Christian cross

the Church in an attempt to prevent the perpetuation of the overbearing “Catholic guilt” on younger generations through the use of this powerful anecdote. From the beginning of the excerpt, it is quite easy to see that Gary Soto was raised in a Christian household. He states that he “was holy in almost every bone” thereby implying through hyperbole that he held a very extreme point of view when it came to his religious purity, yet he gives a caveat with the word “almost.” That caveat…

Shepherding God’s People Book Summary 28 December, 2016 Lori Tharp A Summary and Analysis of Pastor: The Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry By William H. Willimon In the book, Pastor, A Theology and Practice of Ordained Ministry, Willimon sets the stage in his introduction for those of us who begin to read it. He tells us that this book is the fruit of many years of ministry experience, and it is an attempt to answer the questions of H. Richard Niebuhr about pastoral ministry.…

decree to reconstruct Jerusalem. God revealed to Daniel that there would be sixty-nine seven periods, i.e. 483 years, from the time the order to rebuild Jerusalem and the coming of the Messiah, the anointed. I concur with Miller’s description, “Christians have traditionally identified this "Anointed One" as Jesus Christ, who is called in the New Testament both king and priest” . There are differences of opinion as to the exact time the 483 years began. Some say 538 B.C., when Cyrus' decree was…

that they are sick. Through the historical context, literary structure, and theology of this passage it notable that Luke is redefining what it means to be righteous. The righteous does not exist, it is the righteous savior Jesus Christ that makes Christians worthy of God’s grace. This passage takes place in Galilee, most likely at a port where a Jewish tax collector named Levi is going to be called by Jesus to be a disciple. Luke changes gears when writing this passage, and begins to speak of…

Calvinism and Arminianism have five disputed points between them. Calvinism is a branch of Protestantism that was founded by French theologian John Calvin. Arminianism was founded by Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius and is based on his theological ideas. Both Calvinism and Arminianism were created roughly around the same time period. John Calvin was born in 1509 and lived until 1564 while Jacobus Arminius was born in 1560 and died in 1609. These two theological set of beliefs are very similar…

The easy comfort was that they had died because God was unhappy with their sins. In ancient times it was often assumed that a calamity would befall only those who were extremely sinful .(Concordia study bible page 1575). So when they came to Jesus to report this tragedy it was in assumption that these sinful man had perished and their blood mixed with sacrifices by Pilate. Jesus then corrects their assumption by saying these deaths of the Galileans were not worse that the other Galileans still…

If one had to choose which is preferable, salvation or damnation, the choice would be easy to make. However, what if one had to choose if knowledge or authority was superior, would the answer be as clear? Christopher Marlowe’s The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus is a wicked tale about a brilliant sixteenth-century scholar, who in the pursuit of knowledge and power, condemns himself to eternal damnation. At the beginning of the play, Faustus commits blasphemy against the Holy Spirit, which in…

Cierra Patterson Past Religious Based Issues in European Society Handled Today From the jump of reading The Fall by Albert Camus, we are hit with religious symbolism, both from Christian and Catholic origin. The title alone has a direct connection to the story of Adam and Eve and their banishment from the Garden of Eden, a symbol of mankind’s fall from perfection. It should come as no surprise that religion appears so much in this story due to Europe’s deep connection with it. However, the…

The film Osama directed by Siddiq Barmak delivers insider perspective of the challenges a woman living in Afghanistan experiences on a daily basis. Osama was entirely filmed in Afghanistan during the strict rule of the Taliban, where women are not allowed to work or be in public without a male escort. Many families are left without men to provide for the women because many of them died during the Afghan Wars, thus leaving families with only women to starve. Osama exposes an extremist culture…

There is a debate on culture uniformity, on one side, theory of convergence support uniformity by providing argument that because of the business around the world is relying more on the technology as it moves to industrialized era, culture would become more similar (Sparrow, Schuler, & Jackson, 1994). On the other side, there is a view about culture divergence means that uniformity is unlikely to take place as the characteristic of culture is unique and dynamic (Kelley & Reeser, 1973; Lincoln,…