Theology Today

“Perhaps the book of Job will not make sense until we see it as turning away from the monarchial image of God and toward an image of God as vulnerable. Our failure to look forward, so to speak, in interpreting Job makes us like Job's friends who cannot speak rightly about God because they cannot break away from earlier patterns of thinking.”

“Salieri seems to be the central character of Shaffer's play, since he remains on stage from curtain rise to curtain fall. Yet the title is Amadeus, a name which suggests ‘the gift of God, the love of God, the one whom God loves.’ Mozart's genius is God's gift, undeserved, unmerited, totally inexplicable. It affronts Salieri's talent, labors, and virtue. It also undermines his piety. Both Salieri and Mozart are ‘shattered by grace,’ but the results of such a spiritual upheaval are antithetical.”

“Slow physical deterioration and loosened social relationships have profound spiritual significance, for they can separate a person from God. It is remarkable that the laments which so vividly portray this human despair should dominate the Psalter—Israel's book of praise. Their presence must be taken to reflect complex struggles to understand a God who could only be the just, loving, sovereign Lord, yet who stood witness to such violation of God's purposes for human beings.”

“We are all Appalachians. We depend on the rich resources of that region for our abundant life, while at the same time we tend to ignore the widespread poverty, the injustices and inequalities, which continue to mark the life of the people. This, then, is a report about some of the literature now available to help us understand the problems of Appalachia, the images and models which underlie our preconceptions, and the place of the Christian faith in the lives of the people.”

“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new convenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. … I will put my law within them, and I will write it upon their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

“BEM is a barometer of the churches' honesty before God in the eventual fulfillment of Christ's will ‘that they may all be one’ (John 17)… BEM brings a critical moment of truth to all Christian traditions. It is a moment of judgment and a moment of decision, neither of which can fulfill the will of the risen Christ without deep prayer, repentance, and spiritual struggling over what it means to be Christ's one body, one flock, one household in the world which God has created and redeemed.”

“The authors of BEM do not intend to degrade Christ to a mere founder of the holy sacraments, or the Holy Spirit to a mere instrument of sacramental miracle working. But they say so many and such powerful things in praise of the sacraments that one would almost think that the perfection, validity, and glory of the work of Christ needs ecclesiastical assistance in order to be effective… The document should in fact be ‘received’ just as it is. It deserves to be thoroughly discussed. But then, with expressions of thanks for services rendered, it should be packed away behind glass and carefully preserved in a safe place.”