" He is right that many Americans who call themselves Christians and who attend Christian worship services do not live their lives based on the Beatitudes. And then Kavanaugh also says "Nietzsche seems to have understood the Sermon on the Mount better than many Christians." Well wait a minute. If Nietzsche found the Sermon on the Mount "scandalous," and attacked it as "demeaning of the will to power," how can that be construed as understanding it better than many Christians?
To even bring Nietzsche into a discussion about "The Alternative Kingdom" is ludicrous. In Nietzsche's the Birth of Tragedy (p. 23) he says the "Christianity was from the beginning, essentially and fundamentally, life's nausea and disgust with life, merely concealed behind, masked by, dressed up as, faith in 'another' or 'better' life." In his essay, Human, all too Human, Nietzsche denounces the Christian idea of "...sins perpetrated against a god, atoned for by a god" and argues against "...fear of a beyond to which death is the portal." Perhaps Kavanaugh was bringing Nietzsche into this discussion for the sake of contrast, but in any event, it was a confusing analysis that easily can be disagreeable in the eyes of an objective person.
Meanwhile, whether or not Christ intended for the Beatitudes (Sermon on the Mount) to be interpreted literally or not, these themes are poetic, beautiful, and meaningful. He may have meant the Beatitudes in order to present ideas to live by with the highest possible spiritual standards, that only holy people would possibly aspire to, but Kavanaugh does not spell that out. But of course the Beatitudes do not fit very well into the American consciousness at this moment in history. It makes it very hard to live a Christian life and also at the same time follow the paths of the government of the United States. That is, to be a "true patriot" according to the definition of patriotism expounded by the executive branch of the U.S. Government, one has to support...
In the Personal Form, on the other hand, individuals do not get away with moral transgressions. Their personal approach to life is colored not by materialism but by core spiritual ethics and values. The Person is elevated above the commodity and not vice-versa. Prayer is also made communal: as such prayer has the power to transform not just the individual but the community as a whole. Moreover, the prayer is
This crucial step involves conflicts with community members, family members, and possibly even members of the Church whose values have not yet shifted away from Commodity toward Personal Forms of existence. Third, the individual puts into practice his or her new vision. Personal metanoia has taken place at this stage. The individual cannot imagine turning back; cannot foresee living life in the old ways through materialistic lenses that devalue innate
According to Zetterholm (2009), God’s covenant with the people of Israel entails a bilateral relationship. In exchange for special status, the Jewish people agree to obey God’s commandments to the best of their ability. Lapses in judgment due to human nature or sin can be rectified via atonement and divine intervention. Thus, God always intended for faith to be a prerequisite for salvation. The endeavor to live by the commandments
As such, we can never use our bodies for sinful purposes because doing so would equal death. "Serving sin produces death," whereas serving God produces the fruit of holiness, and in the end, eternal life," (Copeland 2009). As Paul puts it in the book of Romans, "But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness,
The Christmas tradition, be it the length of time of its evolution or the desire by each subsequent culture to make it an accepted reality, is not so open and obviously evolving, unless one really looks at it, as Hutton has done. Lastly, after looking at Hutton's representation of the historical underpinnings of the various aspect of the myth, ritual and language of Christmas one might look at how it
Slavery in the Bible In modern Western countries, many Christians and Jews may wish to portray God as the comfortable deity of a middle-class consumer society like the United States, but the Bible demonstrates that nothing could be further from the truth. In the Bible, the God of history from the story of Cain and Abel, through Abraham, Joseph, Moses and the Prophets and of course the ministry of Jesus Christ
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