Tag: Christianity

Aslan’s Library: Best site for children’s books that communicate theological truth in a beautiful way

If you are a parent (and even if you’re not), Aslan’s Library will nourish your soul and the soul of the children in your life. I went to school with, and had the great privilege of serving in youth ministry alongside with, one of the blog’s co-authors. Here’s from the Library’s introductory post:

When we became parents and started thinking about how we wanted to raise our children, meaningful interaction with great literature was a top priority for each of us.  Wonderful children’s books are available in abundance, and we have delighted in exploring the world of kids lit.

However, when we began to search for Christian children’s books that were on the same par as our favorite nonreligious titles, we were disheartened.  More often than not, the Christian books we encountered were theologically sloppy or artistically mediocre – or both.  Since such books don’t do justice to the beauty and truth of Christianity, we were unwilling to share them with our young ones.

We believe that the literary and artistic qualities of all types of childrens’ books matter – and we believe that the quality of Christian books matters even more because those books attempt to reflect God to their young readers.  Children’s ideas about God’s character, his creation, and the story of redemption are important, so we care about how those stories unfold in literature.  The religious books our children read will deeply impact their spiritual imaginations: what could be more important?

Check out their children’s book list, which I especially appreciate for its focus on Advent and Christmas, Lent and Easter. And let this recent post restore you–“When Advent is Neither Quiet Nor Still.”

There is much to explore at Aslan’s Library; it’s a site to refer to often.

Lights withstanding the wind (Martinmas)

A guest post by my wife, Sarah K-J:

For the third time, I handed my two-year-old son his homemade lantern and hoped the wind would allow a few minutes more of light. We were on our first “lantern walk.”

Guided by another young family with experience in this ancient tradition honoring St. Martin of Tours, we stepped out into the dark. Each young child bore a homemade lantern and eagerly watched the wind catch and play with the flame. We periodically stopped to relight each one. In the darkening dusk we walked along the beach, flickering orbs bobbing in front of young, expectant faces.

I was amazed at how gentle the wind was, how perfect the setting. The stars began to gain strength, and distantly echoed the scattered constellation of lanterned children. The waves stood back and gave us firm ground to walk on.

Our lights were small and inconsistent in the north Atlantic wind, but their hope a meaningful tribute to St. Martin. A Roman solider, Martin met a starving beggar at the city gates of Amiens. Moved with compassion, he tore his cloak in two, giving half to the beggar. That night in his sleep, Christ appeared to him dressed in the half-cloak. He was soon baptized and later became a bishop in the Church.

I’m unsure how much of the beauty and meaning the children were able to absorb, but the excitement and courage with which they carried their fragile paper lanterns in the wind of the North Atlantic gives me hope.

Their small lights were extinguished several times, but they kept asking for their lanterns to be lit again. Whenever their light withstood the wind, they joyfully announced it to all around, and fixed their eyes upon its hopeful, persistent light.

10 things about the new Archbishop of Canterbury

Breaking news: the new Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, is on Twitter. (He’s funny, too.)

He comes to the Anglican Communion’s highest position from a post as Bishop in Durham, where N.T. Wright previously served.

A piece on him in the New York Times is here.

And the BBC has published an article with “10 lesser-known things” about the new Archbishop. I found this one particularly poignant:

4. He set up a special day for bereaved parents in Coventry Cathedral. There is now an annual service commemorating the lives of children who have died. A book with the names of lost children is always on display in the cathedral – anyone who has lost a child under any circumstances can ask for their child’s name to be added to the book.

Bishop Welby’s own eldest daughter, Johanna, died when she was just seven months old in a car crash in France in 1983. He has previously said her death brought him and his wife Caroline closer to God. The couple have five other children.

The rest of the BBC article is here.

New Archbishop of Canterbury

The Telegraph reports that the new Archbishop of Canterbury has been named: Justin Welby, Bishop of Durham.

Sources have confirmed that the Eton-educated bishop will be announced as successor to Dr Rowan Williams as early as Friday, after the Crown Nominations Commission put his name forward to Downing Street.

It marks a meteoric rise for the former oil executive who has been a bishop for only a year, but insiders described Welby as “the outstanding candidate”.

The full article is here.

Katharine Bushnell (1856-1946): “God does not curse women because of Eve”

Two days after All Saints Day, I express my admiration now for a perhaps even lesser-known “saint” than Perpetua, Moses the Black, or John Huss.

Katharine Bushnell lived from 1856 to 1946. She was a doctor, a missionary, an advocate for those without other advocates, and a theologian.  Her commitment to the authority of Scripture was strong. About the Bible she said, “No other basis of procedure is available for us.” She learned Greek and Hebrew, and was particularly interested in applying her knowledge of biblical languages to understanding what the Bible had to say about gender. She spoke seven languages.

Author and theologian Mimi Haddad (where I first learned about Bushnell, via this PDF article) writes about her:

Bushnell grounds the ontological equality of men and women first in the early chapters of Genesis where, according to Bushnell, we learn that Adam and Eve were both created in the image of God, that Adam and Eve were both equally called to be frutiful and to exercise dominion in Eden, that Eve was not the source of sin, and that God does not curse women because of Eve.

Bushnell began a hospital of pediatrics in Shanghai, was part of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and helped found a homeless shelter for women in Chicago.

Psalm 68:11 says, “The Lord announces the word, and the women who proclaim it are a mighty throng.”

Bushnell joins Perpetua and countless others as part of a mighty throng of women who have proclaimed God’s word in ways that continue to inspire today.

John Huss (c. 1372-1415), who said the Psalms as he burned at the stake

Though All Saints Day was yesterday, I want to highlight two more lesser-known saints today and tomorrow.

John Huss is nowhere near the household name (well… Christian household name) that Martin Luther or John Calvin is. But he tilled the ground for these and others.

Huss taught and pastored in Prague. Like the better-known reformers that would follow him, Huss criticized the established church of his day. He held that the Bible should be in the hands of the masses.  In his view, the only proper “head” of the Church was not any humanly established church government, but Jesus Christ. He advanced the Reformation idea of “Sola scriptura”—that the Bible alone should be the authority in issues pertaining to life and doctrine.

Christian History writes of his death this way:

In November 1414, the Council of Constance assembled, and Huss was urged by Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund to come and give an account of his doctrine. Because he was promised safe conduct, and because of the importance of the council (which promised significant church reforms), Huss went. When he arrived, however, he was immediately arrested, and he remained imprisoned for months. Instead of a hearing, Huss was eventually hauled before authorities in chains and asked merely to recant his views.

When he saw he wasn’t to be given a forum for explaining his ideas, let alone a fair hearing, he finally said, “I appeal to Jesus Christ, the only judge who is almighty and completely just. In his hands I plead my cause, not on the basis of false witnesses and erring councils, but on truth and justice.” He was taken to his cell, where many pleaded with him to recant. On July 6, 1415, he was taken to the cathedral, dressed in his priestly garments, then stripped of them one by one. He refused one last chance to recant at the stake, where he prayed, “Lord Jesus, it is for thee that I patiently endure this cruel death. I pray thee to have mercy on my enemies.” He was heard reciting the Psalms as the flames engulfed him.

Luther, who later would stumble on Huss’s writings, said, “I was overwhelmed with astonishment. I could not understand for what cause they had burnt so great a man, who explained the Scriptures with so much gravity and skill.”

(I remembered Moses the Black yesterday, Perpetua on Wednesday, and wrote about All Saints Day more generally the day before that.)

St. Moses the Black (4th century)

Happy All Saints Day!

Moses the Black was a 4th century African saint. He has some sweet aliases, too: Abba Moses the Robber and Moses the Strong. As in the image above (which is from here), he is also known as St. Moses the Ethiopian.

The Brotherhood of St. Moses the Black gives a short biography of the saint, which I have also seen (unsourced) elsewhere:

St. Moses the Black was a former gang leader, murderer, and thief in ancient Africa. However, he became a model of transformation. His is one of the most inspiring stories among the African saints.

Moses, an escaped slave, was the leader of a group of 75 robbers. He was a large and powerful man, who with his gang terrorized the entire region. Moses was transformed after he and his group attacked a monastery, intending to rob it. He was met by the abbot, whose peaceful and warm manner overwhelmed him. He immediately felt remorse for all his past sins, sincerely repented, and begged to remain at the monastery.

Moses was tortured by his past and for years was tempted to return to his old ways. One day, as he was confessing his sins to St. Macarius, it was reported that an angel appeared with a tablet full of his sins. As he confessed, the angel began wiping the tablet clean. The more he confessed, the more the angel was said to have wiped, until by the end it was completely clean. After meeting St. Macarius and St. Isidore, he completely left his old ways behind him and became a monk.

Later, St. Moses was ordained to the priesthood — a rare honor among the Desert Fathers– and founded a monastery of 75 monks, the same number as his former group of thieves. He was known for his wisdom, humility, love, and non-judgment of others. Once a brother had been caught in a particular sin, and the abbot asked St. Moses to come to the church and render judgment. He came reluctantly, carrying on his back a leaking bag of sand. When he arrived, the brothers asked him why he was carrying such a thing. He simply said, “This sand is my sins which are trailing out behind me, while I go to judge the sins of another.” At that reply, the brothers forgave the offender and returned to focusing on their own salvation rather than the sins of their brother.

In 405 A.D., at age 75, St. Moses suffered a martyr’s death when his monastery was attacked by a group of barbarians. He is remembered on the 28th of August. Today he is considered the patron saint of African Americans.

More on Moses the Black can be found here.

(I remembered Perpetua yesterday and wrote about All Saints Day more generally the day before that.)

The Martyrdom of Perpetua (d. 203)

Perpetua was a nursing mother who rejected her father’s pleadings to deny her Christian faith and make the requisite sacrifice to the Roman emperor. As the story goes, depicted above, she had to help guide the sword of her trembling executioner to her throat.

The book 131 Christians Everyone Should Know, by Mark Galli and Christian History magazine, recounts her story:

Her father immediately came to her in prison. He was a pagan, and he saw an easy way for Perpetua to save herself. He entreated her simply to deny she was a Christian.

“Father, do you see this vase here?” she replied. “Could it be called by any other name than what it is?”

“No,” he replied.

“Well, neither can I be called anything other than what I am, a Christian.”

In the next days, Perpetua was moved to a better part of the prison and allowed to breastfeed her child. With her hearing approaching, her father visited again, this time, pleading more passionately….

The day of the hearing arrived; Perpetua and her friends were marched before the governor, Hilarianus. Perpetua’s friends were questioned first, and each in turn admitted to being a Christian, and each in turn refused to make a sacrifice (an act of emperor worship). Then the governor turned to question Perpetua.

At that moment, her father, carrying Perpetua’s son in his arms, burst into the room. He grabbed Perpetua and pleaded, “Perform the sacrifice. Have pity on your baby!”

…When [Perpetua and her friends] entered the stadium, wild beasts and gladiators roamed the arena floor, and in the stands, crowds roared to see blood. They didn’t have to wait long.

Immediately a wild heifer charged the group. Perpetua was tossed into the air and onto her back. She sat up, adjusted her ripped tunic, and walked over to help Felicitas. Then a leopard was let loose, and it wasn’t long before the tunics of the Christians were stained with blood.

This was too deliberate for the impatient crowd, which began calling for death for the Christians. So Perpetua, Felicitas, and friends were lined up, and one by one, were slain by the sword.

The whole account can be found here.

It’s easy for me to “want to be in that number” when saints like Perpetua “go marching in,” but the courage and faithfulness she exhibited in the moments leading up to her martyrdom are qualities I can only pray to attain. The Wisdom of Solomon passage I quoted yesterday is apropos:

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.

In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was considered to be suffering,

and their going from us to be destruction,
but they are at peace.

As All Saints Day approaches tomorrow, I find myself moved and inspired by this committed follower of Jesus. Perpetua, though she was mercilessly separated from her husband, family, and precious little baby, is at peace.

“As sparks through the stubble, they will run about” (All Saints Day)

The Forerunners of Christ with Saints and Martyrs, by Fra Angelico (15th century)

November 1 is All Saints Day.  It’s a holiday in the church calendar of multiple Christian traditions: Catholic, Anglican, Lutheran, Methodist, and others. Halloween gets its name from All Saints Day.  All Saints Day used to be known as All Hallows Day, and Halloween was a contraction of All-Hallows-Even, or All Hallows Eve.

All Saints Day is meant to remember the saints, or fellow believers, who have gone on before us, walking in the way of Jesus.  The author of Hebrews writes, “We are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses.” We have the example of men and women who have walked with God, who have struggled with God, and who have triumphed in life with God.  As we look ahead to All Saints Day we can pause today to remember their example, and ask God to strengthen our faith, too.  We are part of that number.

Psalm 85:8 in the NIV says, “I will listen to what God the LORD will say; he promises peace to his people, his saints.”  Some 30 times Paul addresses congregations of believers as “saints.”  We who follow Jesus are rightfully called “saints.”  We are part of a narrative that is much bigger than ourselves, much bigger than any one community, and much bigger than this period in history.  We are a part of a timeless, worldwide communion of saints—the body of Christ.

Wisdom of Solomon (yes, it’s from the Septuagint!) puts it beautifully:

But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God,
and no torment will ever touch them.

In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was considered to be suffering,

and their going from us to be destruction,
but they are at peace.

For even if in the sight of human beings they were punished,
their hope is full of immortality,

and having been disciplined a little, they will be greatly benefited,
because God tested them and found them worthy of himself;

as gold in the furnace, he tested them,
and as a sacrificial whole burnt offering, he accepted them.

And in the time of their visitation they will shine out,
and as sparks through the stubble, they will run about.

They will judge nations and rule over peoples,
and the Lord will be king over them for ever.

Those who trust in him will understand truth,
and the faithful will remain with him in love,

because grace and mercy are upon his holy ones,
and he watches over his chosen ones.

–Wisdom of Solomon 3:1-9 (NETS)

In the coming days I’ll post about a series of lesser-known “saints” in the Church’s history, righteous ones whose “souls…are in the hand of God.”

Christian Apologetics winner

We have a winner in the giveaway contest at Words on the Word for Zondervan’s primary source compendium, Christian Apologetics: An Anthology of Primary Sources, edited by Khaldoun A. Sweis and Chad V. Meister.

I have weathered the storm, several flickers of the power on and off, and have selected the winner at random. (Actually, a random number generator is to thank/blame.)

And the winner is… Matthew Hamrick! Congratulations, Matthew, and enjoy the book. Thank you to everyone who participated and spread the word.

I reviewed the book here if you’d like to learn more.

Almost every Monday at Words on the Word (and other days, too) I review new books in the field of biblical studies, original languages, and theology. I also review Bible software. Check or bookmark this link to see all my reviews.