A God Who knew what it was like to be expendable, to be devalued to zero and to exist hopelessly in a darkened earth? If God merely looks down on man from the heights of a transcendent Being. He dare not come face to face with the men and women and children whose lives have been outraged. But a God Who in the words of Bonhoeffer 'let himself be pushed out of the world on to the cross,' He alone is the God Who can help."
The Church has been too long standing on the shore watching the poor and the socially disinherited drown. Now the Church has gone to the opposite extreme as its religious dive into the river to drown with them, to become world-logged because they are waterlogged. From Transcendence we have gone to Immanence, from regarding the world as evil, to regarding the world as goddess.
This latter stage has sickened even the Marxists. At a meeting in Czechoslovakia in which Catholic priests, Protestant ministers and Communists took part, every priest and minister and minister spoke of "involvement with the world" and every Communist about the need of Transcendence. There were certain questions, they said, which they would not answer: death, suffering, anxiety and they suspected the answer is outside the economic order.
Oscar Cullmann writes too in this assurance that the Transcendent God is also immanent in Christ: It is gratifying that the contemporary Christians feel an obligation to the world as seldom before. But they should endeavour all the more not to be ashamed of the Gospel - Rom. 1:16 - exactly at the point where it is foolishness to the world - 1Cor. 1:18 - and this pertains to both conformists and non-conformists... They are to use the things of the world as though they did not use them - 1Cor. 7:31 - and not to be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. - Rom. 12:2 -
The secret of effective influence on the world is to replace mere action by Active Passion; i.e. as we enter the world where the "Prince" lives we must expect something of the Passion of Christ: ridicule, being laughed at, and getting hurt by ingratitude. Christ does not help us by His omnipotence when we work with the distressed. He helps us by His weakness and Passion. The last thing the worldly and militants would ever expect Christ to ask is, "Can you not watch one Hour with Me?"
It seems so utterly irrelevant when the Head of the Church is about to be seized. As Bonhoeffer wrote: "We are challenged to participate in the sufferings of God in the hands of a godless world. We must therefore plunge into the life of the godless world, without attempting to gloss over the ungodliness with a veneer of religion or trying to transfigure it. It is not a religious act which makes a Christian what he is, but participation and suffering of God in the life of the world."
BY ARCHBISHOP FULTON J. SHEEN (1895-1979)
Taught, preached, wrote, informed and inspired millions of people during his full and active life. He was gifted with an ability to reach people of all religious backgrounds.
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Sunday, May 24, 2009
I have through years of reading, pondering, reflecting and contemplating, the 3 things that last; FAITH . HOPE . LOVE and I would like to made available my sharing from the many thinkers, authors, scholars and theologians whose ideas and thoughts I have borrowed. God be with them always. Amen!
I STILL HAVE MANY THINGS TO SAY TO YOU BUT THEY WOULD BE TOO MUCH FOR YOU NOW. BUT WHEN THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH COMES, HE WILL LEAD YOU TO THE COMPLETE TRUTH, SINCE HE WILL NOT BE SPEAKING AS FROM HIMSELF, BUT WILL SAY ONLY WHAT HE HAS LEARNT; AND HE WILL TELL YOU OF THE THINGS TO COME.
HE WILL GLORIFY ME, SINCE ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. EVERYTHING THE FATHER HAS IS MINE; THAT IS WHY I SAID: ALL HE TELLS YOU WILL BE TAKEN FROM WHAT IS MINE. - JOHN 16:12-15 -
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