The Arrow's Path

Getting back to my series on soteriology (it's been a long week), one of the major theories in Christian soteriology, or how God's saving action works to save us, is the doctrine that goes back to the early centuries of the notion of "There is no salvation outside the Church." The Latin phrase, if what to get all really fancy, is  Extra ecclesiam nulla salus.  Needless to say, much ink and blood has been spilled over the centuries parsing this little number. As always, one has to look at the historical context of any catch phrase or theological doctrine to make heads or tails of it. To try to divorce any distilled doctrine in isolation is a hazardous undertaking because nothing in theology exists in isolation to other theological or philosophical concepts. It's like a big tapestry. If you try to pull one of the threads and examine it apart from the over-arching tapestry, you are not going to get very far and might end up unraveling the whole thing and ruining ...

I apparently created something of a sensation this week in Omaha. I was up there on Tuesday for my job, and happened to catch a radio segment on one of the AM news radio stations when the program DJ was interviewing a member of the Korean War Veteran's Association. It was a particularly good interview retrospective on this former vet's memories of Korea , etc. The DJ in question is more a comedian and right-wing political talking head, but occasionally he does some interesting interviews or talks about local Nebraska politics like interviewing the Omaha mayor or what have you. If I am up in Omaha, I will at least tune in to see if he has anything interesting to say. Well, a few days later, I wrote the DJ a short e-mail, thanking him for having this gentleman on his show. Both my grandfathers and my great uncle were in the Korean war, and so hearing this old guy reminded me some of them, all three of whom are long since dead now. My great uncle in particular came back from Korea...

What the Catholic church teaches on the issue of how we are saved (soteriology) is extremely complex. To get a grasp on it, one has to basically look at it from the standpoint of really three different time periods that had some very different cultural and theological worldviews: 1. What was taught and/or assumed to be taught in the Middle Ages (Anselm and Thomism), 2. What was taught in the Council of Trent (which was responding to the Protestant Reformation), 3. What was taught through and in the wake of the Second Vatican Council. I will try in the coming days to devote at least one or two blog posts explaining each of these time periods. One really does have to get a grasp of the historical backgrounds and conflicts of the various eras to begin to unravel why the Church teaches what it teaches. It can be confusing and a vast sea of teachings and seemingly conflicting theological ideas and suppositions, but there is a method to the madness. Before I get to that, however, I posi...

As I talked about in my previous post on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and Aslan's harrowing of hell, i.e. the Witch's Castle, I made reference to the concept of soteriology. I can tell it is an obscure theological term because blogger.com's auto-correct is having a meltdown every time I try to type it here. It was getting so adamant, in fact, that I actually started to doubt myself and double checked my dictionary to make sure I was spelling it correctly, which I was. So, what is soteriology, exactly? Soteriology is one of those 50 cent words you learn in seminary that some denominations get all bent out of shape over. I have seen screaming arguments over the topic before, both in real life and certainly in the online world. (Twitter, I am looking at you, you human sewer!) If you want to get technical, soteriology literally comes from the Greek words of σωτηρία sōtēria "salvation" from σωτήρ sōtēr "savior, preserver" and λόγος logos ...

We've reading CS Lewis' The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe  to our daughter the last week. I freely admit it's one of my favorite works of literature. Most people immediately think of Aslan's death on the Stone Table as the perfect Christian allegory about Jesus. While a powerful scene, and indeed one of my favorites, I think most people miss the allegory in the next chapter that I would argue is perhaps CS Lewis' allegorical masterpiece, more so than even the Stone Table scene. The scene, of course, begins in the Easter morning scene where Aslan is resurrected in front of Lucy and Susan, much like the women at the tomb in the Jesus story. The true allegorical storytelling magic, I think, actually begins after that. Lucy and Susan ride on Aslan's back to the Witch's Castle to free the Narnians who had been turned into stone by the evil White Witch when she is in her full power. Aslan of course goes round and breathes on all the stone statues bring them ba...

I have not blogged at all for quite a long stretch. It has been over half a year. I think that might be the longest continuous stretch since I started this blog many years ago. I have not given up on this blog entirely. I am finally coming out of a very dark time in my professional life. I have finally come to the realization that my vocation to the priesthood is pretty much dead. As many of you know, I decided to step down from the ministry in the Episcopal church over five years ago now for various theological reasons I will not drag up here. That is over and done with. I had hoped to pick up the mantle of ministry again in my new spiritual home, but after five years of getting stabbed in the back over and over again and not even given the time of day by bishop after bishop, I think it is time to finally say that while I have not completely given up on the idea, I've pretty much given up, barring some miraculous Divine intervention. I just am not really open to putting myself i...