Love and wrath. Sovereignty and responsibility. Victory and suffering. Some of the truths we read in the Bible seem to be in opposition to each other. We naturally tend to gravitate towards a side, but when we lose sight of one truth in order to protect the other, we are in danger of becoming proud, creating division, and diminishing our faith. In this compelling, inspiring, and at times provocative book, Adam Mabry urges us to stop taking sides and refuse to participate in tribalism by mapping out a way to hold in tension truths that we so often divide over. You’ll discover how our joy and our witness rest on us learning to hold to all that the Scriptures teach and growing in virtue as we do. You’ll learn how to wrestle with all that the Scriptures say, to embrace mystery, to listen closely, and to speak with clarity.
"An examination of the frameworks of science and religion that provides a multi-cultural view of how they affect our perception of the truth"--Provided by publisher.
Reflections by Joan Chittister with icons by Robert Lentz present over two dozen saints and prophets--from Hildegard of Bingen to Martin Luther King, Jr.,--who speak to the urgent spiritual questions of our time.
We all face stress and tension in our daily lives. We might even wonder why our God of abundant goodness doesn’t remove the everyday struggles we face. Jesus’ interactions with Martha and Mary in the Gospel provide us the key to understanding how God shows us his love by allowing tensions in our lives. As we follow the sisters’ transformative journeys through their own struggles, reflecting on what transpires between Scripture verses, we see their initial tension become the catalyst that drives both Mary and Martha to the feet of Jesus — the place where all discover peace. Grace in Tension explores the areas where stress arises in our own lives. Each chapter ends with a thought-provoking prayer to inspire us to go to God with our problems, followed by questions for reflection to help us see all the ways he’s working for our good. God doesn’t create any of it, but he does show up amid life’s difficulties, ready to lead us through. No matter how big or small our struggle, when we seek him out, he reveals what we need to do to resolve our tension, transforming it into grace. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Claire McGarry is the founder of MOSAIC of Faith, a ministry for mothers of infants to school-aged children to explore their faith through motherhood. She contributes regularly to CatholicMom.com and blogs at ShiftingMyPerspective.com. She is the author of Lenten devotional With Our Savior, and her work has appeared in Chicken Soup for the Soul, Keys for Kids, These Days, and Focus on the Family magazine. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and three children.
Meditations on the Psalms helping women to express their feelings and grow in their faith. Many of us suppress our feelings because we’re worried they are ungodly. Others of us are so led by our emotions that we let them dominate everything, including our faith. In these honest, personal and uplifting meditations on 24 selected psalms, Courtney Reissig looks at emotions we all experience, ranging from shame, anxiety, and anger through to gratitude, hope, and joy. For each, she shows how the psalms give us permission to acknowledge how we feel before God, and how they can help us to use those feelings productively and faithfully. This inspiring book will give women a language to cry out to God in order to help them process their feelings, as well as help them to grow in their faith. Can be used as a daily devotion.
Do you find yourself always struggling with two sides of an issue? Do some of the key truths of Christianity seem mutually exclusive? Don't be surprised! All of life - including Christian life - is lived between truths, none of which may be relinquished. Both the Bible and theology acknowledge that life is filled with tensions that do not permit easy answers. In 'Between Two Truths', theologian Klyne Snodgrass presents a readable biblical approach to understanding such tensions. He argues, in fact, that they are a wellspring of peace and creativity for anyone dedicated to walking in the footsteps of Jesus. This book addresses the tensions all Christians face, dealing with all the peaceful and creative tensions that are part of the fabric of Christian faith. This book does not give simplistic answers to difficult questions; rather, it invites the reader to celebrate the rich and vibrant tensions of God's eternal truth.
This book is about the tension revealed in scripture. Our efforts to systematically understand spiritual truth have often meant removing the tensions found in the Bible. We sometimes ignore passages we dont like or understand in order to make things fit together. We practice, to our harm, the either/or response to most of these conflicting biblical issues. When we remove the tensions present in scripture, well find ourselves to the right or the left, instead of being on the straight and narrow road that leads us to life in His grace. When we remove the tension found in scripture (and there is a lot of it), we end up creating more tension between each other. As we embrace both sides of the spiritual revelations regarding any subject, the answers will come. The tension provides safety, balance, protection, and keeps us in a place to receive. With this in mind, I address the problem, present the theology of tension, and begin to apply it to many familiar, but often controversial, doctrines. Amazing answers are revealed not by choosing sides, but by affirming both, even when our natural minds cannot discern them. In essence, we short circuit the purpose provided by these tensions when we dismiss them. The tension is in the scriptures: we need to live in it and remain in grace.
In Tension: Empowering Christian Thought and Life, author Gerald L. Borchert wrestles with the many ways in which Christians experience tension both in the church and in real life. The very nature of choice is a source of tension, and all humans are confronted daily with choices that can have significant impacts on themselves and those around them. Borchert examines what it means to live with freedom and to engage with our choices in a meaningful way. Pulling from personal experience, Borchert recalls how, as a young child, he first encountered tension in the ongoing debate over the timing of creation and the dichotomy of how science and Bible handle the origin of the universe. "Our task as humans," he writes, "is to recognize what is science and what it is not. The task likewise is to recognize what the Bible claims to be hard truth or reality and what it does not. Our further task, therefore, is to recognize what is true biblical exegesis (interpretation) and what is merely an assumption concerning statements in Scripture. Our task is to work at understanding what statements are rooted in observable fact and what are theological or scientific reflections. In this pursuit of understanding, it is not a question of truth but the kind of truth that is present in an issue." Borchert continues to reflect on a number of areas inherent with tension: Christian salvation; our personal mindset; the ancient understanding of "time"; the nature of human failure and suffering; and what it means to be Christ-like. "I trust these and other preliminary reflections will set your thoughts into high gear. Hopefully they will stir your mind and challenge you to reflect more on the tensions and polarities that may be present in your theologies and the way you approach life. Some of these tensions may be easily discernible, while others may not be so evident in your thinking. Wherever you are on the spectrum, I suggest that there is a need to reconsider the issues concerning tension as we look to the challenges of the future." Borchert's goal is to encourage the reader to think about tension as an instructive force that makes us look at both sides of an issue and learn to deal with the uncomfortable feeling that our current perspective might by in need of updating. "I think we need repeatedly to ask: Is our theology ready to deal better with old tensions and accept the fact that new tensions loom in the future? Perhaps, seeing the incredible power that is present in dealing more effectively with both sides of tensions may be more productive. Dynamic power may be present if we are a people who are willing to accept and creatively integrate such tensions into new combinations. Will we be among the new explorers of Christianity?"
What does it mean to be truthful? What role does truth play in our lives? What do we lose if we reject truthfulness? No philosopher is better suited to answer these questions than Bernard Williams. Writing with his characteristic combination of passion and elegant simplicity, he explores the value of truth and finds it to be both less and more than we might imagine. Modern culture exhibits two attitudes toward truth: suspicion of being deceived (no one wants to be fooled) and skepticism that objective truth exists at all (no one wants to be naive). This tension between a demand for truthfulness and the doubt that there is any truth to be found is not an abstract paradox. It has political consequences and signals a danger that our intellectual activities, particularly in the humanities, may tear themselves to pieces. Williams's approach, in the tradition of Nietzsche's genealogy, blends philosophy, history, and a fictional account of how the human concern with truth might have arisen. Without denying that we should worry about the contingency of much that we take for granted, he defends truth as an intellectual objective and a cultural value. He identifies two basic virtues of truth, Accuracy and Sincerity, the first of which aims at finding out the truth and the second at telling it. He describes different psychological and social forms that these virtues have taken and asks what ideas can make best sense of them today. Truth and Truthfulness presents a powerful challenge to the fashionable belief that truth has no value, but equally to the traditional faith that its value guarantees itself. Bernard Williams shows us that when we lose a sense of the value of truth, we lose a lot both politically and personally, and may well lose everything.
A visually engaging exploration of apparent contradictions within the Christian faith. One of the significant challenges in the Christian faith is the number of apparent contradictions the Bible presents. These paradoxes and mysteries can be difficult to understand. In Both-And Ross Cunningham takes 23 pairs of seemingly contradictory truths and concisely and clearly explains how they can co-exist. The book is divided into three main sections - apparent contradictions in the divine nature; apparent contradictions in the experience of salvation; and apparent contradiction in the characteristics of being in Christ. Ross Cunningham, who has a background in creative design, has introduced each chapter with an attractive graphic representation of the paradox in question.
