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Showing posts with the label Theology

Practical Theodicy

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Habakkuk 1:2-4 NRSV O Lord, how long shall I cry for help, and you will not listen? Or cry to you "Violence!" and you will not save? 3Why do you make me see wrongdoing and look at trouble? Destruction and violence are before me; strife and contention arise. So the law becomes slack and justice never prevails. The wicked surround the righteous —  therefore judgment comes forth perverted. Yesterday, less than a two hour drive away, another awful tragedy occurred.  With recent mass shootings in Buffalo and in Santa Ana Ca, we were already numb due to the overwhelming grief.  We were once again shocked by the presence of evil against our most precious part of ourselves: our children.  Anyone with children, grandchildren, godchildren, nieces, nephews, students, players or neighbors, felt the need to sympathize with the families of the children, teacher, and law enforcement officer who lost their lives, but also with the hundreds who have been deeply traumatized due to the...

Ingredients for Genocide

"Many churches during the genocide became places of death instead of places of life" Bishop Samuel Kayinamera, Free Methodist Church of Rwanda Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did.  I Corinthians 10:6-7 I recently spent two weeks in the beautiful country of Rwanda.  Its hills, lakes and people make it a visually stunning place to witness and a loving place to experience..  It is a small, densely populated land locked nation in Central-Eastern Africa that has an agricultural basis of life that is often resource challenged.  Subsistence living is the way of life for the vast majority of Rwanda's people. Beneath the smiles, the tremendous hospitality, exuberant worship, and the sense of national hope, lies the horrific wound of genocide 18 years ago.  In this festering action from April through July of 1994, nearly 2 million of the 8 million inhabitants of Rwanda were systematically killed, ...