Gnosticism & Evangelicalism (1)

“Now if Christ is proclaimed as raised from the dead, how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?”
1 Corinthians 15:12

Resurrection or disembodiment?
In his book Heaven is Not My Home: Learning to Live in God’s Creation, Paul Marshall quotes a Time Magazine report from the close of last century. Time had reported that two thirds of Americans who say they believe in the resurrection of the dead do not believe they will have bodies after the resurrection.

Accepting our humanity
One of my two picks this year for the “Best Picture” Oscar is Alexander Payne’s The Descendants. (The other, Martin Scorcese’s enchanting children’s tale Hugo will be reviewed in an upcoming column.) In The Descendants, as in his previous movies, Payne proves to be a master at portraying life’s full reach – both its messiness and its wonder. Particularly in his last movies (Election, About Schmidt, and Sideways),and now again in this movie, Payne has focused his keen eye and gifted pen on memorable, lead, male characters who learn to accept their full humanity as failed dreams and difficult circumstances invite personal growth.

“And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” Deuteronomy 6:6-7

Elections are all about policy: Which view of government, of the common weal, of this or that issue or situation will be awarded the opportunity to prove its merit? Government establish policies affecting every area of life, and this makes the political process, tedious and tiresome as it can be, especially important. Christians owe it to their country to take seriously and exercise responsible all their duties and privileges as members of “we the people.” Our votes will help to determine the kinds of policies that will guide the immediate future of our country, and we need to be active in seeking to shape those policies by every available means.

In the early 1980s the nation was shocked into alarm by a report on the state of America’s schools entitled, A Nation at Risk. So inept, so ineffective, and so dismal was the state of American education, this report concluded, that had a foreign enemy done this to us, we would regard it as an act of war.

What’s all the fuss about?
A Nation at Risk inaugurated a field day for pot-shotting American public education. Critic after critic, report after report, program after program appeared in an effort to fix the problem. “No Child Left Behind” is merely the most recent response to the continuing concern about American education.

"But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." Acts 1:8

What in the world is going on?
In Acts 1:8, Jesus laid out the plan for spreading the Gospel through the rest of the world. We start with "our" Jerusalem: people with whom we are in frequent contact, and with whom we share a common language and cultural heritage (family, friends, and neighbors).

Indeed, since I learned to know Him in my youth, the love and fear of God have grown in me, and up to now, with the Lord's help, I have kept the faith.
Patrick, Confession (British, 5th century)