With you all the way, Richard. I just wish you had included sacramental worship as a key “secret discipline.” For me, it is the Eucharist, more than anything else that sustains my faith and self-giving love. And not just some symbolic ritual, but really receiving Christ in his sacrificial body and blood. What is more generative toward self-giving love than that. By the way, I’m a Calvinist by tradition, and, surprising to some, it’s Calvin who gave us a robust Eucharistic Protestant theology of the real presence of Christ in the sacraments.
I learned this too when we attended a Lutheran church for a number of years… the weekly Communion, and their teaching of the mystery surrounding it, was far more meaningful than the once a month or once a quarter “remembrance” ceremony I had grown up with. I still find Communion to be one of the main things that sustains my faith these days…
On my left shoulder, closest to my heart, I have tattooed the word "FAITH," and on my right shoulder, the one that I use most, I have tattooed the word "WORKS." Although I'm a professed Protestant, a friend told me that my tattoos make me a Roman Catholic. I just think that I'm a "born again" albeit imperfect follower of Jesus Christ . . . like Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Reducing a Mystery to a Formula and a Syllogism was what Penal Substitution did for so many Christians. The reaction against Penal Substitution has all too often thrown out everything as opposed to scratching off the human-made plaster-work that has concealed the Mystery underneath.
With you all the way, Richard. I just wish you had included sacramental worship as a key “secret discipline.” For me, it is the Eucharist, more than anything else that sustains my faith and self-giving love. And not just some symbolic ritual, but really receiving Christ in his sacrificial body and blood. What is more generative toward self-giving love than that. By the way, I’m a Calvinist by tradition, and, surprising to some, it’s Calvin who gave us a robust Eucharistic Protestant theology of the real presence of Christ in the sacraments.
I learned this too when we attended a Lutheran church for a number of years… the weekly Communion, and their teaching of the mystery surrounding it, was far more meaningful than the once a month or once a quarter “remembrance” ceremony I had grown up with. I still find Communion to be one of the main things that sustains my faith these days…
On my left shoulder, closest to my heart, I have tattooed the word "FAITH," and on my right shoulder, the one that I use most, I have tattooed the word "WORKS." Although I'm a professed Protestant, a friend told me that my tattoos make me a Roman Catholic. I just think that I'm a "born again" albeit imperfect follower of Jesus Christ . . . like Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
Reducing a Mystery to a Formula and a Syllogism was what Penal Substitution did for so many Christians. The reaction against Penal Substitution has all too often thrown out everything as opposed to scratching off the human-made plaster-work that has concealed the Mystery underneath.
Truly, truly outstanding. Thank you Dr. Beck. This is the Jesus of Philippians 2.
Grateful that you give us a window into your own journey, Richard.