Tuesday, March 18, 2008

Tuesday quote

This is the 'sin' that pervades our 'sinless' society: 'our determined effort to live our lives as if God were not the author of our lives'. The result is an inevitable dysfunction in all of our relationships. Atonement, therefore, must be found in the counter-narrative that begins with Adam's desire to narrate his own life; continues with the history of God's people, Israel, who sought often to do the same; and finally encounters the betrayal and failings of the disciples that call our own to mind. The apex of this narrative is discovered in the intent, testing, submission and narrative coherence of Jesus. Atonement for a "Sinless" Society, p. 166

<idle musing>
This is the heart of our problems! We want what we want when we want it, in the way that we want it, and only in that way and time. In short, we want to be God, but we aren't, and can't be God. So, salvation is to save us from ourselves, hence the recurring narrative in the gospels and epistles of "death to self" and "take up your cross."
</idle musing>

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