God is not dead in Gotham

Cheer up, you’re worse than you think,” Rev. Timothy Keller says with a smile. He’s explaining that humans are more weak, more fallen, more warped than they “ever dare admit or even believe.” Then comes the good news: At the same time people are “more loved in Christ and more accepted than they could ever imagine or hope.” Many Millennial Christians in NYC attend his Presbyterian church--and respond to his message. “Every other religion has a founder that says: ‘I’ll show you the way to God. Only Christianity of all the major world religions has a founder that says: ‘I’m God, come to find you.’

http://www.wsj.com/articles/kate-bachelder-god-isnt-dead-in-gotham-1419032446

My little book group that met at Panera’s a few years ago used his book,

And it is outstanding.  Maybe I’ll reread it.

Part 1: The Leap of Doubt
There Can't Be Just One True Religion
How Could a Good God Allow Suffering?
Christianity is a Straitjacket
The Church is Responsible for So Much Injustice
How Can a Loving God Send People to Hell?
Science Has Disproved Christianity
You Can't Take the Bible Literally
Part 2: The Reasons for Faith
The Clues of God
The Knowledge of God
The Problem of Sin
Religion and the Gospel
The (True) Story of the Cross
The Reality of the Resurrection
The Dance of God

Young Women of Faith Bible (NIV)

                        

Recently I received a copy of Zonderkidz’ Bible, “Young Women of Faith Bible” to review (c 2001, 2013 www.zonderkidz.com) For this task, I consulted the three grandmothers in our UALC Bible study group. I’m a little out of touch with the niche market of middle school and high school. They loved it! They all thought any young girl or woman would really enjoy the pink illustrations—hearts, butterflies, flowers--the excellent, informative side bars, the use of a journal for personal thoughts, and explanations. It features weekly Bible studies, memory verses and challenges, and “if I were there” questions, as well as the Biblical notes and journal suggestions. And it has what I would have enjoyed at the target age, a topical index and Biblical maps in color. If you already use Zondervan’s “Women of Faith Study Bible,” this Bible coordinates with it.

The general editor is Susie Shellenberger, a Christian speaker who has written fifty-two books, and lives in Bethany, Oklahoma with her two mini Schnauzers Obie and Amos. Susie is a former youth pastor, high school teacher, and editor. She loves a lot of color with her Scripture.

Church of the Brethren Inglenook Cookbook

                     

I received  "The New Inglenook Cookbook" (Brethren Press, 2013) for my birthday (arrived Friday for my September birthday). I have my mother's "Granddaughter's Inglenook cookbook" (Brethren Publishing House, 1942), and someone in the family may have the first one that was my grandmother's (1901). I don't do a lot of cooking that needs recipes anymore, but I love to read them. Also, I love looking at the names of the women who contributed the recipes. Still so many old Brethren names. I see "Sweet sour meatloaf" very similar to mine, which I hand out to new brides. Things have changed: Gluten free scones contributed by Elsie Holderread of McPherson, KS (2013) compared to Wieners in Creole Sauce by Mrs. Irva Kendrick Haney, Muscatine, IA (1942).

Also listed for a 1942 school lunch was cottage cheese and chopped pepper sandwiches with raw turnip strips. I don't know about other people my age, but cottage cheese was in everything at our house.

I think the reason women my mother's age (b. 1912) used so much cottage cheese is that their mothers made it from the skim milk left after separating the cream. My grandmother (b. 1876) used several pounds of real butter a week--I have her butter churn--and that's a lot of skim milk left over which needed to be made into something. I watched her working with (I thought it was a smelly mess) it, but by then she must have used purchased milk since they no longer had a cow. If all the liquid is pressed out (whey, which is then fed to the pigs), it is called farmer's cheese. This is from someone who knows nothing about it, so corrections are welcome.

The 2013 edition has a symbol for gluten-free.  This one looks impossibly easy.

“The best peanut butter cookie” contributed by Sharon A. Walker (Brumbaugh) Clayton, Ohio, p. 290

• 1 c. creamy peanut butter
• 1 c. sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 t. baking soda
• Preheat oven to 350 and grease 2 baking sheets with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
• Beat together the peanut butter and sugar until combine.  Beat in the egg. Sprinkle baking soda over the mixture and beat until combined.
• Roll heaping teaspoon-size pieces of dough into small balls. Arrange on the prepared baking sheets and with the tines of a fork, flatten the balls.
• Bake the cookies in batches in the middle of the oven until puffed and pale golden, about 10 minutes
• Cook the cookies on the baking sheets for 2 minutes before transferring to cooling racks.  This is important because they are very fragile when hot from the oven.

After checking the internet, I see Ms. Brumbaugh Walker also contributed to a genealogy book (found it on WorldCat) and I'm sure if I dug a little deeper, we'd find some Brethren relatives in common from Montgomery County who came there from Pennsylvania.

http://www.cheesemaking.com/CottageCheese.html

Teaching little children how to cast spells

"The name "Scholastic" evokes warm memories from those who treasured their childhood experiences with us and trust among those who depend on us for quality materials today." (Mission statement of this children's press.

So why teach very young children how to cast spells, read tea leaves and call on foreign gods? Check your children's material carefully. Scholastic definitely isn't that cute children's newspaper with puzzles and teaching good manners some of us remember. The "ologies" series (designed to look like encyclopedias) has a number of subjects I wouldn't want in my book nook, although they have clever, interesting formats and design. Volumes were written on the pros and cons of the Rowland Harry Potter series, but this is one of the outcomes--hardcore witchcraft for children. There's another title for the younger than 9 group.

http://store.scholastic.com/Books/Interactive-and-Novelty-Books/The-Wizardology-Handbook

The light of faith by Pope Francis

I was sent Pope Francis' "The light of faith" (Lumen Fidei) Ignatius Press, 2013, this summer to review. I pick it up occasionally and think, I really need to get into this. But I've found it not terribly readable--but then it's the first encyclical I've ever read. Beginning Oct. 2012, it was the year of faith for Roman Catholics. Pope Benedict had already written on charity and hope (Deus Caritas Est (2005) and Spe Salvi (2007) , and this was outlined as part of that trilogy, when he resigned in February. Francis calls it a work of 4 hands, and that it is, with Benedict's scholarly references to giants of the past, and Francis' sweetness in reaching out to the ordinary person in faith. I'll continue to dip in--and it's a small book about 5 x 7 with 110 pages. It still feels a little like an outline, but both of these great men know far more on the subject than I do, so it won't be wasted effort. I’ll keep working at it.

Pope Benedict “had almost completed a first draft of an encyclical on faith” before his retirement in February 2013, Pope Francis writes, adding that “I have taken up his fine work and added a few contributions of my own.”

Commentators are likely to differ in attributing specific passages, but the document clearly recalls the writings of Benedict XVI in its extensive treatment of the dialogue between faith and reason and its many citations of St Augustine, not to mention references to Friedrich Nietzsche and Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

On other hand, warnings of the dangers of idolatry, Gnosticism and Pharisaism, a closing prayer to Mary as the “perfect icon of faith”, and an entire section on the relevance of faith to earthly justice and peace echo themes that Pope Francis has already made signatures of his young pontificate.

http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2013/07/05/lumen-fidei-an-overview-of-pope-franciss-first-encyclical/

Beth Moore, best-selling author, has a new book

Do you have some Beth Moore fans on your Christmas list? She's very popular at UALC in our Women of the Word groups. Her new title "Whispers of hope; 10 weeks of devotional prayer" (B&H Publishing Group, 2013, $14.99) might be a good choice. I just received my copy, and I really like the plan. You remember how Beth loves assignments and workbooks? With each of the 70 days, there are assigned scripture, Beth's personal and anecdotal musings, and then pages with 4 line...s each for your own thoughts on Praise, Repentance, Acknowledgment, Intercession, Supplication for Self, and Equipping. Whether you write something down isn't as important in my view as the nudge to include these areas in your prayer life.

"I'm certain of two things: prayerless lives are powerless lives, and prayerful lives are powerful lives." Beth Moore

                        

Catherine Booth

I've been enjoying "Martin Luther had a wife," and "Harriet Beecher Stowe had a husband," a two in one special by William J. Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 1983 (Christian Herald Family Bookshelf edition). Petersen, former editor of Eternity Magazine, is an excellent writer, and each marriage is presented in an entertaining and interesting style. The fifth selection in the first book is about William and Catherine Booth, founders of the Salvation Army.

Catherine Booth, who wrote many of her busy husband's sermons, was criticized by a male preacher for speaking from the pulpit. (1858) She responded with a 32 page rebuttal.

History of the Booths here.

I see from browsing Google that Petersen also wrote a 2-fer on C.S. Lewis and his wife and Catherine Marshall and her husband plus one on Johann Sebastian Bach and his wife, which includes John and Polly Newton, Johann Sebastian and Magdalena Bach, George and Mary Muller, Hannah Whitall and Robert Pearsall Smith, and Francis and Edith Schaeffer. Petersen's stories are a wonderful way to learn history and to build faith, because all these people had numerous challenges.

Bonhoeffer at Union Seminary 80 years ago

Accustomed to the rigors of German scholarship and theology, the visiting young student Dietrich Bonhoeffer not yet 25 writes in 1930 about his colleagues—faculty and students—at Union:

“The theological atmosphere of the Union Theological Seminary is accelerating the process of the secularization of Christianity in America. Its criticism is directed essentially against the fundamentalists and to a certain extent also against the radical humanists in Chicago; it is healthy and necessary. But there is no sound basis on which one can rebuild after demolition. It is carried away with the general collapse. A seminary in which it can come about that a large number of students laugh out loud in a public lecture at the quoting of a passage from Luther’s De servo arbitrio on sin and forgiveness because it seems to them to be comic has evidently completely forgotten what Christian theology by its very nature stands for.”

“Things [outside the seminary] are not much different in the church. The sermon has been reduced to parenthetical church remarks about newspaper events. As long as I’ve been here, I have heard only one sermon in which you could hear something like a genuine proclamation, and that was delivered by a negro. . . One big question continually attracting my attention in view of these facts is whether one here really can still speak about Christianity. . . There’s no sense to expect the fruits where the Word really is no longer being preached. But then what becomes of Christianity per se?”

The American seminaries had, of course, taken their lead from the 19th century German theologians, even though as Bonhoeffer noted they were not even up to the level of the fundamentalists they ridiculed. America had long since lost the fervor of the “awakenings” that had shaped it, at least in the seminaries. At that time, Hitler’s small party was gaining ground in Germany. Germany has since recovered from that disastrous time—at least politically and economically. I’m not sure the American mainline churches have been able to expunge the demons of the liberal seminaries.

From p. 105-6 of Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas

Cross posted at Collecting my thoughts

Christmas potluck at Lytham Road tonight

plus music of the Worthington Civic Band Concert at 7:30. At first I thought I'd use up one of those carrot cake mixes in the pantry, but thought better of it and opted for a bowl of fresh fruit mixed with a little mayo and whipped cream.

I'm reading the most wonderful book from the UALC library and I want to recommend it to every Christian of any sect or group: "The Story of Christian Spirituality." [You can Google the title to get a look inside.] When I read a "Christian" book I want the author to at least give Jesus a nod and the Gospel a line or two. This book ties all faith traditions in Christianity together the rational, theological, meditative, contemplative and still manages to lift high the cross. The art work is fabulous and the paper quality is wonderful. The first chapter, rightfully so, begins with Judaism, then the birth of Christ. It ends with the end of the 20th century. In the past I have dipped into some of the more contemplative and meditative writers, but have found little that pulls it all together like this title. This book, with its outstanding bibliography, could be a college course and a worship experience rolled into one.

I'll be returning this to the church library because I so fell in love with it that I have ordered a copy. Although it is a Fortress Press (2001), to get a new copy I had it sent from UK (Lion), and it was $22 + $7 shipping. And considering that many used copies were much higher, I thought it a fair price. It has beautiful art work and meaningful selections of text.

Another find was discovering I had a few books in my own collection that supported many of the writings in this book.