but Google keeps giving me a Request URI Too Long error, both in
WebPositive and in Google Chrome.)
Hi Stuart,
First time reader, found your blog looking up a name, looks very interesting.
Since it provoked a response in me, and because I like what I've read of your other posts so far, I wanted to comment on #3. I'd say that this is what my theism looks like to some extent, but that the implications are not necessarily as you put them. While this view can often be an excuse for non-action, I think that's a common heresy of ours. I would say things will work out in the end regardless of what I do now in the same sense that I would say I will eventually die regardless of what I do now. I can make that reality come true sooner, or to some extent later, by my actions, but only it and taxes are guaranteed. Both the fact of death and the faith of
The way these things reconcile in my belief is with God being in favour of partnership with us, wanting us to live up to our full potential. Since we're already in Holocaust Example Land ("Godwin's Law"?), there are many instances of (particularly faith-based) non-violent opposition to the Nazi regime that ranged from pitiful to wild--I offer no guess as to what the factors were--in how successful they were. I believe God was involved in empowering the people involved in this who were willing to be empowered this way. Perhaps, then, a) we don't see, remember, or understand holy intervention as often as it occurs, and b) large-scale occurences of this are as rare as large-scale groups acting in faith coinciding with other possible factors, like oppressors that truly would not change their minds. If the whole thing is designed for our learning and growth into a non-oppressive humanity, who is to say what the best path is, besides an omniscient God?
I think God allows our oppression and its natural effects, but that it weighs heavily on God's heart during this time in between creation and the day when we will have learned to overcome the fears that cause us to oppress one another by asking God to heal and empower (read: "save") us individually and as the human race.
Anyway, these are just my thoughts. All the best to you, I hope I have more time to read your backblog later.
Cheers,
Kev