Around the links

A quick glance at what I've found interesting in the last few days:

First, what is the proper use of Thucydides? Is the "Thucydides trap" a real thing? A Classics professor says no.

While parallels between now and then abound, lessons are less plentiful. In the end, Thucydides’ history does not instruct us on how to exploit or avoid certain situations, instead instilling the simple truth that given our nature, there will always be situations that we cannot avoid and, if we try to exploit, will have unintended consequences.

Why bother studying the past, then, if it cannot help us navigating the present? One might as well ask why bother reading Aeschylus or Sophocles if they have no useful advice on how to live our lives. Thucydides’ claim that he wrote his history not to win “the applause of the moment, but as a possession for all time” is based on his tragic conception of life. Far from our being able to master events or even our own desires, events and desires will sooner or later master us. While this is not a rousing call for action, it is a call for modesty and lucidity. Especially in our own age, these virtues might still have earned the applause of Thucydides.

Stephen McAlpine looks at forgiveness, well really, he looks at unforgiveness, in our culture:

Our culture has a problem with forgiveness. We live in a post-forgiveness world. And it’s going to get brutal and cold if the trend continues. And it is trending. That’s the precise word for it, because all of the tools are available to unforgiveness to ensure it does. . . .

It was only when the gospel of Jesus Christ gave forgiveness to an astounded world, still locked into revenge and grovelling, that something did change. Until this vicious cycle was swept away by the gospel of forgiveness, nothing could change And we’ve more or less taken it for granted. Until now.

Now? The old order is back. And meaner and hungrier in light of its long absence. Its primary tool is not the actual arena, but the virtual arena, where the boos, scorns and “thumbs downs” assail those who would challenge the laws of the post-Christian Sexular Age.

Michael Gorman writes a letter that Paul probably would write to Christians in the United States:

Let me cut to the chase, brothers and sisters. Is this what your in-Christ community looks like? Is this how you decide your priorities? Your budget? Your mission activity? If you truly believe that Christ crucified is the power of God, and if you want the power of God to be at work in and through your Christian community, you will seek to become a community shaped by my master story—which is really God’s master story.

You see, the crucified Jesus was a Christophany—revealing what the Messiah is like. But it is also a theophany—revealing what God is like. And it is also an ecclesiophany—revealing what the church is supposed to be like. And ultimately it is also an anthrophany—revealing what human beings are meant to be like.

Michael Frost, while rejoicing that the "Jesus is my boyfriend" songs are gone (Praise God!), the succeeding ones still need a bit more revolutionary attitude to them:

It seems we’ve gone from Jesus-is-my-boyfriend to Jesus-is-my-savior, but we’re missing Jesus-is-our-Lord.

Christian worship should express our collective hope in Christ of a rescued, renewed and restored world, a world in which injustice, racism, hatred and violence have ended, once and for all.

Back to my book Exiles, my suggested alternative to romantic worship songs was that we ought to sing revolutionary worship songs. We need lyrics that call us into a revolution of love and justice. In fact, there hasn’t been a single revolution in history that wasn’t sung into existence.

Social change has a soundtrack.

The revolutionaries of the French, American and Bolshevik uprisings all sang about the new nation they were forging, a song they were willing to die for.

The Civil Rights movement sang Christian spirituals.

The German democratic movement that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall began with singing and prayers for freedom in a church in Leipzig in 1980.

The anti-Marcos movement in the Philippines, the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, the anti-Russian movement in Ukraine – they all wrote songs to inspire their followers.

Even today on the streets of Hong Kong, millions of protesters resisting the controls imposed by Communist China have found the Christian hymn, “Sing Hallelujah to the Lord” as their anthem of freedom. The song has even been banned from Chinese streaming platforms.

And to underscore the point, today, across scores of cities in the US and around the world, secular Justice Choirs are being launched, where ordinary citizens can come together to sing for social justice.

And so on. . . He could have added that the Wesleyan revival was a singing revival, as were many of the other revivals in history. And who can forget the Salvation Army with its bands? Christians should be a singing people—not an entertained people where a "worship" band gets up in front and performs! Sing together; sing alone. Sing! Read the psalms; better yet, SING the psalms!

And, a long read, but well worth your time, on Amazon and it's quest for world dominion in The New Yorker.

Grace and peace until the next round. And we do need both of them in this topsy-turvy world!