MetaCatholic

Jim West goes pop over Oprah’s dog and fulminates that

1- Pets die, like plants. They have no soul so they simply cease to be.

2- Don’t waste your money on a pet funeral. Dump them in a large garbage bag and toss them in the landfill.

There is more in that callous vein … but Jim, Jim, surely it’s obvious to you

1. that in heaven, the Lord God himself will be their [our] light — Rev 22:5 RSV (Rottweiler’s Standard Version)
2. that indeed in the New Jerusalem, the Lamb is its lamp — Rev 21:23 GNB (Greyhound’s New Bible)
3. and yet the Lord graciously kits out his heavenly realm with seven golden lamp-stands — Rev 1:12 ESV (English Setter’s Version)

Isn’t it obvious: these lamp-stands are not needed for light, yet God has wonderfully provided for the relief of dogs in the world to come!

Not so much the street where I live, but the street where I shop (and it’d already gone down a bit when I took these).

John Hobbins responds thoughtfully to my post on the first of the Anglican 39 articles. In particular he picks up the question of impassibility, and how it relates to an earlier post of his also on God’s anger. Both his posts are worth reading in full. I note one excerpt here:

It has always struck me that ancient Hebrew poetry is awash in descriptions of God’s anger. Classical prophecy, many of the Psalms, the book of Job – they fall apart conceptually if one removes this element from the whole.

It raises the question: is it possible to speak truthfully about God, and do without language that refers to God’s anger? Over the long haul, I’m not sure it is.

There are a number of points, questions really, that are worth pondering..

• I think that whatever is involved in speaking of God, all God-talk is of necessity metaphorical or analogical. This is true of language of God’s anger, and it is true also of language of impassibility. (I find myself wondering whether negative statements are less metaphorical than positive statements.) I think that part of what that means is that impassibility reminds us that all talk of anger is metaphor, and that the vast tracts of the OT (in particular) that talk of anger remind us that impassibility is also analogical.
• Given that (as I think) the mainly middle- and neo-platonic cradle within which the church’s theology grew from infancy is neither the framework of the Hebrew Scriptures, nor the framework of contemporary thought, how do we deal with areas where we see serious conflicts that our forebears in the faith did not? I am not convinced that we can simply resolve the conflict with a modern either-or, but must find our own both-and.
• If impassibility is to be questioned by the preponderance of biblical metaphor, do some forms of that questioning risk losing, say, that distinctiveness of God’s God-ness which makes creation, incarnation and salvation acts of love, grace and free will and instead render them as some kind of divine compulsion?
• If impassibility is to be retained, as I think in some form it must be, how do we bear proper witness to what it has safeguarded in terms appropriate to our cultural discourse. This is where I need help from capable theologians. (Hardly the only place ) But it seems to me that among other things, the transcendent distance of God that makes his immanence and incarnation truly good news, the unswerving and implacable nature of his loving purposes, his not being swayed from accomplishing his will, these are the things that the first article safeguards. How do we best express them today?

Despite great temptation, I’m not going to write a review yet. But as Ron might say, “Bloody brilliant.” The themes of redemption, human fallibility, and the victory of love are all intermingled with excitement, great drama and even in the grimmest moments, still a hint of humour. Interestingly, though quoted as words on gravestones in the churchyard in Godric’s Hollow, these two verses might well stand as the theme of the book as much as the quotation from Aeschylus (!) at the front.

Where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (The Dumbledore family tomb)

The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death (The Potter family tomb)

I can’t say more without laying down too many spoilers: read it!

Update 18:00. Judging by the searches that have found this post, it seems people are hunting the source of the quotations. A reminder to me that even “well-known” scripture verses aren’t.

Update 24 July: The full review is now here.