CONTRA FATUM

“The anarchist and the Christian have the same ancestry” “There is a perfect likeness between Christian and anarchist: their object, their instinct, points only toward destruction.” “The Christian and the anarchist: both are décadents ; both are incapable of any act that is not disintegrating, poisonous, degenerating, blood-sucking; both have an instinct of mortal hatred of everything that stands up, and is great, and has durability, and promises life a future[...]” (Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, H. L. Mencken. The Selected Writings of Friedrich Nietzsche . p. 618)

"Fellowship is not an aggregate of individuals, nor is it an organism. In fact, Fellowship is no concrete thing at all. It is, rather, that Primal synthesis and relationship and apprehension of all distinct concrete things which is their final unobservable ONENESS. Fellowship is communion. It is, however, not a communion in which the 'otherness' of each particular individual is blurred or limited or dissolved, but that ONENESS which both requires the 'otherness' of each individual and makes sense of it. Fellowship is the ONE which lies beyond every 'other'. The ONE, the INDIVIDUAL, is therefore not one among others, not a cell in a larger organism, but simply the HOLY ONE - sanctus." (Barth, The Epistle to the Romans 1933, p. 443)

Hans Denck 1500-1527 While Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536) defended the idea that human beings have a free will to choose the good (anti-determinism), Martin Luther (1483-1546) defended the Augustinian idea that the human will is determined by God, and is thus unfree (determinism): God is 'absolute' and 'necessary', and thus determines human beings who are 'relative' and 'contingent' ( On the Bondage of the Will ). There is a third option, however.

James J. Tissot - Pharisees ask Christ about the Greatest Commandment "`Teacher, which [is] the great command in the Law?' And Jesus said to him, `Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thine understanding -- this is a first and great command; and the second [is] like to it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself; on these -- the two commands -- all the law and the prophets do hang.'" (Matt 22:36-40, YLT) I've stumbled into some discussions lately about Christian ethics (so-called). It's the usual 'yes, love, but ...' thing. For some reason some Christians want all kinds of rules, besides the commandment to love others. The bible, these people say, is a 'moral authority'. Hence they sometimes reiterate Matt 22:36-40, where Jesus explains a Jewish Pharisee that the great(est) commandments in the Law is to love God and your neighbor. But in order to know what it means to love God, the arg...

“Perhaps, however, someone will think there is not objection to gathering these riches thus for oneself from the mines in the earth. But when to this sentence is added the peculiar treasure of kings and of the countries, the meaning of 'gathering' no longer admits of an innocent interpretation. For as it is possible for royal power to gather an abundance of riches from countries – that means, to impose tribute, to exact tithes, to compel their subjects to pay taxes – just so, he says, he has collected silver and gold.” (Eccl. 339,12)

Robert Barclay. In his doctoral thesis from April 2011, Yasuharu Nakano offers a compelling reading of Robert Barclay's thinking and its implications for contemporary theology (get it here ). Nakano discusses Barclay's historical background from Augustine to the reformers, and the debate between Calvinism and Arminianism, as well as his later reception in Evangelical and Liberal Quakerism. He also relates aspects of Barclay's thought to contemporary debates on pacifism and ecclesiology, e.g. Yoder and Hauerwas.

Jesus with a sword in his mouth. Not in his hand. When we discuss the atonement there are two issues which seem quite unrelated. The one is the traditional discussion within protestantism on whether the atonement is limited or unlimited (i.e. did Jesus die for the salvation of all human beings, or only the elect?). The other is the question whether Jesus died as a payment to an angry God (protestantism) on the one hand, or whether he was God's ransom paid to death (not God) out of love, thereby defeating death, on the other (classical, pre-medieval Christianity).