Suspended Above the Earth

Yesterday was Great and Holy Friday. The main service features one of my favorite hymns of the church, as well as one of the shortest: Today, is suspended on a tree, He, who suspended the earth upon the waters. The structure of that sentence is all wrong (difficult to read, difficult to parse), but as …

Further Thoughts on Shame

In the previous essay  I claimed (following the lead of John Climacus) that we can only be saved by embracing our shame. Living in a family that has a multi-generational issue with alcoholism and the shame that can both cause alcoholism and be a result of it, I recognize this advice might sound rather horrible. …

Salvation as Descent

As Holy Week approaches and we solemnly observe the downward (upward) spiral of events that inevitably is leading to Jesus’ crucifixion (leading to Jesus’ victory), I am reminded of the juxtaposition of the movements of ascent and descent in the Christian gospel. Jesus’ victory is not the resurrection (which is the announcement of his victory) …

The Covenant of the Heart

I picked up a book expecting one thing but getting quite another. The book is The Marrow of Modern Divinity by Edward Fisher (d. 1655). What it turned out to be was a very early Reformed exposition on grace primarily using the frame of the Covenant of Works vs the Covenant of Grace (ie, classical …