Hope

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From The Pisces (2018)

  “Show me his Facebook.” “I’ve only met him a few times and I don’t have his number or email or anything. I don’t even know his last name. He meets me at this rock pile, these breakers, on the ocean. Like, he swims up at night.” “What do you mean ‘he swims up at night’?” “He swims up at night. And we talk. Also, he touched my foot.” “He touched your foot?” “Yeah.” “Oh so he has a fetish. Like Sara from group.” “Sara touches her own foot,” I said. “More like caresses,” said Claire. “She really makes love to that foot. Maybe she’s replaced men with her own foot?” “Ha! No, it was more like he thought my foot was special. Or like through the foot he was touching my soul.” Claire stared at me. “It’s not as weird as it sounds. And I think it’s safe for me emotionally, like, I’m not getting romantically obsessed, because I sort of just know now that he will show up. I can rely on him not to ignore me. It’s as though he is more of a friend or something. Granted, I don’t really want friends. And he’s gorgeous and looks like he is twenty-one.” “Twenty-one!” she squealed. “That’s brilliant.” “But I think he does like me. I mean, with the foot touching there was an indication that he is attracted to me in some way, though maybe not, because the way he touched it was sort of sensual at first but then it was just sort of friendly. The point is—I don’t feel crazy around this one.” “Well, that’s what matters,” she said. “That you’re happy.” “Yeah, I don’t even care that I don’t have his number or email or even know his last name. I just feel like, I don’t know, like the universe put him there to show me—” “The universe?” “Yes, that the universe put him there to show me that I can have some of that male energy in my life without going totally insane.” “The universe is a wanker,” she said. 26.“There’s a light on in your eyes,” said Brianne. “Have you been doing inner-child work?” “Definitely not,” I said. “Trauma work?” clucked Chickenhorse suspiciously. I shook my head no. “Must be the self-dating,” she said. “You actually look alive for once.” “Thanks, I guess.” I let them know that I was doing well and had blocked Adam and Garrett in my phone. I made no mention of Theo or the rocks, as the group would deem it poor self-care that I had been wandering around there so late at night in the dark. Chickenhorse would probably call it self-harm. But everyone was suffering too much today to focus on me for long. Chickenhorse had been forced to move back in with her parents, which was traumatizing for her. Actually, she said it was “retraumatizing” and calling up trauma from earlier in life.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  To an outside spectator, especially to a Romanist and to an infidel, Protestantism presents the aspect of a religious chaos or anarchy which must end in dissolution. But a calm review of the history of the last three centuries and the present condition of Christendom leads to a very different conclusion. It is an undeniable fact that Christianity has the strongest hold upon the people and displays the greatest vitality and energy at home and abroad, in English-speaking countries, where it is most divided into denominations and sects. A comparison of England with Spain, or Scotland with Portugal, or the United States with Mexico and Peru or Brazil, proves the advantages of living variety over dead uniformity. Division is an element of weakness in attacking a consolidated foe, but it also multiplies the missionary, educational, and converting agencies. Every Protestant denomination has its own field of usefulness, and the cause of Christianity itself would be seriously weakened and contracted by the extinction of any one of them. Nor should we overlook the important fact, that the differences which divide the various Protestant denominations are not fundamental, and that the articles of faith in which they agree are more numerous than those in which they disagree. All accept the inspired Scriptures as the supreme rule of faith and practice, salvation by grace, and we may say every article of the Apostles’ Creed; while in their views of practical Christianity they unanimously teach that our duties are comprehended in the royal law of love to God and to our fellow-men, and that true piety and virtue consist in the imitation of the example of Christ, the Lord and Saviour of all. There is then unity in diversity as well as diversity in unity. And the tendency to separation and division is counteracted by the opposite tendency to Christian union and denominational intercommunion which manifests itself in a rising degree and in various forms among Protestants of the present day, especially in England and America, and on missionary fields, and which is sure to triumph in the end. The spirit of narrowness, bigotry and exclusiveness must give way at last to a spirit of evangelical catholicity, which leaves each denomination free to work out its own mission according to its special charisma, and equally free to co-operate in a noble rivalry with all other denominations for the glory of the common Master and the building up of His Kingdom. The great problem of Christian union cannot be solved by returning to a uniformity of belief and outward organization. Diversity in unity and unity in diversity is the law of God in history as well as in nature. Every aspect of truth must be allowed room for free development. Every possibility of Christian life must be realized. The past cannot be undone; history moves zig-zag, like a sailing vessel, but never backwards. The work of church history, whether Greek, Roman, or Protestant, cannot be in vain.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Thus these hymns constitute a book of devotion and poetic confession of faith for German Protestantism, a sacred band which encircles its various periods, an abiding memorial of its struggles and victories, its sorrows and joys, a mirror of its deepest experiences, and an eloquent witness for the all-conquering and invincible life-power of the evangelical Christian faith. The treasures of German hymnody have enriched the churches of other tongues, and passed into Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, French, Dutch, and modern English and American hymn-books. John Wesley was the first of English divines who appreciated its value; and while his brother Charles produced an immense number of original hymns, John freely reproduced several hymns of Paul Gerhardt, Tersteegen, and Zinzendorf. The English Moravian hymn-book as revised by Montgomery contains about a thousand abridged (but mostly indifferent) translations from the German. In more recent times several accomplished writers, male and female, have vied with each other in translations and transfusions of German hymns. Among the chief English translators are Miss Frances Elizabeth Cox;667 Arthur Tozer Russell;668 Richard Massie;669 Miss Catherine Winkworth;670 Mrs. Eric Findlater and her sister, Miss Jane Borthwick, of the Free Church of Scotland, who modestly conceal their names under the letters "H. L. L." (Hymns from the Land of Luther);671 James W. Alexander,672Henry Mills,673 John Kelly,674 not to mention many others who have furnished admirable translations of one or more hymns for public or private hymnological collections.675 English and American hymnody began much later than the German, but comes next to it in fertility, is enriching itself constantly by transfusions of Greek, Latin, and German, as well as by original hymns, and may ultimately surpass all hymnodies. § 83. Common Schools. Luther: An die Rathsherren aller Städte deutschen Landes, dass sie christliche Schulen aufrichten und halten sollen. Wittenberg, 1524. The book appeared in the same year in Latin (De constituendis scholis), with a preface of Melanchthon, the probable translator, at Hagenau. In Walch, x. 533; in the Erlangen. ed., xxii. 168–199. Church and school go together. The Jewish synagogue was a school. Every Christian church is a school of piety and virtue for old and young. The mediaeval church was the civilizer and instructor of the barbarians, founded the convent and cathedral schools, and the great universities of Paris (1209), Bologna, Padua, Oxford, Cambridge, St. Andrews, Glasgow, Salamanca, Alcala, Toledo, Prague (1348), Vienna (1365), Heidelberg (1386), Cologne (1388), Erfurt (1393), Leipzig (1409), Basel (1460), Ingolstadt (1472), Tübingen (1477), Wittenberg (1502), etc. But education in the middle ages was aristocratic, and confined to the clergy and a very few laymen of the higher classes. The common people were ignorant and superstitious, and could neither read nor write. Even noblemen signed their name with a cross. Books were rare and dear. The invention of the printing-press prepared the way for popular education. The Reformation first utilized the press on a large scale, and gave a powerful impulse to common schools. The genius of Protestantism favors the general diffusion of knowledge.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  Different branches—Catholic, Protestant, Reformed, charismatic, evangelical, liberal, social-gospel, and the many segments of church life that bear two or more of these rather misleading labels at the same time—come at things from different angles. Naturally. But it is my belief that all of them, over many centuries now, have backed off from facing the full challenge of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. It would be fascinating to chart the ways in which different parts of the church have read (and, in my view, misread) the gospels. But that would require a different sort of book and is in any case way beyond my competence. Instead, I want to come at the question from the angle of the parts of the church I know best. After nearly twenty years in senior ministerial roles in the Church of England, seven of them as Bishop of Durham, and with fairly wide experience of traditions very different from my own, I think what I have to say reflects not a narrow or idiosyncratic viewpoint, but one at which many Christians from many traditions will nod with recognition. The question, then, is not only: Can we learn to read the gospels better, more in tune with what their original writers intended? It is also: Can we discover, by doing this, a new vision for God’s mission in the world, in and through Jesus, and then—now!—in and through his followers? And, in doing so, can we grow closer together in mission and life, in faith and hope, and even in love? Might a fresh reading of the gospels, in other words, clear the way for renewed efforts in mission and unity? Is that what it would look like if we really believed that the living God was king on earth as in heaven? That, after all, is the story all four gospels tell. I am aware, of course, that there are other documents that have been called “gospels,” and I shall say something about them in passing. But I am here dealing with the four that were recognized, from very early on, as part of the church’s “rule of life,” that is, part of the “canon”: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And the story that the four evangelists tell is the story, as in my title, of “how God became king.” This, I discover, comes as a surprise to most people, and an unwelcome shock to some. It appears, as we say today, counterintuitive; that is, the claim that God has become king doesn’t seem to square with the world as we know it. “If God is really king, why is there still cancer? Why are there still tsunamis? Why are there still tyranny, genocide, child abuse, and massive economic corruption?”

• From How God Became King (2012)

  But they are biographies with a difference. One can imagine how this might work. Someone might write a biography of Abraham Lincoln that was at the same time designed to show the way in which the old America of the original revolution was passing away, never to return. Similarly, someone might write a biography of Winston Churchill that was at the same time designed to show the way in which the old British ruling class was having its final hurrah before the winds of change swept through the United Kingdom. You can read Michael Foot’s biography of the great Labor politician Aneurin Bevan not simply as a window through which to view the great man, but as the description of a key moment in a much larger story that Foot was anxious to tell, a moment when British society began to embrace a socialist vision that would (Foot hoped) bring new hope to millions of poor working people. A biography can be a biography and still be a vehicle for telling a much bigger story. Or, in the case of the gospels, four much bigger stories, which all come rushing together at this point. This, to be sure, is why the gospels, which on the surface look like such easy reads, indeed quite the page-turners, are in fact highly complex, repaying hours and years of patient thought and reflection. Let us then examine the first of our four speakers, a speaker that has, for many people, been turned right off altogether. Many people who have read the gospels all their lives have never even imagined music coming from this corner of the room. Prequel and Sequel In the year 1900, a book was published that changed the imagination of America. Its creator, L. Frank Baum, had stumbled into writing fantasy fiction some years before, mostly to while away time spent on the road as a traveling salesman. But The Wonderful Wizard of Oz was an instant hit, and Baum never looked back. Three years later, the show of the same name (but without the “Wonderful”) opened on Broadway. In one form or another, the story has been delighting audiences young and old ever since. Baum, as I said, never looked back—in more ways than one. He wrote several sequels to the Wizard, but never a prequel. Almost a hundred years later, in 1995, Gregory Maguire remedied this omission—and changed the way a new generation would understand the original book and the original show. He published a book entitled Wicked, in which the Wicked Witch of the West was not always so wicked.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  Thus, when the servant’s work is done, “Kings shall see and stand up; princes, and they shall prostrate themselves, because of YHWH, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you” (49:7). Or, through a different lens, when they see what the servant’s work ultimately involves, “kings shall shut their mouths because of him; for that which had not been told them they shall see, and that which they had not heard they shall contemplate” (52:15, leading immediately to the description of the servant’s suffering in chapter 53). In other words, with the echo of the opening words of the first “servant” poem, the synoptic writers are not inviting their readers merely to contemplate Jesus as the one who dies so that sinners may be forgiven. They are invoking one of the primary scriptural passages in which Israel’s God, YHWH, establishes his sovereignty over the whole world, doing so indeed despite the failure of his own people to believe in him. He will rescue them through the servant’s work, but merely to do that is “too light a thing.” He will provide, through the servant, “a light to the nations, that [his] salvation may reach to the end of the earth” (49:6). At the heart of all this is the ultimate good news: “Your God reigns,” malak elohayik (52:7). He is king, and has demonstrated this by overthrowing the pagan kingdoms and their idols, unveiling his worldwide justice, and inviting all and sundry to turn to him and enjoy the benefits of his renewed covenant and renewed creation (Isa. 54–55). The baptism narrative, therefore, in all the gospels, is not simply about Jesus’s “divine identity,” on the one hand, or a particular program of “atonement,” in the sense of a rescue from the world of creation, on the other. Yes, the gospels affirm Jesus’s divine identity. Yes, they affirm his death on the cross as the climax of God’s age-old plan of salvation. But the purpose of God coming incognito in and as Jesus and the purpose of this Jesus dying on the cross was—so the gospels are telling us—in order to establish God’s kingdom, his justice, on earth as in heaven. As in Psalm 2, the point is that in this way the nations are to be called to account. This is how the creator is bringing his creation back into proper shape. Once we have noticed this theme in the baptism story, we are bound to see it all over the place.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  “This is what is written,” said Jesus. “The Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead on the third day, and in his name repentance, for the forgiveness of sins, must be announced to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are the witnesses for all this.” (24:46–48) We should not imagine that “forgiveness of sins” here is a purely individualistic thing. In the light of the “Nazareth manifesto” (4:16–21), it seems clearly to extend to the jubilee principle, the release from all debts, the cosmic sigh of relief at God’s new exodus achievement, rescuing people from all forms of slavery. Jesus’s followers were thereby commissioned and then empowered by the Spirit to announce to the world that there was a different way to be human. Acts, with its many tales of confrontation, persecution, and martyrdom, takes forward exactly this agenda. This is what it looks like, Luke is saying, when Jesus is enthroned as Lord of the world, and his followers go out to put his royal rule into effect, ending up in Rome announcing God’s kingdom and Jesus as Lord “with all boldness, and with no one stopping them” (28:31). In Luke, as in John, the broader picture is filled in with the little telltale touches that show that the larger cosmic kingdom achievement is to be applied vividly to every single person. Over against those who have claimed, absurdly of course, that Luke had no real atonement theology (mainly on the grounds that he does not reproduce Mark 10:45!), we discover Luke saying again and again that Jesus was being accused of crimes of which he was innocent but people all around him were guilty: They began to accuse him. “We found this fellow,” they said, “deceiving our nation! He was forbidding people to give tribute to Caesar, and saying that he is the Messiah—a king!” (23:2) [Pilate] released the man they asked for, the one who’d been thrown into prison because of rebellion and murder, and gave Jesus over to their demands. (23:25) “Daughters of Jerusalem,” said Jesus, “don’t cry for me. Cry for yourselves instead! Cry for your children! Listen: the time is coming when you will say, ‘A blessing on the barren! A blessing on wombs that never bore children, and breasts that never nursed them!’ At that time people will start to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us’! Yes: if this is what they do with the green tree, what will happen to the dry one?” (23:28–31) Jesus, in other words, is the “green” tree, the tree that is not ready for burning. He is innocent. But all around him, growing up in the streets and lanes of Jerusalem, are the young firebrands who will be only too ready for the fire when the time comes. The innocence of Jesus continues to be a major motif throughout Luke’s account of the crucifixion:

• From How God Became King (2012)

  Once this is clear, the way is open for a fresh understanding of the kingdom-and-cross combination, as we find it, for instance, in Revelation: Glory to the one who loved us, and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us a kingdom, priests to his God and father. (1:5–6) You are worthy to take the scroll; You are worthy to open its seals; For you were slaughtered and with your own blood You purchased a people for God, From every tribe and tongue, From every people and nation, And made them a kingdom and priests to our God And they will reign on the earth. (5:9–10) This vision, of a community rescued by the cross and transformed into kingdom-bringers, follows directly from the story the four evangelists are telling. It is, once more, a measure of how far the Western church has drifted from those moorings that it has been possible for Christians in our own day to think of bringing “justice and peace” into the world by the normal, disastrous means of bombs and bullets. Not so. The implicit ecclesiology of all four gospels is a picture of a community sharing the complex vocation of Jesus himself: to be kingdom-bringers, yes, but to do this first because of Jesus’s own suffering and second by means of their own. The slaughtered and enthroned lamb of Revelation 5 is not only the shepherd of his people; he is also their template. Sharing his suffering is the way in which they are to extend his kingdom in the world. As I write this I am conscious that today’s Western church, and I myself as part of it, have suffered remarkably little by comparison with Christians of other times and, today, other places. I honor those who are leading the way as today’s kingdom-bringers and pray for them in their courage and steadfast witness . Kingdom and Cross in Caesar’s World The fourth speaker, we recall, invites us to listen to the four gospels as the story of God’s kingdom confronting that of Caesar. How does the music from this speaker contribute to our understanding of the strange combination of kingdom and cross? From all that we examined in Chapter 7, it is clear that all four gospels regard the story of Jesus not only as the confrontation between God’s kingdom and Caesar’s kingdom, but as the victory of the former over the latter. This theme is continued throughout the New Testament. Toward the end of the previous section we glanced at some passages in the book of Revelation that make this point graphically. The violent death of the Lamb has won the decisive victory over the monsters and their horrid kingdoms and over the old dragon, the satan itself.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  In the assembly it was the address of an old Swede, proving that the god of the Christians was stronger even than Thor, and that it was poor policy for a nation not to have the strongest god, which finally turned the scales, and once more the Christian missionaries were allowed to preach undisturbed in the country, . Before Ansgar left, in 850, the church was rebuilt in Birka, and, for a number of years, the missionary labor was continued with great zeal by Erimbert, a nephew of Gautbert, by Ansfrid, born a Dane, and by Rimbert, also a Dane. Nevertheless, although the persecutions ceased, Christianity made little progress, and when, in 935, Archbishop Unni himself visited Birka, his principal labor consisted in bringing back to the Christian fold such members as had strayed away among the heathen, and forgotten their faith. Half a century later, however, during the reign of Olaf Skotkonge, the mission received a vigorous impulse. The king himself and his sons were won for the Christian cause, and

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  They are the vessels in which this drink is contained; they are the storehouse in which this food is laid by; and, as the gospel itself shows, they are the baskets in which these loaves and fishes and fragments are preserved. Yea, if we should so err as to let the languages go (which God forbid!), we shall not only lose the gospel, but it will come to pass at length that we shall not be able to speak or write correctly either Latin or German. ... "Herewith I commend you all to the grace of God. May He soften and kindle your hearts so that they shall earnestly take the part of these poor, pitiable, forsaken youth, and, through Divine aid, counsel and help them to a happy and Christian ordering of the German land as to body and soul with all fullness and overflow, to the praise and honor of God the Father, through Jesus Christ, our Saviour. Amen." The advice of Luther was not unheeded. Protestant nations are far ahead of the Roman Catholic in popular education. In Germany and Switzerland there is scarcely a Protestant boy or girl that cannot read and write; while in some papal countries, even to this day, the majority of the people are illiterate.676 § 84. Reconstruction of Church Government and Discipline. Aemil Ludw. Richter: Die evangel; Kirchenordnungen des 16 Jahrh., Weimar, 1846, 2 vols. By the same: Gesch. der evang. Kirchenver-fassung in Deutschland. Leipz., 1851. By the same: Lehrbuch des kath. und evang. Kirchenrechts, Leipzig, 5th ed., 1858. J. W. F. Höfling: Grundsätze der evang.- lutherischen Kirchenverfassung. Erlangen, third ed., 1853. Stahl: Die Kirchenverfassung nach Recht und Lehre der Protestanten. Erlangen, 1862. Mejer: Grundl. des luth. Kirchenregiments, Rostock, 1864. E. Friedberg: Lehrbuch des kath. u. evang. Kirchenrechts, Leipz., 1884. The papal monarchy and visible unity of Western Christendom were destroyed with the burning of the Pope’s bull and the canon law. The bishops refused to lead the new movement; disorder and confusion followed. A reconstruction of government and discipline became necessary. The idea of an invisible church of all believers was not available for this purpose. The invisible is not governable. The question was, how to deal with the visible church as it existed in Saxony and other Protestant countries, and to bring order out of chaos. The lawyers had to be consulted, and they could not dispense with the legal wisdom and experience of centuries. Luther himself returned to the study of the canon law, though to little purpose.677 He hated it for its connection with popery, and got into conflict with the lawyers, even his colleague, Professor Schurf, who had accompanied him to the Diet of Worms as a faithful friend and counselor, but differed from him on matrimonial legislation.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  He pronounced from the pulpit in favor of virtue as the foundation of a sound government and democracy as its form. "Among northern nations," he affirmed, where there is great strength and little intellect, and among southern nations where there is great intellect and little strength, the rule of a single despot may sometimes be the best of governments. But in Italy and, above all in Florence, where both strength and intellect abound,—where men have keen wits and restless spirits,—the government of the one can only result in tyranny." In the scheme, which he proposed, he took for his model the great council of Venice, leaving out its head, the doge, who was elected for life. The great council of Florence was to consist of, at least, 1500 men, who had reached the age of 29, paid their taxes and belonged to the class called beneficiati, that is, those who held a civil office themselves or whose father, grandfather, or great-grandfather had held a civil office. A select council of 80 was to be chosen by it, its members to be at least forty years of age. In criminal cases, an appeal from a decision of the signory was allowed to the great council, which was to meet once a week and to be a voting rather than a deliberative body. The place of the supreme doge or ruler, Savonarola gave to God himself. "God alone," he exclaimed from the pulpit, "God alone will be thy king, O Florence, as He was king of Israel under the old Covenant." "Thy new head shall be Jesus Christ,"—this was the ringing cry with which he closed his sermons on Haggai. Savonarola’s recent biographer, Villari, emphasizes "the masterly prudence and wisdom shown by him in all the fundamental laws he proposed for the new state." He had no seat in the council and yet he was the soul of the entire people.1186 In the last chapter of his career Savonarola was pitted against Alexander VI. as his contestant. The conflict began with the demand made by the pope July 25, 1495, that Savonarola proceed to Rome and answer charges. Then followed papal inhibitions of his preaching and the decree of excommunication, and the conflict closed with the appointment of a papal commission which condemned Savonarola to death as a heretic. Alexander’s order, summoning the friar to Rome, was based on his announcement that his predictions of future events came by divine revelation.1187 At the same time, the pope expressed his great joy over the report that of all the workers in the Lord’s vineyard, Savonarola was the most zealous, and he promised to welcome him to the eternal city with love and fraternal affection. Savonarola declined the pontiff’s summons on the ground of ill-health and the dangers that would beset him on the way to Rome.

• From How God Became King (2012)

  But he has come to that place and maintains it by, and only by, his humility and self-giving love. When, therefore, at the start of Acts, the disciples ask Jesus whether this is the time for him to “restore the kingdom to Israel” (1:6), his answer is not (as people often suppose) a “no.” It is a “yes.” As so often, however, it is a “yes but”: “It’s not your business to know about times and dates,” replied Jesus. “The father has placed all that under his own direct authority. What will happen, though, is that you will receive power when the holy spirit comes upon you. Then you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judaea and Samaria, and to the very ends of the earth.” (1:7–8) And that “witness,” as Luke has made abundantly clear, is not a matter of “telling people about your new religious experience” or of informing them that there is now a new prospect of a much better otherworldly destiny than anything the bleak pagan world had to offer. The “witness” of Jesus’s followers is the message that there is now “another king, Jesus” (Acts 17:7). It is the witness according to which the temples that presently exist, whether in Jerusalem, Athens, Ephesus, or anywhere else, are now to be seen as at best redundant (Acts 7) and at worst a blasphemous category mistake (Acts 17; 19). Jesus is the true Temple, now ruling the world as the one who was crucified; his followers, as Paul would explain more thoroughly, constitute the fuller version of the same thing, so that the dwelling of the living God is now spread increasingly across and around the world, again evidenced not by coercive or violent power, but by the rule of love. So where does all this leave us today? How can we address the question of the major misunderstandings that have dogged the footsteps of Christian faith for so long? And, since the kingdom is (as Paul says in 1 Cor. 4:20) not about talk, but about power, how might this begin to translate into the lives of real Christian communities? To put it another way, if this is really and truly the story the four evangelists are telling, is there any way we can retrieve it for ourselves? How might we become true gospel readers, gospel pray-ers, gospel livers in our own day? If it is true, in some sense that we no doubt still find perplexing, that God really did become king in and through Jesus of Nazareth and supremely through the victory of his crucifixion and the launching of his new world in the resurrection, how might we be brought into this story? What might it look like? PART FOUR Creed, Canon, and Gospel 11 How to Celebrate God’s Story IMAGINE A MAN who owns an old car. It still goes; he can drive to work.

• From Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Woman on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity (2007)

  The gatekeepers’ fear of “sex change on demand” rings particularly hollow in a world where most trans people cannot even afford to take the medically and psychiatrically sanctioned route to transition. Psychotherapy is prohibitively expensive for those who do not have adequate insurance; many trans people rely on underground markets and overseas pharmacies to obtain affordable hormones without a prescription. Many undergo sex reassignment surgeries in countries like Thailand, where it is much less expensive and where there are fewer restrictions than in the United States. Clearly, gatekeeper micromanagement of transitioning has only served to force a significant percentage of trans people (who either cannot afford to follow the HBIGDA standards of care or fail to convince their therapists that they are “true” transsexuals) out of the system. Those gatekeepers who believe that they alone should have the authority to determine who should and should not be allowed to transition ignore the obvious fact that gender dissonance has always been a “self-diagnosed” condition: There are no visible signs or tests for it; only the trans person can feel and describe it. Once we make the arduous decision to transition—letting go of other people’s perceptions of us in favor of being true to ourselves—there is really nothing anyone can do to stop us. For these reasons, medical and mental health professionals should turn their attention away from regulating sex reassignment and toward facilitating the safe access to the means of transitioning. Thankfully, some have already begun working toward this goal, designing programs that provide trans people with affordable access to information, hormones, and the appropriate medical tests to ensure a safe transition.81 Others in the field of psychiatry have similarly advocated that mental health professionals move away from the gatekeeper model and toward one focused on helping the transsexual manage the emotional stress and obstacles they are faced with when transitioning.82 While all of these changes represent a promising start, true equality for transsexuals and transgender people will remain elusive as long as gender variance remains pathologized by the American Psychiatric Association, which publishes the DSM. Human beings show a large range of gender and sexual diversity, so there is no legitimate reason for any form of cross-gender behavior or identity to be categorized as a mental disorder.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  “I’ve been thinking about this,” I said. He seemed so excited by the idea that I didn’t feel weird letting him know that this was something I had spent a lot of time thinking about. It was like I had let go now and decided to trust him. Something in me had suddenly decided that it didn’t really matter what would happen. Either I was going to scare him off or I wasn’t, but if it was going to happen, it would happen. I didn’t have to stifle my fears and desires. Just being around him, inside his supernatural aura, gave me the confidence to speak, like the way wine gives you confidence. I was languid and casual. Later I would likely replay everything and pick apart what I had said. Had I been too forward? And God forbid it ended that night when we said goodbye. If he disappeared and I never saw him again, I would blame myself for pushing him away with my omnivorous need. But for now I didn’t feel at risk of losing him, since he was very much here with me. “What if I took a shopping cart and brought it to the ocean?” I asked. “It’s Venice and there are so many people with shopping carts. We could hoist you into it and cover you up with a blanket. I could wheel you across the beach and you would be my secret. To everyone else I would look like any of the other bums who live here.” “But are the street people allowed on the beach at night?” he asked. “The boardwalk people? It’s one thing when you come to me alone at night, looking as you do. You’re one body, a woman in a dress. Coast Guard, the police, none of them are looking for you. And even if they were to come over, when we are on the rocks I can go right back into the water. I can go under the water and they would never see me again! But if I was in a shopping cart, far from the water, and they found us, how could I get free? They would lock me up or make me into some kind of terrible show. Remember that on land I am helpless.” “What if it wasn’t a shopping cart?” I asked. “What about…a child’s wagon? And what if it wasn’t at night but at dawn? It’s legal to be on the beach then, but no one is around except maybe a few surfers. What if we loaded you onto the wagon and covered your bottom half in a blanket? People would just think you were my child. Only grown.” “I feel that there would still be a danger if I was seen getting into the wagon.” “They might just think you were wearing a wet suit. Haven’t others thought it was a wet suit? I did at first.” “Yes,” he said. “Others have.” “See!” I said.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  They brought with them fire and sword, destruction and desolation, but also life and vigor, respect for woman, sense of honor, love of liberty—noble instincts, which, being purified and developed by Christianity, became the governing principles of a higher civilization than that of Greece and Rome. The Christian monk Salvian, who lived in the midst of the barbarian flood, in the middle of the fifth century, draws a most gloomy and appalling picture of the vices of the orthodox Romans of his time, and does not hesitate to give preference to the heretical (Arian) and heathen barbarians, "whose chastity purifies the deep stained with the Roman debauches." St. Augustin (d. 430), who took a more sober and comprehensive view, intimates, in his great work on the City of God, the possibility of the rise of a new and better civilization from the ruins of the old Roman empire; and his pupil, Orosius, clearly expresses this hopeful view. "Men assert," he says, "that the barbarians are enemies of the State. I reply that all the East thought the same of the great Alexander; the Romans also seemed no better than the enemies of all society to the nations afar off, whose repose they troubled. But the Greeks, you say, established empires; the Germans overthrow them. Well, the Macedonians began by subduing the nations which afterwards they civilized. The Germans are now upsetting all this world; but if, which Heaven avert, they, finish by continuing to be its masters, peradventure some day posterity will salute with the title of great princes those in whom we at this day can see nothing but enemies." § 3. The Nations of Mediaeval Christianity. The Kelt, the Teuton, and the Slav. The new national forces which now enter upon the arena of church-history may be divided into four groups:

• From The Pisces (2018)

  But now I saw each of the waves individually, one after the other, and felt them to be in rhythm with my heartbeat. They glimmered and splashed in the moonlight. Maybe the ocean was cheering for me after all? Maybe we were on the same side, comprised of the same things, water mostly, also mystery. The ocean swallowed things up—boats, people—but it didn’t look outside itself for fulfillment. It could take whatever skimmed its surface or it could leave it. In its depths already lived a whole world of who-knows-what. It was self-sustaining. I should be like that. It made me wonder what was inside of me. 9.I’d heard it said that when you’re feeling good is sometimes when you’re the most suicidal. Maybe it’s after you decide that you’re going to do it that you suddenly seem happier. I don’t think that’s why I walked across the beach to the ocean that night. I don’t think I was planning to jump into the ocean drunk or that I wanted to get killed by a stranger. I knew it was dangerous to be out there at midnight. I rarely even walked the boardwalk after ten or eleven. I think I just felt invincible, connected to myself, like I could do anything and be totally fine. Maybe I was looking for a new high. I climbed up on one of the big black rocks that lined the ocean in a cluster. I sat there for a little while looking out at the waves, more gray and white now that I was up close. I wondered if the rocks were somehow sentient, lonely out here in the cold moonlight. “Hi,” I said to the rocks. The rocks said nothing. They had the ocean and they had one another. I wondered if they ever got annoyed by the waves’ constant lapping, the daily irritation of their own gradual erosion. Did they secretly long for a tsunami to come eclipse them into the ocean, just to be done with it all already? Or did they enjoy that slow, rhythmic tickling? From the corner of my eye I spotted something fleshy on the edge of one of the rocks. It was a pair of hands. Fair hands, pale under the moon, with the nails bitten down to just slivers. Run! shrieked a voice inside me. A surge of adrenaline rang through my body like an alarm. But I couldn’t move. Then I saw a beautiful face, the wave of brown hair in an eye, and I gasped out loud. Was this the face of death? “So sorry,” the face said. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I was just taking a break for a second from my swim.” “It’s okay,” I sputtered, still frozen in place.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  The highways built for commerce and for the Roman legions, served also the messengers of peace and the silent conquests of the cross. Commerce itself at that time, as well as now, was a powerful agency in carrying the gospel and the seeds of Christian civilization to the remotest parts of the Roman empire. The particular mode, as well as the precise time, of the introduction of Christianity into the several countries during this period is for the most part uncertain, and we know not much more than the fact itself. No doubt much more was done by the apostles and their immediate disciples, than the New Testament informs us of. But on the other hand the mediaeval tradition assigns an apostolic origin to many national and local churches which cannot have arisen before the second or third century. Even Joseph of Arimathaea, Nicodemus, Dionysius the Areopagite, Lazarus, Martha and Mary were turned by the legend into missionaries to foreign lands. § 7. Extent of Christianity in the Roman Empire. Justin Martyr says, about the middle of the second century: "There is no people, Greek or barbarian, or of any other race, by whatsoever appellation or manners they may be distinguished, however ignorant of arts or agriculture, whether they dwell in tents or wander about in covered wagons—among whom prayers and thanksgivings are not offered in the name of the crucified Jesus to the Father and Creator of all things." Half a century later, Tertullian addresses the heathen defiantly: "We are but of yesterday, and yet we already fill your cities, islands, camps, your palace, senate and forum; we have left to you only your temples."5 These, and similar passages of Irenaeus and Arnobius, are evidently rhetorical exaggerations. Origen is more cautious and moderate in his statements. But it may be fairly asserted, that about the end of the third century the name of Christ was known, revered, and persecuted in every province and every city of the empire. Maximian, in one of his edicts, says that "almost all" had abandoned the worship of their ancestors for the new sect. In the absence of statistics, the number of the Christians must be purely a matter of conjecture. In all probability it amounted at the close of the third and the beginning of the fourth century to nearly one-tenth or one-twelfth of the subjects of Rome, that is to about ten millions of souls. But the fact, that the Christians were a closely united body, fresh, vigorous, hopeful, and daily increasing, while the heathen were for the most part a loose aggregation, daily diminishing, made the true prospective strength of the church much greater. The propagation of Christianity among the barbarians in the provinces of Asia and the north-west of Europe beyond the Roman empire, was at first, of course, too remote from the current of history to be of any great immediate importance.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  and more formidable opponents than the papists; but Zwingli seems well versed in letters, in spite of Minerva and the Muses." He adds that the Landgrave was the most attentive hearer. The laymen who attended the Conference seem to have been convinced by the Swiss arguments. The Landgrave declared that he would now believe the simple words of Christ, rather than the subtle interpretations of men. He desired Zwingli to remove to Marburg, and take charge of the ecclesiastical organization of Hesse. Shortly before his death he confessed that Zwingli had convinced him at Marburg. But more important is the conversion of Lambert of Avignon, who had heretofore been a Lutheran, but could not resist the force of the arguments on the other side. "I had firmly resolved," he wrote to a friend soon after the Conference, "not to listen to the words of men, or to allow myself to be influenced by the favor of men, but to be like a blank paper on which the finger of God should write his truth. He wrote those doctrines on my heart which Zwingli developed out of the word of God." Even the later change of Melanchthon, who declined the brotherhood with the Swiss as strongly as Luther, may perhaps be traced to impressions which he received at Marburg. If the leaders of the two evangelical confessions could meet to-day on earth, they would gladly shake hands of brotherhood, as they have done long since in heaven. The Conference did not effect the desired union, and the unfortunate strife broke out again. Nevertheless, it was by no means a total failure. It prepared the way for the Augsburg Confession, the chief symbol of the Lutheran Church. More than this, it served as an encouragement to peace movements of future generations.885 It produced the first formulated consensus between the two confessions in fourteen important articles, and in the better part of the fifteenth, leaving only the corporal presence and oral manducation in dispute. It was well that such a margin was left. Without liberty in non-essentials, there can never be a union among intelligent Christians. Good and holy men will always differ on the mode of the real presence, and on many other points of doctrine, as well as government and worship. The time was not ripe for evangelical catholicity; but the spirit of the document survived the controversies, and manifests itself wherever Christian hearts and minds rise above the narrow partition walls of sectarian bigotry. Uniformity, even if possible, would not be desirable. God’s ways point to unity in diversity, and diversity in unity.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  Then the bishops and abbots, as if moved by divine inspiration (hence "the Peace of God"), united in the resolution that all feuds should cease from Wednesday evening till Monday morning (a feriae quartae vespera usque ad secundam feriam, incipiente luce) on pain of excommunication.350 In 1041 the archbishop Raimbald of Arles, the bishops Benedict of Avignon and Nitard of Nice, and the abbot Odilo of Clugny issued in their name and in the name of the French episcopate an encyclical letter to the Italian bishops and clergy, in which they solemnly implore them to keep the heaven-sent Treuga Dei, already introduced in Gaul, namely, to observe peace between neighbors, friends or foes on four days of the week, namely, on Thursday, on account of Christ’s ascension, on Friday on account of his crucifixion, on Saturday in memory of his burial, on Sunday in memory of his resurrection. They add: "All who love this Treuga Dei we bless and absolve; but those who oppose it we anathematize and exclude from the church. He who punishes a disturber of the Peace of God shall be acquitted of guilt and blessed by all Christians as a champion of the cause of God." The peace-movement spread through all Burgundy and France, and was sanctioned by the Synods of Narbonne (1054), Gerundum in Spain (1068), Toulouse (1068), Troyes (1093), Rouen (1096), Rheims (1136), the Lateran (1139 and 1179), etc. The Synod of Clermont (1095), under the lead of Pope Urban II., made the Truce of God the general law of the church. The time of the Truce was extended to the whole period from the first of Advent to Epiphany, from Ashwednesday to the close of the Easter week, and from Ascension to the close of the week of Pentecost; also to the various festivals and their vigils. The Truce was announced by the ringing of bells.351 § 79. The Ordeal. Grimm: Deutsche Rechtsalterthömer, Göttingen 1828, p. 908 sqq. Hildenbrand: Die Purgatio canonica et vulgaris, Mönchen 1841. Unger: Der gerichtliche Zweikampf, Göttingen 1847. Philipps: Ueber die Ordalien, Mönchen 1847. Dahn: Studien zur Gesch. der Germ. Gottesurtheile, Mönchen 1867. Pfalz: Die german. Ordalien, Leipz. 1865. Henry C. Lea: Superstition and Force, Philad. 1866, p. 175–280. (I have especially used Lea, who gives ample authorities for his statements.) For synodical legislation on ordeals see Hefele, Vols. III. and IV. Another heathen custom with which the church had to deal, is the so-called Judgment of God or Ordeal, that is, a trial of guilt or innocence by a direct appeal to God through nature.352 It prevailed in China, Japan, India, Egypt (to a less extent in Greece and Rome), and among the barbaric races throughout Europe.353 The ordeal reverses the correct principle that a man must be held to be innocent until he is proved to be guilty, and throws the burden of proof upon the accused instead of the accuser.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  awakens disgust and horror, and the inscription over the entrance to hell makes the reader shudder: — Through me ye enter the abode of woe; Through me to endless sorrow are brought; Through me amid the souls accurst ye go. * * * * * * * All hope abandon—ye who enter here! Per me si va nella città dolente; Per me si va nell’ eterno dolore; Per me si va tra la perduta gente. * * * * * * * Lasciate ogni speranza, voi ch’ entrate. Passing out from the domain of gloom and dole, Virgil leads the poet to purgatory, where the dawn of day breaks. This realm, as has been said, comes nearer to our common life than hell or paradise.993 Hope dwells here. Song, not wailing, is heard. A ship appears, moved by an angel and filled with spirits, singing the hymn of redemption. Cato approaches and urges the guide and Dante to wash themselves on the shore from all remainders of hell and to hurry on. In purgatory, they pass through seven stages, which correspond to the seven mortal sins, the two lowest, pride and envy, the highest, wantonness and luxury. All the penitents have stamped on their foreheads seven P’s,—the first letter of the word peccata, sins,—which are effaced only one by one, as they pass from stage to stage, "enclasped with scorching fire," until they are delivered through penal fire from all stain. A similar correspondence exists between sin and punishments as in the Inferno, but with the opposite effect, for here sins are repented of and forgiven, and the woes are disciplinary until "the wound that healeth last is medicined." Thus the proud, in the first and lowest terrace, are compelled to totter under huge weights, that they may learn humility. The indolent, in the fourth terrace, are exercised by constant and rapid walking. The avaricious and prodigal, with hands and feet tied together, lie with their faces in the dust, weeping and wailing. The gluttons suffer hunger and thirst that they may be taught temperance. The licentious wander about in flames that their sensual passions may be consumed away. Arriving at paradise, the Roman poet can go no further, and Beatrice takes his place as Dante’s guide. The spirits are distributed in glory according to their different grades of perfection. Here are passed in review theologians, martyrs, crusaders, righteous princes and judges, monks and contemplative mystics. In the 9th heaven Beatrice leaves the poet to take her place at the side of Rachel, after having introduced him to St. Bernard. Dante looks again and sees Mary and Eve and Sarah, ... and the gleaner-maid Meek ancestress of him, who sang the songs Of sore repentance in his sorrowful mood; Gabriel, Adam, Moses, John the Baptist, Peter, St. Augustine and other saints.