tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post712535411739423486..comments2024-03-25T13:40:30.747-04:00Comments on Faith and Theology: Pentecost sermon: Spirit liteBen Myershttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03800127501735910966noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-83158051710785536052008-08-08T07:38:00.000-04:002008-08-08T07:38:00.000-04:00Good Job! :)Good Job! :)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-85735803831982851312008-05-13T08:12:00.000-04:002008-05-13T08:12:00.000-04:00Thanks for the thoughts, Kim. I had assumed that I...Thanks for the thoughts, Kim. I had assumed that I'd just come across your name before here in cyberspace, but checking out your profile I find you're a URC minister, so perhaps I've also seen it in print on the pages of "Reform" magazine.<BR/><BR/>When it comes to your "Three Aitches", I think my local church has some way to go. But I am glad you said that "Spirit Right" should also be humorous, which gives me some cause for hope. I remember a visiting moderator being somewhat taken aback by how much laughter there was in our mid-week Bible Study group. I suggested this was both good and bad news: good, in that it showed we didn't take ourselves too seriously, but also an indication of how much we had not to take ourselves too seriously about – things that, if we couldn't laugh about them, might have us queuing up to jump off the church tower.<BR/><BR/>But seriously: I think that not taking ourselves too seriously (being able to laugh at ourselves – whether locally, denominationally, or globally – and not just at people "out there") is an important step towards taking other things (and people) with the seriousness they deserve (but not more than that).<BR/><BR/>Thanks again. (And I must remember to check out some back copies of "Reform" when I get home.)John Radcliffehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17457933540067146460noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-85177233049269039612008-05-13T04:31:00.000-04:002008-05-13T04:31:00.000-04:00yeah, I know what you mean. I remember after study...yeah, I know what you mean. I remember after studying theology at university, I happened to find my way to a small christian community in the red light district of Amsterdam. When somebody there asked me about Jesus, I would pull out all my knowledge of the Bible, and kept to the guidelines of Barth. <BR/><BR/>"well, no.. you can't find God for yourself just like that. The Word finds you. Reveals itself to you. You just have to let Faith happen to you, as the response to the Word."<BR/><BR/>Needless to say, the Holy Spirit had a hard time working through me like that. Barth's radicalism doesn't always work when put into practice. :)Pieter Pronkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17663536465075375048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-51999523382247359712008-05-13T02:26:00.000-04:002008-05-13T02:26:00.000-04:00Yeah, Pieter and Steve, Barth would not be pleased...Yeah, Pieter and Steve, Barth would not be pleased. He would call it a "topical" sermon, the kind that he later lamented he'd preached too often at Safenwil. More charitably, it might come under the Killenger category of "developmental" sermon. If it's not a an expository sermon, however, I would argue that a sound biblical biblical pneumatology infuses it, both polemically and constructively. If it teaches rather than preaches, that's the trade-off I feel - uneasily - that I sometimes have to make here in the UK when in more and more churches Sunday morning at 11:00 is the only time you have for any instruction whatsoever in the Christian faith.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-80464246968230467172008-05-12T20:16:00.000-04:002008-05-12T20:16:00.000-04:00roger flyer, I may be a lousy theologian, but I'm...roger flyer,<BR/><BR/> I may be a lousy theologian, but I'm a pretty good 'jerk'!<BR/><BR/> Cheers!<BR/><BR/> - Steve M.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-20199534040277956272008-05-12T19:17:00.000-04:002008-05-12T19:17:00.000-04:00... whoa, wait. I got suckered in. Maybe I shoul...... whoa, wait. I got suckered in. Maybe I should recant. I think Kim’s leading up to another post wherein “Holy” heterogeneity and heuristics means that the Spirit endorses the euro .... the euro is not just ordinary error, it's heresy ...JRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07674489078935633842noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-81556426602140492372008-05-12T19:11:00.000-04:002008-05-12T19:11:00.000-04:00Nice: humane, heterogeneous, heuristic. Pretty co...Nice: humane, heterogeneous, heuristic. Pretty cool. Whatever’s “Holy” .. well I’ll wait for your next installment.<BR/><BR/>Cheers,<BR/><BR/>JimJRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07674489078935633842noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-83186625857433607312008-05-12T19:07:00.000-04:002008-05-12T19:07:00.000-04:00I have always loved Steve Martin--even with the ar...I have always loved Steve Martin--even with the arrow through your head.<BR/><BR/>And to find out you are a closet theologian?<BR/><BR/>It makes my day.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-5080343214243926962008-05-12T17:24:00.000-04:002008-05-12T17:24:00.000-04:00Spirit Lite, you got it right.Spirit Right, you we...Spirit Lite, you got it right.<BR/><BR/>Spirit Right, you were a bit too lite.<BR/><BR/>Give Him away next time, Kim.<BR/><BR/>Proclaim the only Spirit which gives authentic life.<BR/><BR/>In the proclamation, the Spirit will actually DO something.(Romans 1:16) <BR/><BR/>The Holy Spirit isn't an intellectual construct, but an actual person that creates faith in our Lord Jesus.<BR/><BR/>Another couple of paragraphs handing over Christ would have turned your talk... into a sermon. <BR/><BR/> Thanks!<BR/><BR/> - Steve M.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-37597707261709588352008-05-12T17:00:00.000-04:002008-05-12T17:00:00.000-04:00By coincidence (I guess?) I read the following in ...By coincidence (I guess?) I read the following in Church Dogmatics, a couple hours after readin this sermon.<BR/><BR/>"From the book by Wilhelm Pauck, Karl Barth, Prophet of a New Christianity?, 1931, p. 99, I take the following observation. “It is important to remember… that the difierence between modern preaching in America and Protestant Europe is fundamental. The American sermon is seldom Biblical and expository. Its reference to the Scripture is in the majority of cases casual or superficial. It deals generally with ‘religious’ topics. The European Protestant, however, follows the old tradition of preaching the ‘Word’ whether he is affiliated with liberal or orthodox theology.” If this is generally true as concerns America, then even the actual confrontation with the Bible which is presupposed here is no longer, or scarcely any longer, an event there. And if not, then naturally the problem based on this confrontation does not arise. In that case I may expect from the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers neither interest nor understanding for what follows, nor indeed for the whole of this Dogmatics. But perhaps even in America there is at least a dim recollection that the preaching of the Church might stand in some sort of special connexion with the Bible. And even there it will surely happen some day that “religious” topics will become so stupid and stale that the dim recollection might become once again a clear recollection."<BR/><BR/>Page 254 of CD I-1<BR/><BR/>I had to laugh, though I don't think Barth meant this in a funny way (as we know he can often found to be quite funny on purpose). And I wondered, tongue in cheeck: are those American roots playing up, Kim Fabricius? <BR/><BR/>But it brings me to the question: I'd also like to hear that the Spirit is like those three points, but where is my confrontation with the Bible? Where is the event? Did you even have certain Bible texts in mind when you said those three things about the Spirit Right in the sermon?Pieter Pronkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17663536465075375048noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-31922751650275112602008-05-12T10:40:00.000-04:002008-05-12T10:40:00.000-04:00The previous was not supposed to be anonThe previous was not supposed to be anonAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-14261952.post-81379965138272467052008-05-12T10:39:00.000-04:002008-05-12T10:39:00.000-04:00YES! I absolutely love the three points!Yes Yes ye...YES! I absolutely love the three points!<BR/>Yes Yes yes.<BR/>Thank you, Kim!Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com