CONTRA FATUM

"Jesus confirms all of the beatitudes he speaks in the Gospel, and he justifies his teaching though his own example. “Blessed are the meek” is what he says of himself. “Learn of me, for I am meek.” “Blessed are the peacemakers.” Who is a peacemaker like my Lord Jesus, who is our peace, who made enmity to cease and destroyed it in his flesh? “Blessed are they who suffer persecution for righteousness’ sake.”  No one more than the Lord Jesus, who was crucified for our sins, endured persecution for righteousness’ sake. The Lord, then, displays all the beatitudes as being realized in himself. Conforming to that which he said, “Blessed are those who weep,” he himself wept over Jerusalem, to lay the foundation of this beatitude also." ( Homilies on Luke 38.1-2, SC 87, ed. Crouzel, Fournier, Périchon, p. 443 quoted from Dale C. Allison, Studies in Matthew: Interpretation Past and Present (Baker Academics 2005), p. 150)

Dialogues are currently going on in the ecumenical movement about the church's response to so-called 'populism'. For example, the Conference of European Church recently had a conference on what "clergy could and should do about" populism when they encounter it at parish level. In January 2020 the Nordic Faith & Order meeting will have a similar conference in Oslo, as the theme of the WCC general Assembly 2021 is "Christ ́s love moves the world to reconciliation and unity" and "Churches responding to populism and polarisation". As I plan to participate in Oslo, here are my initial thoughts on the issues of "reconcilation and populism": First of all I think we should consider whether we should use the term 'populism' or whether there might not be more appropriate terms, thinking, not least, of the complexity of what we are dealing with. Moreover, the term 'populism' is clearly derogative -- I mean, how many wo

I'm happy to present a new edition of Elhanan Winchester's discourse on particular and general redemption and salvation.  The book is available at Amazon here for only $10. My foreword to the book: Elhanan Winchester (1751-1797) was an American Baptist preacher and a founder of the Society of Universal Baptists and the United States General Convention of Universalists. Winchester lived in a time where philosophical and theological rationalism questioned classical trinitarian orthodoxy. Against rationalism Winchester defended the traditional belief in the divinity of Jesus and his resurrection. Moreover, Winchester’s biblical studies led him to embrace the doctrine of the final restoration or “apokatastasis” of all things – a doctrine that was originally defended by Church fathers such as Origen and Gregory of Nyssa, but was now enjoying prominence in continental radical pietism as well as parts of English theology. Drawing on Georg Klein-Nicolai’s book The Everlastin

The Lord pities, instructs, exhorts, admonishes, saves, shields, and of His bounty promises us the kingdom of heaven as a reward for learning; and the only advantage He reaps is, that we are saved. For wickedness feeds on men’s destruction; but truth, like the bee, harming nothing, delights only in the salvation of men. (from the Protrepticos)

"along with himself, Christ made the whole world arise" (On the Incomprehensible Nature of God, II,44)

If there were no obscurity, man would not be sensible of his corruption; if there were no light, man would not hope for a remedy. Thus, it is not only fair, but advantageous to us, that God be partly hidden and partly revealed; since it is equally dangerous to man to know God without knowing his own wretchedness, and to know his own wretchedness without knowing God. (Pensees, 446/586) What can be seen on earth indicates neither the total absence, nor the manifest presence of divinity, but the presence of a hidden God. Everything bears this stamp. (Pensees, 449/556) “Let them at least learn the nature of the religion they are attacking, before they attack it. If this religion boasted of having a clear vision of God, and of possessing Him plain and unveiled, then to say that nothing we see in the world reveals Him with this degree of clarity would indeed be to attack it. But it says, on the contrary, that man is in darkness and far from God, that He has hidden Himself from man’s kn