The selected readings from chapter two of Walter Klaiber and Manfred Marquardt’s Living Grace: An Outline of United Methodist Theology focus on two traditional flashpoints in Western Christianity’s tension between the ever-growing body of secular truths and theories about the natural world and the all-powerful, loving creator God of the Old and New Testaments. In the first selection - pages 93 to 102 - the authors focus on the tension between the Judeo-Christian belief in ex nihilo1 creation and natural science’s discovered truths and generally accepted theories over the last several centuries. In the second selection - pages 115 to 126 - the authors focus their attention on the Wesleyan theology of theodicy; how we explain and embrace the seemingly contradictory nature of a loving God who allows suffering. In both selections the authors juxtapose the seemingly nihilistic nature of modern atheistic, secular thought against the always-creating Christian God of love. Rather than furthering the conflict, the authors in both selections bridge the gap between worldviews by presenting a theology of God that is larger than ancient Mesopotamian understandings of creation and beyond the machinations of DNA chains and the “chance” of natural selection.
Read more...The path to ministry God set before me was indeed mysterious, but now – looking back – clear and obvious. God in his mercy saved me from the dark, uncertain lands of my youth. He offered me his only son, Jesus Christ, and filled me with his Holy Spirit. He nurtured me through his Holy Word and the saints of his Church. The joy in my life is now totally incomprehensible to my old self. Because of what he’s done for me, I totally and completely give my life to the everlasting, triune God of Heaven and Earth.
Read more...
]
]
]
]
]