What the church is...

I posted these two quotes in the Daily Writer blog but I think they're worth repeating here too, since they relate so much to our mission.

Christ summons the Church, as she goes her pilgrim way, to that continual reformation of which she always had need.

Coming forth from the eternal Father's love, founded in time by Christ the Redeemer, and made one in the Holy Spirit, the Church has a saving and an eschatological purpose which can be fully attained only in the future world. But she is already present in this world, and is composed of men [and women], that is, members of the earthly city who have a call to form the family of God's children during the present history of the human race, and to keep increasing it until the Lord returns.
This she does most of all by her healing and elevating impact on the dignity of the person, by the way in which she strengthens the seams of human society and imbues the everyday activities of men [and women] with a deeper meaning and importance. Thus, through her individual members and her whole community, the Church believes she can contribute greatly toward making the family of man and its history more human.

The two quotes above come from the documents of the Vatican II Council. They're quoted on page 72 of Robert Warren's [photo] On the Anvil.

ROBERT WARREN was Team Rector of one of the largest and fastest growing churches in England, St Thomas', Crookes in Sheffield. He succeeded John Finney as the Church of England's National Officer for Evangelism and then was a full-time member of the Springboard Team for five years. He retired in 2004. His popular publication The Healthy Churches' Handbook underlines the vital role in a healthy church of people being helped both on the journey to faith and on the subsequent lifetime journey of faith.

Being human...

To be human is to be responsible. That is the inner meaning of the "dominion" of Genesis 1:26, which is a dominion not of domination but of stewardship, taking care of the world's back yard ... God the world-maker is God the care-taker. Humans properly stand over other creatures only as they stand with other creatures, showing them love, giving them space, and granting them "rights."

- Kim Fabricius,
from his book, Propositions on Christian Theology: a Pilgrim Walks the Plank

I thought it was worth adding this from the book's blurb...
In this little book, a kind of contemporary enchiridion [handbook], Kim Fabricius engages some of the main themes of Christian theology in prose, poetry, and song (his own hymns). It does not aim to be systematic or comprehensive; rather it goes straight to the main contested areas in the church today, the red-button issues in doctrine, spirituality, culture, ethics, and politics.
Fabricius's imaginative vision and lively conversational style moving freely between the interrogative and the polemical, the playful and the profound invite us all to the vertiginous experience of faith. The book's concise format and no-nonsense approach make it a perfect guide for inquiring Christians as well as committed disciples and an ideal discussion-starter for both church groups and college classes.
The author's passionate commitment to a self-critical faith is a provocative invitation to religion's cultured despisers to join him if they dare on the plank.

And a little more on Fabricius himself:
After spending most of the 70s wasting his youth (which he reckons is better than having done nothing with it), he was blasted into faith reading Karl Barth’s Commentary on Romans. This led him pretty directly into ministry, which Kim describes as “that wonderful vocation provided by the good Lord for displaced Christian intellectuals who are useless at proper work.”

Madeleine Delbrêl

Lord, let the thick skin that covers me not be a hindrance to you. Pass through it. My eyes, my hands, my mouth are yours. This sad lady in front of me: here is my mouth for you to smile at her ... This smug young man, so dull, so hard: here is my heart, that you may love him, more strongly than he has ever been loved before.

- Madeleine Delbrêl,
Missionary and activist (1904-1964)

We're still learning....

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

The need for women

It is not the intelligent woman vs. the ignorant woman; nor the white woman vs. the black, the brown, and the red - it is not even the cause of woman vs. man. Nay, it is woman's strongest vindication for speaking that the world needs to hear her voice. It would be subversive of every human interest that the cry of one half of the human family be stifled.
Woman ... daring to think and move and speak - to undertake to help shape, mold and direct the thought of her age, is merely completing the circle of the world's vision. Hers is every interest that has lacked an interpreter and a defender. Her cause is linked with that of every agony that has been dumb - every wrong that needs a voice....
The world has had to limp along with the wobbling gait and one-sided hesitancy of a man with one eye. Suddenly the bandage is removed from the other eye and the whole body is filled with light. It sees a circle where before it saw a segment. The darkened eye restored, every member rejoices with it.

Anna Julia Cooper
A Voice from the South (1892)

It's interesting to note the date on this, and how long it took for such an idea to be accepted.

Miroslav Volf

One can learn from God the Father no more about what it means to be a human father than one can learn about what it means to be a human mother; inversely, one can learn from God the Mother no more about what it means to be a human mother than on can learn about what it means to be a human father. Whether we use masculine or feminine metaphors for God, God models our common humanity, not our gender specificity.

Miroslav Volf
Exclusion & Embrace

While this makes sense, I'm inclined to disagree with it in some way. Knowing God as Father has definitely affected how I behave as father. I'd be interested to hear what other people think.