Brother from Shangri La

Tales from Shangri-La features The Brother from Shangri-La's blog responding to a recent Nicholas Kristof article:

Resisting the Talisman View of Salvation 

Solid Seminary Training in the 21st Century American City

Reformed Theological Seminary-DC provides reformed seminary training in a center of American urban culture and politics.

Points of distinction

-Faculty involved in academic research but with a history of actual pastoral work -- head, heart, and hands-on experience

-Faculty accessible to student body in side-by-side relationship -- mentoring

-Diverse student body who seek to learn from each other and with each each other -- community



Short RTS Video

Ecumenicism: Accommodation and Orthodoxy

Here in First Things, Dr. Scott Redd shares a charitable and nuanced approach to ecumenicism in light of a letter from Pope Francis to evangelicals. Redd invites believers to have a respectful and truthful dialogue about what both unites and divides Catholics, Protestants, and Orthodox.

Link to First Things article

Here's an outquote that hits at the crux:

In the letter, Francis also cites recent, public instances of Christian persecution around the world and the impact they have had on his understanding of Church unity. “The one that persecutes does not make a mistake, he doesn't ask if they are Catholic, Evangelical, Orthodox. . . . They are Christians, followers of Jesus Christ, and that is enough. This blood challenges us,” he writes. Indeed it does. The global plight of the Christian in the twenty first century ought to unify those who follow Christ and seek to proclaim his gospel in word and deed.

This issue also raises the question of what it means to be a follower of Jesus Christ and to share in that, for lack of a better word, communion in which the church is united in his suffering. Not all who share in his suffering, for instance, can share in the same sacramental table, due to different understandings of the meaning of Christ's presence at the table or altar. Similarly, not all of those targeted by ISIS or North Korea agree about the meaning of the church or the content of the gospel we proclaim. All religious persecution is horrific and wrong, but we do not define the community of faith by those whom the persecutor victimizes. How ought we to think about other persecuted groups who hold to a heretical understanding of the incarnation or the deity of Christ? We are united with them in their humanity, but are they Christ's church?

These questions are not without significance, touching on the person of Christ and the nature of faith, and the answers will only come from an engaged discussion of the authority of Scripture, the historical witness of the church, and the clarity with which the councils, creeds, and confessions give expression to the teaching of the Bible. These discussions can get into the weeds quickly, to be sure, but they are nevertheless crucial to moving toward meaningful unity. True healing comes once the illness is diagnosed.

21

Sunergoi on "21 for 1"

The Meaning of Exile

Some Christians are predicting an imminent exile for the church in modern times. Whatever you believe about our future, what does exile mean about the church historically?

What Exile Means

Dividing Joint and Marrow

from an earlier post....

Our God is personal. He is intimate. He is far too much concerned with loving us to let us idle along forever in indolent accusations, or in the opiates of endless logical disputes or smoky mysticism or worldly pragmatics.

Christianity has laws, but it is not a religion of laws and rules. Christianity has miracles and mysteries, but it is not a religion of magic and smoke. Christianity is reasoned and wise, but it is not a religion for the proud academic and all-knowing logician. 

The Greeks seeks wisdom, the Jews look for miracles. But we His people, both Jew and Gentile, seek something else. Him. Crucified. 

It's a stumbling block, for some. A relationship, for others.

Christianity is a most intimate love story of a Groom for His bride, a Father for his child, a King for his subject, a Doctor for his patient.

Communion with Christ is a most uncomfortable and invasive surgery, a nakedness, a subjection, and a knowing.

For we're sick and hurting sore, and He is our Doctor. We are weak and defenseless, and He is our protecting King. We are lost and crying out, and He is our shepherding Father.

We are ugly, unloved, wrinkled, bitter, barren, sour, and cast-off. We wear a hood to hide our ugliness. And He is our beloved Groom, making us radiant, smooth, strong, healthy, and whole. He removes our masks and shrouds, looks in our face, and clothes us in white. 

"Let the bones you have crushed rejoice." 

Jesus, lover of souls.

Greener Epistomological Pastures?

Article by Scott Redd in The Christward Collective on biblical inerrancy and its critics and supporters.

One pertinent quote: "Self-loathing is the evil twin of repentence."

Biblical Inerrancy and the Greener Pastures Fallacy 

Fighting Malaria

A committed Christian, a humble man, and a family friend...a good example of a believer quietly advancing the kingdom for years, under two presidents, through hard work and dedication in unglamorous places.

The Malaria Fighter

Out of Death into Life

This is one prayer said just before Eucharist, or Holy Communion, in the Anglican church. It's a very brief summation of God's creative and redemptive work in human history.

***

We give thanks to you, O God, for the goodness and love which you have made known to us in creation;

in the calling of Israel to be your people;

in your Word spoken through the prophets;

and above all in the Word made flesh, Jesus, your Son.

For in these last days you sent him to be incarnate from the Virgin Mary, to be the Savior and Redeemer of the world.

In him you have delivered us from evil, and made us worthy to stand before you.

In him you have brought us out of error into truth, 
out of sin into righteousness, 
out of death into life. 

(Book of Common Prayer, page 368)

In Adam's Fall

Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell

I have been staying up late at night reading, and reading desperately in carpool line, and reading distractedly at gas station pumps -- the picture of the undisciplined, novel-engrossed housewife someone might have written a cautionary tale about in 1890. (Well, minus the carpool lines and gas station pumps.) Thanks a lot, David Mitchell.

Paul Simon was the only living boy in New York, and I suspect I am the only living English major to discover Mitchell just last week. By the time I hear about The Next Big Thing it is usually The Last Big Thing. That said:

Starting with the gradual decline (and final redemption) of the ship bound Adam Ewing, the novel is a tight, satisfying story compiled of tight, satisfying stories, a walk through time and the human condition via reincarnation (or perhaps it is generations): racism, courage, liberation, political economy, stewardship of the earth, and, ultimately, human nature.

Reformed friends, we may reject Buddhist and hyper-feminist notions, but if you want a moving picture of both original sin and human potential, this novel is that. Consciously or unconsciously, it is also profoundly pro-life, especially the story of Sonmi. (Mitchell's The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet is even more starkly pro-life.)

Maybe you are just interested in reading a good story? Cloud Atlas is a novel and also a collection of several stories in different genres -- the journal travelogue, the letter, the spy thriller, the humorous narrative, the sci-fi novella. His characters are full but his language is efficient.

After Sunday: With Gladness and Singleness of Heart

"Eternal God, heavenly Father,

You have graciously accepted us as living members

of your Son, our Savior Jesus Christ,

and you have fed us with spiritual food

in the sacrament of his body and blood.

Send us now into the world in peace,

and grant us strength and courage

to love and serve you

with gladness and singleness of heart;

through Christ our Lord.

Amen"

(Book of Common Prayer, Holy Eucharist II p 365)

Family Worship Part II: The Time and Manner of Family Worship

To follow up from the first article, The Heart of Family Worship, here is the second and last installment on the topic of family worship by Scott Redd.

The Time and Manner of Family Worship

Question and Answer

What are God's deeds like?

God's deeds are great and amazing.

What are God's ways like?

God's ways are just and true.

What has been revealed?

God's righteous acts.

Who, alone, is holy?

God.

Who will come and worship before him?

All nations will come and worship before him

Revelations 15

2 And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire—and also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. 3 And they sing the song of Moses,the servant[a] of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying,

“Great and amazing are your deeds,
    O Lord God the Almighty!
Just and true are your ways,
    O King of the nations![b]
4 Who will not fear, O Lord,
    and glorify your name?
For you alone are holy.
    All nations will come
    and worship you,
for your righteous acts have been revealed.”

Family Worship

First part in a two-part series by Scott Redd, at Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals site, "The Christward Collective."

The Heart of Family Worship

Christian Understanding

Paraphrase from pages 141-142 of People of the Book by David Lyle Jeffrey.

The Bible teaches us the Christian understanding of the invisible is limited, has not yet reached fullness (I Corinthians 13:9-12)

And yet Christian understanding of the invisible is also "referential" -- can be inferred from what we do see (Romans 1:20)

We are limited in our understanding of an infinite God, yet not fully limited -- we do enjoy revelation.

Is Christ "Just Another Theme" in the Old Testament?

Here is my brother, Dr. Scott Redd, pulled aside to discuss briefly with the Gospel Coalition how we can correctly understand Christ in the Old Testament. (Seven minutes so just short-enough for carpool line!)

I am not biased, right? But I think this may be enlightening and encouraging as one starting point for those who want to make sure they see Christ in the Old Testament without falling into the mistake of wrongly allegorizing every narrative and event.

Here is the 7-minute video

VIDEO

Here is an article:

ARTICLE

A Reformed Presbyterian and a Spanish Muslim Meet at an Anglican Liturgical Service

Growing up Reformed doctrinally and Anglican liturgically, and with a heart for and interest in the Middle East, this article by Carl Trueman spoke to me.

  LINK