The Good and Beautiful Life: Putting on the Character of Christ
By James Bryan Smith
Intervarsity Press / 2010 / 264 pages
According to Dr. Smith, we have bought into false notions of happiness and success. It is these false notions that lead us down the pathways into vices such as lying, anger, lust and judging.
The Good and Beautiful Life follows the Sermon on the Mount guiding us to replace our false beliefs with Jesus’ description of life in the Kingdom of God.
The book is divided into twelve chapters such as Learning to Live Without Anger and Learning to Live Without Worry and Living in the Kingdom Day by Day. As Richard J. Foster, author of Celebration of Discipline says, “Dr. Smith has thought long and hard about the process of human transformation into the likeness of Jesus.”
The book begins with the following: I have never met a person whose goal was to ruin his or her life. We all want to be happy, and we want it all of the time.
What follows is a course in learning to live the way Jesus taught us to live. It is the result of a desire to create a “Curriculum for Christlikeness”.
- by Gail MacGillivray
About the Author:
James Bryan Smith is a theology professor at Friends University in Wichita, Kansas, as well as the director of the Christian Spiritual Formation Institute there. A writer and speaker in the area of Christian Spiritual formation, Jim Smith is a founding board member Renovare. Smith is an ordained United Methodist Church minister and has served in various capacities in local churches. He is also the author of A Spiritual Formation Workbook, Devotional Classics (with Richard Foster), Embracing the Love of God, Rich Mullins: An Arrow Pointing to Heaven and Room of Marvels.
The Way of Discernment
by Elizabeth Liebert
Westminster, John Knox / 2008 / 170 pages
The Way of Discernment invites the reader into a series of experiments leading to discernment as a way of life and as a way of making decisions in the light of faith and a corresponding desire to follow God’s call. Liebert says: “Discernment means making a discriminating choice between two or more good options, seeking the best for this moment. These choices, while personal and conditional, are set within the community of faith and honor our previous well-made decisions” (p. 10). This text grew out of the author’s extensive experience with discernment as personal practice, her deep understanding of the Ignatian and biblical traditions of discernment, and her experience in making this important spiritual practice accessible to members of the reformed Christian tradition. The book itself is practical in its goal to serve as a facilitator of discernment for the reader.
Unique among texts on discernment of Spirits, it succinctly describes how discernment has been understood in Christian tradition; seamlessly provides a brief theology of discernment from Scripture, Ignatius of Loyola, and Calvin; and creates a seven-step framework for making an important decision through spiritual discernment.
These seven steps create the structure of the book, which treats each step in turn, always offering descriptions of processes that assist discernment. After treating the foundational dispositions necessary for discernment (interior freedom and awareness of one’s desires), foundational chapters include directions for specific practices. “The Awareness Examen” helps a person notice interior movements. “Remembering Your Personal History” personalizes one’s grounding, and “Seeking Spiritual Freedom” opens self to God’s influence. “Framing Your Discernment Question” helps one correctly identify the choice to be discerned.
The practice of “Gathering Relevant Data” sets up the remainder of the volume. It describes what to include as relevant data in a prayerful context with advice about noticing affective response to the information as it emerges. Honoring difference in personality styles and ways of discovering data, seven more practices are offered as “points of entry”—memory, intuition, somatic awareness, imagination, reason, religious affections, and nature. Each discerner is left free to use any or as many of these entry points as is helpful. The chapter on religious affections is unique in treating both Ignatius Loyola’s teaching on as well as Jonathon Edwards’ the final steps in the process are confirming one’s decision after formulating it, then assessing the entire process.
This is a text for spiritual directors, formation directors, pastoral counselors, and ministers who can put it into the hands of anyone who desires to make a decision that takes into account both one’s own life with God and the effect on important relationships of a decision. This book provides holistic, accessible, and solid guidance for practicing discernment across the spectrum of Christian denominations.
Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life
By Fr. Richard Rohr Jossey-Bass / 2011 / 240 pages
I’m sure I may have noticed a few little hidden smirks when I mentioned to my Bible Study group that I was going to do a book review of Father Richard Rohr’s “Falling Upward” for our website.
You see, my Bible Study group know all too well that Fr. Richard and I have a love/hate relationship. They had to listen to my rants when I didn’t understand him (he has a tendency to be a bit more pedantic than I felt necessary!). “Why didn’t he just say that?” was a frequent complaint of mine. But, since we have never met, maybe I should admit that love/hate relationship is pretty one-sided.
Father Rohr is a Franciscan priest living in New Mexico. He founded the Centre for Action and Contemplation in 1986 and serves as its Founding Director. He is the author of more than 20 books and an internationally known speaker. In researching him a bit, I found lots of glowing reviews!
Thus it was that I was quite impressed and excited to read this book - Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life.
Very early on in the book, Fr. Rohr says this: “It takes a foundational trust to fall or to fail - and not fall apart. Faith alone holds you while you stand waiting and hoping and trusting.” I can relate to this as I recall my nine year old stepson telling me that if I would just let myself fall, I would learn to ski. Never happened. I just couldn’t let go and drop!
And through most of this book, I think I just kept refusing to accept that falling is a necessary part of growing up - mentally, physically and ultimately spiritually.
As I skim through the book to write this, I think I need a re-read with a more open mind because I know this book provided a lot of challenging thinking and discussion for our group (did I mention that I found him to be needlessly pedantic in places which annoyed me to no end?). 🙂
Briefly, Falling Upward is all about the different phases of growing up, of gaining wisdom in our everyday lives and growing spiritually as we add years. Much more detail than this, but I will let you discover that for yourself!
As much as you frustrated me Richard, you made me think - and think again.
-- by Gail MacGillivray
Publisher's Description:
In Falling Upward, Father Richard Rohr―the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation―offers a new paradigm for understanding one of the most profound of life's mysteries: how our failings can be the foundation for our ongoing spiritual growth. Drawing on the wisdom from time-honored myths, heroic poems, great thinkers, and sacred religious texts, the author explores the two halves of life to show that those who have fallen, failed, or "gone down" are the only ones who understand "up." We grow spiritually more by doing it wrong than by doing it right. With rare insight, Rohr takes us on a journey to give us an understanding of how the heartbreaks, disappointments, and first loves of life are actually stepping stones to the spiritual joys that the second half of life has in store for us.
Everywhere Holy
By Kara Lawlor
Thomas Nelson Publications / 2019 / 224 pages
Sitting with this book in my lap as I try to write a book review - a task I haven’t undertaken since Grade 12 - I am enjoying these unexpected balmy November days. I’m looking at the still pink hydrangea from my seat on the couch and reflecting on the still blooming sweet peas that I can see from my kitchen window.
The truth is I can also see the barren branches of a normal November and the squishy yellow Hosta leaves that need cleaning up. And therein lies the basis of Everywhere Holy by Kara Lawler.
Kara Lawler is a writer and teacher whose work has been featured on the Huffington Post and Parenting magazine. She and her husband and two children live on a farm in the Allegheny Mountains of Pennsylvania.
Everywhere Holy is a very easy read and the message contained therein is simple- we can see God everywhere. We just have to be open to looking.
-- by Gail MacGillivray
Publisher's Description:
Popular writer and blogger Kara Lawler shows how to embrace the sacred in mundane, ordinary life--and in the process, discover themselves. Life doesn't have to be lived on grand mountaintops for it to be meaningful. We can see God at work right where we are: in our ordinary and mundane routines, in the faces of our family and friends, and--especially--in nature. In beautiful prose, Lawler describes the unique sacredness found in God's creation and offers fifteen inspiring insights for cultivating it day-to-day. She encourages you to make this lifestyle change through the observance of small acts. In so doing, you will discover a holy space that honors God and the life you’ve been given--and will discover yourselfand your unique place in the holy that is everywhere, whether it’s in the woods behind your house or in the face of a stranger on a bus in a busy city. No matter where you are, there is holy free for the taking.
Jean Vanier has authored some 30 books that reflect the many causes and concerns that have come together to shape his life. Educated in England, France and Canada, Vanier entered the Royal Naval College, in Dartmouth, England in 1942. Three years later he went to sea with the British Navy, later transferring to the Canadian Navy as an officer on the H.M.C.S. Magnificent. In 1950 he went to France to study philosophy and theology and earned a PhD from the Catholic University of Paris. His doctoral dissertation explored Aristotle’s understanding of what constitutes true happiness.
While in France, Vanier, founded L’Arche in 1964. “L’Arche” has become a global network of compassion, offering homes, personal care and support to people with developmental disabilities: www.larche.org.
Currently, l’Arche operates in some 150 communities in 35 countries on 5 continents. The mission of L’Arche is “…to make known the gifts of people with intellectual disabilities, working together toward a more human society.” Vanier continues to live as a member of the original L’Arche community, which is located in Trosly-Breuil, France.
His book, Community and Growth, serves as a kind of down-to-earth manual exploring the sacred potential of life in a faith community. It’s packed with Vanier’s reflections on the challenges and opportunities of living authentically within a Christian community. For folks who belong to a local church (or Cathedral) congregation, it may be helpful in reading this book to substitute Vanier’s use of the word “community,” with the word “church.”
Community and Growth speaks directly to the day to day realities and vulnerabilities of a church community. Originally written in French in 1979, various revised editions have been published in English over the years, the most recent in 2006.
Community is a sign that love is possible in a materialistic world where people so often either ignore or fight each other. It is a sign that we don’t need a lot of money to be happy–in fact, the opposite.
The idea of “community,” like the idea of “church” can mean different things to different people. For those who have struggled with the problems and frustrations of community and/or church-life, this book is essential reading. Vanier’s writing is neither theoretical prose, nor a lofty academic treatise. Instead, his ideas are grounded by wisdom and insights gleaned at the front lines, after years dedicated to serving those less fortunate than himself. Vanier writes that our faith communities should be places of acceptance and mission, marked by joy, compassion and celebration.
He refers to the “gift” and the “anti-gift” within community. Some see themselves as ‘saviours’. They may have the intelligence to understand and exploit the failings of community, but they can cause much hurt and damage, i.e. the anti-gift. Vanier suggests that the proper way to come into community is to feel at ease there, to be ready to serve, and at the same time, to be respectful of the existing ethos and traditions. The gift of being available to serve, writes Vanier, can be modeled and shared in love, from one person to another. It nourishes the thinking heart and feeling mind of the community.
Quotes from Community and Growth:
“Community is a sign that love is possible in a materialistic world where people so often either ignore or fight each other. It is a sign that we don’t need a lot of money to be happy–in fact, the opposite.”
“One of the marvelous things about community is that it enables us to welcome and help people in a way we couldn’t as individuals. When we pool our strength and share the work and responsibility, we can welcome many people, even those in deep distress, and perhaps help them find self-confidence and inner healing.”
“When people love each other, they are content with very little. When we have light and joy in our hearts, we don’t need material wealth. The most loving communities are often the poorest. If our own life is luxurious and wasteful, we can’t approach poor people. If we love people, we want to identify with them and share with them.”
“Jesus is the starving, the parched, the prisoner, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the dying. Jesus is the oppressed, the poor. To live with Jesus is to live with the poor. To live with the poor is to live with Jesus.”
“If people in a community live only on the level of the human, rational, legalistic and active aspects and symbols of their faith – which give cohesion, security and unity – there is a serious risk of their closing in on themselves and of gradually dying. If, however, their religious faith opens up, on the one hand to the mystical – that is, to an experience of the love of God present in the community and in the heart of each person – and, on the other hand, to what unifies all human beings, especially the poor, the vulnerable and the oppressed, they will then continue to grow in openness.”
“Old age is the most precious time of life, the one nearest eternity. There are two ways of growing old. There are old people who are anxious and bitter, living in the past and illusion, who criticize everything that goes on around them. Young people are repulsed by them; they are shut away in their sadness and loneliness, shriveled up in themselves. But there are also old people with a child’s heart, who have used their freedom from function and responsibility to find a new youth. They have the wonder of a child, but the wisdom of maturity as well. They have integrated their years of activity and so can live without being attached to power. Their freedom of heart and their acceptance of their limitations and weakness makes them people whose radiance illuminates the whole community. They are gentle and merciful, symbols of compassion and forgiveness. They become a community’s hidden treasures, sources of unity and life. They are true contemplatives at the heart of community.”
Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
By Parker J. Palmer
Jossey-Bass / 2000 / 117 pages
Parker Palmer is an author, educator, and activist who writes about teaching, life in community, leadership, spirituality and social change. He is the founder and senior partner of the Center for Courage & Renewal, based in Seattle, USA. couragerenewal.org. Palmer is a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). He lives in Madison, Wisconsin.
This book is constructed around a searching question: “Is the life I am living the same as the life that wants to live in me?” With this, Parker Palmer begins a thoughtful meditation on finding one’s true calling. Let Your Life Speak is a candid reflection on how to find truth and fulfillment while living authentically amid the complexities of the 21st century. No matter how lofty a person’s intentions may be, Palmer argues that vocation comes from listening to and accepting the “true self,” with its limits as well as its potentials.
Every journey, honestly undertaken, stands a chance of taking us toward the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.
Palmer’s career trajectory has taken him from earning a Ph.D. in sociology; to serving as community organizer in Washington, D.C.; to living in Pendle Hill, a Quaker commune, for a decade; to his present-day work as a writer, consultant, and traveling teacher. He shares that he has been able to refine his understanding of life-choices by various experiences such as quitting seminary, getting fired from a job, and dealing with a bout of severe depression. Telling stories from his own life and the lives of others, he shares insights gained from seasons of darkness as well as times of personal fulfillment and joy.
Writing with compelling vulnerability, Palmer helps illuminate positive pathways for those seeking to find their true calling; their vocation. Parker Palmer’s writing is like a walk through a sunny forest glade – fresh, lucid and live-giving. He gives the reader valuable insights for the journey forward. Let Your Life Speak will be of interest to those with serious questions about their future direction. “Vocation is not a goal to be achieved but a gift to be received.”
Selected quotes from Parker Palmer’s Let Your Life Speak:
“If we lived close to nature in an agricultural society, the seasons as metaphor and fact would continually frame our lives. But the master metaphor of our era does not come from agriculture – it comes from manufacturing. We do not believe that we ‘grow’ our lives – we believe that we ‘make’ them. Just listen to how we use the word in everyday speech: we make time, make friends, make meaning, make money, make a living, make love.”
“Every journey, honestly undertaken, stands a chance of taking us toward the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need.”
“Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.”
“Each time a door closes, the rest of the world opens up.”
“Self-care is never a selfish act – it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have, the gift I was put on earth to offer others. Anytime we can listen to true self and give the care it requires, we do it not only for ourselves, but for the many others whose lives we touch.”
“But if I am to let my life speak things I want to hear, things I would gladly tell others, I must also let it speak things I do not want to hear and would never tell anyone else! My life is not only about my strengths and virtues; it is also about my liabilities and my limits, my trespasses and my shadow. An inevitable though often ignored dimension of the quest for ‘wholeness’ is that we must embrace what we dislike or find shameful about ourselves as well as what we are confident and proud of.”
“Our strongest gifts are usually those we are barely aware of possessing. They are a part of our God-given nature, with us from the moment we drew first breath, and we are no more conscious of having them than we are of breathing.”
Divine Renovation: From a Maintenance to a Missional Parish
By James Mallon
Novalis Publishing/2014/286 pages
Fr. James Mallon is pastor and priest at the Roman Catholic Saint Benedict Parish in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He speaks frequently on the topic of church renewal and has hosted internationally acclaimed DVD series on Catholicism and Dogmatic Theology. St. Benedict is an amalgamation of three former parishes and under Fr. Mallon’s care has achieved remarkable success in becoming a Christian community focussed on mission outside of its doors as opposed to an inward- looking maintenance ministry. In this book, the author offers practical guidance and a step by step blueprint on that process.
Its time to start making disciples. The future of the Church depends on it.
The Church today is faced often with the overwhelming task of maintaining property. While our buildings are an enormous gift from our past, they can also become one of our greatest burdens if we are not successful at becoming the missional church we are called to be. Jesus does not call us to be caretakers but, rather to serve him by serving the world and making disciples. “Its time to start making disciples,” says Fr. Mallon. “The future of the Church depends on it.”
Chapter two focusses on a grounding of the theory to be presented from Roman Catholic specific papal encyclicals and denominational specific documents. That goal completed, Divine Renovation progresses towards an insightful read for the Christian of any denomination. It is particularly applicable for any denomination that recognizes sacramental dimensions of the faith. “The sacraments are our greatest pastoral opportunity” and, perhaps one of the reasons I find it easy to recommend this book is that I agree wholeheartedly with most, if not all, of the author’s fundamental beginning points as well as the conclusions. Changing the “culture” of the Christian Community is necessarily at the heart of a transformation from maintenance to mission. It is that change of culture that consumes the majority of this text.
The practical road map leading to the transformation of church culture is divided into several sections. These might be alternatively titled: “Fr. Mallon’s marks of a healthy church.”
Giving Priority to the Weekend
Hospitality
Uplifting Music
Homilies
Meaningful Community
Clear Expectations
Strength-based Ministry
Inspiring, practical, challenging and a bracing call are among the terms others have used to describe an insightful book. A good read for anyone who cares about how to do Church in our current context. Fr. Mallon addresses the clergy of the Anglican Diocese of Fredericton during the clergy conference in August of 2016.
Celebration of Discipline: The Path to Spiritual Growth
By Richard J. Foster
Harper Books / 1998 / 228 pages / Revised Edition
We read in the New Testament about the “Gifts of the Spirit” and the “Fruit of the Spirit.”
But, what do people mean when they use the term, “the Spiritual Disciplines?” What is a ‘spiritual discipline’ and how does the practice of these disciplines affect a person’s maturity in the Faith, as well as the corporate expression of that maturity in a local church community?
Richard Foster explores this important terrain in his book, Celebration of Discipline. Originally published in 1978, this volume has been republished several times, in revised and expanded form. Considered to be one of the best modern handbooks to focused, faithful Christian living, Celebration of Discipline explores the essential spiritual practices used today, and down through the ages.
Richard J. Foster is the author of several bestselling books, including Celebration of Discipline, Streams of Living Water, Life with God, Freedom of Simplicity and Prayer. He is the founder of the American intrachurch movement, Renovaré, an organization committed to the renewal of the Church in our day.
Foster divides the spiritual disciplines into three categories and explains how each of these expressions of the Spirit contribute to the symmetry and fullness of a person’s life-journey. The inward disciplines of meditation, prayer, fasting, and study, offer avenues of personal examination and change. The outward disciplines of simplicity, solitude, submission, and service, help prepare us to make the world a better place. The corporate disciplines of confession, worship, guidance, and celebration, bring us nearer to one another and to God.
“Like a child exploring the attic of an old house on a rainy day, discovering a trunk full of treasure and then calling all his brothers and sisters to share the find, Richard J. Foster has ‘found’ the spiritual disciplines that the modern world stored away and forgot, and has excitedly called us to celebrate them. For they are, as he shows us, the instruments of joy, the way into mature Christian spirituality and abundant life.” ~ Eugene H. Peterson.
Selected quotes from Richard Foster’s Celebration of Discipline:
“God has given us the Disciplines of the spiritual life as a means of receiving his grace. The Disciplines allow us to place ourselves before God so that he can transform us.”
“Humility, as we all know, is one of those virtues that is never gained by seeking it. The more we pursue it the more distant it becomes. To think we have it is sure evidence that we don’t.”
“Silence is one of the deepest Disciplines of the Spirit simply because it puts the stopper on all self-justification.”
“Of all spiritual disciplines prayer is the most central because it ushers us into perpetual communion with the Father.”
“To pray is to change. All who have walked with God have viewed prayer as the main business of their lives.”
“The purpose of meditation is to enable us to hear God more clearly. Meditation is listening, sensing, heeding the life and light of Christ. This comes right to the heart of our faith. The life that pleases God is not a set of religious duties; it is to hear His voice and obey His word. Meditation opens the door to this way of living.
“Fasting must forever centre on God. More than any other Discipline, fasting reveals the things that control us.
“Disciplines are not the answer; they only lead us to the Answer. We must clearly understand this limitation of the Disciplines if we are to avoid bondage.”
Ronald Rolheiser’s The Holy Longing is a modern classic. It has been read and endorsed by clergy and lay people across the Christian world. Essential reading for those seeking to understand and deepen their practice of Christian spirituality, this book explains the complexion of one’s personal spirituality and how to apply it to our worship, and our day-to-day lives. This book is for folks with questions about what Christians believe and what it means to actually live life by faith, following the example of Jesus and the Saints. It unpacks the key ingredients of an attractive, authentic spiritual life.
Rolheiser probes this question: “What is spirituality?” He writes about the confusion that can surround this subject amid the wide assortment of spiritual beliefs and practices of our day. With great sensitivity to debates and challenges swirling around the faith-life, he explains the “Nonnegotiable Essentials,” including the importance of community worship, the richness of ritual, the imperatives surrounding social justice, peacemaking, sexuality, the centrality of the Trinity, and more. The book presents an outline of Christian spirituality that reflects the continuing search for meaning at the heart of the human experience. Rolheiser writes about the search for love and wholeness in language accessible to all.
Ronald Rolheiser is a Canadian. He hails from Cactus Lake, Saskatchewan. He is a Roman Catholic priest and member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. He serves as President of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas, is author of the several books The Restless Heart, Forgotten Among the Lilies, The Shattered Lantern, AgainstAn Infinite Horizon, and Sacred Fire: A vision for a Deeper Human and Christian Maturity. He is a community-builder, lecturer and writer, and his weekly column appears in more than 90 Catholic publications. Rolheiser received an honorary doctorate from Fredericton’s St. Thomas University in 2005. A substantial selection of his articles and reflections are available online at ronrolheiser.com
Selected quotes from Ronald Rolheiser’s The Holy Longing:
“Becoming like Jesus is as much as about having a relaxed and joyful heart as it is about believing and doing the right thing, as much about proper energy as about proper truth.”
“In this life, all symphonies remain unfinished. Our deep longings are never really satisfied. What this means, among other things, is that we are not restful creatures who sometimes get restless, fulfilled people who sometimes are dissatisfied, serene people who sometimes experience disquiet. Rather, we are restless people who occasionally find rest, dissatisfied people who occasionally find fulfillment, and disquieted people who occasionally find serenity.”
“Spirituality…is about being integrated or falling apart, about being within community or being lonely, about being in harmony with Mother Earth or being alienated from her. Irrespective of whether or not we let ourselves be consciously shaped by any explicit religious idea, we act in ways that leave us either healthy or unhealthy, loving or bitter. What shapes our actions is our spirituality.
“Write a book,” he told me, “that I can give to my adult children to explain why I still believe in God and why I still go to church—and that I can read on days when I am no longer sure why I believe or go to church.”
N.T. Wright is a widely-read British Bible scholar and retired Anglican bishop. According to Time Magazine, Wright is one of the most formidable figures in the world of Christian thought. He served as Bishop of Durham between 2003 and 2010. Currently he is Research Professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at St Mary’s College, University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Some commentators have referred to him as a modern C.S. Lewis.
His writing actually opens up the Bible so that it can “speak” into the down-to-earth realities of one’s life. Wright offers fresh perspectives on how to approach Scripture; how readers can be nourished by the Bible day by day. He presents good reasons to ponder and pray through sections of biblical text. His insights encourage readers to ask important questions about how to go deeper in their faith-journey.
The 12 chapters of this book present a collection of N.T. Wright’s essays and talks — case studies that explore how and why the Bible speaks to some of the most pressing contemporary issues. There are interesting surprises between the covers of Surprised by Scripture. Some chapter titles follow:
Can a Scientist Believe in the Resurrection?
9/11, Tsunamis, and the New Problem of Evil
Idolatry 2.0
Our Politics Are Too Small
Selected quotes from N.T. Wright’s Surprised By Scripture:
“The question for us, as we learn again and again the lessons of hope for ourselves, is how we can be for the world what Jesus was for Thomas: how we can show to the world the signs of love, how we can reach out our hands in love, wounded though they will be if the love has been true, how we can invite those whose hearts have grown shrunken and shriveled with sorrow and disbelief to come and see what love has done, what love is doing, in our communities, our neighborhoods:”
“science takes things apart to see how they work, but religion puts things together to see what they mean.”
“But from the start the early Christians believed that the resurrection body, though it would certainly be a body in the sense of a physical object, would be a transformed body, a body whose material, created from the old material, would have new properties. That is what Paul means by the “spiritual body”: not a body made out of nonphysical spirit, but a physical body animated by the Spirit, a Spirit-driven body if you like: still what we would call physical but differently animated.”
“The church is not simply a religious body looking for a safe place to do its own thing within a wider political or social world. The church is neither more nor less than people who bear witness, by their very existence and in particular their holiness and their unity (Colossians 3), that Jesus is the world’s true lord, ridiculous or even scandalous though this may seem.”
“Here is the challenge, I believe, for the Christian artist, in whatever sphere: to tell the story of the new world so that people can taste it and want it, even while acknowledging the reality of the desert in which we presently live.”
The Good and Beautiful Life: Putting on the Character of Christ
