Dear friends in Christ,
A New Heaven and a New Earth. The Sunday class on the Revelation of Saint John the Divine continues on February 26, at 10 a.m. In the penultimate chapter of the Apocalypse, John sees revealed “the holy city, the new Jerusalem.” These beautiful visions represent God’s promises to the faithful: a day to come in which there is “no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying.” After the destruction depicted in the earlier parts of the book, the loving faithfulness of God is affirmed in these descriptions of everlasting peace. All are welcome and previous attendance is not required. Sunday, March 5 is the final class in this series.
Christ and Tragedy.This two-class series begins on Sunday, March 12, at 10 a.m., and looks at the recent book The Tragic Imagination by Rowan Williams. Williams’ book provides an opportunity to ask important questions, both theological and practical: can a Christian discourse be tragic? What does dramatic tragedy do, and what can it teach us? How do we think of Christ in light of tragic experiences? No prior reading is expected.
Rowan Williams in Holy Week: Speaking of the former Archbishop, he is presenting a series of addresses at Saint Thomas during Holy Week, with the theme, “Transforming Power: The Cross of Christ and the Kingdoms of the World.” More details are to follow.
Condemned into Redemption: Understanding the Crucifixion. As we begin the penitential season on Lent on March 1, note that the Rev. Fleming Rutledge is the speaker for the 2017 Spring Theology Lecture. Her most recent book, Crucifixion, was named Best Book of the Year by the magazine Christianity Today. The lecture is on Wednesday, March 8, at 6:30 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
Why did Jesus die? More specifically, why was Jesus crucified? The cross, as a symbol, has become so commonplace that few stop to ask why the man who came to be worshiped as the living Son of God should have been tortured to death in the most public, cruel, and dehumanizing way possible. The Bible doesn’t present any single “explanation” for the cross. Instead, there is overlapping, multilayered imagery drawing from the bottomless wells of the Old Testament story and apocalyptic literature. In this lecture, Fleming Rutledge shares the riches of these biblical themes in order to dig more deeply into the apostle Paul’s declaration that “the word of the cross is the power of God.”
Copies of Crucifixion will be available for purchase at the lecture.
The Rector’s Christian Doctrine Class: The History of the Church 2: The Anglo-Catholic Revival – The Oxford Movement and its influence on Anglicanism. This class continues on Tuesday, February 28 at 6:30 p.m. in Andrew Hall. Primarily intended for those who wish to be confirmed or received into the Episcopal Church, it is also open to any who are interested in the topic of the day.
The Bible in 140 characters. A few years ago Ben Myers, author of the blog Faith & Theology, wrote what he called “The shortest ever commentary on the whole Bible.” That is, a Twitter-sized synopsis of each and every book, including the Apocrypha. He starts with Genesis (“Under numberless stars an old man stands amazed; his wife cries out in the pain of childbirth, laughing”) and Exodus (“Barefoot on the hot sand, he stares into the flame and haggles with a god whose name he cannot say”) and goes all the way through to one of my favorites, Revelation: “When she finally arrived at the wedding, she kissed him and said, ‘Sorry I’m late. The traffic was hell.'” Take a look and let me know if you learn something about the scriptures — I certainly did!
Yours in Christ, Joel
