Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶

@thecuriousreader.bsky.social

490 followers 340 following 730 posts

Book lover, tea drinker, question asker

Posts Media Videos Starter Packs

Pinned

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · Jul 2

“What the church now requires "by faith," I suggest,

• is to run risks for justice in a brutalizing society;
• is to run risks for forgiveness in a vengeful society;
• is to run risks for hospitality in an exclusionary society;”

A Gospel of Hope, Walter Brueggemann, pgs. 70-71.

It is clear that the church needs no more custodians to keep it running the way it has been. It now needs no more pastors or leaders who will conduct business as usual. Because we are in an emergency situation in our society

where the gospel matters decisively. What the church now requires "by faith," I suggest,
• is to run risks for justice in a brutalizing society;
• is to run risks for forgiveness in a vengeful society;
• is to run risks for hospitality in an exclusionary society;
• is to run risks for generosity in a parsimonious society;
• is to run risks for the scandal of Easter resurrection in a society that reduces everything to our reasonable possibilities;
• is to run risks for poetic imagination in a society of prosaic anxiety.

2 5

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 3h

“Indeed, it is a tell-tale characteristic of imperial ideology that the imaginations of the population are monopolized by the dominant sociocultural and politico-economic forces. No wonder "every totalitarian regime is afraid of the artist."”
Kicking at the Darkness, Brian J. Walsh, pg. 34.

Walter Brueggemann has said that "the key pathology of our time, which seduces us all, is the reduction of the imagination so that we are too numbed, satiated and co-opted to do serious imaginative work." I come to these works of imagination for the reawakening of the imagination, and such reawakening is so necessary, I suggest, precisely because of the pathology that Brueggemann identifies. Philosopher Paul Ricoeur has argued that people live their lives more by what they can imagine than by the supposed beliefs that they conceptually hold. And the crisis of our time is that we live in a culture of captive imaginations. Indeed, it is a tell-tale characteristic of imperial ideology that the imaginations of the population are monopolized by the dominant so ciocultural and politico-economic forces. No wonder "every totalitarian regime is afraid of the artist." The artist insists on seeing beyond the range of normal sight, not allowing our imaginations to be limited by a sense of the inevitability of the present state of things.

Picture of the book “Kicking at the Darkness: Bruce Cockburn and the Christian Imagination” by Brian J. Walsh, Brazos Press, 2011. Cover has a photo of Cockburn wearing sunglasses standing outside, maybe on a high balcony?, looking to his left with a cityscape behind him

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 1d

“Indeed, lament arises out of the profound sense of a lack of order, lack of justice and lack of integrity. It legitimately asks God to intervene historically to bring about a renewal of shalom.”
Truth Is Stranger Than It Used To Be, J. Richard Middleton & Brian J. Walsh, pg. 165.

Only in a relationship of covenantal partnership could people be so bold as to rise above docile submissiveness and raise a voice of protest before the throne of God. Lament gives voice to the pain of a world that does not seem to be very well ordered at all. Lament refuses to acquiesce to the chaos that goes under the name of order. Indeed, lament arises out of the profound sense of a lack of order, lack of justice and lack of integrity. It legitimately asks God to intervene historically to bring about a renewal of shalom.

And it can ask for such intervention, often with tears, wailing and a loud voice, because this God is always in the fray, always in the midst of our historical troubles.
This God is always with us.

Reposted by Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶

Marissa Franks Burt @mburtwrites.bsky.social · 2d

These represent some of the myths we hold up to scrutiny in The Myth of Good Christian Parenting. So many families have been weighed down by heavy burdens & left picking up the pieces when the promises fail.

Let’s free some people up! Available everywhere TOMORROW!

2 3 5

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 4d

The Pooh recordings by Peter Dennis are recommended by none other than Christopher Robin Milne. They are delightful. There’s so much humor that I didn’t get until I listened to them as an adult.

Reposted by Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶

Rich Raho @richraho.bsky.social · 5d

Chicago priest Fr. Larry Dowling describes procession to ICE facility: “No one had the courage to speak directly to us. No one from Homeland Security could stand in the presence of the Monstrance holding the Blessed Sacrament. No wonder. Evil is repelled, recoils in the presence of Christ.”

290 5K 16K

Reposted by Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶

Boorke Gutslinger @bleaktheology.bsky.social · 5d

Well done, whoever created this.

2 5

Reposted by Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶

Laurie Voss @seldo.com · 7d

They arrested Eleanor Roosevelt?

Schrödinger's Sneetch Belly @rtodkelly.bsky.social · 8d

"the girlfriend of one of the founders of antifa"

2 10 62

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 8d

Scones with clotted cream and jam paired with a pot of Yorkshire tea.

1 1

Reposted by Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶

Ashton Pittman @ashtonpittman.bsky.social · 11d

Don't look away.

Andrea Junker @strandjunker.com · 12d

“Terrible things are happening outside. Poor helpless people are being dragged out of their homes. Families are torn apart. Men, women, and children are separated. Children come home from school to find that their parents have disappeared.”

Diary of Anne Frank
January 13, 1943

2 82 210

Reposted by Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶

Josiah Hawthorne @josiahhawthorne.bsky.social · 13d

Why, Lord, do you stand far off?
Why do you hide yourself in times of trouble?

In his arrogance the wicked man hunts down the weak,
who are caught in the schemes he devises.

He boasts about the cravings of his heart;
he blesses the greedy and reviles the Lord.

7 15 110

Reposted by Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶

Michael J. Svigel @svigel.bsky.social · 13d

Theology 101: You can’t have it both ways—you can’t “resist the antichrist” in the abstract while failing to resist the things the spirit of antichrist promotes: flattery, apostasy, lawlessness, destruction, materialism, self-exaltation, deception, warmongering, arrogance, and blasphemy.

1 5

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 14d

“The centralization of social power for imperial, oppressive uses is the direct opposite of the loving empowerment of others which is the genuine human calling.”
Truth Is Stranger Than It Used To Be, J. Richard Middleton & Brian J. Walsh, 1995, pg. 127.

(Babel and Babylon R Us.)

The problem with "Babylonian" civilization, from the perspective of Genesis 11, is precisely the systemic centralization of power that comes with empire building, which results not simply in the impulsive violent outbreaks of Cain or Lamech, but in the organized violence of an oppressive social order legitimated and sustained by a powerful myth of origins. Contrary to the ancient idealization of Babylonian culture as the epitome of human aspiration and achievement, the writer of Genesis 11 declares that this aspiration is exactly what impedes God's purposes in history, in effect bringing the story to a screeching halt. It therefore does not matter that violence is not explicitly mentioned in the story of Babel. The centralization of social power for imperial, oppressive uses is the direct opposite of the loving empowerment of others which is the genuine human calling. Instead of Babel being a normative ordering of the human world, which embodies divine blessing, it reaps the curse of God's judgment, and its ultimate outcome is chaos, the confusion of tongues. Contrary to the intentions of the builders, this chaos is the only name they make for themselves, says the writer of Genesis 11, engaging in an ironic wordplay between Babel and balal (the Hebrew word for "to confuse").

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 14d

Then I’m guilty too. :)

I don’t want to say more and give away spoilers.

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 14d

“Pride was a library.”

Katabasis, R. F. Kuang, pg. 82.

Reposted by Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶

Diane Langberg, PhD @dianelangberg.bsky.social · 15d

A truth-teller disturbs, alerts, awakens, and warns against indifference to injustice and complacency about the needs of human beings. To be silent about injustices in this world is to be a partner with those who carry out violence, evil, and corruption.

4 29

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 16d

“This is most fundamentally a matter of imaging God; the life of a person or community reflects the sort of god they are committed to. The two main targets of prophetic critique are thus idolatry and injustice, since false worship is inextricably linked to corrupt living.”

(Citation in alt text)

In this, Jesus is exactly right. Just as the Torah affirms that the love of God should lead to a life of obedience, the prophets emphasize that Israel's allegiance or submission to YHWH, the God of the exodus, ought to be manifest in a life that embodies righteousness and justice, since these are central to the interhuman flourishing that God desires. In the prophetic perspective, allegiance to the one true God inevitably flows into a life of obedience characterized especially by justice in human relations; by contrast, idolatry or false allegiance flows into a life of disobedience characterized by injustice. This is most fundamentally a matter of imaging God; the life of a person or community reflects the sort of god they are committed to. The two main targets of prophetic critique are thus idolatry and injustice, since false worship is inextricably linked to corrupt living.

A New Heaven and a New Earth, J. Richard Middleton, pg. 103.

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 17d

Picture of a large grayish brown rabbit with white and the eyes and nose resting his chin on a red rug.

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 19d

“This was the key to flourishing in graduate school. You could do anything if you were delusional.”
Katabasis, R. F. Kuang, pg. 50.

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 20d

I’ve been waiting to read Katabasis by R. F. Kuang, and my library hold came in!

Picture of library book: Katabasis by R. F. Kuang. Cover illusion is an old academic building that is hollow with Escher-like stairs descending downward.

Book edges are illustrated in color. Top to bottom: a figure in silhouette falling through flames, a circle with a person all in black, and another silhouette figure falling through waves. The circle has the words “Hell is other people” around it.

Persis 🙏🕊️📚🧶 @thecuriousreader.bsky.social · 20d

"You've got anti-matter language
Contrived to conceal
You've been lying so long
You don't know what's real
You're a figment of your own imagination
And people see through you"

People see Through You, Bruce Cockburn, 1985

cockburnproject.net/songs&music/...

Bruce Cockburn - Songs - People See Through You

cockburnproject.net