Prelude
May 27th, 2008
In Not Every Spirit, Christopher Morse demonstrates that the early Christians were persecuted not for what they believed (Jesus Christ is Lord), but for what they refused to believe (Caesar is Lord). We pastors are distinguished not only by what we graciously support, but also what we condemn. Any homiletic that seeks to make peace with hearers cannot be faithful to the gospel. Ralph Wood pointed out that in the great Barmen Declaration of the Confessing Church in Germany, every credimus “We believe” …is followed by damnatis, “We reject”… Alas, when it came time for the rest of the German Church to say “Nein!,” it had lost the theological means to know there was even something about the world worth rejecting as well as lost the courage to say “No!” Carlyle Marney chided pastors for ministry that had generated into therapy. “You little preachers!” Marney used to say, when he was my mentor. “You are always saying, ‘Bless, bless,’ when you ought to be saying ‘Damn, damn.’ “
—William Willimon
Theology is the distinction between God and the idols, between the God of life and the idols of oppression.
—Dorothee Soelle
Thou no gods shall have but me.
Before no idol bend the knee.
—McGuffey Reader
Our work should be not to confront empire, but to lay siege to it. To deprive it of oxygen. To shame it. To mock it. With our art, our music, our literature, our stubbornness, our joys, our brilliance, our sheer relentlessness.
—Arundhati Roy