Technological Progress…

Let us labor under no illusions. There are no easy solutions for problems that are at the same time intensely personal and universal, urgent and eternal. Technological progress creates more problems than it solves. Efficiency experts or social engineering will not redeem humanity. Important as their contributions may be, they do not reach the heart of the problem. Religion, therefore, with its demands and visions, is not a luxury but a matter of life and death. True, its message is often diluted and distorted by pedantry, externalization, ceremonialism, and superstition. But this precisely is our task: to recall the urgencies, the perpetual emergencies of human existence, the rare cravings of the spirit, the eternal voice of God, to which the demands of religion are an answer.—Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man, 372

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Mind you, he wrote this in 1951! How true it has proven to be : (
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The Nazi myth recycled … as a MAGA myth!

I read Karen Armstrong's A Short History of Myth over the weekend. On the whole it's just a rehash of Eliade and Joseph Campbell, but with a good dose of Walter Burkert thrown in to make it more interesting. But, the final chapter had this tantalizing paragraph:

We are myth-making creatures and, during the twentieth century we saw some very destructive modern myths which have ended in massacre and genocide.… These destructive mythologies have been narrowly racial, ethnic, denominational and egotistic, an attempt to exalt the self by demonising the other. Any such myth has failed modernity…

Sound familiar? But she doesn't stop there. She suggests that

We cannot counter these bad myths with reason alone, because undiluted logos cannot deal with such deep-rooted, unexorcised fears, desires and neuroses. That is the role of an ethically and spiritually informed mythology. We need myths that will help us to identify with all our fellow-beings, not simply those who belong to our ethnic, national or ideological tribe. We need myths that help us to realize the importance of compassion, which is not always regarded as sufficiently productive or efficient in our pragmatic, rational world. We need myths that help us to create a spiritual attitude, to see beyond our immediate requirements, and enable us to experience a transcendent value that challenges our solipsistic selfishness. We need myths that help us to venerate the earth as sacred once again, instead of merely using it as a ‘resource’. This is crucial, because unless there is some kind of spiritual revolution that is able to keep abreast of our technological genius, we will not save our planet.—Karen Armstrong, A Short History of Myth, 136–37

The road goes ever on… but this blog won't

I've been blogging now for twenty years (today is the twentieth anniversary). Some years I've blogged more than others, but I've been pretty consistent. I've seen lots of blogs come—and go. Some just disappear without a trace—witness the dead links on some of my earlier posts.

Over the years, I've made a lot of friends through the blog, many of whom I've later met in person at a conference. I've probably made a few enemies as well, but that's ok. I've always tried to be honest and not put on a different face. When I review books—even ones I'm supposed to be selling—I try to show the good and bad points.

In short, I've tried to conduct this blog as I try to live my life: with integrity.

But, as they say, all good things come to an end. So, after twenty years, I've decided to call it a day. It's rather ironic, in a way. For a few years now, my stats have been abysmal, but in the last two months they've been more in line with the early days of blogging. Nevertheless, I'm no longer going to be posting here—outside of (maybe) a copyediting note here and there. Those are mostly for my own personal reference anyway.

So, after twenty years, I wish all my readers a future full of shalom, in its fullest meaning.
James

The social net and the gospel

I say we cannot preach it [the gospel] honestly, not because people might look at lack of community in our own lives and say, “You aren’t practicing what you are preaching,” but because, when we cannot offer community to people, we put them into a position where, by hearing the Gospel, they find themselves in an intolerable but hopeless situation. The Gospel challenges them to leave one life behind but does not offer a concrete road to a new life.—Ronald Rolheiser, Forgotten among the Lilies: Learning to Love beyond the Fears, 300

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That's the final snippet from this book. I hope you enjoyed the book and were challenged by it. I know I was. Stay tuned (as they used to say) for what is next on this blog.
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Community!

What, singularly, are we missing today within Christianity that could make us credible to the world and to our own families? Community.… In the end people are as agnostic about faith, Christ and the church as they are about the experience of community. When there is a strong experience of community there is generally a strong faith.—Ronald Rolheiser, Forgotten among the Lilies: Learning to Love beyond the Fears, 297

The real tragedy is…

Psychologist John Powell submits that there are only two potential tragedies in life, and dying young is not one of them.

These are the two potential tragedies: if we go through life and we do not love fully, and if we go through life and do not tell those we love that we love them.—Ronald Rolheiser, Forgotten among the Lilies: Learning to Love beyond the Fears, 290

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Amen and amen! This truth should be emblazened on every parent's (especially) heart. Tell your kids you love them! And then live that love out. Tell your spouse you love them! And then live that love out.
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Real change needs to happen

The road to final victory on the issue of abortion is long, the task mammoth. Hearts need to change, relationships need to change, sexual patterns need to change, oppression needs to be recognized; and real villains and real victims must be more accurately named.—Ronald Rolheiser, Forgotten among the Lilies: Learning to Love beyond the Fears, 266