Colleagues List, October 27th, 2019

Vol XV. No. 16

GLOBAL AND ECUMENICAL IN SCOPE
CANADIAN IN PERSPECTIVE

Wayne A. Holst, Editor
My E-Mail Address: waholst@telus.net 


This email is sent only to a voluntary subscriber list.
If you no longer wish to receive these weekly columns,
write to me personally - waholst@telus.net
 
*****

Dear Friends:

I am pleased to introduce a recent book by colleague
Philip Jenkins whose new titles I have shared with
you for many years. It is entitled Crucible of Faith
and is available in hardcover and Kindle editions.

Please enjoy the other nuggets I have found this week.

Wayne

*****

SPECIAL ITEM

Book Notice -

CRUCIBLE OF FAITH
The Ancient Revolution that Made
Our Modern Religious World
by Philip Jenkins

Basic Books, September 2017
303 pages. Hardcover.
$26.66 CAD. $21. CAD Kindle.
ISBN #046-509-6409

Publisher's Promo:

In The Crucible of Faith, Philip Jenkins argues
that much of the Judeo-Christian tradition we
know today was born between 250-50 BCE,
during a turbulent "Crucible Era." It was
during these years that Judaism grappled
with Hellenizing forces and produced new
religious ideas that reflected and responded
to their changing world.

By the time of the fall of the Temple in 70 CE,
concepts that might once have seemed bizarre
became normalized-and thus passed on to
Christianity and later Islam. Drawing widely
on contemporary sources from outside the
canonical Old and New Testaments, Jenkins
reveals an era of political violence and social
upheaval that ultimately gave birth to entirely
new ideas about religion, the afterlife, Creation
and the Fall, and the nature of God and Satan.

--

Author's Words:

As with so many stories accredited to him, Jesus used
commonplace rural imagery. He framed it, though, in a
worldview that held many assumptions about spiritual
realities as well as the universe and its hierarchies.

Forces of good and evil, light and darkness, contend
in the world until God's final victory. People must be
urgently concerned about these conflicts, because
their conduct in the present world affects their faith
in the afterlife. (Jesus' stories) have become the
building blocks of western religion. They are also
the staples of religious art (for example, see article
on Rubens in Net Notes, below).

(Many of the ideas Jesus shared through his stories
did not appear in the Hebrew Bible.) But early in
the Common Era, these motifs were thoroughly
integrated and acclimatized into the Jewish religious
worldview. They have shaped Western faith and
culture ever since.

(This era of 'transition' from Hebrew to Judeo-Christian
thought began at a critical moment of transformation
around the era of 250 BCE).

These centuries constitute a little-known historical
time that has seldom received the attention it deserves.
It was during this period that the universe was first
conceived as a battleground between the cosmic
forces of Good and Evil. With the rise of Christianity,
such Jewish-derived themes spilled forth into the
wider world, becoming transcontinental.

In the seventh century, Islam fully absorbed and
incorporated these religious components as well.

Today, these beliefs are the shared cultural inheritance
of well over half the world's people.

During the years 250-50 BCE, the Jewish and Jewish-
derived world was a fiery crucible of values, faiths
and ideas from which emerged new religious syntheses.
Such a sweeping transformation of religious thought
in such a relatively brief period makes this one of the
most revolutionary times in human culture. These
years, in effect, created Western consciousness.

(This fact makes the Crucible era at least as celebrated
as the Axial Age.)

Just over two thousand years ago, a new universe
was created, one that we still inhabit today.

(The author then describes how the emerging empires
of Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome absorbed this
thinking and adapted it to their respective eras.)

(These) universalist approaches reached a new height
in the Christian world, when the apostle Paul
extended to all believing Gentiles membership in a
new Israel, under a New Covenant.)

The Crucible years spanned a period of two centuries,
from the mid-third century BCE to the mid-first...

These two critical centuries created the religious world
the west has known ever since. Without this spiritual
revolution, neither Christianity nor Islam would exist,
and Judaism would have been unimaginably different.

- quoted and interpreted from the Introduction

--

Author's Bio:

Philip Jenkins is a distinguished professor of history at the Institute for Studies of Religion, Baylor University. The author of twenty-seven books, Jenkins divides his time between Texas and Pennsylvania.

--

My Thoughts:

I have been introducing and reviewing books by
Philip Jenkins for many years and have never been
disappointed with any of the titles he has written.
This one is no exception.

Jenkins fills holes that exist in our understanding
of various eras and belief-system developments,
occurring during times that are shadowy for many.
 
His basic tasks with Crucible of Faith are these -
how did pre-Christian Judaism help to shape
some key Christian teachings, and how, in return,
did Christianity help to reshape Judaism. Then,
how did the Judeo-Christian tradition impact Islam.
These are important issues for modern discussion.

Jenkins believes that the trajectories of all three
religions of Jerusalem were shaped during two to
three centuries - BCE and CE. He writes 11 chapters,
plus an introduction and a conclusion. Briefly,
they unfold as such -

First, the essential background of the Jewish world.
Then, a description of how the Greek, Jewish and
Eastern worlds and faiths interacted. We discover
what survived from early Judaism and what didn't.

Chapters 5-9 describe the most transformative
periods and how many bold ideas and worldviews
emerged during Maccabean times when Jewish
religion and culture challenged the Hellenistic 
onslaught.

Finally, we engage two chapters describing how
the new insights that emerged from these culture
clashes attained mainstream status.

This era gave rise to religious structures, which
included Christianity, rabbinic Judaism and Islam,
as well as other faiths which subsequently had an
impact on their times.

This book fills an important gap in inter-testamental
Judaism and helps to clarify previously little-known
marerial about the development of Judaism and
the founding of both Christianity and Islamic faiths.

No question, this book is an important contribution
to contemporary biblical and inter-faith studies.

As usual with Jenkins, I highly recommend this book.

--

Buy the book from: Amazon.ca:
https://tinyurl.com/yxjzwwuz

"Absorbing and accessible...Like the writings of historian Karen Armstrong (A History of God), the book invites readers with a nonspecialist background to consider the historical roots of religious ideas and practices that many take for granted as eternal truths."- Publishers Weekly

"Jenkins tackles the intertestamental period or Crucible Era between the closure of the canonical Old Testament texts and before the birth of Jesus described in the New Testament.... Well-researched and well-argued."- Library Journal

"A well-written, intriguing account of the centuries that set the stage for modern Judaism, the Christianity taught by Paul, and, eventually, Islam."- Kirkus Reviews              

*****

COLLEAGUE CONTRIBUTIONS

Ron Rolheiser,
San Antonio, TX

Personal Web Site,
October 21st, 2019

"The Grace Within Passivity"
  https://tinyurl.com/y5jtd2qn

--

Jim Taylor,
Okanagan, BC

Personal Web Log
October 21st, 2019

"As Autumn Leaves Begin to Fall"
  https://tinyurl.com/y24vk6j3

--

Mark Whittall
Ottawa, ON.

Sermons and Blog
October 23td, 2019

"Living in the Now and Not Yet"
  https://tinyurl.com/y5an3v49

--

Michael Swan,
Toronto, ON.

The Catholic Register, Toronto

October 18th, 2019

"Rubens: The Art of Persuasion"
  https://tinyurl.com/y2zltol2

--

Philip Yancey,
Colorado

Philipyancey.com
October 18th, 2019

"Trusting the Bridge"
  https://tinyurl.com/y4eu9azx

*****

NET NOTES - October 27th, 2019

ELCIC's SUSAN JOHNSON CONTINUES
ADVOCATING FOR ABUSED WOMEN
National Leader Speaks Out for
"Thursdays in Black"

World Council of Churches,
and the Anglican Journal
October, 2019
(Video - Please Adjust Sound)

https://tinyurl.com/y6r7zvry

--

TEN CANADIAN INDIGENOUS CANDIDATES
ELECTED TO THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
4 First Nations, 2 Inuit, 4 Metis

CBC.ca
October 24th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/y6hussog

--

JOHN MBITI DIES
Punctured Myths About African Religion

New York Times,
October 24th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/y4ll244t

--

MORE THAN 1 BILLION PEOPLE
CELEBRATE DIVALI -
What Does it Mean to Them?

Religion News Service,
October 18th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/y2wqw3rr

--

BARBARA BROWN TAYLOR -
REFORMATION IS A 'DELICIOUS'
WILDERNESS, BUT LONELY
Respected Author Transcends Boundaries

Religion News Service,
October 18th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/yydtlq8j

--

ANGER IS A VIRTUE FOR OUR TIME
BECAUSE SILENCE ISN'T WORKING
Column by Joan Chittister

National Catholic Reporter,
October 22nd, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/y36knka3

--

THE EARLY CHURCH THRIVED AMIDST
SECULARISM AND SHOWS HOW WE CAN TOO
Church History is Helpful in Assessing This

Christianity Today,
October 16th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/y626basm

--

FOR MANY RELIGIOUS ACTIVISTS -
"WELCOMING THE STRANGER" IS AN ACT OF FAITH

Religion and Politics,
October  22nd, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/y32972uw

--

AFTER THIRTY YEARS, THEOLOGIAN SAYS
MARTYRS' WORK CONTINUES IN EL SALVADOR
Voices on Behalf of the Voiceless Still Speaking

National Catholic Reporter
October 24th, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/yyxlom98

--

YOUNG PEOPLE WHO LEAVE THE CHURCH
NO LONGER RETURNING AS THEY GROW OLDER
U.S. Barna Study Results Similar in Canada

The Christian Post,
October 23rd, 2019

https://tinyurl.com/yyuyks32

*****

WISDOM OF THE WEEK
Provided by Sojourners and the Bruderhof online'

I just hope that more people will ignore the fatalism
of the argument that we are beyond repair. We are
not beyond repair. We are never beyond repair.

- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

--
 
His (Christ's) appearance in our midst has made it
undeniably clear that changing the human heart and
changing human society are not separate tasks, but
are as interconnected as the two beams of the cross.

- Henri J.M. Nouwen

--

Justice is any act of reconciliation that restores any part
of God's creation back to its original intent, purpose or
image. When I think about justice that way, it doesn't
surprise me at all that God loves it. It includes both the
acts of social justice and the restorative justice found
on the cross.

- John M. Perkins

--

Through the call of Jesus people become individuals.
Willy-nilly, they are compelled to decide, and that
decision can only be made by themselves. It is no
choice of their own that makes them individuals: it
is Christ who makes them individuals by calling them.
Every person is called separately, and must follow alone.

- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

--

If I did not believe, if I did not make what is called an
act of faith (and each act of faith increases our faith,
and our capacity for faith), if I did not have faith that
the works of mercy do lighten the sum total of suffering
in the world, so that those who are suffering…somehow
mysteriously find their pain lifted and some balm of
consolation poured on their wounds, if I did not believe
these things, the problem of evil would indeed be
overwhelming.

- Dorothy Day

--

Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your
strength lies. Nothing is small for our good God, for he is
great and we are small. That is why he lowers himself
and cares to do small things, in order to offer us an
opportunity to show him our love. Since he does them,
they are great things, they are infinite. Nothing he does
can be small. Again: practice fidelity even in the least
things, not for their own sake, but for the sake of what
is great – that is, the will of God.

- Mother Teresa

--

Go, and fear not. Be not bitter against anyone. Be not
angry if you are wronged. Forgive. Be reconciled with
everyone you know. If you are penitent, you love.

And if you love, you are of God. All things are atoned for,
all things are saved by love. Love is such a priceless
treasure that you can redeem the whole world by it,
and expiate not only your own sins but the sins of
others

- Fyodor Dostoyevsky

*****

CLOSING THOUGHT - Nelson Mandella

A leader ... is like a shepherd. He stays behind the flock,
letting the most nimble go out ahead, whereupon the
others follow, not realizing that all along they are being
directed from behind.

(end)

*****

For Those Interested - 

ACTS Ministry - some programs at St. David's this Fall

ST. DAVID'S ACTS  AUTUMN MONDAY NIGHT BOOK STUDY

A Ten Week Series September 16th - November 25th, 2019
Monday Evenings, TM Room 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM

"HOLY ENVY" Finding God in the Faith of Others

Author: Barbara Brown Taylor
Registration/Hospitality and Book: $60.00.
Book only: $25.00

38 copies of the book were made available for sale
before the study began at St. David's. These books
have sold out, with 38 registrations to date.
 
Book Description - https://tinyurl.com/y37g93rg

--

Some stats:
Autumn and Winter Series (2018-19) -
Total class registrations: 87 (2 series)
Total books sold: 102
Average weekly winter class attendance: 34

***

ST. DAVID'S ACTS THURSDAY MORNING BIBLE STUDY

Our theme this autumn: "The Book of Revelation"
Ten Study Sessions - Thursday mornings,
September 26th-November 28th, 2019

During the second half of the course, we will
do some book comparisons between the Hebrew
Bible "Daniel", and the Christian Bible "Revelation".

Gathering at 9:30 AM in the St. David's TM Room
and meeting 10:00 - 11:00 AM.

12 persons comprise our core study group.

Study resource:

"The DK Complete Bible Handbook"
  Edited by John Bowker

http://tinyurl.com/odxlv7q

*****