Reflections of a Canadian Churchman

“Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus…” Phil 2:5 The struggle of the age we live in is: Who shall we be? We are in a time of uncertainty. We do not know what tomorrow will bring.   We do not know when this virus shall abate. We do not know when, or if, a vaccine will be available.   Our lives have been turned upside down and we cannot live the way we once did.   Is this forever?   Has the world irrevocably changed? We do not really know the answer to this question, except to say that the world is always changing. Our circumstances are always being upset. Our worlds are always being turned upside down in one way or another.   The difference this time, is that we are all going through this change together.   Unlike the many individual changes all of us face on a daily basis and in various seasons of our lives, we are not going through this alone.   In this one, we are in it together. But being in something together, while one may th...

The following is background reading for session one of my current course being offered via Zoom: The Apocalyptic Imagination The Apocalyptic Imagination - Introduction and Key Terms What do we mean when we use the word “apocalyptic”? The word “apocalyptic” may conjure up all sorts of images from zombies taking over the world, to nuclear wars, asteroids falling from the skies, alien invasions, or even the collapse of the environment from human exploitation.   The word seems to suggest something frightening, really frightening, but what does it mean? It comes from the greek word “apocalypsis”, which simply means “revelation”.   Most simply, when we say something is apocalyptic it is means something is being revealed. In the case of Jewish and Christian theology, it denotes divine revelation.   In an important 1969 article, the great German biblical scholar, Ernst Kasemann commented that “Apocalyptic was the mother of all Christian theology”.   What did he man by this? ...