

To love another as a person we must begin by granting him his own autonomy and identity as a person. We have to love him for what he is in himself, and not for what he is to us. We have to love him for his own good, not for the good we get out of him. And this is impossible unless we are capable of a love which ‘transforms’ us, so to speak, into the other person, making us able to see things as he sees them, love what he loves, experience the deeper realities of his own life as if they were our own. Without sacrifice, such a transformation is utterly impossible. But unless we are capable of this kind of transformation ‘into the other’ while remaining ourselves, we are not yet capable of a fully human existence.

Thomas Merton, Disputed Questions

hat tip to Inward-Outward Blog

Pre-Seminary Reading List from Inhabitatio Dei

I found this posting by Halden over at Inhabitatio Dei to be excellent, and got me thinking about Pre (and Post!) - Seminary Reading...!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~`

Pre-Seminary Reading List

Posted on June 24, 2008 by Halden

Recently I was asked by a friend who is going to seminary in the next year or so to give him a list of theological books that I would recommend for reading prior to seminary. Here’s what I gave him. I can’t help but wonder how much better off I would have been if I had read these books before I started seminary.

• Rowan Williams, Resurrection; The Wound of Knowledge
• Alan Lewis, Between Cross and Resurrection
• David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite
• Robert Jenson, Systematic Theology I & II; The Triune Identity; Story and Promise
• Stanley Hauerwas, The Peaceable Kingdom; A Community of Character
• John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus; The Priestly Kingdom
• Lesslie Newbigin, The Gospel in a Pluralist Society; The Household of God
• Colin Gunton, The One, The Three, and the Many
• William Cavanaugh, Torture and Eucharist; Theopolitical Imagination
• James Torrance, Worship, Community, and the Triune God of Grace
• Hans Urs von Balthasar, Love Alone is Credible; Mysterium Paschale
• Chris Huebner, A Precarious Peace
• John Milbank, Theology and Social Theory
• Richard Hays, The Moral Vision of the New Testament
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Sanctorum Communio; Discipleship; Ethics
• Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology; Dogmatics in Outline

Of course, these books are really just some of the ones that I have found particularly formative and which have shaped my vision in a significant way. They are not necessarily the most important theological books ever written, though I think they are some of the most helpful in terms of shaping the kind of theological vision I think the New Testament calls for.

"I Wanna Be Banned By you"

"I Wanna Be Banned By you"

I wanna be banned by you, just you,
Nobody else but you,
I wanna be banned by you, alone,
Pooh pooh bee doo!

I wanna be d by you,just you,
Nobody else but you,
I wanna be d by you,alone

I couldn't aspire,
To anything higher,
Than to smell you perspire
You bishops at Gafcon
Paah-dum paah-dum pa-doodly-dum poooo!

I wanna be banned by you, just you,
Nobody else but you,
I wanna be banned by you, alone

I couldn't aspire,
To anything higher,
Than to smell you perspire
You bishops at Gafcon
Paah-dum paah-dum pa-doodly-dum poooo...

I wanna be banned by you, just you,
Nobody else but you,
I wanna be banned by you,
Paah-deedly-deedly-deedly-dum,
Poo poo bee doo!

Banned from Gafcon...

From the London Times, story by Ruth Gledhill...

The eight men and women pictured here are on the official list of those to be denied entry to Gafcon should they try to show up. 'Not allowed in' it says at the top of the page, given to security officials at the conference. 'The Gafcon 8' as they have been christened, they are Colorado Bishop Robert O'Neill, Nigerian gay activist Davis MacIyalla being embraced by the Church of England's Rev Colin Coward, Louie Crew, Susan Russell, Scott Gunn and Deborah and Robert Edmunds. Bishop O'Neill is staying with Jerusalem primate, Bishop Suheil Dawani, who never wanted the conference here in the first place. Father Edmunds is Bishop Suheil's new chaplain, meaning, as Jim Naughton comments on Thinking Anglicans, that an Anglican meeting is banning entry of the bishop's chaplain in the bishop's own diocese.

Should these or any other activists attempt to breach the security around the conference at the Renaissance Hotel in west Jerusalem the 1,100 delegates have been instructed to start singing the hymn: 'All hail the power of Jesus' name.' In reality though security is extremely tight. Ex-military men from Israel are guarding all the doors, with two assigned purely to guard the Archbishop of Nigeria, Dr Peter Akinola, for the entire week.

Update: A Facebook group, I want to be banned by Gafcon too! has been started by Episcopalians and Anglicans upset to have been left off the list of the banned and within minutes it has acquired more than 50 members and is still growing.

Anglican Church schism recedes over gay issue with African leaders

so, I wonder if Time, Newsweek and all the others will report that the Anglican Communion just might stay together...?

From Times Online

June 24, 2008

Anglican Church schism recedes over gay issue with African leaders

The prospect of schism in the worldwide Anglican Church receded as African leaders meeting in Jerusalem stepped back from the brink and declared they are not seeking to start a new church.

Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi, Primate of Kenya and leader of that country's four million Anglicans, and the Ugandan Primate Archbishop Henry Orombi confirmed last night that there will be no split.

Archbishop Nzimbi's comments are especially significant because he is heading the committee that will draw up the final communique to be issued on Sunday night.

Related Links

• Bishop accuses Williams over ‘apostasy’

• Anglican conference hit by bar on archbishop

• Bishop attacks gay priests' 'wedding'

It also confirms the word behind the scenes in Israel and as disclosed by The Times on Monday, that the agenda is now reform from within rather than starting a breakaway conservative Anglican church that excludes homosexuals or tried to "convert" them to heterosexuality.

The emerging figure that is crucial in the softening of the line on schism is the Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, who has become the key player on the Anglican conservative wing, shifting the emphasis from the US and African conservatives to Australia. Significantly, the Pittsburgh Bishop Bob Duncan, who heads the US conservative grouping Common Cause, is not in Israel although he is named as one of the Global Anglican Future Conference (Gafcon) leadership team in the programme.

In a recent interview in the Sydney Morning Herald, Dr Jensen said that it would be legally impossible to engineer schism. The Episcopal Church of the US has already launched a number of legal actions against breakaway parishes and bishops. Dr Jensen said: "I can't. I'm part of a constitution, which is virtually unchangeable, of the Australian Church. I wouldn't want to. I love the Church. It would be bad for Christianity, bad for the Gospel." He continued: "I think there is going to be an evolution in the Anglican Communion. It has occurred. And what the Future Conference is going to work out is how to live best within that evolution. That's its business."